prompt:
Chapter: _1 November._--All day long we have travelled, and at a good speed. The
horses seem to know that they are being kindly treated, for they go
willingly their full stage at best speed. We have now had so many
changes and find the same thing so constantly that we are encouraged to
think that the journey will be an easy one. Dr. Van Helsing is laconic;
he tells the farmers that he is hurrying to Bistritz, and pays them well
to make the exchange of horses. We get hot soup, or coffee, or tea; and
off we go. It is a lovely country; full of beauties of all imaginable
kinds, and the people are brave, and strong, and simple, and seem full
of nice qualities. They are _very, very_ superstitious. In the first
house where we stopped, when the woman who served us saw the scar on my
forehead, she crossed herself and put out two fingers towards me, to
keep off the evil eye. I believe they went to the trouble of putting an
extra amount of garlic into our food; and I can't abide garlic. Ever
since then I have taken care not to take off my hat or veil, and so have
escaped their suspicions. We are travelling fast, and as we have no
driver with us to carry tales, we go ahead of scandal; but I daresay
that fear of the evil eye will follow hard behind us all the way. The
Professor seems tireless; all day he would not take any rest, though he
made me sleep for a long spell. At sunset time he hypnotised me, and he
says that I answered as usual "darkness, lapping water and creaking
wood"; so our enemy is still on the river. I am afraid to think of
Jonathan, but somehow I have now no fear for him, or for myself. I write
this whilst we wait in a farmhouse for the horses to be got ready. Dr.
Van Helsing is sleeping, Poor dear, he looks very tired and old and
grey, but his mouth is set as firmly as a conqueror's; even in his sleep
he is instinct with resolution. When we have well started I must make
him rest whilst I drive. I shall tell him that we have days before us,
and we must not break down when most of all his strength will be
needed.... All is ready; we are off shortly.

       *       *       *       *       *

_2 November, morning._--I was successful, and we took turns driving all
night; now the day is on us, bright though cold. There is a strange
heaviness in the air--I say heaviness for want of a better word; I mean
that it oppresses us both. It is very cold, and only our warm furs keep
us comfortable. At dawn Van Helsing hypnotised me; he says I answered
"darkness, creaking wood and roaring water," so the river is changing as
they ascend. I do hope that my darling will not run any chance of
danger--more than need be; but we are in God's hands.

       *       *       *       *       *

_2 November, night._--All day long driving. The country gets wilder as
we go, and the great spurs of the Carpathians, which at Veresti seemed
so far from us and so low on the horizon, now seem to gather round us
and tower in front. We both seem in good spirits; I think we make an
effort each to cheer the other; in the doing so we cheer ourselves. Dr.
Van Helsing says that by morning we shall reach the Borgo Pass. The
houses are very few here now, and the Professor says that the last horse
we got will have to go on with us, as we may not be able to change. He
got two in addition to the two we changed, so that now we have a rude
four-in-hand. The dear horses are patient and good, and they give us no
trouble. We are not worried with other travellers, and so even I can
drive. We shall get to the Pass in daylight; we do not want to arrive
before. So we take it easy, and have each a long rest in turn. Oh, what
will to-morrow bring to us? We go to seek the place where my poor
darling suffered so much. God grant that we may be guided aright, and
that He will deign to watch over my husband and those dear to us both,
and who are in such deadly peril. As for me, I am not worthy in His
sight. Alas! I am unclean to His eyes, and shall be until He may deign
to let me stand forth in His sight as one of those who have not incurred
His wrath.

_Memorandum by Abraham Van Helsing._

_4 November._--This to my old and true friend John Seward, M.D., of
Purfleet, London, in case I may not see him. It may explain. It is
morning, and I write by a fire which all the night I have kept
alive--Madam Mina aiding me. It is cold, cold; so cold that the grey
heavy sky is full of snow, which when it falls will settle for all
winter as the ground is hardening to receive it. It seems to have
affected Madam Mina; she has been so heavy of head all day that she was
not like herself. She sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps! She who is usual
so alert, have done literally nothing all the day; she even have lost
her appetite. She make no entry into her little diary, she who write so
faithful at every pause. Something whisper to me that all is not well.
However, to-night she is more _vif_. Her long sleep all day have refresh
and restore her, for now she is all sweet and bright as ever. At sunset
I try to hypnotise her, but alas! with no effect; the power has grown
less and less with each day, and to-night it fail me altogether. Well,
God's will be done--whatever it may be, and whithersoever it may lead!

