Jane Eyre, Chapter 4 - Charlotte Brontë.mp3

[00:00.000]Jane Eyre
[00:05.719]
[00:05.719]By Charlotte Brontë
[00:07.464]
[00:07.966]Chapter 2
[00:08.965]
[00:09.216]I resisted all the way:
[00:11.982]a new thing for me,
[00:13.460]and a circumstance which greatly strengthened
[00:16.201]the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed to entertain of me.
[00:20.467]The fact is,
[00:21.717]I was a trifle beside myself;
[00:23.708]or rather out of myself, as the French would say:
[00:26.715]I was conscious that a moment’s mutiny
[00:29.158]had already rendered me liable to strange penalties,
[00:32.417]and, like any other rebel slave,
[00:34.414]I felt resolved, in my desperation,
[00:36.914]to go all lengths.
[00:38.160]
[00:38.416]“Hold her arms, Miss Abbot:
[00:40.665]she’s like a mad cat.”
[00:41.916]
[00:42.157]“For shame! for shame!”
[00:44.167]cried the lady’s-maid.
[00:45.913]“What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre,
[00:48.166]to strike a young gentleman,
[00:49.914]your benefactress’s son!
[00:51.152]Your young master.”
[00:52.415]
[00:52.663]“Master!
[00:54.414]How is he my master?
[00:55.907]Am I a servant?”
[00:57.414]
[00:57.666]“No; you are less than a servant,
[01:00.653]for you do nothing for your keep.
[01:02.166]There, sit down,
[01:03.664]and think over your wickedness.”
[01:05.663]
[01:05.915]They had got me by this time
[01:07.916]into the apartment indicated by Mrs. Reed,
[01:10.417]and had thrust me upon a stool:
[01:11.914]my impulse was to rise from it like a spring;
[01:15.165]their two pair of hands arrested me instantly.
[01:18.164]
[01:18.654]“If you don’t sit still,
[01:20.166]you must be tied down,”
[01:21.411]said Bessie.
[01:22.406]“Miss Abbot, lend me your garters;
[01:24.916]she would break mine directly.”
[01:26.415]
[01:26.665]Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature.
[01:31.415]This preparation for bonds,
[01:33.667]and the additional ignominy it inferred,
[01:35.916]took a little of the excitement out of me.
[01:37.917]
[01:38.166]“Don’t take them off,”
[01:39.666]I cried;
[01:40.660]“I will not stir.”
[01:41.917]
[01:42.163]In guarantee whereof, I attached myself to my seat by my hands.
[01:46.417]
[01:46.657]“Mind you don’t,”
[01:48.416]said Bessie;
[01:49.415]and when she had ascertained that I was really subsiding,
[01:52.916]she loosened her hold of me;
[01:54.154]then she and Miss Abbot stood with folded arms,
[01:56.915]looking darkly and doubtfully on my face,
[01:59.655]as incredulous of my sanity.
[02:01.910]
[02:02.167]“She never did so before,”
[02:04.406]at last said Bessie, turning to the Abigail.
[02:07.667]
[02:07.915]“But it was always in her,”
[02:09.916]was the reply.
[02:11.157]“I’ve told Missis often my opinion about the child,
[02:14.414]and Missis agreed with me.
[02:15.655]She’s an underhand little thing:
[02:17.667]I never saw a girl of her age with so much cover.”
[02:20.914]
[02:21.167]Bessie answered not;
[02:23.412]but ere long, addressing me, she said—
[02:25.661]
[02:25.914]“You ought to be aware, Miss,
[02:27.670]that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed:
[02:29.655]she keeps you:
[02:30.916]if she were to turn you off,
[02:32.416]you would have to go to the poorhouse.”
[02:34.401]
[02:34.664]I had nothing to say to these words:
[02:37.159]they were not new to me:
[02:38.666]my very first recollections of existence
[02:41.414]included hints of the same kind.
[02:43.416]This reproach of my dependence
[02:45.417]had become a vague sing-song in my ear:
[02:47.916]very painful and crushing,
[02:49.663]but only half intelligible.
