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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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113 ‘Enough!’ he called out in a few minutes. ‘You play a little, I see; like any other English school-girl; perhaps rather better than some, but not well.’ I closed the piano and returned. Mr. Rochester continued‘Adele showed me some sketches this morning, which she said were yours. I don’t know whether they were entirely of your doing; probably a master aided you?’ ‘No, indeed!’ I interjected. ‘Ah! that pricks pride. Well, fetch me your portfolio, if you can vouch for its contents being original; but don’t pass your word unless you are certain: I can recognise patchwork.’ ‘Then I will say nothing, and you shall judge for yourself, sir.’ I brought the portfolio from the library. ‘Approach the table,’ said he; and I wheeled it to his couch. Adele and Mrs. Fairfax drew near to see the pictures. ‘No crowding,’ said Mr. Rochester: ‘take the drawings from my hand as I finish with them; but don’t push your faces up to mine.’ He deliberately scrutinised each sketch and painting. Three he laid aside; the others, when he had examined them, he swept from him. ‘Take them off to the other table, Mrs. Fairfax,’ said he, ‘and look at them with Adele;- you’ (glancing at me) ‘resume your seat, and answer my questions. I perceive those pictures were done by one hand: was that hand yours?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And when did you find time to do them? They have taken much time, and some thought.’ ‘I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had no other occupation.’ ‘Where did you get your copies?’ ‘Out of my head.’ ‘That head I see now on your shoulders?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Has it other furniture of the same kind within?’ ‘I should think it may have: I should hope-better.’ He spread the pictures before him, and again surveyed them alternately. While he is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are: and first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjects had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought out but a pale portrait of the thing I had conceived. These pictures were in water-colours. The first represented clouds low and livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was in eclipse; so, too, was the foreground; or rather, the nearest billows, for there was no land. One gleam of light lifted into relief a half- submerged mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with foam; its beak held a gold bracelet set with gems, that I had touched with as brilliant tints as my palette could yield, and as glittering distinctness as my pencil could impart. Sinking below the bird and mast, a drowned corpse glanced |
