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  • CHAPTER TWO of Jane Eyre This is a Librivox recording.

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  • Recording by Elizabeth Klett Jane Eyre by Charlotte BRONTË Chapter Two

  • I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance which

  • greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed

  • to entertain of me.

  • The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; or rather

  • _out_ of myself, as the French would say: I was conscious that a moment's

  • mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any

  • other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.

  • "Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she's like a mad cat."

  • "For shame!

  • for shame!"

  • cried the lady's-maid.

  • "What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your

  • benefactress's son!

  • Your young master."

  • "Master!

  • How is he my master?

  • Am I a servant?"

  • "No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep.

  • There, sit down, and think over your wickedness."

  • They had got me by this time into the apartment indicated by Mrs. Reed,

  • and had thrust me upon a stool: my impulse was to rise from it like a

  • spring; their two pair of hands arrested me instantly.

  • "If you don't sit still, you must be tied down," said Bessie.

  • "Miss Abbot, lend me your garters; she would break

  • mine directly."

  • Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature.

  • This preparation for bonds, and the additional

  • ignominy it inferred, took a little of the excitement out of me.

  • "Don't take them off," I cried; "I will not stir."

  • In guarantee whereof, I attached myself to my seat by my hands.

  • "Mind you don't," said Bessie; and when she had ascertained that I was

  • really subsiding, she loosened her hold of me; then she and Miss Abbot

  • stood with folded arms, looking darkly and doubtfully on my face, as

  • incredulous of my sanity.

  • "She never did so before," at last said Bessie, turning to the Abigail.

  • "But it was always in her," was the reply.

  • "I've told Missis often my opinion about the child, and Missis agreed

  • with me.

  • She's an underhand little thing: I never saw a girl of her age

  • with so much cover."

  • Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said--"You ought to

  • be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps

  • you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poorhouse."

  • I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very

  • first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind.

  • This reproach of my dependence had become a vague

  • sing-song in my ear: very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible.

  • Miss Abbot joined in--

  • "And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed

  • and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be brought up with

  • them.

  • They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none: it

  • is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself agreeable to

  • them."

  • "What we tell you is for your good," added Bessie, in no harsh voice,

  • "you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you would have

  • a home here; but if you become passionate and rude, Missis will send you

  • away, I am sure."

  • "Besides," said Miss Abbot, "God will punish her: He might strike her

  • dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go?

  • Come, Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn't have

  • her heart for anything.

  • Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself;

  • for if you don't repent, something bad might be permitted to

  • come down the chimney and fetch you away."

  • They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them.

  • The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say

  • never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall

  • rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it

  • contained: yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the

  • mansion.

  • A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with

  • curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre;

  • the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half

  • shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red;

  • the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the

  • walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe,

  • the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany.

  • Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high,

  • and glared white, the piled- up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread

  • with a snowy Marseilles counterpane.

  • Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair

  • near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and

  • looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.

  • This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because

  • remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was known to be

  • so seldom entered.

  • The house-maid alone came here on Saturdays, to wipe

  • from the mirrors and the furniture a week's quiet dust: and Mrs. Reed

  • herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contents of a certain

  • secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments, her

  • jewel-casket, and a miniature of her deceased husband; and in those last

  • words lies the secret of the red-room--the spell which kept it so lonely

  • in spite of its grandeur.

  • Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed his

  • last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by the

  • undertaker's men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecration had

  • guarded it from frequent intrusion.

  • My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted,

  • was a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose before me;

  • to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken

  • reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the muffled

  • windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vacant majesty

  • of the bed and room.

  • I was not quite sure whether they had locked the

  • door; and when I dared move, I got up and went to see.

  • Alas!

  • yes: no jail was ever more secure.

  • Returning, I had to cross before the looking- glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily

  • explored the depth it revealed.

  • All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality:

  • and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and

  • arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all

  • else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of

  • the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie's evening stories

  • represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing

  • before the eyes of belated travellers.

  • I returned to my stool.

  • Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour for

  • complete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave

  • was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to stem a rapid rush

  • of retrospective thought before I quailed to the dismal present.

  • All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud indifference,

  • all his mother's aversion, all the servants' partiality, turned up in my

  • disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well.

  • Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused,

  • for ever condemned?

  • Why could I never please?

  • Why was it useless to try to win any one's favour?

  • Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected.

  • Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious

  • and insolent carriage, was universally indulged.

  • Her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at

  • her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault.

  • John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the necks of the pigeons,

  • killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse

  • vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest plants

  • in the conservatory: he called his mother "old girl," too; sometimes reviled

  • her for her dark skin, similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her

  • wishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still

  • "her own darling."

  • I dared commit no fault: I strove to fulfil every

  • duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning

  • to noon, and from noon to night.

  • My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no

  • one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had turned

  • against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded with

  • general opprobrium.

  • "Unjust!--unjust!" said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into

  • precocious though transitory power: and Resolve, equally wrought up,

  • instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable

  • oppression--as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never

  • eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.

  • What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon!

  • How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection!

  • Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental

  • battle fought!

  • I could not answer the ceaseless inward question--_why_

  • I thus suffered; now, at the distance of--I will not say how many years,

  • I see it clearly.

  • I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had nothing

  • in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage.

  • If they did not love me, in fact, as little did

  • I love them.

  • They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that

  • could not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed

  • to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing,

  • incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious

  • thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of

  • contempt of their judgment.

  • I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant,

  • careless, exacting, handsome, romping child--though equally dependent and

  • friendless--Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently;

  • her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality

  • of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone to make me the

  • scapegoat of the nursery.

  • Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o'clock, and the

  • beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight.

  • I heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircase

  • window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees

  • cold as a stone, and then my courage sank.

  • My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn

  • depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire.

  • All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so; what thought

  • had I been but just conceiving of starving myself to death?

  • That certainly was a crime: and was I fit to die?

  • Or was the vault under the chancel of Gateshead Church

  • an inviting bourne?

  • In such vault I had been told did Mr. Reed lie

  • buried; and led by this thought to recall his idea, I dwelt on it with

  • gathering dread.

  • I could not remember him; but I knew that he was my own

  • uncle--my mother's brother--that he had taken me when a parentless infant

  • to his house; and that in his last moments he had required a promise of

  • Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children.

  • Mrs. Reed probably considered she had kept this promise; and so she had,

  • I dare say, as well as her nature would permit her; but how could she

  • really like an interloper not of her race, and unconnected with her,

  • after her husband's death, by any tie?

  • It must have been most irksome to find herself bound by a hard-wrung pledge

  • to stand in the stead of a parent to a strange child she could not love,

  • and to see an uncongenial alien permanently intruded on her own family

  • group.

  • A singular notion dawned upon me.

  • I doubted not--never doubted--that if Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated

  • me kindly; and now, as I sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed

  • walls--occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly

  • gleaning mirror--I began to recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled

  • in their graves by the violation of their last wishes, revisiting

  • the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought

  • Mr. Reed's spirit, harassed by the wrongs of his sister's child,

  • might quit its abode--whether in the church vault or in the

  • unknown world of the departed--and rise before me in this chamber.

  • I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violent

  • grief might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit

  • from the gloom some haloed face, bending over me with strange pity.

  • This idea, consolatory in theory, I felt would be terrible if realised:

  • with all my might I endeavoured to stifle it--I endeavoured to

  • be firm.

  • Shaking my hair from my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look

  • boldly round the dark room; at this moment a light gleamed on the wall.

  • Was it, I asked myself, a ray from the moon penetrating some aperture

  • in the blind?

  • No; moonlight was still, and this stirred; while I gazed,

  • it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my head.

  • I can now conjecture readily that this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from

  • a lantern carried by some one across the lawn: but then, prepared as

  • my mind was for horror, shaken as my nerves were by agitation, I thought

  • the swift darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another

  • world.

  • My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which

  • I deemed the rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed,

  • suffocated: endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook

  • the lock in desperate effort.

  • Steps came running along the outer passage; the key turned, Bessie and

  • Abbot entered.

  • "Miss Eyre, are you ill?" said Bessie.

  • "What a dreadful noise!

  • it went quite through me!"

  • exclaimed Abbot.

  • "Take me out!

  • Let me go into the nursery!"

  • was my cry.

  • "What for?

  • Are you hurt?

  • Have you seen something?"

  • again demanded Bessie.

  • "Oh!

  • I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come."

  • I had now got hold of Bessie's hand, and she did not snatch

  • it from me.

  • "She has screamed out on purpose," declared Abbot, in some disgust.

  • "And what a scream!

  • If she had been in great pain one would have excused it,

  • but she only wanted to bring us all here: I know her naughty tricks."

  • "What is all this?"

  • demanded another voice peremptorily; and Mrs. Reed

  • came along the corridor, her cap flying wide, her gown rustling stormily.

  • "Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane Eyre should be left

  • in the red-room till I came to her myself."

  • "Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma'am," pleaded Bessie.

  • "Let her go," was the only answer.

  • "Loose Bessie's hand, child: you cannot succeed in getting out by these means,

  • be assured.

  • I abhor artifice, particularly in children; it is

  • my duty to show you that tricks will not answer: you will now stay here an

  • hour longer, and it is only on condition of perfect submission and stillness

  • that I shall liberate you then."

  • "O aunt! have pity!

  • Forgive me!

  • I cannot endure it--let me be punished some other way!

  • I shall be killed if--"

  • "Silence!

  • This violence is all most repulsive:" and so, no doubt, she

  • felt it.

  • I was a precocious actress in her eyes; she sincerely looked on

  • me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous

  • duplicity.

  • Bessie and Abbot having retreated, Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now frantic

  • anguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust me back and locked me in, without

  • farther parley.

  • I heard her sweeping away; and soon after she was gone,

  • I suppose I had a species of fit: unconsciousness closed the scene.

  • End of Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO of Jane Eyre This is a Librivox recording.

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Jane Eyre by Charlotte BRONTË Chapter 02(Jane Eyre by Charlotte BRONTË Chapter 02)

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    林宜悉 に公開 2023 年 07 月 18 日
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