Now to the historical, for as Madam Mina write not in her stenography, I
must, in my cumbrous old fashion, that so each day of us may not go
unrecorded.

We got to the Borgo Pass just after sunrise yesterday morning. When I
saw the signs of the dawn I got ready for the hypnotism. We stopped our
carriage, and got down so that there might be no disturbance. I made a
couch with furs, and Madam Mina, lying down, yield herself as usual, but
more slow and more short time than ever, to the hypnotic sleep. As
before, came the answer: "darkness and the swirling of water." Then she
woke, bright and radiant and we go on our way and soon reach the Pass.
At this time and place, she become all on fire with zeal; some new
guiding power be in her manifested, for she point to a road and say:--

"This is the way."

"How know you it?" I ask.

"Of course I know it," she answer, and with a pause, add: "Have not my
Jonathan travelled it and wrote of his travel?"

At first I think somewhat strange, but soon I see that there be only one
such by-road. It is used but little, and very different from the coach
road from the Bukovina to Bistritz, which is more wide and hard, and
more of use.

So we came down this road; when we meet other ways--not always were we
sure that they were roads at all, for they be neglect and light snow
have fallen--the horses know and they only. I give rein to them, and
they go on so patient. By-and-by we find all the things which Jonathan
have note in that wonderful diary of him. Then we go on for long, long
hours and hours. At the first, I tell Madam Mina to sleep; she try, and
she succeed. She sleep all the time; till at the last, I feel myself to
suspicious grow, and attempt to wake her. But she sleep on, and I may
not wake her though I try. I do not wish to try too hard lest I harm
her; for I know that she have suffer much, and sleep at times be
all-in-all to her. I think I drowse myself, for all of sudden I feel
guilt, as though I have done something; I find myself bolt up, with the
reins in my hand, and the good horses go along jog, jog, just as ever. I
look down and find Madam Mina still sleep. It is now not far off sunset
time, and over the snow the light of the sun flow in big yellow flood,
so that we throw great long shadow on where the mountain rise so steep.
For we are going up, and up; and all is oh! so wild and rocky, as though
it were the end of the world.

Then I arouse Madam Mina. This time she wake with not much trouble, and
then I try to put her to hypnotic sleep. But she sleep not, being as
though I were not. Still I try and try, till all at once I find her and
myself in dark; so I look round, and find that the sun have gone down.
Madam Mina laugh, and I turn and look at her. She is now quite awake,
and look so well as I never saw her since that night at Carfax when we
first enter the Count's house. I am amaze, and not at ease then; but she
is so bright and tender and thoughtful for me that I forget all fear. I
light a fire, for we have brought supply of wood with us, and she
prepare food while I undo the horses and set them, tethered in shelter,
to feed. Then when I return to the fire she have my supper ready. I go
to help her; but she smile, and tell me that she have eat already--that
she was so hungry that she would not wait. I like it not, and I have
grave doubts; but I fear to affright her, and so I am silent of it. She
help me and I eat alone; and then we wrap in fur and lie beside the
fire, and I tell her to sleep while I watch. But presently I forget all
of watching; and when I sudden remember that I watch, I find her lying
quiet, but awake, and looking at me with so bright eyes. Once, twice
more the same occur, and I get much sleep till before morning. When I
wake I try to hypnotise her; but alas! though she shut her eyes
obedient, she may not sleep. The sun rise up, and up, and up; and then
sleep come to her too late, but so heavy that she will not wake. I have
to lift her up, and place her sleeping in the carriage when I have
harnessed the horses and made all ready. Madam still sleep, and she look
in her sleep more healthy and more redder than before. And I like it
not. And I am afraid, afraid, afraid!--I am afraid of all things--even
to think but I must go on my way. The stake we play for is life and
death, or more than these, and we must not flinch.

       *       *       *       *       *

_5 November, morning._--Let me be accurate in everything, for though you
and I have seen some strange things together, you may at the first think
that I, Van Helsing, am mad--that the many horrors and the so long
strain on nerves has at the last turn my brain.

