Jane Eyre Ch 34 Part 2 Audiobook by Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. CHAPTER XXXIV. CONTINUED. One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual. The ebb was occasioned by a poignantly felt disappointment. Hannah had told me in the morning there was a letter for me, and when I went down to take it, almost certain that the long-looked-for tidings were vouchsafed me at last. I found only an unimportant note for Mr. Briggs on business. The bitter check had wrung from me some tears, and now I sat pondering over the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, my eyes filled again. St. John called me to his side to read. In attempting to do this, my voice failed me. Words were lost in sobs. He and I were the only occupants of the parlor. Diana was practicing her music in the drawing-room. Mary was gardening. It was a very fine May day, clear, sunny, and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at this emotion, nor did he question me as to its cause. He only said, We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed. And while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient, leaning on his desk and looking like a physician watching with the eye of science an expected and fully understood crisis in a patient's malady. Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes, and muttered something about not being very well that morning, I resumed my task, and succeeded in completing it. St. John put away my books and his, locked his desk, and said, Now, Jane, you shall take a walk, and with me. I will call Diana and Mary. No, I want only one companion this morning, and that must be you. Put on your things, go out by the kitchen door, take the road towards the head of Marsh Glen. I will join you in a moment. I know no medium. I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with positive, wild characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and determined revolt. I have always faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting, sometimes with volcanic vehemence into the other. And, as neither present circumstances warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to mutiny, I observed careful obedience to St. John's directions. And in ten minutes I was treading the wild track of the Glen, side by side with him. The breeze was from the west. It came over the hills, sweet with scents of heath and rush. The sky was of stainless blue. The stream descending the ravine swelled with past spring rains, pouring along plentiful and clear, catching golden gleams from the sun and sapphire tints from the firmament. As we advanced and left the track, we trod a soft turf, mossy fine and emerald green, minutely enameled with a tiny white flower and spangled with a star-like yellow blossom. The hills, meantime, shut us quite in. For the Glen, towards its head, wound to their very core. Let us rest here, said St. John as we reached the first stragglers of a battalion of rocks, providing a sort of pass beyond which the beck rushed down a waterfall, and where, still a little further, the mountain shook off turf and flower, had only heath for raiment and crag for gem, where it exaggerated the wild to the savage and exchanged the fresh for the frowning, where it guarded the forlorn hope of solitude and a last refuge for silence. I took a seat. St. John stood near me. He looked up the pass and down the hollow. His glance wandered away with the stream, and returned to traverse the unclouded heaven which colored it. He removed his hat, let the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow. He seemed in communion with the genius of the haunt. With his eye he bade farewell to something. And I shall see it again, he said aloud, in dreams, when I sleep by the Ganges, and again, in a more remote hour, when another slumber overcomes me, on the shore of a darker stream. Strange words of a strange love, an austere patriot's passion for his fatherland. He sat down. For half an hour we never spoke, neither he to me nor I to him. That interval passed. He recommenced. Jane. I go in six weeks. I have taken my birth in an East Indiaman, which sails on the 20th of June. God will protect you, for you have undertaken his work, I answered. Yes, said he. There is my glory and joy. I am the servant of an infallible master. I am not going out under human guidance, subject to the defective laws and erring control of my feeble fellow-worms. My king, my lawgiver, my captain, is the all-perfect. It seems strange to me that all round me do not burn to enlist under the same banner, to join in the same enterprise. All have not your powers, and it would be folly for the feeble to wish to march with the strong. I do not speak to the feeble or think of them. I address only such as are worthy of the work and competent to accomplish it. Those are few in number and difficult to discover. You say truly. But when found, it is right to stir them up, to urge and exhort them to the effort, to show them what their gifts are and why they were given, to speak heaven's message in their ear, to offer them direct from God a place in the ranks of his chosen. If they are really qualified for the task, will not their own hearts be the first to inform them of it? I felt as if an awful charm was framing round and gathering over me. I trembled to hear some fatal word spoken which would at once declare and rivet the spell. "'And what does your heart say?' demanded St. John. "'My heart is mute. My heart is mute,' I answered, struck and thrilled. "'Then I must speak for it,' continued the deep, relentless voice. "'Jane, come with me to India. Come as my help beat and fellow labourer.' The glen and skies spun around. The hills heaved. It was as if I had heard a summons from heaven, as if a visionary messenger, like him of Macedonia, had announced, "'Come over and help us.' But I was no apostle. I could not behold the herald. I could not receive his call. "'O St. John,' I cried, "'have some mercy.' I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what he believed his duty, knew neither mercy nor remorse. He