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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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382 ‘What is the matter?’ he inquired. ‘Down, Pilot!’ I again said. He checked the water on its way to his lips, and seemed to listen: he drank, and put the glass down. ‘This is you, Mary, is it not?’ ‘Mary is in the kitchen,’ I answered. He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where I stood, he did not touch me. ‘Who is this? Who is this?’ he demanded, trying, as it seemed, to see with those sightless eyes- unavailing and distressing attempt! ‘Answer mespeak again!’ he ordered, imperiously and aloud. ‘Will you have a little more water, sir? I spilt half of what was in the glass,’ I said. ‘Who is it? What is it? Who speaks?’ ‘Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this evening,’ I answered. ‘Great God!- what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has seized me?’ ‘No delusion-no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion, your health too sound for frenzy.’ ‘And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I cannot see, but I must feel, or my heart will stop and my brain burst. Whatever- whoever you are-be perceptible to the touch or I cannot live!’ He groped; I arrested his wandering hand, and prisoned it in both mine. ‘Her very fingers!’ he cried; ‘her small, slight fingers! If so there must be more of her.’ The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my shoulderneck-waist-I was entwined and gathered to him. ‘Is it Jane? What is it? This is her shape-this is her size-’ ‘And this her voice,’ I added. ‘She is all here: her heart, too. God bless you, sir! I am glad to be so near you again.’ ‘Jane Eyre!- Jane Eyre,’ was all he said. ‘My dear master,’ I answered, ‘I am Jane Eyre: I have found you out-I am come back to you.’ ‘In truth?- in the flesh? My living Jane?’ ‘You touch me, sir,- you hold me, and fast enough: I am not cold like a corpse, nor vacant like air, am I?’ ‘My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my misery. It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus-and felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me.’ ‘Which I never will, sir, from this day.’ ‘Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned- my life dark, lonely, hopeless-my soul athirst and forbidden to drink-my heart famished and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all |
