Dilemmas

"Different benevolent-minded ladies and gentlemen in this neighbourhood and in London."  "Who was Naomi Brocklehurst?"  "The lady who built the new part of this house as that tablet records, and whose son overlooks and directs everything here."  "Why?"  "Because he is treasurer and manager of the establishment."  "Then this house does not belong to that tall lady who wears a watch, and who said we were to have some bread and cheese?"  "To Miss Temple?  Oh, no!  I wish it did: she has to answer to Mr. Brocklehurst for all she does.  Mr. Brocklehurst buys all our food and all our clothes."  "Does he live here?"  "No--two miles off, at a large hall."  "Is he a good man?"  "He is a clergyman, and is said to do a great deal of good."  "Did you say that tall lady was called Miss Temple?"  "Yes."  "And what are the other teachers called?"  "The one with red cheeks is called Miss Smith; she attends to the work, and cuts out--for we make our own clothes, our frocks, and pelisses, and everything; the little one with black hair is Miss Scatcherd; she teaches history and grammar, and hears the second class repetitions; and the one who wears a shawl, and has a pocket-handkerchief tied to her side with a yellow ribband, is Madame Pierrot: she comes from Lisle, in France, and teaches French."  "Do you like the teachers?"  "Well enough."  "Do you like the little black one, and the Madame ---?--I cannot pronounce her name as you do."  "Miss Scatcherd is hasty--you must take care not to offend her; Madame Pierrot is not a bad sort of person."

Helen was talking to herself now: she had forgotten I could not very well understand her--that I was ignorant, or nearly so, of the subject she discussed.  I recalled her to my level.  "And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?"  "No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something to say which is newer than my own reflections; her language is singularly agreeable to me, and the information she communicates is often just what I wished to gain."  "Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?"  "Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me.  There is no merit in such goodness."  "A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you.  It is all I ever desire to be.  If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse.  When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should--so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again."  "You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you are but a little untaught girl."  "But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly.  It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved."  "Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and civilised nations disown it."  "How?  I don't understand."  "It is not violence that best overcomes hate--nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury."  "What then?"  "Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; make His word your rule, and His conduct your example."  "What does He say?"  "Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you."

Nobody takes me seriously

During these eight years my life was uniform: but not unhappy, because it was not inactive.  I had the means of an excellent education placed within my reach; a fondness for some of my studies, and a desire to excel in all, together with a great delight in pleasing my teachers, especially such as I loved, urged me on: I availed myself fully of the advantages offered me.  In time I rose to be the first girl of the first class; then I was invested with the office of teacher; which I discharged with zeal for two years: but at the end of that time I altered.  Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued superintendent of the seminary: to her instruction I owed the best part of my acquirements; her friendship and society had been my continual solace; she had stood me in the stead of mother, governess, and, latterly, companion.  At this period she married, removed with her husband (a clergyman, an excellent man, almost worthy of such a wife) to a distant county, and consequently was lost to me.  From the day she left I was no longer the same: with her was gone every settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in some degree a home to me.  I had imbibed from her something of her nature and much of her habits: more harmonious thoughts: what seemed better regulated feelings had become the inmates of my mind.  I had given in allegiance to duty and order; I was quiet; I believed I was content: to the eyes of others, usually even to my own, I appeared a disciplined and subdued character.  But destiny, in the shape of the Rev. Mr. Nasmyth, came between me and Miss Temple: I saw her in her travelling dress step into a post-chaise, shortly after the marriage ceremony; I watched the chaise mount the hill and disappear beyond its brow; and then retired to my own room, and there spent in solitude the greatest part of the half-holiday granted in honour of the occasion.  I walked about the chamber most of the time.  I imagined myself only to be regretting my loss, and thinking how to repair it; but when my reflections were concluded, and I looked up and found that the afternoon was gone, and evening far advanced, another discovery dawned on me, namely, that in the interval I had undergone a transforming process; that my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss Temple--or rather that she had taken with her the serene atmosphere I had been breathing in her vicinity--and that now I was left in my natural element, and beginning to feel the stirring of old emotions.  It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me, but the reason for tranquillity was no more.  My world had for some years been in Lowood: my experience had been of its rules and systems; now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.

My night of phantasmagoria

ortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven years, learnt a portion of French by heart daily--applying myself to take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela.  She came and shook hand with me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently.  "Ah!" cried she, in French, "you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie.  She will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked--how it did smoke!--and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester.  Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another place.  I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf.  And Mademoiselle--what is your name?"  "Eyre--Jane Eyre."  "Aire?  Bah!  I cannot say it.  Well, our ship stopped in the morning, before it was quite daylight, at a great city--a huge city, with very dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel.  We stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called the Park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs."  "Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?" asked Mrs. Fairfax.  I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of Madame Pierrot.  "I wish," continued the good lady, "you would ask her a question or two about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?"  "Adele," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean town you spoke of?"  "I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin.  Mama used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses.  A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it.  Shall I let you hear me sing now?"