continued, "'God and nature intended you for a missionary's wife. "'It is not personal, but mental endowments they have given you. "'You are formed for labour, not for love. "'A missionary's wife you must, shall be. You shall be mine. "'I claim you, not for my pleasure, but for my sovereign's service.' "'I am not fit for it. I have no vocation,' I said. He had calculated on these first objections. He was not irritated by them. Indeed, as he leaned back against the crag behind him, folded his arms on his chest and fixed his countenance, I saw he was prepared for a long and trying opposition, and had taken in a stock of patience to last him to its close. Resolved, however, that that close could be conquest for him. "'Humility, Jane,' said he, "'is the groundwork of Christian virtues. You say right that you are not fit for the work. "'Who is fit for it? Or who, that ever was truly called, believed himself worthy of the summons? "'I, for instance, am but dust and ashes. With Saint Paul I acknowledge myself the chiefest of sinners. But I do not suffer this sense of my personal vileness to daunt me. "'I know my leader. That he is just as well as mighty, and while he has chosen a feeble instrument to perform a great task, he will, from the boundless stores of his providence, supply the inadequacy of the means to the end. Think like me, Jane. Trust like me. It is the rock of ages I ask you to lean on. Do not doubt but it will bear the weight of your human weakness. "'I do not understand a missionary life. I have never studied missionary labors. "'There I, humble as I am, can give you the aid you want. I can set your task from hour to hour, stand by you always, help you from moment to moment. This I could do in the beginning. Soon, for I know your powers, you would be as strong and apt as myself, and would not require my help. But my powers, where are they for this undertaking? I do not feel them. Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible of no light kindling, no life quickening, no voice counseling or cheering. Oh, I wish I could make you see how much my mind is at this moment like a rayless dungeon with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths. The fear of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot accomplish. I have an answer for you. Hear it. I have watched you ever since we first met. I have made you my study for ten months. I have proved you in that time by sundry tests. And what have I seen and elicited? In the village school I found you could perform well, punctually, uprightly, labor uncongenial to your habits and inclinations. I saw you could perform it with capacity and tact. You could win while you controlled. In the calm with which you learnt, you had become suddenly rich. I read a mind clear of the vice of Demas. Lucre had no undue power over you. In the resolute readiness with which you cut your wealth into four shares, keeping but one to yourself and relinquishing the three others to the claim of abstract justice, I recognized a soul that reveled in the flame and excitement of sacrifice. In the tractability with which at my wish you forsook a study in which you were interested and adopted another because it interested me. In the untiring assiduity with which you have since persevered in it. In the unflagged energy and unshaken temper with which you have met its difficulties. I acknowledge the compliment of the qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile, diligent, disinterested, faithful, constant and courageous, very gentle and very heroic. Cease to mistrust yourself. I can trust you unreservedly. As a conductress of Indian schools and a helper amongst Indian women, your assistance will be to me invaluable. My iron shroud contracted round me. Persuasion advanced with slow, sure step. Shut my eyes as I would, these last words of his succeeded in making the way which had seemed blocked up comparatively clear. My work, which had appeared so vague, so hopelessly diffuse, condensed itself as he proceeded and assumed a definite form under his shaping hand. He waited for an answer. I demanded a quarter of an hour to think before I again hazarded a reply. Very willingly, he rejoined, and rising he strode a little distance up the pass, threw himself down on a swell of heath and there lay still. I can do what he wants me to do. I am forced to see and acknowledge that, I meditated. That is, if life be spared me. But I feel mine is not the existence to be long protracted under an Indian sun. What then? He does not care for that. When my time came to die he would resign me, in all serenity and sanctity, to the God who gave me. The case is very plain before me. In leaving England I should leave a loved but empty land. Mr. Rochester is not there. If he were, what is? What can that ever be to me? My business is to live without him now. Nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting on some impossible change in circumstances which might reunite me to him. Of course, as St. John once said, I must seek other interests in life to replace the one lost. Is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the void left by uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say yes. And yet I shudder. Alas, if I join St. John I abandon half myself. If I go to India, I go to premature death, and how will the interval between leaving England for India and India for the grave be filled? Oh, I know well. That, too, is very clear to my vision. By straining to satisfy St. John till my sinews ache, I shall satisfy him. To the finest central point and farthest outward circle of his expectations. If I do go with him, if I do make the sacrifice he urges, I will make it absolutely. I will throw all on the altar. Heart, vitals, the entire victim. He will never love me, but he shall approve me. I will show him energies he has not seen, resources he has never suspected. Yes, I can work as hard as he can and with as little grudging. Consent, then, to his demand is possible, but for one item, one dreadful item. It is that he asks me to be his wife and has no more of a husband's heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock down which the stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon, and that is all. Unmarried to him, this would never grieve me, but can I let him complete his calculations, coolly put into practice his plans, go through the wedding ceremony? Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love, which I doubt not he would scrupulously observe, and know that the spirit was quite absent? Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a sacrifice made on principle? No. Such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I will never undergo it. As his sister, I might accompany him. Not as his wife. I will tell him so. I looked towards the knoll. There he lay, still as a prostrate column. His face turned to me, his eye beaming watchful and keen. He started to his feet and approached me. I am ready to go to India, if I may go free. Your answer requires a commentary, he said. It is not clear. You have hitherto been my adopted brother. I your adopted sister. Let us continue as such. You and I had better not marry. He shook his head. Adopted fraternity will not do in this case. If you were my real sister, it would be different. I should take you and seek no wife. But as it is, either our union must be consecrated and sealed by marriage, or it cannot exist. Practical obstacles oppose themselves to any other plan. Do you not see it, Jane? Consider a moment. Your strong sense will guide you. I did consider, and still my sense, such as it was, directed me only to the fact that we did not love each other as a man and wife should. And therefore it inferred we ought not to marry. I said so. Saint John, I returned, I regard you as a brother, you me as a sister. So let us continue. We cannot. We cannot, he answered, with short, sharp determination. It would not do. You have said you will go with me to India. Remember, you have said that. Conditionally? Well, well. To the main point, the departure with me from England, the cooperation with me in my future labors, you do not object. You have already as good as put your hand to the plough. You are too consistent to withdraw it. You have but one end to keep in view. How the work you have undertaken can best be done. Simplify your complicated interests, feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims. Merge all considerations in one purpose, that of fulfilling with effect, with power, the mission of your great master. To do so, you must have a coadjutor. Not a brother, that is a loose tie, but a husband. I, too, do not want a sister. A sister might any day be taken from me. I want a wife. The soul help me that I can influence efficiently in life and retain absolutely till death. I shuddered as he spoke. I felt his influence in my morrow, his hold on my limbs. Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John. Seek one fitted to you. One fitted to my purpose, you mean? Fitted to my vocation. Again I tell you it is not the insignificant private individual, the mere man, with the man's selfish senses I wish to mate. It is a missionary. And I will give the missionary my energies. It is all he wants. But not myself. That would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For them he has no use. I retain them. You cannot. You ought not. Do you think God will be satisfied with half an oblation? Will he accept a mutilated sacrifice? It is the cause of God I advocate. It is under his standard I enlist you. I cannot accept on his behalf a divided allegiance. It must be entire. Oh, I will give my heart to God, I said. You do not want it. I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence and in the feeling that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John till now, because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe, because he had held me in doubt. How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could not heretofore tell. But revelations were being made in this conference. The analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I saw his fallibilities. I comprehended them. I understood that, sitting there where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that handsome form before me, I sat at the feet of a man, erring as I. The veil fell from his hardness and despotism. Having felt in him the presence of these qualities, I felt his imperfection, and took courage. I was with an equal, one with whom I might argue, one whom, if I saw good, I might resist. He was silent after I had uttered the last sentence, and I presently risked an upward glance at his countenance. His eye, bent on me, expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry. Is she sarcastic? And sarcastic to me, it seemed to say. What does this signify? Do not let us forget that this is a solemn matter, he said ere long. One of which we may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will give your heart to God. It is all I want. Once wrench your heart from man and fix it on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker's spiritual kingdom on earth will be your chief delight and endeavour. You will be ready to do at once whatever furthers that end. You will see what impetus would be given to your efforts and mine by our physical and mental union in marriage. The only union that gives a character of permanent conformity to the destinies and designs of human beings. And, passing over all minor caprices, all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling, all scruple about the degree, kind, strength or tenderness of near personal inclination, you will hasten to enter into that union at once. Shall I? I said briefly, and I looked at his features, beautiful in their harmony, but strangely formidable in their still severity. At his brow, commanding but not open. At his eyes, bright and deep and searching, but never soft. At his tall, imposing figure, and fancied myself in idea his wife. Oh, it would never do. As his curate, his comrade, all would be right. I would cross oceans with him in that capacity, toil under eastern suns, in Asian deserts with him in that