Jane Eyre. An Autobiography / Джейн Эйр. Автобиография

© Шитова Л. Ф., адаптация, сокращение, словарь, 2023

© ООО «ИД «Антология», 2023

Chapter I

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering in the shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner, the cold winter wind had brought clouds and a rain, and further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons. Mrs. Reed’s children – Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her looked perfectly happy. She excluded me from the group and told me to be seated somewhere; and until I could speak pleasantly, remain silent.

I slipped in the breakfast-room. It contained a bookcase: I soon chose a volume with pictures. I got into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red curtain, I felt safe.

I returned to my book – Bewick[1]’s History of British Birds.

Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding, yet deeply interesting: as interesting as the tales Bessie, the nurse, sometimes told on winter evenings, when she was in good humour; and when, having brought her ironing-table to the nursery, she allowed us to sit about it and listen to passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads.

With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy. I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The breakfast-room door opened.

“Madam Mope[2]!” cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he found the room apparently empty.

“Where the dickens is she[3]!” he continued. “Lizzy! Georgy! (calling to his sisters) Joan[4] is not here: tell mama she is run out into the rain – bad animal[5]!”

“It is well I drew the curtain,” thought I; and I wished he might not discover my hiding-place; but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at once —

“She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack.”

And I came out immediately, for I feared my being dragged forth by Jack.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Say, ’What do you want, Master Reed?’” was the answer. “I want you to come here;” and seating himself in an arm-chair, he made a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.

John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was ten: large and stout for his age, with thick lineaments in his face. He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home for a month or two, “on account of his delicate health.” Mr. Miles, the master, believed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes sent him from home.

John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually. The servants couldn’t take my part against him for they did not like to offend their young master. Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject[6]: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind her back.

Obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could. I knew he would soon strike, and fearing the blow, I thought how disgusting and ugly he looked. Then all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. I almost lost balance and made a step or two back from his chair.

“That is for your impudence in answering mama,” said he, “and for your hiding behind curtains, and for the look you had in your eyes two minutes ago, you rat!

“What were you doing behind the curtain?” he asked then.

“I was reading.”

“Show the book.”

I returned to the window and got it there.

“You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama’s expense. Now, I’ll teach you to use my bookshelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door.”

But before I did, he lifted the book and flung it. The volume hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp.

“Wicked and cruel boy!” I said. “You are like a murderer – you are like a slave-driver!”

“What! what!” he cried. “Did she say that to me? Did you hear her, Eliza and Georgiana? Won’t I tell mama? but first —”

He ran at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder. I really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck. I don’t very well know what I did with my hands, but he called me “Rat! Rat!” and bellowed out aloud. Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were parted: I heard the words —

“Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!”[7]

Then Mrs. Reed ordered —

“Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there.” Four hands were immediately upon me, and I was carried upstairs.

Chapter II

I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and I decided, in my desperation, to go all lengths[8].

“Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she’s like a mad cat.”

“For shame[9]! for shame!” cried the lady’s-maid. “What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress’s son! Your young master.”

“Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?”

“No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep. There, sit down, and think over your wickedness.”

They had got me by this time into the room indicated by Mrs. Reed, and had put me upon a stool: my impulse was to rise from it like a spring; their two pair of hands stopped me instantly.

“If you don’t sit still, you must be tied down,” said Bessie. “Miss Abbot, lend me your garters; she would break mine directly.”

“Don’t take them off,” I cried; “I will not stir.”

“Mind you don’t,”[10] said Bessie; and when she saw that I wasn’t really moving, she loosened her hold of me.

“She never did so before,” at last said Bessie, turning to Miss Abbot. “But it was always in her,” was the reply. “She’s an underhand little thing.”

Bessie answered not; but before long, addressing me, she said – “You ought to be aware, Miss, that Mrs. Reed keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poorhouse.”

I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me. Miss Abbot joined in —

“And you ought not to think that the Misses Reed and Master Reed are your equals. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none: it is your place to be humble.”

“What we tell you is for your good,” added Bessie, “you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you would have a home here; but if you become rude, Missis will send you away, I am sure.”

“Besides,” said Miss Abbot, “God will punish her. Come, Bessie, we will leave her. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, for if you don’t repent, something bad might happen.”

They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them.

The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in. It was chill and rarely entered. The house-maid alone came here on Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week’s dust: and Mrs. Reed herself at times visited it to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored some papers, her jewels, and a miniature of her dead husband.

Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed his last.

I was not quite sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared move, I got up and went to see. Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure. I returned to my stool.

Why was I always suffering, always accused? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win any one’s favour? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. Georgiana had a spoiled temper, but her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and her every fault was forgiven. John was never punished; though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, set the dogs at the sheep, he called his mother “old girl,” too; sometimes tore and spoiled her silk dresses; and he was still “her own darling.” I tried to commit no fault: I fulfilled every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, from morning to noon, and from noon to night.

My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no one had blamed John for striking me.

“Unjust! – unjust!” said my reason.

I was like nobody in Gateshead Hall; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them.

