prompt:
Chapter: Mr. Rochester, it seems, by the surgeon's orders, went to bed early that
night; nor did he rise soon next morning.  When he did come down, it was
to attend to business: his agent and some of his tenants were arrived,
and waiting to speak with him.

Adele and I had now to vacate the library: it would be in daily
requisition as a reception-room for callers.  A fire was lit in an
apartment upstairs, and there I carried our books, and arranged it for
the future schoolroom.  I discerned in the course of the morning that
Thornfield Hall was a changed place: no longer silent as a church, it
echoed every hour or two to a knock at the door, or a clang of the bell;
steps, too, often traversed the hall, and new voices spoke in different
keys below; a rill from the outer world was flowing through it; it had a
master: for my part, I liked it better.

Adele was not easy to teach that day; she could not apply: she kept
running to the door and looking over the banisters to see if she could
get a glimpse of Mr. Rochester; then she coined pretexts to go
downstairs, in order, as I shrewdly suspected, to visit the library,
where I knew she was not wanted; then, when I got a little angry, and
made her sit still, she continued to talk incessantly of her "ami,
Monsieur Edouard Fairfax _de_ Rochester," as she dubbed him (I had not
before heard his prenomens), and to conjecture what presents he had
brought her: for it appears he had intimated the night before, that when
his luggage came from Millcote, there would be found amongst it a little
box in whose contents she had an interest.

"Et cela doit signifier," said she, "qu'il y aura la dedans un cadeau
pour moi, et peut-etre pour vous aussi, mademoiselle.  Monsieur a parle
de vous: il m'a demande le nom de ma gouvernante, et si elle n'etait pas
une petite personne, assez mince et un peu pale.  J'ai dit qu'oui: car
c'est vrai, n'est-ce pas, mademoiselle?"

I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax's parlour; the afternoon
was wild and snowy, and we passed it in the schoolroom.  At dark I
allowed Adele to put away books and work, and to run downstairs; for,
from the comparative silence below, and from the cessation of appeals to
the door-bell, I conjectured that Mr. Rochester was now at liberty.  Left
alone, I walked to the window; but nothing was to be seen thence:
twilight and snowflakes together thickened the air, and hid the very
shrubs on the lawn.  I let down the curtain and went back to the
fireside.

In the clear embers I was tracing a view, not unlike a picture I
remembered to have seen of the castle of Heidelberg, on the Rhine, when
Mrs. Fairfax came in, breaking up by her entrance the fiery mosaic I had
been piercing together, and scattering too some heavy unwelcome thoughts
that were beginning to throng on my solitude.

"Mr. Rochester would be glad if you and your pupil would take tea with
him in the drawing-room this evening," said she: "he has been so much
engaged all day that he could not ask to see you before."

"When is his tea-time?" I inquired.

"Oh, at six o'clock: he keeps early hours in the country.  You had better
change your frock now; I will go with you and fasten it.  Here is a
candle."

"Is it necessary to change my frock?"

"Yes, you had better: I always dress for the evening when Mr. Rochester
is here."

This additional ceremony seemed somewhat stately; however, I repaired to
my room, and, with Mrs. Fairfax's aid, replaced my black stuff dress by
one of black silk; the best and the only additional one I had, except one
of light grey, which, in my Lowood notions of the toilette, I thought too
fine to be worn, except on first-rate occasions.

"You want a brooch," said Mrs. Fairfax.  I had a single little pearl
ornament which Miss Temple gave me as a parting keepsake: I put it on,
and then we went downstairs.  Unused as I was to strangers, it was rather
a trial to appear thus formally summoned in Mr. Rochester's presence.  I
let Mrs. Fairfax precede me into the dining-room, and kept in her shade
as we crossed that apartment; and, passing the arch, whose curtain was
now dropped, entered the elegant recess beyond.

Two wax candles stood lighted on the table, and two on the mantelpiece;
basking in the light and heat of a superb fire, lay Pilot--Adele knelt
near him.  Half reclined on a couch appeared Mr. Rochester, his foot
supported by the cushion; he was looking at Adele and the dog: the fire
shone full on his face.  I knew my traveller with his broad and jetty
eyebrows; his square forehead, made squarer by the horizontal sweep of
his black hair.  I recognised his decisive nose, more remarkable for
character than beauty; his full nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler;
his grim mouth, chin, and jaw--yes, all three were very grim, and no
mistake.  His shape, now divested of cloak, I perceived harmonised in
squareness with his physiognomy: I suppose it was a good figure in the
athletic sense of the term--broad chested and thin flanked, though
neither tall nor graceful.

Mr. Rochester must have been aware of the entrance of Mrs. Fairfax and
myself; but it appeared he was not in the mood to notice us, for he never
lifted his head as we approached.

"Here is Miss Eyre, sir," said Mrs. Fairfax, in her quiet way.  He bowed,
still not taking his eyes from the group of the dog and child.

"Let Miss Eyre be seated," said he: and there was something in the forced
stiff bow, in the impatient yet formal tone, which seemed further to
express, "What the deuce is it to me whether Miss Eyre be there or not?
At this moment I am not disposed to accost her."

I sat down quite disembarrassed.  A reception of finished politeness
would probably have confused me: I could not have returned or repaid it
by answering grace and elegance on my part; but harsh caprice laid me
under no obligation; on the contrary, a decent quiescence, under the
freak of manner, gave me the advantage.  Besides, the eccentricity of the
proceeding was piquant: I felt interested to see how he would go on.

He went on as a statue would, that is, he neither spoke nor moved.  Mrs.
Fairfax seemed to think it necessary that some one should be amiable, and
she began to talk.  Kindly, as usual--and, as usual, rather trite--she
condoled with him on the pressure of business he had had all day; on the
annoyance it must have been to him with that painful sprain: then she
commended his patience and perseverance in going through with it.

"Madam, I should like some tea," was the sole rejoinder she got.  She
hastened to ring the bell; and when the tray came, she proceeded to
arrange the cups, spoons, &c., with assiduous celerity.  I and Adele went
to the table; but the master did not leave his couch.

"Will you hand Mr. Rochester's cup?" said Mrs. Fairfax to me; "Adele
might perhaps spill it."

I did as requested.  As he took the cup from my hand, Adele, thinking the
moment propitious for making a request in my favour, cried out--

"N'est-ce pas, monsieur, qu'il y a un cadeau pour Mademoiselle Eyre dans
votre petit coffre?"

"Who talks of cadeaux?" said he gruffly.  "Did you expect a present, Miss
Eyre?  Are you fond of presents?" and he searched my face with eyes that
I saw were dark, irate, and piercing.

"I hardly know, sir; I have little experience of them: they are generally
thought pleasant things."

"Generally thought?  But what do _you_ think?"

"I should be obliged to take time, sir, before I could give you an answer
worthy of your acceptance: a present has many faces to it, has it not?
and one should consider all, before pronouncing an opinion as to its
nature."

"Miss Eyre, you are not so unsophisticated as Adele: she demands a
'cadeau,' clamorously, the moment she sees me: you beat about the bush."

"Because I have less confidence in my deserts than Adele has: she can
prefer the claim of old acquaintance, and the right too of custom; for
she says you have always been in the habit of giving her playthings; but
if I had to make out a case I should be puzzled, since I am a stranger,
and have done nothing to entitle me to an acknowledgment."

"Oh, don't fall back on over-modesty!  I have examined Adele, and find
you have taken great pains with her: she is not bright, she has no
talents; yet in a short time she has made much improvement."

"Sir, you have now given me my 'cadeau;' I am obliged to you: it is the
meed teachers most covet--praise of their pupils' progress."

"Humph!" said Mr. Rochester, and he took his tea in silence.

"Come to the fire," said the master, when the tray was taken away, and
Mrs. Fairfax had settled into a corner with her knitting; while Adele was
leading me by the hand round the room, showing me the beautiful books and
ornaments on the consoles and chiffonnieres.  We obeyed, as in duty
bound; Adele wanted to take a seat on my knee, but she was ordered to
amuse herself with Pilot.

"You have been resident in my house three months?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you came from--?"

"From Lowood school, in ---shire."

"Ah! a charitable concern.  How long were you there?"

"Eight years."

"Eight years! you must be tenacious of life.  I thought half the time in
such a place would have done up any constitution!  No wonder you have
rather the look of another world.  I marvelled where you had got that
sort of face.  When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought
unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you
had bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet.  Who are your parents?"

"I have none."

"Nor ever had, I suppose: do you remember them?"

"No."

"I thought not.  And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on
that stile?"

"For whom, sir?"

"For the men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for them.  Did I
break through one of your rings, that you spread that damned ice on the
causeway?"

I shook my head.  "The men in green all forsook England a hundred years
ago," said I, speaking as seriously as he had done.  "And not even in Hay
Lane, or the fields about it, could you find a trace of them.  I don't
think either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will ever shine on their
revels more."

Mrs. Fairfax had dropped her knitting, and, with raised eyebrows, seemed
wondering what sort of talk this was.

"Well," resumed Mr. Rochester, "if you disown parents, you must have some
sort of kinsfolk: uncles and aunts?"

"No; none that I ever saw."

"And your home?"

"I have none."

"Where do your brothers and sisters live?"

"I have no brothers or sisters."