All yesterday we travel, ever getting closer to the mountains, and
moving into a more and more wild and desert land. There are great,
frowning precipices and much falling water, and Nature seem to have held
sometime her carnival. Madam Mina still sleep and sleep; and though I
did have hunger and appeased it, I could not waken her--even for food. I
began to fear that the fatal spell of the place was upon her, tainted as
she is with that Vampire baptism. "Well," said I to myself, "if it be
that she sleep all the day, it shall also be that I do not sleep at
night." As we travel on the rough road, for a road of an ancient and
imperfect kind there was, I held down my head and slept. Again I waked
with a sense of guilt and of time passed, and found Madam Mina still
sleeping, and the sun low down. But all was indeed changed; the frowning
mountains seemed further away, and we were near the top of a
steep-rising hill, on summit of which was such a castle as Jonathan tell
of in his diary. At once I exulted and feared; for now, for good or ill,
the end was near.

I woke Madam Mina, and again tried to hypnotise her; but alas!
unavailing till too late. Then, ere the great dark came upon us--for
even after down-sun the heavens reflected the gone sun on the snow, and
all was for a time in a great twilight--I took out the horses and fed
them in what shelter I could. Then I make a fire; and near it I make
Madam Mina, now awake and more charming than ever, sit comfortable amid
her rugs. I got ready food: but she would not eat, simply saying that
she had not hunger. I did not press her, knowing her unavailingness. But
I myself eat, for I must needs now be strong for all. Then, with the
fear on me of what might be, I drew a ring so big for her comfort, round
where Madam Mina sat; and over the ring I passed some of the wafer, and
I broke it fine so that all was well guarded. She sat still all the
time--so still as one dead; and she grew whiter and ever whiter till the
snow was not more pale; and no word she said. But when I drew near, she
clung to me, and I could know that the poor soul shook her from head to
feet with a tremor that was pain to feel. I said to her presently, when
she had grown more quiet:--

"Will you not come over to the fire?" for I wished to make a test of
what she could. She rose obedient, but when she have made a step she
stopped, and stood as one stricken.

"Why not go on?" I asked. She shook her head, and, coming back, sat
down in her place. Then, looking at me with open eyes, as of one waked
from sleep, she said simply:--

"I cannot!" and remained silent. I rejoiced, for I knew that what she
could not, none of those that we dreaded could. Though there might be
danger to her body, yet her soul was safe!

Presently the horses began to scream, and tore at their tethers till I
came to them and quieted them. When they did feel my hands on them, they
whinnied low as in joy, and licked at my hands and were quiet for a
time. Many times through the night did I come to them, till it arrive to
the cold hour when all nature is at lowest; and every time my coming was
with quiet of them. In the cold hour the fire began to die, and I was
about stepping forth to replenish it, for now the snow came in flying
sweeps and with it a chill mist. Even in the dark there was a light of
some kind, as there ever is over snow; and it seemed as though the
snow-flurries and the wreaths of mist took shape as of women with
trailing garments. All was in dead, grim silence only that the horses
whinnied and cowered, as if in terror of the worst. I began to
fear--horrible fears; but then came to me the sense of safety in that
ring wherein I stood. I began, too, to think that my imaginings were of
the night, and the gloom, and the unrest that I have gone through, and
all the terrible anxiety. It was as though my memories of all Jonathan's
horrid experience were befooling me; for the snow flakes and the mist
began to wheel and circle round, till I could get as though a shadowy
glimpse of those women that would have kissed him. And then the horses
cowered lower and lower, and moaned in terror as men do in pain. Even
the madness of fright was not to them, so that they could break away. I
feared for my dear Madam Mina when these weird figures drew near and
circled round. I looked at her, but she sat calm, and smiled at me; when
I would have stepped to the fire to replenish it, she caught me and held
me back, and whispered, like a voice that one hears in a dream, so low
it was:--

"No! No! Do not go without. Here you are safe!" I turned to her, and
looking in her eyes, said:--

"But you? It is for you that I fear!" whereat she laughed--a laugh, low
and unreal, and said:--

"Fear for _me_! Why fear for me? None safer in all the world from them
than I am," and as I wondered at the meaning of her words, a puff of
wind made the flame leap up, and I see the red scar on her forehead.
Then, alas! I knew. Did I not, I would soon have learned, for the
wheeling figures of mist and snow came closer, but keeping ever without
the Holy circle. Then they began to materialise till--if God have not
take away my reason, for I saw it through my eyes--there were before me
in actual flesh the same three women that Jonathan saw in the room, when
they would have kissed his throat. I knew the swaying round forms, the
bright hard eyes, the white teeth, the ruddy colour, the voluptuous
lips. They smiled ever at poor dear Madam Mina; and as their laugh came
through the silence of the night, they twined their arms and pointed to
her, and said in those so sweet tingling tones that Jonathan said were
of the intolerable sweetness of the water-glasses:--

