Джейн Эйр / Jane Eyre

They conversed of things I had never heard of; of nations and times past; of countries far away; of secrets of nature discovered or guessed at; they spoke of books; how many they had read! What stores of knowledge they possessed! Then they seemed so familiar with French names and French authors; but my amazement reached its climax when Miss Temple asked Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to recall the Latin her father had taught her, and taking a book from a shelf, bade her read and construe a page of Virgil; and Helen obeyed, my organ of veneration expanding at every sounding line.

�God bless you, my children!’

Helen she held a little longer than me; she let her go more reluctantly; it was Helen her eye followed to the door; it was for her she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear from her cheek.

On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd; she was examining drawers; she had just pulled out Helen Burns’s, and when we entered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and told that tomorrow she should have half-a-dozen of untidily folded articles pinned to her shoulder.

�My things were indeed in shameful disorder,’ murmured Helen to me, in a low voice: �I intended to have arranged them, but I forgot.

Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece of pasteboard the word �Slattern,’ and bound it like a phylactery round Helen’s large, mild, intelligent, and benign-looking forehead. She wore it till evening, patient, unresentful, regarding it as a deserved punishment. The moment Miss Scatcherd withdrew after afternoon school, I ran to Helen, tore it off, and thrust it into the fire; the fury of which she was incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, hot and large, had continually been scalding my cheek; for the spectacle of her sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain at the heart.

About a week subsequently to the incidents above narrated, Miss Temple, who had written to Mr. Lloyd, received his answer: it appeared that what he said went to corroborate my account.