"Who recommended you to come here?"

"I advertised, and Mrs. Fairfax answered my advertisement."

"Yes," said the good lady, who now knew what ground we were upon, "and I
am daily thankful for the choice Providence led me to make.  Miss Eyre
has been an invaluable companion to me, and a kind and careful teacher to
Adele."

"Don't trouble yourself to give her a character," returned Mr. Rochester:
"eulogiums will not bias me; I shall judge for myself.  She began by
felling my horse."

"Sir?" said Mrs. Fairfax.

"I have to thank her for this sprain."

The widow looked bewildered.

"Miss Eyre, have you ever lived in a town?"

"No, sir."

"Have you seen much society?"

"None but the pupils and teachers of Lowood, and now the inmates of
Thornfield."

"Have you read much?"

"Only such books as came in my way; and they have not been numerous or
very learned."

"You have lived the life of a nun: no doubt you are well drilled in
religious forms;--Brocklehurst, who I understand directs Lowood, is a
parson, is he not?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you girls probably worshipped him, as a convent full of religieuses
would worship their director."

"Oh, no."

"You are very cool!  No!  What! a novice not worship her priest!  That
sounds blasphemous."

"I disliked Mr. Brocklehurst; and I was not alone in the feeling.  He is
a harsh man; at once pompous and meddling; he cut off our hair; and for
economy's sake bought us bad needles and thread, with which we could
hardly sew."

"That was very false economy," remarked Mrs. Fairfax, who now again
caught the drift of the dialogue.

"And was that the head and front of his offending?" demanded Mr.
Rochester.

"He starved us when he had the sole superintendence of the provision
department, before the committee was appointed; and he bored us with long
lectures once a week, and with evening readings from books of his own
inditing, about sudden deaths and judgments, which made us afraid to go
to bed."

"What age were you when you went to Lowood?"

"About ten."

"And you stayed there eight years: you are now, then, eighteen?"

I assented.

"Arithmetic, you see, is useful; without its aid, I should hardly have
been able to guess your age.  It is a point difficult to fix where the
features and countenance are so much at variance as in your case.  And
now what did you learn at Lowood?  Can you play?"

"A little."

"Of course: that is the established answer.  Go into the library--I mean,
if you please.--(Excuse my tone of command; I am used to say, 'Do this,'
and it is done: I cannot alter my customary habits for one new
inmate.)--Go, then, into the library; take a candle with you; leave the
door open; sit down to the piano, and play a tune."

I departed, obeying his directions.

"Enough!" he called out in a few minutes.  "You play _a little_, I see;
like any other English school-girl; perhaps rather better than some, but
not well."

I closed the piano and returned.  Mr. Rochester continued--"Adele showed
me some sketches this morning, which she said were yours.  I don't know
whether they were entirely of your doing; probably a master aided you?"

"No, indeed!" I interjected.

"Ah! that pricks pride.  Well, fetch me your portfolio, if you can vouch
for its contents being original; but don't pass your word unless you are
certain: I can recognise patchwork."

"Then I will say nothing, and you shall judge for yourself, sir."

I brought the portfolio from the library.

"Approach the table," said he; and I wheeled it to his couch.  Adele and
Mrs. Fairfax drew near to see the pictures.

"No crowding," said Mr. Rochester: "take the drawings from my hand as I
finish with them; but don't push your faces up to mine."

He deliberately scrutinised each sketch and painting.  Three he laid
aside; the others, when he had examined them, he swept from him.

"Take them off to the other table, Mrs. Fairfax," said he, "and look at
them with Adele;--you" (glancing at me) "resume your seat, and answer my
questions.  I perceive those pictures were done by one hand: was that
hand yours?"

"Yes."

"And when did you find time to do them?  They have taken much time, and
some thought."

"I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had no
other occupation."

"Where did you get your copies?"

"Out of my head."

"That head I see now on your shoulders?"

"Yes, sir."

"Has it other furniture of the same kind within?"

"I should think it may have: I should hope--better."

He spread the pictures before him, and again surveyed them alternately.

While he is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are: and
first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful.  The subjects had,
indeed, risen vividly on my mind.  As I saw them with the spiritual eye,
before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would
not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought out but a pale
portrait of the thing I had conceived.

These pictures were in water-colours.  The first represented clouds low
and livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was in eclipse;
so, too, was the foreground; or rather, the nearest billows, for there
was no land.  One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged
mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with
foam; its beak held a gold bracelet set with gems, that I had touched
with as brilliant tints as my palette could yield, and as glittering
distinctness as my pencil could impart.  Sinking below the bird and mast,
a drowned corpse glanced through the green water; a fair arm was the only
limb clearly visible, whence the bracelet had been washed or torn.

The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of a hill,
with grass and some leaves slanting as if by a breeze.  Beyond and above
spread an expanse of sky, dark blue as at twilight: rising into the sky
was a woman's shape to the bust, portrayed in tints as dusk and soft as I
could combine.  The dim forehead was crowned with a star; the lineaments
below were seen as through the suffusion of vapour; the eyes shone dark
and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like a beamless cloud torn by storm
or by electric travail.  On the neck lay a pale reflection like
moonlight; the same faint lustre touched the train of thin clouds from
which rose and bowed this vision of the Evening Star.

The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter sky:
a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close serried, along
the horizon.  Throwing these into distance, rose, in the foreground, a
head,--a colossal head, inclined towards the iceberg, and resting against
it.  Two thin hands, joined under the forehead, and supporting it, drew
up before the lower features a sable veil, a brow quite bloodless, white
as bone, and an eye hollow and fixed, blank of meaning but for the
glassiness of despair, alone were visible.  Above the temples, amidst
wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague in its character and
consistency as cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame, gemmed with sparkles
of a more lurid tinge.  This pale crescent was "the likeness of a kingly
crown;" what it diademed was "the shape which shape had none."

"Were you happy when you painted these pictures?" asked Mr. Rochester
presently.

"I was absorbed, sir: yes, and I was happy.  To paint them, in short, was
to enjoy one of the keenest pleasures I have ever known."

"That is not saying much.  Your pleasures, by your own account, have been
few; but I daresay you did exist in a kind of artist's dreamland while
you blent and arranged these strange tints.  Did you sit at them long
each day?"

"I had nothing else to do, because it was the vacation, and I sat at them
from morning till noon, and from noon till night: the length of the
midsummer days favoured my inclination to apply."

"And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent labours?"

"Far from it.  I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my
handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was quite
powerless to realise."

"Not quite: you have secured the shadow of your thought; but no more,
probably.  You had not enough of the artist's skill and science to give
it full being: yet the drawings are, for a school-girl, peculiar.  As to
the thoughts, they are elfish.  These eyes in the Evening Star you must
have seen in a dream.  How could you make them look so clear, and yet not
at all brilliant? for the planet above quells their rays.  And what
meaning is that in their solemn depth?  And who taught you to paint wind?
There is a high gale in that sky, and on this hill-top.  Where did you
see Latmos?  For that is Latmos.  There! put the drawings away!"

I had scarce tied the strings of the portfolio, when, looking at his
watch, he said abruptly--

"It is nine o'clock: what are you about, Miss Eyre, to let Adele sit up
so long?  Take her to bed."

Adele went to kiss him before quitting the room: he endured the caress,
but scarcely seemed to relish it more than Pilot would have done, nor so
much.

"I wish you all good-night, now," said he, making a movement of the hand
towards the door, in token that he was tired of our company, and wished
to dismiss us.  Mrs. Fairfax folded up her knitting: I took my portfolio:
we curtseyed to him, received a frigid bow in return, and so withdrew.

"You said Mr. Rochester was not strikingly peculiar, Mrs. Fairfax," I
observed, when I rejoined her in her room, after putting Adele to bed.

"Well, is he?"

"I think so: he is very changeful and abrupt."

"True: no doubt he may appear so to a stranger, but I am so accustomed to
his manner, I never think of it; and then, if he has peculiarities of
temper, allowance should be made."

"Why?"

"Partly because it is his nature--and we can none of us help our nature;
and partly because he has painful thoughts, no doubt, to harass him, and
make his spirits unequal."

"What about?"

"Family troubles, for one thing."

"But he has no family."

"Not now, but he has had--or, at least, relatives.  He lost his elder
brother a few years since."

"His _elder_ brother?"

"Yes.  The present Mr. Rochester has not been very long in possession of
the property; only about nine years."

"Nine years is a tolerable time.  Was he so very fond of his brother as
to be still inconsolable for his loss?"

"Why, no--perhaps not.  I believe there were some misunderstandings
between them.  Mr. Rowland Rochester was not quite just to Mr. Edward;
and perhaps he prejudiced his father against him.  The old gentleman was
fond of money, and anxious to keep the family estate together.  He did
not like to diminish the property by division, and yet he was anxious
that Mr. Edward should have wealth, too, to keep up the consequence of
the name; and, soon after he was of age, some steps were taken that were
not quite fair, and made a great deal of mischief.  Old Mr. Rochester and
Mr. Rowland combined to bring Mr. Edward into what he considered a
painful position, for the sake of making his fortune: what the precise
nature of that position was I never clearly knew, but his spirit could
not brook what he had to suffer in it.  He is not very forgiving: he
broke with his family, and now for many years he has led an unsettled
kind of life.  I don't think he has ever been resident at Thornfield for
a fortnight together, since the death of his brother without a will left
him master of the estate; and, indeed, no wonder he shuns the old place."

