Цитаты из книги «Джейн Эйр / Jane Eyre»

The vicar announced that we were here to be married, then asked us if we knew of any reason why we should not be. There was a pause, as there always is at that part of the ceremony. When is that pause ever broken? So, after a while, Mr. Wood reached out a hand to Mr. Rochester, opened his mouth and took a breath to continue with the declarations. At that moment, a voice at the back of the church said: “The marriage cannot take place – I declare an impediment.”

I knew. This woman was tall and strong, and wore a ragged white nightdress. Long, dark, matted hair hung down her back.

I forced myself to look in the mirror at my plain little face, my thin lips, sallow skin and flat brown hair. I resolved to paint two pictures – one of myself, just as I was, and one of Blanche Ingram, beautiful and glowing, just as Mrs. Fairfax had described her. I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in crayons; and in less than a fortnight I completed a miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram. Then, whenever I thought about Mr. Rochester, I looked at the pictures, and the contrast was as great as self-control could only desire.

Alone in my room that night, I hated myself for ever thinking Mr. Rochester could like me. A few kind words, a look in his eye in a dark room filled with smoke – and I had dared to imagine he had feelings for me. Well, he did not. Why should he, when there were women like Blanche Ingram in his world – beautiful, accomplished, and of his own class?

I thought that a brighter era of life was beginning for me, one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils.

had to amuse ourselves indoors.[1

It was impossible to take a walk that day. Since dinner the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was out of the question. Instead, we had to amuse ourselves indoors.[1] I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons. My cousins, Eliza, John and Georgiana Reed were sitting round their mama in the drawing-room by the fire-side, but I was not allowed to join the group. “You, Jane, are excluded from our company until I hear from Bessie that you can behave like a proper, sweet little girl,” announced Mrs. Reed. “What does Bessie say I have done?” I asked. “Jane, I don’t like questioners; don’t answer me back.[2] Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.” I went into another room, with a bookcase in it. I took one of the books, Bewick’s History of British Birds, and climbed into the window seat. I drew the curtain, gathered up my feet, and sat cross-legged, like a Turk. Then I immersed myself into another world. I was now discovering the shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with ‘the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and that reservoir of frost and snow. Of these death white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children’s brains, but strangely impressive. The book contained pictures, and each picture told a story. These stories were as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings when she was in good humour and fed our attention with passages of love and adventure from old fairy tales and other ballads. With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The breakfast-room door opened. “Boh!” cried the voice of John Reed. Then he paused as he thought the room was empty. “Where is she? Lizzy! Georgy! Tell Mama! Jane’s run out into the rain!” “She’s in the window seat,” Eliza said at once. I came out immediately before John could drag me out. “What do you want?” I asked. John Reed was a fourteen-year-old schoolboy, four years older than I. He was large and stout for his age, and he bullied me continually. I hated and feared him, I could do nothing against his menaces. The servants did not like to offend their young master, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject. All at once, without speaking, John struck suddenly and strongly “That is for your rude answer to mama, for hiding behind curtains and for the look you had in your eyes, you rat,” he said. “What were you doing behind that curtain?” “I was reading.” “Show me the book.” I gave him the book.

It was impossible to take a walk that day. Since dinner the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was out of the question. Instead, we had to amuse ourselves indoors.[1] I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons. My cousins, Eliza, John and Georgiana Reed were sitting round their mama in the drawing-room by the fire-side, but I was not allowed to join the group. “You, Jane, are excluded from our company until I hear from Bessie that you can behave like a proper, sweet little girl,” announced Mrs. Reed.

out-door exercise was out of the question.

My future husband was becoming to me my whole world, and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He was now my idol, and still I resolved to be as true to myself as I possibly could in the month before the wedding, so that Mr. Rochester would have no illusions about who he was marrying. Then, if he wanted to change his mind, he could.