"Come, sister. Come to us. Come! Come!" In fear I turned to my poor
Madam Mina, and my heart with gladness leapt like flame; for oh! the
terror in her sweet eyes, the repulsion, the horror, told a story to my
heart that was all of hope. God be thanked she was not, yet, of them. I
seized some of the firewood which was by me, and holding out some of the
Wafer, advanced on them towards the fire. They drew back before me, and
laughed their low horrid laugh. I fed the fire, and feared them not; for
I knew that we were safe within our protections. They could not
approach, me, whilst so armed, nor Madam Mina whilst she remained within
the ring, which she could not leave no more than they could enter. The
horses had ceased to moan, and lay still on the ground; the snow fell on
them softly, and they grew whiter. I knew that there was for the poor
beasts no more of terror.

And so we remained till the red of the dawn to fall through the
snow-gloom. I was desolate and afraid, and full of woe and terror; but
when that beautiful sun began to climb the horizon life was to me again.
At the first coming of the dawn the horrid figures melted in the
whirling mist and snow; the wreaths of transparent gloom moved away
towards the castle, and were lost.

Instinctively, with the dawn coming, I turned to Madam Mina, intending
to hypnotise her; but she lay in a deep and sudden sleep, from which I
could not wake her. I tried to hypnotise through her sleep, but she made
no response, none at all; and the day broke. I fear yet to stir. I have
made my fire and have seen the horses, they are all dead. To-day I have
much to do here, and I keep waiting till the sun is up high; for there
may be places where I must go, where that sunlight, though snow and mist
obscure it, will be to me a safety.

I will strengthen me with breakfast, and then I will to my terrible
work. Madam Mina still sleeps; and, God be thanked! she is calm in her
sleep....

_Jonathan Harker's Journal._

_4 November, evening._--The accident to the launch has been a terrible
thing for us. Only for it we should have overtaken the boat long ago;
and by now my dear Mina would have been free. I fear to think of her,
off on the wolds near that horrid place. We have got horses, and we
follow on the track. I note this whilst Godalming is getting ready. We
have our arms. The Szgany must look out if they mean fight. Oh, if only
Morris and Seward were with us. We must only hope! If I write no more
Good-bye, Mina! God bless and keep you.

_Dr. Seward's Diary._

_5 November._--With the dawn we saw the body of Szgany before us dashing
away from the river with their leiter-wagon. They surrounded it in a
cluster, and hurried along as though beset. The snow is falling lightly
and there is a strange excitement in the air. It may be our own
feelings, but the depression is strange. Far off I hear the howling of
wolves; the snow brings them down from the mountains, and there are
dangers to all of us, and from all sides. The horses are nearly ready,
and we are soon off. We ride to death of some one. God alone knows who,
or where, or what, or when, or how it may be....

_Dr. Van Helsing's Memorandum._

_5 November, afternoon._--I am at least sane. Thank God for that mercy
at all events, though the proving it has been dreadful. When I left
Madam Mina sleeping within the Holy circle, I took my way to the castle.
The blacksmith hammer which I took in the carriage from Veresti was
useful; though the doors were all open I broke them off the rusty
hinges, lest some ill-intent or ill-chance should close them, so that
being entered I might not get out. Jonathan's bitter experience served
me here. By memory of his diary I found my way to the old chapel, for I
knew that here my work lay. The air was oppressive; it seemed as if
there was some sulphurous fume, which at times made me dizzy. Either
there was a roaring in my ears or I heard afar off the howl of wolves.
Then I bethought me of my dear Madam Mina, and I was in terrible plight.
The dilemma had me between his horns.

Her, I had not dare to take into this place, but left safe from the
Vampire in that Holy circle; and yet even there would be the wolf! I
resolve me that my work lay here, and that as to the wolves we must
submit, if it were God's will. At any rate it was only death and
freedom beyond. So did I choose for her. Had it but been for myself the
choice had been easy, the maw of the wolf were better to rest in than
the grave of the Vampire! So I make my choice to go on with my work.

I knew that there were at least three graves to find--graves that are
inhabit; so I search, and search, and I find one of them. She lay in her
Vampire sleep, so full of life and voluptuous beauty that I shudder as
though I have come to do murder. Ah, I doubt not that in old time, when
such things were, many a man who set forth to do such a task as mine,
found at the last his heart fail him, and then his nerve. So he delay,
and delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and the fascination of the
wanton Un-Dead have hypnotise him; and he remain on and on, till sunset
come, and the Vampire sleep be over. Then the beautiful eyes of the fair
woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a
kiss--and man is weak. And there remain one more victim in the Vampire
fold; one more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the Un-Dead!...

There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere presence
of such an one, even lying as she lay in a tomb fretted with age and
heavy with the dust of centuries, though there be that horrid odour such
as the lairs of the Count have had. Yes, I was moved--I, Van Helsing,
with all my purpose and with my motive for hate--I was moved to a
yearning for delay which seemed to paralyse my faculties and to clog my
very soul. It may have been that the need of natural sleep, and the
strange oppression of the air were beginning to overcome me. Certain it
was that I was lapsing into sleep, the open-eyed sleep of one who yields
to a sweet fascination, when there came through the snow-stilled air a
long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound
of a clarion. For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that I heard.

Then I braced myself again to my horrid task, and found by wrenching
away tomb-tops one other of the sisters, the other dark one. I dared not
pause to look on her as I had on her sister, lest once more I should
begin to be enthrall; but I go on searching until, presently, I find in
a high great tomb as if made to one much beloved that other fair sister
which, like Jonathan I had seen to gather herself out of the atoms of
the mist. She was so fair to look on, so radiantly beautiful, so
exquisitely voluptuous, that the very instinct of man in me, which calls
some of my sex to love and to protect one of hers, made my head whirl
with new emotion. But God be thanked, that soul-wail of my dear Madam
Mina had not died out of my ears; and, before the spell could be wrought
further upon me, I had nerved myself to my wild work. By this time I had
searched all the tombs in the chapel, so far as I could tell; and as
there had been only three of these Un-Dead phantoms around us in the
night, I took it that there were no more of active Un-Dead existent.
There was one great tomb more lordly than all the rest; huge it was, and
nobly proportioned. On it was but one word

                                DRACULA.

This then was the Un-Dead home of the King-Vampire, to whom so many more
were due. Its emptiness spoke eloquent to make certain what I knew.
Before I began to restore these women to their dead selves through my
awful work, I laid in Dracula's tomb some of the Wafer, and so banished
him from it, Un-Dead, for ever.

Then began my terrible task, and I dreaded it. Had it been but one, it
had been easy, comparative. But three! To begin twice more after I had
been through a deed of horror; for if it was terrible with the sweet
Miss Lucy, what would it not be with these strange ones who had survived
through centuries, and who had been strengthened by the passing of the
years; who would, if they could, have fought for their foul lives....

Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work; had I not been nerved by
thoughts of other dead, and of the living over whom hung such a pall of
fear, I could not have gone on. I tremble and tremble even yet, though
till all was over, God be thanked, my nerve did stand. Had I not seen
the repose in the first place, and the gladness that stole over it just
ere the final dissolution came, as realisation that the soul had been
won, I could not have gone further with my butchery. I could not have
endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home; the plunging of
writhing form, and lips of bloody foam. I should have fled in terror and
left my work undone. But it is over! And the poor souls, I can pity them
now and weep, as I think of them placid each in her full sleep of death
for a short moment ere fading. For, friend John, hardly had my knife
severed the head of each, before the whole body began to melt away and
crumble in to its native dust, as though the death that should have come
centuries agone had at last assert himself and say at once and loud "I
am here!"

Before I left the castle I so fixed its entrances that never more can
the Count enter there Un-Dead.

When I stepped into the circle where Madam Mina slept, she woke from her
sleep, and, seeing, me, cried out in pain that I had endured too much.

"Come!" she said, "come away from this awful place! Let us go to meet my
husband who is, I know, coming towards us." She was looking thin and
pale and weak; but her eyes were pure and glowed with fervour. I was
glad to see her paleness and her illness, for my mind was full of the
fresh horror of that ruddy vampire sleep.

And so with trust and hope, and yet full of fear, we go eastward to meet
our friends--and _him_--whom Madam Mina tell me that she _know_ are
coming to meet us.