"Why should he shun it?"

"Perhaps he thinks it gloomy."

The answer was evasive.  I should have liked something clearer; but Mrs.
Fairfax either could not, or would not, give me more explicit information
of the origin and nature of Mr. Rochester's trials.  She averred they
were a mystery to herself, and that what she knew was chiefly from
conjecture.  It was evident, indeed, that she wished me to drop the
subject, which I did accordingly.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Jane doesn't see Mr. Rochester again that evening--he's in bed with his sprained ankle. She and Adele continue their lessons in a new upstairs room instead of the library, where Mr. Rochester is conducting business. Jane's excited about all the new activity in the household, all the people coming and going to see Mr. Rochester. The place is coming alive, and she prefers it that way. Adele is having a lot of trouble concentrating when she knows Mr. Rochester is downstairs--she keeps trying to sneak downstairs to see him or to guess what presents he might have brought her. Adele tells Jane that Mr. Rochester has been asking about her: especially what she looks like. In the early evening, Mr. Rochester invites Jane and Adele to have tea with him. Jane changes into her second-best dress, which is almost as plain as her regular dress, and puts on her only piece of jewelry, a simple pearl pin. As soon as she comes into the dining room, Jane recognizes Mr. Rochester as, of course, the stranger whom she helped after his horse slipped on the ice. Mr. Rochester is once again somewhat rude to Jane, or at least abrupt and preoccupied, but she prefers that to flattery and polished manners. Jane thinks it's more interesting this way. As Jane gives Rochester his teacup , Adele asks him if he has a present for Jane. He starts asking Jane whether she likes presents, and her subtle but saucy replies draw his interest. When he compliments her on how much she's taught Adele, she claims that that's the best gift she could have. Aww, how sweet. Mr. Rochester asks Jane about her past history; when he hears that she was at Lowood for eight years, he says that must be why she looks so eerie and unworldly. He compares her to the fairies and sprites of the wood, and suggests that she bewitched his horse to make it fall the day before. Mrs. Fairfax, who doesn't get the joke, is confused, but we're sure that you know just how serious Rochester actually is. Rochester keeps quizzing Jane about her background: she has no immediate family, came to Thornfield by answering Mrs. Fairfax's ad, has never lived in a town or known many people, and has only read the few books that were available to her here and there. She sounds pretty green, really. Once again Jane surprises Rochester, this time by being harsh and honest about Mr. Brocklehurst. Next Rochester examines Jane's various achievements, listening to her play the piano and examining her sketches. He, like Jane, is harsh and honest about the merits of her work; her piano playing, he says, is okay, but some of her sketches and paintings seem to really impress him--three of them in particular. The three of Jane's watercolors that Rochester finds really fascinating are each of landscapes that she painted from her imagination; one is of a stormy sea and a shipwreck with a corpse, one is of a grassy hill with the Evening Star personified as a shadowy woman, and one is of an icy arctic scene with a strange, pale, despairing figure in the foreground. Jane admits to Rochester that she enjoyed painting these images, but that she was "tormented by the contrast" between what she was actually able to paint and what she saw in her head. Rochester tells Jane that her paintings are intriguing and strange, but that she's not an artistic master. He keeps getting drawn in by the images, though, and seems to think that she's managed to paint real places without knowing it. Suddenly, Rochester sends Jane off to put Adele to bed, and retires for the night himself. Jane talks with Mrs. Fairfax about Rochester, who is far stranger than the housekeeper previously implied. Mrs. Fairfax tells Jane that they should make allowances for him because of his family problems: his elder brother died nine years before, and then he inherited the estate. Apparently, there was some sort of problem between the current Mr. Rochester, whose name is Edward; his brother, Rowland Rochester; and his father, Old Mr. Rochester. Old Mr. Rochester and Rowland put Edward in a bad position so that he would make money, but it's unclear what exactly happened. Now that his father and brother are gone, Mr. Edward Rochester tends to stay away from Thornfield and only visit it for short periods, perhaps because of bad memories. A mystery!


prompt:
Chapter: For several subsequent days I saw little of Mr. Rochester.  In the
mornings he seemed much engaged with business, and, in the afternoon,
gentlemen from Millcote or the neighbourhood called, and sometimes stayed
to dine with him.  When his sprain was well enough to admit of horse
exercise, he rode out a good deal; probably to return these visits, as he
generally did not come back till late at night.

During this interval, even Adele was seldom sent for to his presence, and
all my acquaintance with him was confined to an occasional rencontre in
the hall, on the stairs, or in the gallery, when he would sometimes pass
me haughtily and coldly, just acknowledging my presence by a distant nod
or a cool glance, and sometimes bow and smile with gentlemanlike
affability.  His changes of mood did not offend me, because I saw that I
had nothing to do with their alternation; the ebb and flow depended on
causes quite disconnected with me.

One day he had had company to dinner, and had sent for my portfolio; in
order, doubtless, to exhibit its contents: the gentlemen went away early,
to attend a public meeting at Millcote, as Mrs. Fairfax informed me; but
the night being wet and inclement, Mr. Rochester did not accompany them.
Soon after they were gone he rang the bell: a message came that I and
Adele were to go downstairs.  I brushed Adele's hair and made her neat,
and having ascertained that I was myself in my usual Quaker trim, where
there was nothing to retouch--all being too close and plain, braided
locks included, to admit of disarrangement--we descended, Adele wondering
whether the _petit coffre_ was at length come; for, owing to some
mistake, its arrival had hitherto been delayed.  She was gratified: there
it stood, a little carton, on the table when we entered the dining-room.
She appeared to know it by instinct.

"Ma boite! ma boite!" exclaimed she, running towards it.

"Yes, there is your 'boite' at last: take it into a corner, you genuine
daughter of Paris, and amuse yourself with disembowelling it," said the
deep and rather sarcastic voice of Mr. Rochester, proceeding from the
depths of an immense easy-chair at the fireside.  "And mind," he
continued, "don't bother me with any details of the anatomical process,
or any notice of the condition of the entrails: let your operation be
conducted in silence: tiens-toi tranquille, enfant; comprends-tu?"

Adele seemed scarcely to need the warning--she had already retired to a
sofa with her treasure, and was busy untying the cord which secured the
lid.  Having removed this impediment, and lifted certain silvery
envelopes of tissue paper, she merely exclaimed--

"Oh ciel!  Que c'est beau!" and then remained absorbed in ecstatic
contemplation.

"Is Miss Eyre there?" now demanded the master, half rising from his seat
to look round to the door, near which I still stood.

"Ah! well, come forward; be seated here."  He drew a chair near his own.
"I am not fond of the prattle of children," he continued; "for, old
bachelor as I am, I have no pleasant associations connected with their
lisp.  It would be intolerable to me to pass a whole evening
_tete-a-tete_ with a brat.  Don't draw that chair farther off, Miss Eyre;
sit down exactly where I placed it--if you please, that is.  Confound
these civilities!  I continually forget them.  Nor do I particularly
affect simple-minded old ladies.  By-the-bye, I must have mine in mind;
it won't do to neglect her; she is a Fairfax, or wed to one; and blood is
said to be thicker than water."

He rang, and despatched an invitation to Mrs. Fairfax, who soon arrived,
knitting-basket in hand.

"Good evening, madam; I sent to you for a charitable purpose.  I have
forbidden Adele to talk to me about her presents, and she is bursting
with repletion: have the goodness to serve her as auditress and
interlocutrice; it will be one of the most benevolent acts you ever
performed."

Adele, indeed, no sooner saw Mrs. Fairfax, than she summoned her to her
sofa, and there quickly filled her lap with the porcelain, the ivory, the
waxen contents of her "boite;" pouring out, meantime, explanations and
raptures in such broken English as she was mistress of.

"Now I have performed the part of a good host," pursued Mr. Rochester,
"put my guests into the way of amusing each other, I ought to be at
liberty to attend to my own pleasure.  Miss Eyre, draw your chair still a
little farther forward: you are yet too far back; I cannot see you
without disturbing my position in this comfortable chair, which I have no
mind to do."

I did as I was bid, though I would much rather have remained somewhat in
the shade; but Mr. Rochester had such a direct way of giving orders, it
seemed a matter of course to obey him promptly.

We were, as I have said, in the dining-room: the lustre, which had been
lit for dinner, filled the room with a festal breadth of light; the large
fire was all red and clear; the purple curtains hung rich and ample
before the lofty window and loftier arch; everything was still, save the
subdued chat of Adele (she dared not speak loud), and, filling up each
pause, the beating of winter rain against the panes.

Mr. Rochester, as he sat in his damask-covered chair, looked different to
what I had seen him look before; not quite so stern--much less gloomy.
There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes sparkled, whether with wine
or not, I am not sure; but I think it very probable.  He was, in short,
in his after-dinner mood; more expanded and genial, and also more self-
indulgent than the frigid and rigid temper of the morning; still he
looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against the swelling
back of his chair, and receiving the light of the fire on his granite-
hewn features, and in his great, dark eyes; for he had great, dark eyes,
and very fine eyes, too--not without a certain change in their depths
sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, at least, of that
feeling.

