Джейн Эйр / Jane Eyre

Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted the separation; that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace; as it was, I derived from both a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamour.

Jumping over forms, and creeping under tables, I made my way to one of the fire-places; there, kneeling by the high wire fender, I found Burns, absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by the companionship of a book, which she read by the dim glare of the embers.

�Is it still Rasselas?’ I asked, coming behind her.

�Yes,’ she said, �and I have just finished it.’

And in five minutes more she shut it up. I was glad of this.

�Now,’ thought I, �I can perhaps get her to talk.’ I sat down by her on the floor.

�What is your name besides Burns?’

�Helen.

�Do you come a long way from here?’

�I come from a place farther north; quite on the borders of Scotland.’

�Will you ever go back?’

�I hope so; but nobody can be sure of the future.’

�You must wish to leave Lowood?’

�No! why should I? I was sent to Lowood to get an education; and it would be of no use going away until I have attained that object.’

�But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?’

�Cruel? Not at all! She is severe; she dislikes my faults.

�And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should resist her. If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I should break it under her nose.’

�Probably you would do nothing of the sort; but if you did, Mr. Brocklehurst would expel you from the school; that would be a great grief to your relations. It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil.

�But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to stand in the middle of a room full of people; and you are such a great girl; I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it.’

�Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it. It is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.