_Mina Harker's Journal._

_6 November._--It was late in the afternoon when the Professor and I
took our way towards the east whence I knew Jonathan was coming. We did
not go fast, though the way was steeply downhill, for we had to take
heavy rugs and wraps with us; we dared not face the possibility of being
left without warmth in the cold and the snow. We had to take some of our
provisions, too, for we were in a perfect desolation, and, so far as we
could see through the snowfall, there was not even the sign of
habitation. When we had gone about a mile, I was tired with the heavy
walking and sat down to rest. Then we looked back and saw where the
clear line of Dracula's castle cut the sky; for we were so deep under
the hill whereon it was set that the angle of perspective of the
Carpathian mountains was far below it. We saw it in all its grandeur,
perched a thousand feet on the summit of a sheer precipice, and with
seemingly a great gap between it and the steep of the adjacent mountain
on any side. There was something wild and uncanny about the place. We
could hear the distant howling of wolves. They were far off, but the
sound, even though coming muffled through the deadening snowfall, was
full of terror. I knew from the way Dr. Van Helsing was searching about
that he was trying to seek some strategic point, where we would be less
exposed in case of attack. The rough roadway still led downwards; we
could trace it through the drifted snow.

In a little while the Professor signalled to me, so I got up and joined
him. He had found a wonderful spot, a sort of natural hollow in a rock,
with an entrance like a doorway between two boulders. He took me by the
hand and drew me in: "See!" he said, "here you will be in shelter; and
if the wolves do come I can meet them one by one." He brought in our
furs, and made a snug nest for me, and got out some provisions and
forced them upon me. But I could not eat; to even try to do so was
repulsive to me, and, much as I would have liked to please him, I could
not bring myself to the attempt. He looked very sad, but did not
reproach me. Taking his field-glasses from the case, he stood on the top
of the rock, and began to search the horizon. Suddenly he called out:--

"Look! Madam Mina, look! look!" I sprang up and stood beside him on the
rock; he handed me his glasses and pointed. The snow was now falling
more heavily, and swirled about fiercely, for a high wind was beginning
to blow. However, there were times when there were pauses between the
snow flurries and I could see a long way round. From the height where we
were it was possible to see a great distance; and far off, beyond the
white waste of snow, I could see the river lying like a black ribbon in
kinks and curls as it wound its way. Straight in front of us and not far
off--in fact, so near that I wondered we had not noticed before--came a
group of mounted men hurrying along. In the midst of them was a cart, a
long leiter-wagon which swept from side to side, like a dog's tail
wagging, with each stern inequality of the road. Outlined against the
snow as they were, I could see from the men's clothes that they were
peasants or gypsies of some kind.

On the cart was a great square chest. My heart leaped as I saw it, for I
felt that the end was coming. The evening was now drawing close, and
well I knew that at sunset the Thing, which was till then imprisoned
there, would take new freedom and could in any of many forms elude all
pursuit. In fear I turned to the Professor; to my consternation,
however, he was not there. An instant later, I saw him below me. Round
the rock he had drawn a circle, such as we had found shelter in last
night. When he had completed it he stood beside me again, saying:--

"At least you shall be safe here from _him_!" He took the glasses from
me, and at the next lull of the snow swept the whole space below us.
"See," he said, "they come quickly; they are flogging the horses, and
galloping as hard as they can." He paused and went on in a hollow
voice:--

"They are racing for the sunset. We may be too late. God's will be
done!" Down came another blinding rush of driving snow, and the whole
landscape was blotted out. It soon passed, however, and once more his
glasses were fixed on the plain. Then came a sudden cry:--

"Look! Look! Look! See, two horsemen follow fast, coming up from the
south. It must be Quincey and John. Take the glass. Look before the snow
blots it all out!" I took it and looked. The two men might be Dr. Seward
and Mr. Morris. I knew at all events that neither of them was Jonathan.
At the same time I _knew_ that Jonathan was not far off; looking around
I saw on the north side of the coming party two other men, riding at
break-neck speed. One of them I knew was Jonathan, and the other I took,
of course, to be Lord Godalming. They, too, were pursuing the party with
the cart. When I told the Professor he shouted in glee like a schoolboy,
and, after looking intently till a snow fall made sight impossible, he
laid his Winchester rifle ready for use against the boulder at the
opening of our shelter. "They are all converging," he said. "When the
time comes we shall have gypsies on all sides." I got out my revolver
ready to hand, for whilst we were speaking the howling of wolves came
louder and closer. When the snow storm abated a moment we looked again.
It was strange to see the snow falling in such heavy flakes close to us,
and beyond, the sun shining more and more brightly as it sank down
towards the far mountain tops. Sweeping the glass all around us I could
see here and there dots moving singly and in twos and threes and larger
numbers--the wolves were gathering for their prey.