He had been looking two minutes at the fire, and I had been looking the
same length of time at him, when, turning suddenly, he caught my gaze
fastened on his physiognomy.

"You examine me, Miss Eyre," said he: "do you think me handsome?"

I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by
something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow slipped
from my tongue before I was aware--"No, sir."

"Ah!  By my word! there is something singular about you," said he: "you
have the air of a little _nonnette_; quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, as
you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the
carpet (except, by-the-bye, when they are directed piercingly to my face;
as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or makes a
remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round rejoinder,
which, if not blunt, is at least brusque.  What do you mean by it?"

"Sir, I was too plain; I beg your pardon.  I ought to have replied that
it was not easy to give an impromptu answer to a question about
appearances; that tastes mostly differ; and that beauty is of little
consequence, or something of that sort."

"You ought to have replied no such thing.  Beauty of little consequence,
indeed!  And so, under pretence of softening the previous outrage, of
stroking and soothing me into placidity, you stick a sly penknife under
my ear!  Go on: what fault do you find with me, pray?  I suppose I have
all my limbs and all my features like any other man?"

"Mr. Rochester, allow me to disown my first answer: I intended no pointed
repartee: it was only a blunder."

"Just so: I think so: and you shall be answerable for it.  Criticise me:
does my forehead not please you?"

He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over his
brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectual organs, but an
abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have risen.

"Now, ma'am, am I a fool?"

"Far from it, sir.  You would, perhaps, think me rude if I inquired in
return whether you are a philanthropist?"

"There again!  Another stick of the penknife, when she pretended to pat
my head: and that is because I said I did not like the society of
children and old women (low be it spoken!).  No, young lady, I am not a
general philanthropist; but I bear a conscience;" and he pointed to the
prominences which are said to indicate that faculty, and which,
fortunately for him, were sufficiently conspicuous; giving, indeed, a
marked breadth to the upper part of his head: "and, besides, I once had a
kind of rude tenderness of heart.  When I was as old as you, I was a
feeling fellow enough, partial to the unfledged, unfostered, and unlucky;
but Fortune has knocked me about since: she has even kneaded me with her
knuckles, and now I flatter myself I am hard and tough as an India-rubber
ball; pervious, though, through a chink or two still, and with one
sentient point in the middle of the lump.  Yes: does that leave hope for
me?"

"Hope of what, sir?"

"Of my final re-transformation from India-rubber back to flesh?"

"Decidedly he has had too much wine," I thought; and I did not know what
answer to make to his queer question: how could I tell whether he was
capable of being re-transformed?

"You looked very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not pretty
any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you; besides, it
is convenient, for it keeps those searching eyes of yours away from my
physiognomy, and busies them with the worsted flowers of the rug; so
puzzle on.  Young lady, I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative
to-night."

With this announcement he rose from his chair, and stood, leaning his arm
on the marble mantelpiece: in that attitude his shape was seen plainly as
well as his face; his unusual breadth of chest, disproportionate almost
to his length of limb.  I am sure most people would have thought him an
ugly man; yet there was so much unconscious pride in his port; so much
ease in his demeanour; such a look of complete indifference to his own
external appearance; so haughty a reliance on the power of other
qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere
personal attractiveness, that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared
the indifference, and, even in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the
confidence.

"I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night," he repeated,
"and that is why I sent for you: the fire and the chandelier were not
sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for none of these
can talk.  Adele is a degree better, but still far below the mark; Mrs.
Fairfax ditto; you, I am persuaded, can suit me if you will: you puzzled
me the first evening I invited you down here.  I have almost forgotten
you since: other ideas have driven yours from my head; but to-night I am
resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what importunes, and recall what
pleases.  It would please me now to draw you out--to learn more of
you--therefore speak."

Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or submissive
smile either.

"Speak," he urged.

"What about, sir?"

"Whatever you like.  I leave both the choice of subject and the manner of
treating it entirely to yourself."

Accordingly I sat and said nothing: "If he expects me to talk for the
mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has addressed
himself to the wrong person," I thought.

"You are dumb, Miss Eyre."

I was dumb still.  He bent his head a little towards me, and with a
single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes.

"Stubborn?" he said, "and annoyed.  Ah! it is consistent.  I put my
request in an absurd, almost insolent form.  Miss Eyre, I beg your
pardon.  The fact is, once for all, I don't wish to treat you like an
inferior: that is" (correcting himself), "I claim only such superiority
as must result from twenty years' difference in age and a century's
advance in experience.  This is legitimate, _et j'y tiens_, as Adele
would say; and it is by virtue of this superiority, and this alone, that
I desire you to have the goodness to talk to me a little now, and divert
my thoughts, which are galled with dwelling on one point--cankering as a
rusty nail."

He had deigned an explanation, almost an apology, and I did not feel
insensible to his condescension, and would not seem so.

"I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sir--quite willing; but I cannot
introduce a topic, because how do I know what will interest you?  Ask me
questions, and I will do my best to answer them."

"Then, in the first place, do you agree with me that I have a right to be
a little masterful, abrupt, perhaps exacting, sometimes, on the grounds I
stated, namely, that I am old enough to be your father, and that I have
battled through a varied experience with many men of many nations, and
roamed over half the globe, while you have lived quietly with one set of
people in one house?"

"Do as you please, sir."

"That is no answer; or rather it is a very irritating, because a very
evasive one.  Reply clearly."

"I don't think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you
are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have;
your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time
and experience."

"Humph!  Promptly spoken.  But I won't allow that, seeing that it would
never suit my case, as I have made an indifferent, not to say a bad, use
of both advantages.  Leaving superiority out of the question, then, you
must still agree to receive my orders now and then, without being piqued
or hurt by the tone of command.  Will you?"

I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester _is_ peculiar--he seems to
forget that he pays me 30 pounds per annum for receiving his orders.

"The smile is very well," said he, catching instantly the passing
expression; "but speak too."

"I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to
inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by
their orders."

"Paid subordinates!  What! you are my paid subordinate, are you?  Oh yes,
I had forgotten the salary!  Well then, on that mercenary ground, will
you agree to let me hector a little?"

"No, sir, not on that ground; but, on the ground that you did forget it,
and that you care whether or not a dependent is comfortable in his
dependency, I agree heartily."

"And will you consent to dispense with a great many conventional forms
and phrases, without thinking that the omission arises from insolence?"

"I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for insolence: one I
rather like, the other nothing free-born would submit to, even for a
salary."

"Humbug!  Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary;
therefore, keep to yourself, and don't venture on generalities of which
you are intensely ignorant.  However, I mentally shake hands with you for
your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in which
it was said, as for the substance of the speech; the manner was frank and
sincere; one does not often see such a manner: no, on the contrary,
affectation, or coldness, or stupid, coarse-minded misapprehension of
one's meaning are the usual rewards of candour.  Not three in three
thousand raw school-girl-governesses would have answered me as you have
just done.  But I don't mean to flatter you: if you are cast in a
different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours: Nature did it.
And then, after all, I go too fast in my conclusions: for what I yet
know, you may be no better than the rest; you may have intolerable
defects to counterbalance your few good points."

"And so may you," I thought.  My eye met his as the idea crossed my mind:
he seemed to read the glance, answering as if its import had been spoken
as well as imagined--

"Yes, yes, you are right," said he; "I have plenty of faults of my own: I
know it, and I don't wish to palliate them, I assure you.  God wot I need
not be too severe about others; I have a past existence, a series of
deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within my own breast, which might
well call my sneers and censures from my neighbours to myself.  I
started, or rather (for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the
blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a wrong
tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have never recovered the right
course since: but I might have been very different; I might have been as
good as you--wiser--almost as stainless.  I envy you your peace of mind,
your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory.  Little girl, a memory
without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure--an
inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?"

"How was your memory when you were eighteen, sir?"

"All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had turned it
to fetid puddle.  I was your equal at eighteen--quite your equal.  Nature
meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre; one of the better
kind, and you see I am not so.  You would say you don't see it; at least
I flatter myself I read as much in your eye (beware, by-the-bye, what you
express with that organ; I am quick at interpreting its language).  Then
take my word for it,--I am not a villain: you are not to suppose that--not
to attribute to me any such bad eminence; but, owing, I verily believe,
rather to circumstances than to my natural bent, I am a trite commonplace
sinner, hackneyed in all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich
and worthless try to put on life.  Do you wonder that I avow this to you?
Know, that in the course of your future life you will often find yourself
elected the involuntary confidant of your acquaintances' secrets: people
will instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to
tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they
will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their
indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not the less comforting
and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations."

"How do you know?--how can you guess all this, sir?"

"I know it well; therefore I proceed almost as freely as if I were
writing my thoughts in a diary.  You would say, I should have been
superior to circumstances; so I should--so I should; but you see I was
not.  When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I turned
desperate; then I degenerated.  Now, when any vicious simpleton excites
my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that I am
better than he: I am forced to confess that he and I are on a level.  I
wish I had stood firm--God knows I do!  Dread remorse when you are
tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life."

"Repentance is said to be its cure, sir."

"It is not its cure.  Reformation may be its cure; and I could reform--I
have strength yet for that--if--but where is the use of thinking of it,
hampered, burdened, cursed as I am?  Besides, since happiness is
irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life: and I
_will_ get it, cost what it may."

"Then you will degenerate still more, sir."

"Possibly: yet why should I, if I can get sweet, fresh pleasure?  And I
may get it as sweet and fresh as the wild honey the bee gathers on the
moor."

"It will sting--it will taste bitter, sir."

"How do you know?--you never tried it.  How very serious--how very solemn
you look: and you are as ignorant of the matter as this cameo head"
(taking one from the mantelpiece).  "You have no right to preach to me,
you neophyte, that have not passed the porch of life, and are absolutely
unacquainted with its mysteries."

"I only remind you of your own words, sir: you said error brought
remorse, and you pronounced remorse the poison of existence."

"And who talks of error now?  I scarcely think the notion that flittered
across my brain was an error.  I believe it was an inspiration rather
than a temptation: it was very genial, very soothing--I know that.  Here
it comes again!  It is no devil, I assure you; or if it be, it has put on
the robes of an angel of light.  I think I must admit so fair a guest
when it asks entrance to my heart."

"Distrust it, sir; it is not a true angel."

"Once more, how do you know?  By what instinct do you pretend to
distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger from the
eternal throne--between a guide and a seducer?"

"I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said the
suggestion had returned upon you.  I feel sure it will work you more
misery if you listen to it."

"Not at all--it bears the most gracious message in the world: for the
rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don't make yourself uneasy.
Here, come in, bonny wanderer!"

He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but his own;
then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his chest, he
seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being.

"Now," he continued, again addressing me, "I have received the pilgrim--a
disguised deity, as I verily believe.  Already it has done me good: my
heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine."

"To speak truth, sir, I don't understand you at all: I cannot keep up the
conversation, because it has got out of my depth.  Only one thing, I
know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that
you regretted your own imperfection;--one thing I can comprehend: you
intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane.  It seems
to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to
become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you
began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in
a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to
which you might revert with pleasure."

"Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am
paving hell with energy."

"Sir?"

"I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint.
Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have
been."

"And better?"

"And better--so much better as pure ore is than foul dross.  You seem to
doubt me; I don't doubt myself: I know what my aim is, what my motives
are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of the Medes
and Persians, that both are right."

"They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalise them."

"They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute:
unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules."

"That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once that it
is liable to abuse."

"Sententious sage! so it is: but I swear by my household gods not to
abuse it."

"You are human and fallible."

"I am: so are you--what then?"

"The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine
and perfect alone can be safely intrusted."

"What power?"

"That of saying of any strange, unsanctioned line of action,--'Let it be
right.'"

"'Let it be right'--the very words: you have pronounced them."

"_May_ it be right then," I said, as I rose, deeming it useless to
continue a discourse which was all darkness to me; and, besides, sensible
that the character of my interlocutor was beyond my penetration; at
least, beyond its present reach; and feeling the uncertainty, the vague
sense of insecurity, which accompanies a conviction of ignorance.

"Where are you going?"

"To put Adele to bed: it is past her bedtime."

"You are afraid of me, because I talk like a Sphynx."

"Your language is enigmatical, sir: but though I am bewildered, I am
certainly not afraid."

"You _are_ afraid--your self-love dreads a blunder."

"In that sense I do feel apprehensive--I have no wish to talk nonsense."

"If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should mistake
it for sense.  Do you never laugh, Miss Eyre?  Don't trouble yourself to
answer--I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily: believe
me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am naturally vicious.
The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; controlling your
features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear
in the presence of a man and a brother--or father, or master, or what you
will--to smile too gaily, speak too freely, or move too quickly: but, in
time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it
impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements
will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now.  I see at
intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars
of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but
free, it would soar cloud-high.  You are still bent on going?"

"It has struck nine, sir."

"Never mind,--wait a minute: Adele is not ready to go to bed yet.  My
position, Miss Eyre, with my back to the fire, and my face to the room,
favours observation.  While talking to you, I have also occasionally
watched Adele (I have my own reasons for thinking her a curious
study,--reasons that I may, nay, that I shall, impart to you some day).
She pulled out of her box, about ten minutes ago, a little pink silk
frock; rapture lit her face as she unfolded it; coquetry runs in her
blood, blends with her brains, and seasons the marrow of her bones.  'Il
faut que je l'essaie!' cried she, 'et a l'instant meme!' and she rushed
out of the room.  She is now with Sophie, undergoing a robing process: in
a few minutes she will re-enter; and I know what I shall see,--a
miniature of Celine Varens, as she used to appear on the boards at the
rising of--But never mind that.  However, my tenderest feelings are about
to receive a shock: such is my presentiment; stay now, to see whether it
will be realised."

Ere long, Adele's little foot was heard tripping across the hall.  She
entered, transformed as her guardian had predicted.  A dress of
rose-coloured satin, very short, and as full in the skirt as it could be
gathered, replaced the brown frock she had previously worn; a wreath of
rosebuds circled her forehead; her feet were dressed in silk stockings
and small white satin sandals.

"Est-ce que ma robe va bien?" cried she, bounding forwards; "et mes
souliers? et mes bas?  Tenez, je crois que je vais danser!"

And spreading out her dress, she chasseed across the room till, having
reached Mr. Rochester, she wheeled lightly round before him on tip-toe,
then dropped on one knee at his feet, exclaiming--

"Monsieur, je vous remercie mille fois de votre bonte;" then rising, she
added, "C'est comme cela que maman faisait, n'est-ce pas, monsieur?"

"Pre-cise-ly!" was the answer; "and, 'comme cela,' she charmed my English
gold out of my British breeches' pocket.  I have been green, too, Miss
Eyre,--ay, grass green: not a more vernal tint freshens you now than once
freshened me.  My Spring is gone, however, but it has left me that French
floweret on my hands, which, in some moods, I would fain be rid of.  Not
valuing now the root whence it sprang; having found that it was of a sort
which nothing but gold dust could manure, I have but half a liking to the
blossom, especially when it looks so artificial as just now.  I keep it
and rear it rather on the Roman Catholic principle of expiating numerous
sins, great or small, by one good work.  I'll explain all this some day.
Good-night."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: For a little while, Jane doesn't see Rochester much; he has a lot of business and goes out riding frequently. Sometimes he is haughty or cold, but she can tell that he's just moody, and that his attitude doesn't really have anything to do with her. One evening, Rochester sends for Jane and Adele after dinner. A box of presents that Rochester has bought for Adele has arrived, and he parks her in the corner with it, exactly the way some parents might park a kid in the corner with the TV to keep them busy. He calls in Mrs. Fairfax, so that Adele can talk to her about the presents while he talks to Jane. Rochester keeps insisting that Jane bring her chair closer to him instead of moving back into the shadows so that he can't see her face. He seems to be in a better mood than usual, but he's still not very good at being polite; he tends to order her around. Suddenly, because she is staring at him, Rochester asks Jane if she thinks he's handsome. Without thinking, she gives an honest answer: no. Jane's immediately sorry that she didn't say something more socially acceptable, like "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," but Rochester doesn't seem to mind--in fact, he seems glad that she's honest. He asks her to criticize him, and she examines his skull and face. Based on the shape of Rochester's skull, Jane suggests that he might not be very charitable--and, from his reaction, she's absolutely right. Rochester explains a little bit about himself, suggesting that, when he was younger, he used to give people the benefit of the doubt, but these days he's pretty jaded. He asks Jane if she thinks he can turn back into "flesh" , but she doesn't know enough about his past to make the call. He's glad, however, that he confused her, because it keeps her from staring piercingly at his face. This is really heating up! Too bad he's almost twice her age . Jane continues to think about Rochester's appearance; she thinks that a lot of people might find him ugly, but something about the way he carries himself makes him imposing. Rochester tells her that he's feeling chatty tonight, and orders Jane to chat with him about something. He's really not very good at this small-talk stuff. Jane doesn't know what he likes to talk about, so she doesn't say anything. Rochester tries to explain his attitude toward Jane a little; even though he's kind of abrupt and tends to order her to do things instead of asking, he doesn't want to treat her as an inferior. At least, he explains, he only considers himself her superior because he's so much older and more experienced than she is. And so he will sometimes order her around and be "masterful," he says, but she'll have to forgive him. Jane contradicts him: just because he's older and has done more doesn't mean he's wiser, she tells him. It depends on what he's done with those seventeen years he has on her; maybe he hasn't learned anything. He has to admit that she's right, but he still wants to be able to order her around sometimes, and tries to think of an excuse. Jane smiles at this--after all, he's paying her to take his orders, which he seems to have forgotten. She reminds him, and he leaps on this: will she agree to let him order her around a bit because she's getting paid? No, Jane says, getting paid isn't enough, but she will let him order her around simply because he was worried about her feelings and wanted her to be comfortable with how he treated her. Rochester presses the point: is it okay if he drops a lot of the polite nonsense? She won't just think he's being rude? Jane's a bit careful on this point; she's okay with him being informal, but not with him actually being a jerk. No salary would make up, she says, for actually being treated badly. Rochester thinks that a lot of people don't have Jane's principles and would let themselves get mistreated for money, but he's impressed with her answers, her tendency to stand up for herself, and her strong personality. Then Rochester changes his mind a little: Jane is unusual, he says, but maybe she has flaws that make up for her good points. Jane doesn't say anything, but it's clear that she's thinking the same thing about him. Rochester admits that he has a checkered past, but a lot of it he blames on the circumstances. Again, Jane doesn't know--and we don't yet know--exactly what he's talking about, but it sounds pretty sordid... and really interesting. Next Rochester tells Jane that one of her major roles in life is to listen. Did you ever have that one friend who somehow gets to hear everybody's personal problems? Like, they don't really ask, but something makes everyone tell that particular person everything? Rochester thinks Jane is going to be one of those people, but maybe he's just making excuses for having told her so much already. Rochester talks about remorse and regretting his past mistakes, whatever those are. Jane advises him to repent, and Rochester says that reform is better than repentance, but that there's something standing in the way of his reform. Jane says he'll just get worse and worse if he keeps grabbing for pleasure without changing, and that eventually his pleasures will sour anyway. He doesn't like being preached to and objects to this, but Jane holds her ground. Now Rochester tries to claim that the "temptation" he is feeling is actually an "inspiration," that it's an angel and not a devil. We're going crazy to know what the heck it is he's tempted to do. Jane tells him that it's still a temptation, no matter what he says, and he should resist. Rochester gets a bit over-excited here and dramatically mimes taking the "angel" or "demon" or whatever this idea is into himself. Jane's really confused at this point, but insists that, if Rochester feels like he's not a good person, that he should make a genuine effort to change. Rochester tells Jane that he is going to change, and that, if what he's doing is immoral, then he'll declare a new moral law to make it right. Jane claims that anything that needs morals to change in order to be okay is obviously immoral. They argue about ethics for a bit, and Jane keeps getting the better of him. Basically, Rochester really wants to do something, we don't know what, and Jane can tell from how he talks about it that it's wrong, even though she doesn't know what it is or why. Jane ends the conversation by getting up and going to put Adele to bed. Rochester is worried that he drove her away by saying such weird things, but she assures him that she's not afraid of him, even though she is a little confused. Rochester discerns that Jane isn't naturally so stern and repressed--it's the effect of Lowood, he says, and it will wear off. He describes her as a caged bird that wants to be free. She doesn't really say anything to this, but it seems a lot like how she described herself at the beginning of the last chapter. While Jane and Rochester have been talking, Adele has run out to try on one of the dresses that were among her new presents from Rochester. When she comes back and frolics around in the dress, she looks just like her mother. Rochester hints at his involvement with Adele's mother--Celine Varens. It's not clear yet what Rochester's actual relationship to Adele is, but if he was "involved" with her mother, then we can guess that maybe he's her pops.