[02:51.667]Miss Abbot joined in—
[02:53.665]
[02:53.917]“And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed,
[02:58.912]because Missis kindly allows you to be brought up with them.
[03:01.655]They will have a great deal of money,
[03:03.661]and you will have none:
[03:04.916]it is your place to be humble,
[03:06.663]and to try to make yourself agreeable to them.”
[03:09.156]
[03:09.406]“What we tell you is for your good,”
[03:12.414]added Bessie,
[03:13.905]in no harsh voice,
[03:15.664]“you should try to be useful and pleasant,
[03:18.653]then, perhaps, you would have a home here;
[03:20.912]but if you become passionate and rude,
[03:23.416]Missis will send you away, I am sure.”
[03:25.413]
[03:25.917]“Besides,”
[03:27.155]said Miss Abbot,
[03:28.416]“God will punish her:
[03:30.161]He might strike her dead in the midst of her tantrums,
[03:33.417]and then where would she go?
[03:34.657]Come, Bessie,
[03:35.917]we will leave her:
[03:36.917]I wouldn’t have her heart for anything.
[03:38.914]Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself;
[03:42.164]for if you don’t repent,
[03:43.666]something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney
[03:46.416]and fetch you away.”
[03:47.661]
[03:48.166]They went,
[03:49.417]shutting the door,
[03:50.403]and locking it behind them.
[03:52.163]
[03:52.660]The red-room was a square chamber,
[03:54.917]very seldom slept in,
[03:56.413]I might say never, indeed,
[03:58.167]unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall
[04:02.164]rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it contained:
[04:06.171]yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion.
[04:09.914]A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany,
[04:13.415]hung with curtains of deep red damask,
[04:15.654]stood out like a tabernacle in the centre;
[04:18.160]the two large windows,
[04:19.917]with their blinds always drawn down,
[04:21.663]were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery;
[04:25.915]the carpet was red;
[04:27.165]the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth;
[04:30.666]the walls were a soft fawn colour
[04:32.416]with a blush of pink in it;
[04:33.915]the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany.
[04:38.666]Out of these deep surrounding shades
[04:41.161]rose high, and glared white, the piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles counterpane.
[04:48.853]Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair near the head of the bed,
[04:53.512]also white,
[04:54.514]with a footstool before it;
[04:56.260]and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.
[04:59.517]
[04:59.764]This room was chill,
[05:01.515]because it seldom had a fire;
[05:03.515]it was silent,
[05:04.759]because remote from the nursery and kitchen;
[05:07.263]solemn,
[05:08.264]because it was known to be so seldom entered.
[05:11.015]The house-maid alone came here on Saturdays,
[05:14.010]to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week’s quiet dust:
[05:18.012]and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals,
[05:21.196]visited it to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe,
[05:25.696]where were stored divers parchments,
[05:27.949]her jewel-casket,
[05:29.186]and a miniature of her deceased husband;
[05:31.440]and in those last words lies the secret of the red-room—
[05:34.943]the spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur.
[05:39.199]
[05:39.446]Mr. Reed had been dead nine years:
[05:42.187]it was in this chamber he breathed his last;
[05:45.440]here he lay in state;
[05:46.946]hence his coffin was borne by the undertaker’s men;
[05:49.946]and, since that day,
[05:51.447]a sense of dreary consecration had guarded it
[05:54.151]from frequent intrusion.
[05:55.651]
[05:55.901]My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted,
[06:00.415]was a low ottoman
[06:01.651]near the marble chimney-piece;
[06:02.891]the bed rose before me;
[06:04.650]to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe,
[06:07.641]with subdued, broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels;
[06:11.650]to my left were the muffled windows;
[06:13.901]a great looking-glass between them
[06:15.890]repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room.
[06:18.896]I was not quite sure
[06:20.394]whether they had locked the door;
[06:21.810]and when I dared move,
[06:23.303]I got up and went to see.
[06:24.812]Alas! yes:
[06:27.064]no jail was ever more secure.
[06:29.313]Returning,
[06:30.561]I had to cross before the looking-glass;
[06:32.313]my fascinated glance
[06:33.810]involuntarily explored the depth it revealed.
[06:36.801]All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: