Jane Eyre Chapter 01 - Wordscape.mp3

[00:03.566]Chapter I
[00:08.399]There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.
[00:09.966]We had been wandering, indeed,
[00:11.716]in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning;
[00:14.329]but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early)
[00:19.213]the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre,
[00:22.949]and a rain so penetrating,
[00:25.692]that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.
[00:29.767]I was glad of it.
[00:31.073]I never liked long walks,
[00:32.849]especially on chilly afternoons:
[00:34.965]dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight,
[00:38.466]with nipped fingers and toes,
[00:40.608]and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie,
[00:43.873]the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of
[00:46.433]my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.
[00:52.311]The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now
[00:55.733]clustered round their mamma in the drawing-room;
[00:58.789]she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside,
[01:00.356]and with her darlings about her
[01:03.622](for the time neither quarrelling nor crying)
[01:06.495]looked perfectly happy.
[01:08.663]Me, she had dispensed from joining the group,
[01:11.537]saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity
[01:15.168]of keeping me at a distance;
[01:16.813]but that until she heard from Bessie,
[01:18.747]and could discover by her own observation
[01:20.941]that I was endeavoring in good earnest
[01:22.978]to acquire a more sociable and
[01:24.807]childlike disposition,
[01:26.479]a more attractive and sprightly manner
[01:28.960]—something lighter, franker, more natural,
[01:31.703]as it were—she really must exclude me
[01:34.185]from privileges intended only for contented,
[01:36.954]happy little children.”
[01:39.305]“What does Bessie say I have done?” I asked.
[01:43.249]“Jane, I don’t like cavillers or questioners:
[01:47.011]besides, there is something
[01:48.422]truly forbidding in a child
[01:49.806]taking up her elders in that manner.
[01:51.112]Be seated somewhere;
[01:54.299]and until you can speak pleasantly,
[01:56.206]remain silent.”
[01:59.106]A small breakfast-room
[02:00.725]adjoined the drawing-room:
[02:01.796]I slipped in there.
[02:03.520]It contained a book-case:
[02:05.323]I soon possessed myself of a volume,
[02:07.700]taking care that it should be one stored with pictures.
[02:10.965]I mounted into the window-seat:
[02:13.081]gathering up my feet,
[02:14.283]I sat cross-legged, like a Turk;
[02:16.921]and, having drawn the red moreen
[02:18.593]curtain nearly close,
[02:20.213]I was shrined in double retirement.
[02:23.269]Folds of scarlet drapery shut
[02:25.489]in my view to the right hand;
[02:27.370]to the left were the clear panes
[02:28.990]of glass protecting,
[02:30.557]but not separating,
[02:31.942]me from the drear November day.
[02:34.084]At intervals, while turning over
[02:35.964]the leaves of my book,
[02:37.271]I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon.
[02:40.431]Afar it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud;
[02:44.376]near, a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub,
[02:47.302]with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly
[02:50.880]before a long and lamentable blast.
[02:54.302]I returned to my book
[02:56.209]—Bewick’s History of British Birds:
[02:58.848]the letter-press thereof
[03:00.128]I cared little for, generally speaking;
[03:02.609]and yet there were certain introductory pages that,
[03:05.875]child as I was,
[03:07.416]I could not pass quite as a blank.
[03:10.368]They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl;
[03:13.032]of “the solitary rocks and promontories”
[03:16.716]by them only inhabited;
[03:19.119]of the coast of Norway,
[03:20.921]studded with isles from its southern extremity,
[03:23.481]the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape—
[03:27.138]Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls,
[03:30.090]Boils round the naked, melancholy isles
[03:33.147]Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge
[03:36.856]Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.
[03:40.017]Nor could I pass unnoticed
[03:41.793]the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland,
[03:45.790]Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with
[03:49.813]“the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone,
[03:52.973]and those forlorn regions of dreary space—
[03:56.343]that reservoir of frost and snow,
[03:58.982]where firm fields of ice,
[04:01.594]the accumulation of centuries of winters,
[04:04.128]glazed in Alpine heights above heights,
[04:07.184]surround the pole, and concentre
[04:09.953]the multiplied rigors of extreme cold.”
[04:14.107]Of these death-white realms
[04:15.752]I formed an idea of my own—shadowy,
[04:19.409]like all the half-comprehended notions
[04:22.126]that float dim through children’s brains,
[04:24.529]but strangely impressive.
[04:27.742]The words in these introductory pages connected
[04:30.224]themselves with the succeeding vignettes,
[04:32.340]and gave significance to the rock
[04:34.325]standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray;
[04:36.859]to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast;
[04:40.751]to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through
[04:43.756]bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.
[04:47.726]I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quiet,
[04:50.443]solitary church-yard,
[04:52.010]with its inscribed headstone,
[04:54.100]its gate, its two trees, its low horizon,
[04:58.149]girdled by a broken wall,
[05:00.552]and its newly-risen crescent,
[05:02.302]attesting the hour of eventide.
[05:05.672]The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea,
[05:08.729]I believed to be marine phantoms.
[05:11.602]The fiend pinning down
[05:13.587]the thief’s pack behind him,
[05:14.946]I passed over quickly:
[05:16.409]it was an object of terror.
[05:19.125]So was the black,
[05:20.719]horned thing, seated aloof on a rock,
[05:23.253]surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows.
[05:27.511]Each picture told a story;
[05:29.496]mysterious often to my undeveloped
[05:31.690]understanding and imperfect feelings,
[05:34.120]yet ever profoundly interesting;
[05:36.889]as interesting as the tales
[05:38.404]Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings,
[05:40.833]when she chanced to be in good humor;
[05:43.367]and when, having brought her ironing-table
[05:45.849]to the nursery hearth,
[05:46.972]she allowed us to sit about it,
[05:48.800]and while she got up Mrs. Reed’s lace frills,
[05:51.674]and crimped her night-cap borders,
[05:54.129]fed our eager attention with passages
[05:56.533]of love and adventure taken from
[05:58.413]old fairy tales and older ballads;
[06:01.783]or (as at a later period I discovered) from
[06:05.258]the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.
[06:09.881]With Bewick on my knee,
[06:11.344]I was then happy;
[06:13.460]happy at least in my way.
[06:15.550]I feared nothing but interruption,
[06:18.188]and that came too soon.
[06:20.356]The breakfast-room door opened.
[06:23.204]“Boh! Madam Mope!”
[06:25.999]cried the voice of John Reed;
[06:28.402]then he paused:
[06:29.525]he found the room apparently empty.
[06:31.929]“Where the dickens is she?”
[06:33.992]he continued.
[06:35.194]“Lizzy, Georgy!” (calling to his sisters),
[06:39.478]‘Joan is not here:
[06:40.915]tell mamma she is run out into the rain—
[06:43.449]bad animal!”
[06:45.747]“It is well I drew the curtain,” thought I;
[06:48.569]and I wished fervently
[06:50.240]he might not discover my hiding-place:
[06:52.513]nor would John Reed
[06:53.871]have found it out himself;
[06:54.995]he was not quick either of vision or conception;
[06:58.077]but Eliza just put her head in
[07:00.533]at the door and said at once—
[07:02.544]“She is in the window-seat,
[07:03.981]to be sure, Jack.”
[07:06.071]And I came out immediately;
[07:08.082]for I trembled at the idea of
[07:09.963]being dragged forth by the said Jack.
[07:13.202]“What do you want?” I asked,
[07:15.893]with awkward diffidence.
[07:17.695]“Say, ‘What do you want,
[07:19.001]Master Reed?’ ” was the answer. “
[07:22.737]I want you to come here;” and,
[07:25.349]seating himself in an arm-chair,
[07:27.282]he intimated by a gesture
[07:29.006]that I was to approach and stand before him.
[07:31.853]John Reed was a school-boy
[07:33.551]of fourteen years old—
[07:34.936]four years older than I,
[07:36.268]for I was but ten—large
[07:38.280]and stout for his age,
[07:40.291]with a dingy and unwholesome skin;
[07:43.138]thick lineaments in a spacious visage,
[07:45.829]heavy limbs and large extremities.
[07:48.938]He gorged himself habitually at table,
[07:51.707]which made him bilious,
[07:53.274]and gave him a dim and
[07:54.632]bleared eye and flabby cheeks.
[07:57.114]He ought now to have been at school;
[07:59.230]but his mamma had taken him home
[08:00.902]for a month or two, “
[08:02.260]on account of his delicate health.”
[08:05.264]Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed
[08:07.458]that he would do very well
[08:08.843]if he had fewer cakes and
[08:10.201]sweet-meats sent him from home;
[08:12.422]but the mother’s heart turned
[08:13.963]from an opinion so harsh,
[08:15.870]and inclined rather to the more refined idea
[08:18.587]that John’s sallowness was owing to
[08:21.016]overapplication, and, perhaps,
[08:23.210]to pining after home.
[08:25.613]John had not much affection
[08:27.677]for his mother and sisters,
[08:29.427]and an antipathy to me.
[08:31.439]He bullied and punished me—
[08:33.659]not two or three times in the week,
[08:35.618]nor once or twice in the day,
[08:37.473]but continually :
[08:39.380]every nerve I had feared him,
[08:41.653]and every morsel of flesh
[08:43.220]on my bones shrunk
[08:44.683]when he came near.
[08:46.146]There were moments
[08:47.112]when I was bewildered
[08:48.079]by the terror he inspired,
[08:49.385]because I had no appeal
[08:50.404]whatever against either his menaces
[08:52.807]or his inflictions:
[08:54.871]the servants did not like to offend
[08:56.647]their young master by
[08:57.483]taking my part against him,
[08:59.468]and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject:
[09:03.256]she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me,
[09:05.790]though he did both now
[09:07.279]and then in her very presence—
[09:09.133]more frequently, however, behind her back.
[09:12.190]Habitually obedient to John,
[09:13.836]I came up to his chair.
[09:15.847]He spent some three minutes in
[09:18.015]thrusting out his tongue at me
[09:19.086]as far as he could without damaging the roots.
[09:21.777]I knew he would soon strike,
[09:23.788]and, while dreading the blow,
[09:25.251]I mused on the disgusting and ugly
[09:27.367]appearance of him who would presently deal it.
[09:30.371]I wonderif he read that notion in my face;
[09:32.957]for, all at once, without speaking,
[09:35.596]he struck suddenly and strongly.
[09:38.809]I tottered, and, on regaining my equilibrium,
[09:41.630]retired back a step or two from his chair.
[09:45.261]“That is for your impudence in answering
[09:47.298]mamma a while since,” said he,
[09:49.728]“and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains,
[09:53.150]and for the look you had in
[09:54.482]your eyes two minutes since, you rat!”
[09:57.852]Accustomed to John Reed’s abuse,
[10:00.020]I never had an idea of replying to it;
[10:02.554]my care was how to endure the blow
[10:04.748]which would certainly follow the insult.
[10:07.569]“What were you doing behind the curtain?” he asked.
[10:11.488]“I was reading.”
[10:13.656]“Show the book.”
[10:15.563]I returned to the window and fetched it thence.
[10:18.698]“You have no business to take our books;
[10:21.205]you are a dependent, mamma says;
[10:23.791]you have no money;
[10:25.124]your father left you none;
[10:26.848]you ought to beg, and not to live here
[10:29.564]with gentlemen’s children like us,
[10:31.445]and eat the same meals we do,
[10:33.039]and wear clothes at our mamma’s expense.
[10:36.200]Now, I’ll teach you to rummage my bookshelves;
[10:38.969]for they are mine; all the house belongs to me,
[10:41.738]or will do in a few years.
[10:43.723]Go and stand by the door,
[10:45.525]out of the way of the mirror and the windows.”
[10:48.007]I did so, not at first aware what was his intention;
[10:52.396]but when I saw him lift and poise the book,
[10:54.825]and stand in act to hurl it,
[10:57.019]I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm—
[11:00.284]not soon enough, however: the volume was flung,
[11:03.550]it hit me, and I fell, striking my head
[11:06.920]against the door and cutting it.
[11:08.670]The cut bled, the pain was sharp:
[11:11.073]my terror had passed its climax;
[11:13.555]other feelings succeeded.
[11:16.089]“Wicked and cruel boy!” I said.
[11:19.458]“You are like a murderer—
[11:21.026]you are like a slave-driver—
[11:22.933]you are like the Roman emperors!”
[11:26.146]I had read Goldsmith’s History of Rome,
[11:28.444]and had formed my opinion of Nero, Caligula, &c.
[11:32.206]Also I had drawn parallels in silence,
[11:34.505]which I never thought thus to have declared aloud.
[11:37.640]“What! what!” he cried, “did she say that to me?
[11:42.551]Did you hear her, Eliza and Georgiana?
[11:45.633]Won’t I tell mamma? But first—”
[11:49.630]He ran headlong at me;
[11:51.746]I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder ;
[11:53.940]he had closed with a desperate thing.
[11:56.369]I really saw in him a tyrant—a murderer.
[11:59.582]I felt a drop or two of blood from
[12:01.594]my head trickle down my neck,
[12:03.057]and was sensible of some pungent suffering:
[12:06.087]these sensations, for the time,
[12:07.628]predominated over fear,
[12:09.039]and I received him in frantic sort.
[12:11.886]I don’t very well know what I did with my hands,
[12:14.159]but he called me “Rat! rat!”
[12:17.346]and bellowed out aloud. Aid was near him;
[12:20.794]Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed,
[12:23.406]who was gone up stairs;
[12:25.130]she now came upon the scene,
[12:26.776]followed by Bessie and the maid Abbot.
[12:29.231]We were parted; I heard the words:
[12:32.157]“Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!”
[12:36.755]“Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!”
[12:40.386]Then Mrs. Reed subjoined:
[12:42.476]“Take her away to the red-room,
[12:44.278]and lock her in there.”
[12:46.707]Four hands were immediately laid upon me,
[12:49.346]and I was borne up stairs.