prompt:
Chapter: Mr. Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it.  It was one
afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and Adele in the grounds: and while
she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked me to walk up and
down a long beech avenue within sight of her.

He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera-dancer, Celine
Varens, towards whom he had once cherished what he called a "_grande
passion_."  This passion Celine had professed to return with even
superior ardour.  He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was: he
believed, as he said, that she preferred his "_taille d'athlete_" to the
elegance of the Apollo Belvidere.

"And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of the Gallic
sylph for her British gnome, that I installed her in an hotel; gave her a
complete establishment of servants, a carriage, cashmeres, diamonds,
dentelles, &c.  In short, I began the process of ruining myself in the
received style, like any other spoony.  I had not, it seems, the
originality to chalk out a new road to shame and destruction, but trode
the old track with stupid exactness not to deviate an inch from the
beaten centre.  I had--as I deserved to have--the fate of all other
spoonies.  Happening to call one evening when Celine did not expect me, I
found her out; but it was a warm night, and I was tired with strolling
through Paris, so I sat down in her boudoir; happy to breathe the air
consecrated so lately by her presence.  No,--I exaggerate; I never
thought there was any consecrating virtue about her: it was rather a sort
of pastille perfume she had left; a scent of musk and amber, than an
odour of sanctity.  I was just beginning to stifle with the fumes of
conservatory flowers and sprinkled essences, when I bethought myself to
open the window and step out on to the balcony.  It was moonlight and
gaslight besides, and very still and serene.  The balcony was furnished
with a chair or two; I sat down, and took out a cigar,--I will take one
now, if you will excuse me."

Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a cigar;
having placed it to his lips and breathed a trail of Havannah incense on
the freezing and sunless air, he went on--

"I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was
_croquant_--(overlook the barbarism)--_croquant_ chocolate comfits, and
smoking alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled along
the fashionable streets towards the neighbouring opera-house, when in an
elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses, and
distinctly seen in the brilliant city-night, I recognised the 'voiture' I
had given Celine.  She was returning: of course my heart thumped with
impatience against the iron rails I leant upon.  The carriage stopped, as
I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame (that is the very word for an
opera inamorata) alighted: though muffed in a cloak--an unnecessary
encumbrance, by-the-bye, on so warm a June evening--I knew her instantly
by her little foot, seen peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she
skipped from the carriage-step.  Bending over the balcony, I was about to
murmur 'Mon ange'--in a tone, of course, which should be audible to the
ear of love alone--when a figure jumped from the carriage after her;
cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the pavement,
and that was a hatted head which now passed under the arched _porte
cochere_ of the hotel.

"You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre?  Of course not: I need not
ask you; because you never felt love.  You have both sentiments yet to
experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall
waken it.  You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in
which your youth has hitherto slid away.  Floating on with closed eyes
and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the
bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base.  But I tell
you--and you may mark my words--you will come some day to a craggy pass
in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into
whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on
crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer
current--as I am now.

"I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and
stillness of the world under this frost.  I like Thornfield, its
antiquity, its retirement, its old crow-trees and thorn-trees, its grey
facade, and lines of dark windows reflecting that metal welkin: and yet
how long have I abhorred the very thought of it, shunned it like a great
plague-house?  How I do still abhor--"

He ground his teeth and was silent: he arrested his step and struck his
boot against the hard ground.  Some hated thought seemed to have him in
its grip, and to hold him so tightly that he could not advance.

We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was before us.
Lifting his eye to its battlements, he cast over them a glare such as I
never saw before or since.  Pain, shame, ire, impatience, disgust,
detestation, seemed momentarily to hold a quivering conflict in the large
pupil dilating under his ebon eyebrow.  Wild was the wrestle which should
be paramount; but another feeling rose and triumphed: something hard and
cynical: self-willed and resolute: it settled his passion and petrified
his countenance: he went on--

"During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point with
my destiny.  She stood there, by that beech-trunk--a hag like one of
those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres.  'You like
Thornfield?' she said, lifting her finger; and then she wrote in the air
a memento, which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all along the house-front,
between the upper and lower row of windows, 'Like it if you can!  Like it
if you dare!'

"'I will like it,' said I; 'I dare like it;' and" (he subjoined moodily)
"I will keep my word; I will break obstacles to happiness, to
goodness--yes, goodness.  I wish to be a better man than I have been,
than I am; as Job's leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the
habergeon, hindrances which others count as iron and brass, I will esteem
but straw and rotten wood."

Adele here ran before him with her shuttlecock.  "Away!" he cried
harshly; "keep at a distance, child; or go in to Sophie!"  Continuing
then to pursue his walk in silence, I ventured to recall him to the point
whence he had abruptly diverged--

"Did you leave the balcony, sir," I asked, "when Mdlle. Varens entered?"

I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed question, but, on
the contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his eyes
towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow.  "Oh, I had
forgotten Celine!  Well, to resume.  When I saw my charmer thus come in
accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake
of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from the moonlit balcony, glided
within my waistcoat, and ate its way in two minutes to my heart's core.
Strange!" he exclaimed, suddenly starting again from the point.  "Strange
that I should choose you for the confidant of all this, young lady;
passing strange that you should listen to me quietly, as if it were the
most usual thing in the world for a man like me to tell stories of his
opera-mistresses to a quaint, inexperienced girl like you!  But the last
singularity explains the first, as I intimated once before: you, with
your gravity, considerateness, and caution were made to be the recipient
of secrets.  Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in
communication with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection:
it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one.  Happily I do not mean to harm
it: but, if I did, it would not take harm from me.  The more you and I
converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me."
After this digression he proceeded--

"I remained in the balcony.  'They will come to her boudoir, no doubt,'
thought I: 'let me prepare an ambush.'  So putting my hand in through the
open window, I drew the curtain over it, leaving only an opening through
which I could take observations; then I closed the casement, all but a
chink just wide enough to furnish an outlet to lovers' whispered vows:
then I stole back to my chair; and as I resumed it the pair came in.  My
eye was quickly at the aperture.  Celine's chamber-maid entered, lit a
lamp, left it on the table, and withdrew.  The couple were thus revealed
to me clearly: both removed their cloaks, and there was 'the Varens,'
shining in satin and jewels,--my gifts of course,--and there was her
companion in an officer's uniform; and I knew him for a young roue of a
vicomte--a brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in
society, and had never thought of hating because I despised him so
absolutely.  On recognising him, the fang of the snake Jealousy was
instantly broken; because at the same moment my love for Celine sank
under an extinguisher.  A woman who could betray me for such a rival was
not worth contending for; she deserved only scorn; less, however, than I,
who had been her dupe.