office, admire and emulate his courage and devotion and vigour, accommodate quietly to his masterhood, smile undisturbed at his ineradicable ambition, discriminate the Christian from the man, profoundly esteem the one and freely forgive the other. I should suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity. My body would be under rather a stringent yoke. But my heart and mind would be free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to. My natural, unenslaved feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness. There would be recesses in my mind which would be only mine. To which he never came. The sentiments growing there fresh and sheltered, which his austerity could never blight, nor his measured warrior march trample down. But as his wife, at his side always and always restrained and always checked, forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital, this would be unendurable. Saint John, I exclaimed when I had got so far in my meditation. Well, he answered icily. I repeat, I freely consent to go with you as your fellow missionary, but not as your wife. I cannot marry you and become a part of you. A part of me you must become, he answered steadily. Otherwise the whole bargain is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me? How can we be forever together, sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amid savage tribes and unwed? Very well, I said shortly. Under the circumstances, quite as well as if I were either your real sister or a man and a clergyman like yourself. It is known that you are not my sister. I cannot introduce you as such. To attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both, and for the rest, though you have a man's vigorous brain, you have a woman's heart. And it would not do. It would do, I affirmed with some disdain, perfectly well. I have a woman's heart, but not where you are concerned. For you I have only a comrade's constancy, a fellow soldier's frankness, fidelity, fraternity, if you like. A nerofite's respect and submission to his hierophant. Nothing more. Don't fear. It is what I want, he said, speaking to himself. It is just what I want. And there are obstacles in the way. They must be hewn down. Jane, you would not repent marrying me. Be certain of that. We must be married. I repeat it. There is no other way. And undoubtedly enough of love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your eyes. I scorn your idea of love. I could not help saying, as I rose up and stood before him, leaning my back against the rock, I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer. Yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you offer it. He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did so. Whether he was incensed or surprised or what, it was not easy to tell. He could command his countenance thoroughly. I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you, he said. I think I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn. I was touched by his gentle tone and overawed by his high, calm mien. Forgive me the words, St. John, but it is your own fault that I have been roused to speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a topic on which our natures are at variance, a topic we should never discuss. The very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the reality were required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage. Forget it." No, said he. It is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one which can secure my great end. But I shall urge you no further at present. Tomorrow I leave home for Cambridge. I have many friends there to whom I should wish to say farewell. I shall be absent a fortnight. Take that space of time to consider my offer, and do not forget that if you reject it, it is not me you deny but God. Through my means, he opens to you a noble career. As my wife, only can you enter upon it. Refuse to be my wife, and you limit yourself forever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity. Tremble, lest in that case you should be numbered with those who have denied the faith, and are worse than infidels. He had done. Turning from me, he once more looked to river, looked to hill. But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart. I was not worthy to hear them uttered. As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in his iron silence all he felt towards me. The disappointment of an austere and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected submission. The disapprobation of a cool, inflexible judgment, which has detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to sympathize. In short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into obedience. It was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with my perversity, and allowed so long a space for reflection and repentance. That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to forget even to shake hands with me, but left the room in silence. I, who, though I had no love, had much friendship before him, was hurt by the marked omission. So much hurt that tears started to my eyes. I see you and St. John have been quarreling, Jane, said Diana, during your walk on the moor. But go after him. He is now lingering in the passage, expecting you. He will make it up. I have not much pride under such circumstances. I would always rather be happy than dignified, and I ran after him. He stood at the foot of the stairs. Good night, St. John, said I. Good night, Jane, he replied calmly. Then shake hands, I added. What a cold, loose touch he impressed on my fingers. He was deeply displeased by what had occurred that day. Cordiality would not warm nor tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to be had with him, no cheering smile or generous word. But still the Christian was patient and placid, and when I asked him if he forgave me, he answered that he was not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation, that he had nothing to forgive, not having been offended. And with that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked me down.