Every instant seemed an age whilst we waited. The wind came now in
fierce bursts, and the snow was driven with fury as it swept upon us in
circling eddies. At times we could not see an arm's length before us;
but at others, as the hollow-sounding wind swept by us, it seemed to
clear the air-space around us so that we could see afar off. We had of
late been so accustomed to watch for sunrise and sunset, that we knew
with fair accuracy when it would be; and we knew that before long the
sun would set. It was hard to believe that by our watches it was less
than an hour that we waited in that rocky shelter before the various
bodies began to converge close upon us. The wind came now with fiercer
and more bitter sweeps, and more steadily from the north. It seemingly
had driven the snow clouds from us, for, with only occasional bursts,
the snow fell. We could distinguish clearly the individuals of each
party, the pursued and the pursuers. Strangely enough those pursued did
not seem to realise, or at least to care, that they were pursued; they
seemed, however, to hasten with redoubled speed as the sun dropped lower
and lower on the mountain tops.

Closer and closer they drew. The Professor and I crouched down behind
our rock, and held our weapons ready; I could see that he was determined
that they should not pass. One and all were quite unaware of our
presence.

All at once two voices shouted out to: "Halt!" One was my Jonathan's,
raised in a high key of passion; the other Mr. Morris' strong resolute
tone of quiet command. The gypsies may not have known the language, but
there was no mistaking the tone, in whatever tongue the words were
spoken. Instinctively they reined in, and at the instant Lord Godalming
and Jonathan dashed up at one side and Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris on the
other. The leader of the gypsies, a splendid-looking fellow who sat his
horse like a centaur, waved them back, and in a fierce voice gave to his
companions some word to proceed. They lashed the horses which sprang
forward; but the four men raised their Winchester rifles, and in an
unmistakable way commanded them to stop. At the same moment Dr. Van
Helsing and I rose behind the rock and pointed our weapons at them.
Seeing that they were surrounded the men tightened their reins and drew
up. The leader turned to them and gave a word at which every man of the
gypsy party drew what weapon he carried, knife or pistol, and held
himself in readiness to attack. Issue was joined in an instant.

The leader, with a quick movement of his rein, threw his horse out in
front, and pointing first to the sun--now close down on the hill
tops--and then to the castle, said something which I did not understand.
For answer, all four men of our party threw themselves from their horses
and dashed towards the cart. I should have felt terrible fear at seeing
Jonathan in such danger, but that the ardour of battle must have been
upon me as well as the rest of them; I felt no fear, but only a wild,
surging desire to do something. Seeing the quick movement of our
parties, the leader of the gypsies gave a command; his men instantly
formed round the cart in a sort of undisciplined endeavour, each one
shouldering and pushing the other in his eagerness to carry out the
order.

In the midst of this I could see that Jonathan on one side of the ring
of men, and Quincey on the other, were forcing a way to the cart; it was
evident that they were bent on finishing their task before the sun
should set. Nothing seemed to stop or even to hinder them. Neither the
levelled weapons nor the flashing knives of the gypsies in front, nor
the howling of the wolves behind, appeared to even attract their
attention. Jonathan's impetuosity, and the manifest singleness of his
purpose, seemed to overawe those in front of him; instinctively they
cowered, aside and let him pass. In an instant he had jumped upon the
cart, and, with a strength which seemed incredible, raised the great
box, and flung it over the wheel to the ground. In the meantime, Mr.
Morris had had to use force to pass through his side of the ring of
Szgany. All the time I had been breathlessly watching Jonathan I had,
with the tail of my eye, seen him pressing desperately forward, and had
seen the knives of the gypsies flash as he won a way through them, and
they cut at him. He had parried with his great bowie knife, and at first
I thought that he too had come through in safety; but as he sprang
beside Jonathan, who had by now jumped from the cart, I could see that
with his left hand he was clutching at his side, and that the blood was
spurting through his fingers. He did not delay notwithstanding this, for
as Jonathan, with desperate energy, attacked one end of the chest,
attempting to prize off the lid with his great Kukri knife, he attacked
the other frantically with his bowie. Under the efforts of both men the
lid began to yield; the nails drew with a quick screeching sound, and
the top of the box was thrown back.