"They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely: frivolous,
mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather calculated to weary
than enrage a listener.  A card of mine lay on the table; this being
perceived, brought my name under discussion.  Neither of them possessed
energy or wit to belabour me soundly, but they insulted me as coarsely as
they could in their little way: especially Celine, who even waxed rather
brilliant on my personal defects--deformities she termed them.  Now it
had been her custom to launch out into fervent admiration of what she
called my '_beaute male_:' wherein she differed diametrically from you,
who told me point-blank, at the second interview, that you did not think
me handsome.  The contrast struck me at the time and--"

Adele here came running up again.

"Monsieur, John has just been to say that your agent has called and
wishes to see you."

"Ah! in that case I must abridge.  Opening the window, I walked in upon
them; liberated Celine from my protection; gave her notice to vacate her
hotel; offered her a purse for immediate exigencies; disregarded screams,
hysterics, prayers, protestations, convulsions; made an appointment with
the vicomte for a meeting at the Bois de Boulogne.  Next morning I had
the pleasure of encountering him; left a bullet in one of his poor
etiolated arms, feeble as the wing of a chicken in the pip, and then
thought I had done with the whole crew.  But unluckily the Varens, six
months before, had given me this filette Adele, who, she affirmed, was my
daughter; and perhaps she may be, though I see no proofs of such grim
paternity written in her countenance: Pilot is more like me than she.
Some years after I had broken with the mother, she abandoned her child,
and ran away to Italy with a musician or singer.  I acknowledged no
natural claim on Adele's part to be supported by me, nor do I now
acknowledge any, for I am not her father; but hearing that she was quite
destitute, I e'en took the poor thing out of the slime and mud of Paris,
and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an
English country garden.  Mrs. Fairfax found you to train it; but now you
know that it is the illegitimate offspring of a French opera-girl, you
will perhaps think differently of your post and protegee: you will be
coming to me some day with notice that you have found another place--that
you beg me to look out for a new governess, &c.--Eh?"

"No: Adele is not answerable for either her mother's faults or yours: I
have a regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a sense,
parentless--forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir--I shall
cling closer to her than before.  How could I possibly prefer the spoilt
pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as a nuisance, to a
lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend?"

"Oh, that is the light in which you view it!  Well, I must go in now; and
you too: it darkens."

But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adele and Pilot--ran a race
with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock.  When we went
in, and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee; kept
her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked: not rebuking
even some little freedoms and trivialities into which she was apt to
stray when much noticed, and which betrayed in her a superficiality of
character, inherited probably from her mother, hardly congenial to an
English mind.  Still she had her merits; and I was disposed to appreciate
all that was good in her to the utmost.  I sought in her countenance and
features a likeness to Mr. Rochester, but found none: no trait, no turn
of expression announced relationship.  It was a pity: if she could but
have been proved to resemble him, he would have thought more of her.

It was not till after I had withdrawn to my own chamber for the night,
that I steadily reviewed the tale Mr. Rochester had told me.  As he had
said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the substance of
the narrative itself: a wealthy Englishman's passion for a French dancer,
and her treachery to him, were every-day matters enough, no doubt, in
society; but there was something decidedly strange in the paroxysm of
emotion which had suddenly seized him when he was in the act of
expressing the present contentment of his mood, and his newly revived
pleasure in the old hall and its environs.  I meditated wonderingly on
this incident; but gradually quitting it, as I found it for the present
inexplicable, I turned to the consideration of my master's manner to
myself.  The confidence he had thought fit to repose in me seemed a
tribute to my discretion: I regarded and accepted it as such.  His
deportment had now for some weeks been more uniform towards me than at
the first.  I never seemed in his way; he did not take fits of chilling
hauteur: when he met me unexpectedly, the encounter seemed welcome; he
had always a word and sometimes a smile for me: when summoned by formal
invitation to his presence, I was honoured by a cordiality of reception
that made me feel I really possessed the power to amuse him, and that
these evening conferences were sought as much for his pleasure as for my
benefit.

I, indeed, talked comparatively little, but I heard him talk with relish.
It was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open to a mind
unacquainted with the world glimpses of its scenes and ways (I do not
mean its corrupt scenes and wicked ways, but such as derived their
interest from the great scale on which they were acted, the strange
novelty by which they were characterised); and I had a keen delight in
receiving the new ideas he offered, in imagining the new pictures he
portrayed, and following him in thought through the new regions he
disclosed, never startled or troubled by one noxious allusion.

The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly
frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to
him.  I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than my master:
yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not mind that; I saw it
was his way.  So happy, so gratified did I become with this new interest
added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred: my thin
crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of existence were filled
up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and strength.

And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes?  No, reader: gratitude, and
many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I
best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the
brightest fire.  Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I could not,
for he brought them frequently before me.  He was proud, sardonic, harsh
to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul I knew that his
great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many others.  He
was moody, too; unaccountably so; I more than once, when sent for to read
to him, found him sitting in his library alone, with his head bent on his
folded arms; and, when he looked up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl
blackened his features.  But I believed that his moodiness, his
harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say _former_, for now he
seemed corrected of them) had their source in some cruel cross of fate.  I
believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies, higher principles,
and purer tastes than such as circumstances had developed, education
instilled, or destiny encouraged.  I thought there were excellent
materials in him; though for the present they hung together somewhat
spoiled and tangled.  I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief,
whatever that was, and would have given much to assuage it.

Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I could
not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue, and told
how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to be happy at
Thornfield.

"Why not?" I asked myself.  "What alienates him from the house?  Will he
leave it again soon?  Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed here longer than
a fortnight at a time; and he has now been resident eight weeks.  If he
does go, the change will be doleful.  Suppose he should be absent spring,
summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will seem!"

I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any rate,
I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and lugubrious,
which sounded, I thought, just above me.  I wished I had kept my candle
burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits were depressed.  I rose
and sat up in bed, listening.  The sound was hushed.

I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward
tranquillity was broken.  The clock, far down in the hall, struck two.
Just then it seemed my chamber-door was touched; as if fingers had swept
the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery outside.  I said, "Who
is there?"  Nothing answered.  I was chilled with fear.

All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the kitchen-
door chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way up to the
threshold of Mr. Rochester's chamber: I had seen him lying there myself
in the mornings.  The idea calmed me somewhat: I lay down.  Silence
composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now reigned again through
the whole house, I began to feel the return of slumber.  But it was not
fated that I should sleep that night.  A dream had scarcely approached my
ear, when it fled affrighted, scared by a marrow-freezing incident
enough.

This was a demoniac laugh--low, suppressed, and deep--uttered, as it
seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door.  The head of my bed was
near the door, and I thought at first the goblin-laugher stood at my
bedside--or rather, crouched by my pillow: but I rose, looked round, and
could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural sound was
reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels.  My first impulse
was to rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to cry out, "Who is
there?"

Something gurgled and moaned.  Ere long, steps retreated up the gallery
towards the third-storey staircase: a door had lately been made to shut
in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all was still.

"Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?" thought I.
Impossible now to remain longer by myself: I must go to Mrs. Fairfax.  I
hurried on my frock and a shawl; I withdrew the bolt and opened the door
with a trembling hand.  There was a candle burning just outside, and on
the matting in the gallery.  I was surprised at this circumstance: but
still more was I amazed to perceive the air quite dim, as if filled with
smoke; and, while looking to the right hand and left, to find whence
these blue wreaths issued, I became further aware of a strong smell of
burning.

Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr. Rochester's,
and the smoke rushed in a cloud from thence.  I thought no more of Mrs.
Fairfax; I thought no more of Grace Poole, or the laugh: in an instant, I
was within the chamber.  Tongues of flame darted round the bed: the
curtains were on fire.  In the midst of blaze and vapour, Mr. Rochester
lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep.

"Wake! wake!" I cried.  I shook him, but he only murmured and turned: the
smoke had stupefied him.  Not a moment could be lost: the very sheets
were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one was wide
and the other deep, and both were filled with water.  I heaved them up,
deluged the bed and its occupant, flew back to my own room, brought my
own water-jug, baptized the couch afresh, and, by God's aid, succeeded in
extinguishing the flames which were devouring it.

The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I flung
from my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash of the
shower-bath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr. Rochester at last.
Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him
fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself lying in a pool of
water.

"Is there a flood?" he cried.

"No, sir," I answered; "but there has been a fire: get up, do; you are
quenched now; I will fetch you a candle."

"In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?" he
demanded.  "What have you done with me, witch, sorceress?  Who is in the
room besides you?  Have you plotted to drown me?"

"I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven's name, get up.  Somebody
has plotted something: you cannot too soon find out who and what it is."

"There!  I am up now; but at your peril you fetch a candle yet: wait two
minutes till I get into some dry garments, if any dry there be--yes, here
is my dressing-gown.  Now run!"

I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the gallery.  He
took it from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the bed, all blackened and
scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet round swimming in water.

"What is it? and who did it?" he asked.  I briefly related to him what
had transpired: the strange laugh I had heard in the gallery: the step
ascending to the third storey; the smoke,--the smell of fire which had
conducted me to his room; in what state I had found matters there, and
how I had deluged him with all the water I could lay hands on.

