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简爱(英文版)-第章

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r 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 ing 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 plete 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 mit 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 placently; 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 fort 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 end
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