Daylight began to leave the red-room; it was past four o’clock, and the afternoon was turning into twilight. I heard the rain still beating on the window and the wind howling in the grove; I grew cold as a stone, and then my courage left me. All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so. I could not remember Mr. Reed; but I knew that he was my own uncle – my mother’s brother – that he had taken me as a parentless infant to his house; and that in his last moments he had required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children. Mrs. Reed probably considered she had kept this promise. Then a strange idea occurred to me. I never doubted – that if Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly; and now I began to recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes; and I thought Mr. Reed’s spirit might rise before me in this chamber. I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs. This idea would be terrible if realized. I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark room; at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a ray from the moon? No; moonlight was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling over my head. I can now assume that this light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried by some one across the lawn: but then I thought the beam was a herald of some vision from another world. My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; something seemed near me; I rushed to the door and shook the lock. Steps came running along the passage; the key turned, Bessie and Abbot entered.

“Miss Eyre, are you ill?” said Bessie.

“What a dreadful noise!” exclaimed Abbot.

“Take me out! Let me go into the nursery!” was my cry.

“What for? Are you hurt? Have you seen something?” again demanded Bessie.

“Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come.” I had now got hold of Bessie’s hand, and she did not snatch it from me.

“She has screamed out on purpose,” declared Abbot, in some disgust. “If she had been in great pain one would have excused it, but she only wanted to bring us all here: I know her naughty tricks.”

“What is all this?” demanded another voice; and Mrs. Reed came along the corridor.

“Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane Eyre should be left in the red-room till I came to her myself.”

“Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma’am,” pleaded Bessie.

“Let her go,” was the only answer. “Loose Bessie’s hand, child: it is my duty to show you that tricks will not answer: you will now stay here an hour longer.”

“O aunt! have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it – let me be punished some other way! I shall be killed if —”

“Silence!” I was an actress in her eyes.

When Bessie and Abbot had left, Mrs. Reed thrust me back and locked me in, without farther words. Soon after she was gone, I suppose I had a fit and lost consciousness.

Chapter III

The next thing I remember, is waking up with a feeling as if I had had a frightful nightmare. Before long, I became aware that some one was lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting position.

In five minutes more I knew quite well that I was in my own bed. It was night: a candle burnt on the table; Bessie stood at the bed-foot with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat in a chair near my pillow, leaning over me.

I felt a great relief, a feeling of protection and security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room, an individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed. I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing: for herself and the children she called a physician.

“Well, who am I?” he asked.

I said his name and gave him my hand: he took it, smiling and saying, “We shall do very well by-and-by.” Then he laid me down, and addressing Bessie asked her to be careful and not to disturb me during the night. Soon he left; to my grief: I felt so protected while he sat in the chair near my pillow; and as he closed the door after him, all the room darkened.

“Would you like to drink, or could you eat anything?” asked Bessie, rather softly.

“No, thank you, Bessie.”

“Then I think I shall go to bed, for it is past twelve o’clock; but you may call me if you want anything in the night.”

I dared to ask a question.

“Bessie, what is the matter with me? Am I ill?”

“You fell sick in the red-room with crying; you’ll be better soon, no doubt.”

Bessie went into the housemaid’s room, which was near. I heard her say —

“Sarah, come and sleep with me in the nursery; I don’t want to be alone with that poor child to-night: she might die; it’s such a strange thing she should have that fit: I wonder if she saw anything. Missis was rather too hard.”

Sarah came back with her; they both went to bed; they were whispering together for half-an-hour before they fell asleep.

For me, the watches of that long night went very slowly.

No severe illness followed this incident of the redroom; it only gave my nerves a shock which I feel to this day.

Next day, by noon, I was up and dressed, and sat by the nursery hearth. I felt physically weak and broken down. Yet, I thought, I ought to have been happy, for none of the Reeds were there, they were all gone out in the carriage with their mama. Sarah Abbot was sewing in another room, and Bessie, as she moved hither and thither[11], putting away toys and arranging drawers, addressed to me every now and then a word of kindness. This state of things should have been to me a paradise of peace, but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such a state that nothing could calm them.

Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with her a tart on a brightly painted china plate, which was my favourite. This precious plate was now placed on my knee, and I was invited to eat the delicate pastry upon it. But this favour came, like most other favours often wished for, too late! I could not eat the tart; I put both plate and tart away. Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word book acted as a stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver’s Travels from the library. This book I had again and again read with delight. Yet, when this volume was now placed in my hand, all was eerie and dreary. I closed the book and put it on the table, beside the untasted tart.

Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana’s doll. Meantime she sang: her song was —

“In the days when we went gipsying, A long time ago.”

I had often heard the song before, and always with delight; for Bessie had a sweet voice, – at least, I thought so. But now, I found in its melody a great sadness.

In the course of the morning Mr. Lloyd came again.

“What, already up!” said he, as he entered the nursery. “Well, nurse, how is she?”

Bessie answered that I was doing very well.

“Then she ought to look more cheerful. Come here, Miss Jane: your name is Jane, is it not?”

“Yes, sir, Jane Eyre.”

“Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre; can you tell me what about? Have you any pain?”

“No, sir.”

“Oh! I daresay she is crying because she could not go out with Missis in the carriage,” said Bessie.

“Surely not! I hate going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable.”

The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled. I was standing before him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily. Finally, he said —

“What made you ill yesterday?”

“She had a fall,” said Bessie, again putting in her word.

“Fall! why, that is like a baby! Can’t she manage to walk at her age? She must be eight or nine years old.”

“I was knocked down,” was the blunt explanation, “but that did not make me ill,” I added.

A loud bell rang for the servants’ dinner; he knew what it was. “That’s for you, nurse,” said he; “you can go down; I’ll give Miss Jane a lecture till you come back.”

Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because punctuality at meals was strictly observed at Gateshead Hall.

“The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?” continued Mr. Lloyd when Bessie was gone.

“I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost till after dark.”

I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time.

“Ghost! What, you are a baby after all! You are afraid of ghosts?”

“Of Mr. Reed’s ghost I am: he died in that room, and was laid out there. Neither Bessie nor any one else will go into it at night, if they can help it; and it was cruel to shut me up alone without a candle, – so cruel that I think I shall never forget it.”

“Nonsense! And is it that makes you so miserable? Are you afraid now in daylight?”

“No: but night will come again before long: and besides, – I am unhappy, – very unhappy, for other things.”

“What other things? Can you tell me some of them?”

How much I wished to reply fully to this question but how difficult it was!

“For one thing, I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters.”

“You have a kind aunt and cousins.”

Again I paused; then said —

“But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the red-room.”

“Don’t you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?” asked he. “Are you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?”

“It is not my house, sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be here than a servant.”

“Pooh! you can’t be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place?”

“If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman.”

“Perhaps you may – who knows? Have you any relations besides Mrs. Reed?”

“I think not, sir.”

“None belonging to your father?”

“I don’t know. I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I might have some poor, low relations called Eyre, but she knew nothing about them.”

“If you had such, would you like to go to them?”

I reflected. Poverty looks awful to grown people; so poverty for me was synonymous with degradation.

“No; I should not like to belong to poor people,” was my reply.

“Not even if they were kind to you?”

I shook my head: I could not see how poor people could be kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated: no, I was not heroic enough to buy liberty at such a price.

“Would you like to go to school?”

Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was: John Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but John Reed’s tastes were no rule for mine; and if Bessie’s memories of school-discipline were somewhat awful, the young ladies’ accomplishments were, I thought, attractive. Bessie showed me beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers painted by them; told me of songs they could sing, of French books they could translate. Besides, school would be a complete change: it meant a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.

“I should indeed like to go to school,” was my conclusion.

“Well, well! who knows what may happen?” said Mr. Lloyd, as he got up. “The child ought to have change of air and scene,” he added, speaking to himself; “nerves not in a good state.”

Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard.

“Is that your mistress, nurse?” asked Mr. Lloyd.

“I should like to speak to her before I go.”

In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, the apothecary recommended my being sent to school; and it was no doubt readily adopted.

On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, that my father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her family, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated, he cut her off without a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, my father caught the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where he worked, and where that disease was then prevalent: that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other.

Chapter IV

Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to me as little as possible: John once attempted an attack on me, but I instantly turned against him and planted a hard blow on his nose. He immediately ran to his mama. I heard him begin the story of how “that nasty Jane Eyre” had flown at him like a mad cat: he was stopped rather harshly —

“Don’t talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her; she is not worthy of notice; neither you nor your sisters should associate with her.”

Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly – “They are not fit to associate with me.”

Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but, on hearing this declaration, she ran up the stair, dragged me into the nursery, pushed me down on the bed and told me to stay in that place or never say a word during the remainder of the day.

“What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?” It seemed as if something spoke out of me over which I had no control.

“What?” said Mrs. Reed under her breath: she took her hand from my arm, and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether I were child or fiend. I was now in for it[12].

“My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so can papa and mama: they know how you shut me up all day long, and how you wish me dead.”

Mrs. Reed soon came to herself: she shook me most soundly, she boxed both my ears[13], and then left me without a word.

November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas and the New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual festive cheer; presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given.

From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded. To speak truth, I had not the least wish to go into company, for in company I was very rarely noticed; and if Bessie had been kind, I should have spent the evenings quietly with her, instead of passing them under the eye of Mrs. Reed. In my room, I undressed hastily, and got into bed.

The hours seemed long while I waited the departure of the company, and listened for the sound of Bessie’s step on the stairs: sometimes she would come up to bring me something by way of supper – a bun or a cheese-cake – then she would sit on the bed while I ate it, and when I had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me, and twice she kissed me, and said, “Good night, Miss Jane.” When thus gentle, Bessie seemed to me the best, prettiest, kindest being in the world; I preferred her to any one else at Gateshead Hall.

It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o’clock in the morning: Bessie went down to breakfast; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm garden-coat to go and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she was fond.

Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair at the glass. I was making my bed.

From the window I saw the gates thrown open and a carriage roll through. Carriages often came to Gateshead, but none ever brought visitors in whom I was interested; it stopped in front of the house, the door-bell rang loudly, the new-comer was admitted. I was finishing my breakfast of bread and milk when Bessie came running upstairs into the nursery.