{"What is it and who did it?" he asked: p140.jpg}

He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more concern
than astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had concluded.

"Shall I call Mrs. Fairfax?" I asked.

"Mrs. Fairfax?  No; what the deuce would you call her for?  What can she
do?  Let her sleep unmolested."

"Then I will fetch Leah, and wake John and his wife."

"Not at all: just be still.  You have a shawl on.  If you are not warm
enough, you may take my cloak yonder; wrap it about you, and sit down in
the arm-chair: there,--I will put it on.  Now place your feet on the
stool, to keep them out of the wet.  I am going to leave you a few
minutes.  I shall take the candle.  Remain where you are till I return;
be as still as a mouse.  I must pay a visit to the second storey.  Don't
move, remember, or call any one."

He went: I watched the light withdraw.  He passed up the gallery very
softly, unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as possible,
shut it after him, and the last ray vanished.  I was left in total
darkness.  I listened for some noise, but heard nothing.  A very long
time elapsed.  I grew weary: it was cold, in spite of the cloak; and then
I did not see the use of staying, as I was not to rouse the house.  I was
on the point of risking Mr. Rochester's displeasure by disobeying his
orders, when the light once more gleamed dimly on the gallery wall, and I
heard his unshod feet tread the matting.  "I hope it is he," thought I,
"and not something worse."

He re-entered, pale and very gloomy.  "I have found it all out," said he,
setting his candle down on the washstand; "it is as I thought."

"How, sir?"

He made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, looking on the ground.
At the end of a few minutes he inquired in rather a peculiar tone--

"I forget whether you said you saw anything when you opened your chamber
door."

"No, sir, only the candlestick on the ground."

"But you heard an odd laugh?  You have heard that laugh before, I should
think, or something like it?"

"Yes, sir: there is a woman who sews here, called Grace Poole,--she
laughs in that way.  She is a singular person."

"Just so.  Grace Poole--you have guessed it.  She is, as you say,
singular--very.  Well, I shall reflect on the subject.  Meantime, I am
glad that you are the only person, besides myself, acquainted with the
precise details of to-night's incident.  You are no talking fool: say
nothing about it.  I will account for this state of affairs" (pointing to
the bed): "and now return to your own room.  I shall do very well on the
sofa in the library for the rest of the night.  It is near four:--in two
hours the servants will be up."

"Good-night, then, sir," said I, departing.

He seemed surprised--very inconsistently so, as he had just told me to
go.

"What!" he exclaimed, "are you quitting me already, and in that way?"

"You said I might go, sir."

"But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of
acknowledgment and good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry fashion.
Why, you have saved my life!--snatched me from a horrible and
excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual strangers!
At least shake hands."

He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one, them in
both his own.

"You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a
debt.  I cannot say more.  Nothing else that has being would have been
tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an obligation: but
you: it is different;--I feel your benefits no burden, Jane."

He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips,--but
his voice was checked.

"Good-night again, sir.  There is no debt, benefit, burden, obligation,
in the case."

"I knew," he continued, "you would do me good in some way, at some
time;--I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression
and smile did not"--(again he stopped)--"did not" (he proceeded hastily)
"strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing.  People talk of
natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of truth
in the wildest fable.  My cherished preserver, goodnight!"

Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look.

"I am glad I happened to be awake," I said: and then I was going.

"What! you _will_ go?"

"I am cold, sir."

"Cold?  Yes,--and standing in a pool!  Go, then, Jane; go!"  But he still
retained my hand, and I could not free it.  I bethought myself of an
expedient.

"I think I hear Mrs. Fairfax move, sir," said I.

"Well, leave me:" he relaxed his fingers, and I was gone.

I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep.  Till morning dawned I
was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled
under surges of joy.  I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a
shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a freshening gale,
wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards the bourne: but I
could not reach it, even in fancy--a counteracting breeze blew off land,
and continually drove me back.  Sense would resist delirium: judgment
would warn passion.  Too feverish to rest, I rose as soon as day dawned.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: One day, while Rochester and Jane are walking in the garden outside Thornfield, Rochester explains his relationship to Adele's mother, Celine Varens, more explicitly. It's a pretty exciting story, so sit back as Rochester begins his tale: Celine was a French opera-dancer with whom Rochester fell in love--and he thought she loved him, too. Rochester became Celine's sugar daddy: he paid for her to live in an expensive hotel and have lots of servants and every possible luxury. In fact, all this was almost too expensive even for the wealthy Rochester, and he was well on his way to spending his whole fortune on her. One evening, Rochester went to Celine's place and she was out, so he sat on the balcony waiting for her. He saw her come back to the hotel in the carriage he was paying for... with another guy. Rochester breaks into his own story to comment on the way jealousy poisons everything--for a long time he even hated being at Thornfield because... he stops before telling us why. There's a long pause while Rochester and Jane stroll along the path and Rochester seems to be wrestling with himself. He tells Jane that he is fighting with a witchy specter of his destiny, and that now he's defying her and daring to enjoy being at Thornfield. Adele comes close to Rochester and Jane as she's playing, and Rochester orders her away. Jane prompts him to continue his story. Before Rochester continues, he notes again how strange it is that he's telling all this to Jane--what kind of guy tells his eighteen-year-old employee about his sordid affair with a French mistress? But he knows, he says, that Jane is made to be a confidante, and that what he's telling her won't hurt her and may help him. Then he continues the story: Rochester stayed hidden on the balcony behind the curtains, waiting for Celine and her lover to come in. Celine and the other guy entered, and Rochester stopped being jealous, because the guy was a cruel idiot Rochester had met before. Rochester decided right away that Celine wasn't worth his time if she would have an affair with such a loser. Rochester continued to hide and listen to them, but was mostly bored by their lame conversation. He was a bit irritated when they started insulting him behind his back, especially because Celine used to compliment him to his face constantly. Adele runs up and interrupts the story, saying that someone has come to see Mr. Rochester. Rochester quickly finishes the story for Jane: Rochester walked in, turned Celine out in the street with a little money to see her through the next few days, and arranged a duel with the lover the next day, at which he shot the guy in the arm. And that was that. But Rochester couldn't just wash his hands of the whole thing because, six months earlier, Celine had given birth to Adele. She claimed that Adele was Rochester's daughter. He doesn't think so, but she could be. Several years later, Celine abandoned Adele and ran off to Italy with another guy. Rochester still didn't think Adele was his daughter , but he felt sorry for her and brought her back to England to grow up under better circumstances. Having finished the story, Rochester asks Jane if now she feels differently about her job as Adele's governess. Jane answers that she cares even more about the girl now that she knows Adele is practically an orphan. Rochester goes in, and Jane stays outside playing with her pupil and the dog. She is more tender to Adele after hearing the story. That evening, as she's going to sleep, Jane thinks about what Rochester told her. Most of the story, she decides, is common enough, but the moment where Rochester freaked out while thinking about Thornfield still seems weird. Still, she can't explain it, so she starts thinking about something else--how Rochester treats her. Jane's glad that Rochester trusts her so much and that he always seems pleased to see her. He still does most of the talking when they're together, but she likes to learn from him and respond to his thoughts. She feels like they're family, not master and servant. Jane decides that Rochester has it in him to be a good person and hopes that she can help him deal with his past, whatever it might be. And Jane wonders--a bit ominously, we think--how long he'll be able to stay at Thornfield before whatever it is that he hates about the place crops up again. She knows she'll really regret it if he leaves. Lying awake in bed worrying, Jane hears something strange. She tries to tell herself that it's nothing, but then she hears the demonic laugh that usually comes from the attic. Someone is outside her bedroom door! Jane gets up, locks the door, and demands to know who's there. There's no answer, but she hears footsteps walking away. Determined to talk to Mrs. Fairfax, Jane unbolts the door and leaves the room--only to discover a lit candle sitting outside her door and the hallway filled with smoke. The door to Mr. Rochester's room is open, and the smoke is billowing out of it. Hardly thinking, Jane runs into Rochester's room, where she finds the bed curtains on fire. She tries to shake Rochester awake, but he's already half unconscious from inhaling the smoke, so she's forced to throw a nearby basin of water over him. She manages to put out most of the fire and wake him up. Rochester's first reaction is to swear, and his second one is to call Jane a fairy and a sorceress. Jane runs to get the candle from the hall, and she and Rochester look at the wet, scorched bed. She tells him about the laugh she heard and how she came to find him there. Strangely, Rochester's not surprised--just worried. Jane asks if she should call Mrs. Fairfax or someone else, but Rochester instructs her to stay in his room alone while he goes up to the third floor with the candle. After a long time, while Jane sits in the dark waiting for him, Rochester comes back and says that it's just what he thought happened... but he doesn't explain this thought to Jane. Rochester makes sure that Jane didn't see anything, and then accepts her theory that it is the seamstress Grace Poole who caused the damage. He tells Jane to say nothing about the whole incident. When Jane starts to leave, Rochester stops her, takes her hand, and thanks her for saving his life. He seems to want to say something else, but he doesn't... and he won't let go of her hand. Eventually, Jane convinces Rochester that she has to leave before Mrs. Fairfax comes, and he releases her. Jane goes back to bed, but, unsurprisingly, she can't sleep.