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Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte

This parlor looked gloomy: a neglected handful of fire burnt low in the grate; and, leaning over it,
with his head supported against the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece, appeared the blind tenant
of the room. His old dog, Pilot, lay on one side, removed out of the way, and coiled up as if afraid
of being inadvertently trodden upon. Pilot pricked up his ears when I came in: then he jumped up
with a yelp and a whine, and bounded towards me: he almost knocked the tray from my hands. I
set it on the table; then patted him, and said softly, ‘Lie down!’ Mr. Rochester turned mechanically
to see what the commotion was: but as he saw nothing, he returned and sighed.
‘Give me the water, Mary,’ he said.
I approached him with the now only half-filled glass; Pilot followed me, still excited.
‘What is the matter?’ he inquired.
‘Down, Pilot!’ I again said. He checked the water on its way to his lips, and seemed to listen: he
drank, and put the glass down. ‘This is you, Mary, is it not?’
‘Mary is in the kitchen,’ I answered.
He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where I stood, he did not touch me.
‘Who is this? Who is this?’ he demanded, trying, as it seemed, to see with those sightless eyes --
unavailing and distressing attempt! ‘Answer me -- speak again!’ he ordered, imperiously and aloud.
‘Will you have a little more water, sir? I spilt half of what was in the glass,’ I said.
‘Who is it? What is it? Who speaks?’
‘Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this evening,’ I answered.
‘Great God! - what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has seized me?’
‘No delusion -- no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion, your health too sound for
frenzy.’
‘And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I cannot see, but I must feel, or my heart will
stop and my brain burst. Whatever -- whoever you are - be perceptible to the touch or I cannot
live!’
He groped; I arrested his wandering hand, and prisoned it in both mine.
‘Her very fingers!’ he cried; ‘her small, slight fingers! If so there must be more of her.’
The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my shoulder -neck -- waist -- I was
entwined and gathered to him.
‘Is it Jane? What is it? This is her shape - this is her size –‘
‘And this her voice,’ I added. ‘She is all here: her heart, too. God bless you, sir! I am glad to be so
near you again.’
‘Jane Eyre! - Jane Eyre,’ was all he said.
‘My dear master,’ I answered, ‘I am Jane Eyre: I have found you out - I am come back to you.’
‘In truth? - In the flesh? My living Jane?’
‘You touch me, sir, - you hold me, and fast enough: I am not cold like a corpse, nor vacant like air,
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am I?’
‘My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I cannot be so blest,
after all my misery. It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once
more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus -- and felt that she loved me, and trusted
that she would not leave me.’
‘Which I never will, sir, from this day.’
‘Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate
and abandoned - my life dark, lonely, hopeless - my soul athirst and forbidden to drink -- my heart
famished and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as
your sisters have all fled before you: but kiss me before you go -- embrace me, Jane.’
‘There, sir - and there!’
I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now ray less eyes - I swept his hair from his brow, and
kissed that too. He suddenly seemed to arouse himself: the conviction of the reality of all this
seized him.
‘It is you -- is it, Jane? You are come back to me then?’
‘I am.’
‘And you will stay with me?’
‘Certainly - unless you object. I will be your neighbour, your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you
lonely: I will be your companion -- to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you,
to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left
desolate, so long as I live.’
He replied not: he seemed serious -- abstracted; he sighed; he half-opened his lips as if to
speak: he closed them again. I felt a little embarrassed. Perhaps I had too rashly over-leaped
conventionalities; and he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my inconsiderateness. I had indeed
made my proposal from the idea that he wished and would ask me to be his wife: an expectation,
not the less certain because unexpressed, had buoyed me up, that he would claim me at once as
his own. But no hint to that effect escaping him and his countenance becoming more overcast,
I suddenly remembered that I might have been all wrong, and was perhaps playing the fool
unwittingly; and I began gently to withdraw myself from his arms -- but he eagerly snatched me
closer.
‘No - no - Jane; you must not go. No - I have touched you, heard you, felt the comfort of your
presence -- the sweetness of your consolation: I cannot give up these joys. I have little left in
myself - I must have you. The world may laugh - may call me absurd, selfish -- but it does not
signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its
frame.’
‘Well, sir, I will stay with you: I have said so.’
‘Yes - but you understand one thing by staying with me; and I understand another. You, perhaps,
could make up your mind to be about my hand and chair - to wait on me as a kind little nurse (for
you have an affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which prompt you to make sacrifices for
those you pity), and that ought to suffice for me no doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none
but fatherly feelings for you: do you think so? Come -- tell me.’
‘I will think what you like, sir: I am content to be only your nurse, if you think
it better.’
‘But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet: you are young -- you must marry
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one day.’
‘I don't care about being married.’
‘You should care, Janet: if I were what I once was, I would try to make you care - but - a sightless
block!’
He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more cheerful, and took fresh courage:
these last words gave me an insight as to where the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty
with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment. I resumed a livelier vein of
conversation.

‘It is time someone undertook to rehumanise you,’ said I, parting his thick and long uncut locks;
‘for I see you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a 'faux
air' of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair reminds me of eagles'
feathers; whether your nails are grown like birds' claws or not, I have not yet noticed.’

‘On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails,’ he said, drawing the mutilated limb from his breast,
and showing it to me. ‘It is a mere stump - a ghastly sight! Don't you think so, Jane?’
‘It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes - and the scar of fire on your forehead: and the
worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you.’
‘I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm, and my cicatrized visage.’
‘Did you? Don't tell me so - lest I should say something disparaging to your judgment. Now, let me
leave you an instant, to make a better fire, and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there
is a good fire?’
‘Yes; with the right eye I see a glow -- a ruddy haze.’
‘And you see the candles?’
‘Very dimly -- each is a luminous cloud.’
‘Can you see me?’
‘No, my fairy: but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you.’
‘When do you take supper?’
‘I never take supper.’
‘But you shall have some to-night. I am hungry: so are you, I daresay, only you forget.’

Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order: I prepared him, likewise, a
comfortable repast. My spirits were excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during
supper, and for a long time after. There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and
vivacity with him; for with him I was at perfect ease, because I knew I suited him; all I said or did
seemed either to console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It brought to life and light my
whole nature: in his presence I thoroughly lived; and he lived in mine.