By this time the gypsies, seeing themselves covered by the Winchesters,
and at the mercy of Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward, had given in and made
no resistance. The sun was almost down on the mountain tops, and the
shadows of the whole group fell long upon the snow. I saw the Count
lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from
the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen
image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I
knew too well.

As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them
turned to triumph.

But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife.
I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same
moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart.

It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the
drawing of a breath, the whole body crumble into dust and passed from
our sight.

I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final
dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never
could have imagined might have rested there.

The Castle of Dracula now stood out against the red sky, and every stone
of its broken battlements was articulated against the light of the
setting sun.

The gypsies, taking us as in some way the cause of the extraordinary
disappearance of the dead man, turned, without a word, and rode away as
if for their lives. Those who were unmounted jumped upon the
leiter-wagon and shouted to the horsemen not to desert them. The wolves,
which had withdrawn to a safe distance, followed in their wake, leaving
us alone.

Mr. Morris, who had sunk to the ground, leaned on his elbow, holding his
hand pressed to his side; the blood still gushed through his fingers. I
flew to him, for the Holy circle did not now keep me back; so did the
two doctors. Jonathan knelt behind him and the wounded man laid back his
head on his shoulder. With a sigh he took, with a feeble effort, my hand
in that of his own which was unstained. He must have seen the anguish of
my heart in my face, for he smiled at me and said:--

"I am only too happy to have been of any service! Oh, God!" he cried
suddenly, struggling up to a sitting posture and pointing to me, "It was
worth for this to die! Look! look!"

The sun was now right down upon the mountain top, and the red gleams
fell upon my face, so that it was bathed in rosy light. With one impulse
the men sank on their knees and a deep and earnest "Amen" broke from all
as their eyes followed the pointing of his finger. The dying man
spoke:--

"Now God be thanked that all has not been in vain! See! the snow is not
more stainless than her forehead! The curse has passed away!"

And, to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died, a
gallant gentleman.

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

completion: Van Helsing and Mina approach Castle Dracula, meeting with many superstitious members of the local populace along the way. As they draw ever closer to the vampire's home, Van Helsing discovers that he is unable to hypnotize Mina any longer. Disturbingly, she knows the way through the Borgo Pass to the castle--ostensibly because she has read the diary her husband kept, but also because the vampire's influence over her has grown so great. Further evidence of this fact are her increasingly well appearance and her lengthening periods of sleep. When the pair moves into wilderness land, Van Helsing draws around Mina a "magic ring" to protect her from evil. The professor, alas, is in somewhat more danger: as they appeared to Jonathan Harker before, so do Dracula's "brides" now appear to Van Helsing, enticing him to succumb to their lustful but lethal advances. The wielding of the Eucharistic Wafer repels them--but, once Van Helsing has broken into Castle Dracula, he sees the vampiric brides again, lying in their crypts, and he struggles mightily, just as did Harker, to resist the temptation to submit to them. Fortunately--Van Helsing implicitly attributes the timing to God's providence--he hears Mina, left behind safe in the magic ring, cry out, and he is renewed in his mission. He locates Dracula's tomb and inserts the Communion Wafer, banishing the vampire from his final refuge forever. He also stakes and beheads each of Dracula's three brides. Late in the afternoon of November 6 , amidst a swirling snowstorm and the increasingly loud howling of wild wolves, Mina and Van Helsing watch as gypsies are bringing a large box--the last earth-box, containing Dracula--toward the Castle. They are pursued, however, by Quincey Morris, Dr. Sewad, Harker and Arthur. The men surround the gypsies, attacking the cart. Harker and Morris pry open its lid; Jonathan slits Dracula's throat, and Morris plunges his knife into Dracula's chest. The vampire crumbles to dust. Morris, however, has been fatally wounded in the struggle against the gypsies, and dies of blood loss. He does not expire, however, before seeing that Mina has been freed from Dracula's curse. The mark on her brow has vanished.


prompt:
Chapter: There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.  We had been
wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but
since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold
winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so
penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly
afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with
nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie,
the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to
Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama
in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with
her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying)
looked perfectly happy.  Me, she had dispensed from joining the group;
saying, "She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a
distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her
own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a
more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly
manner--something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were--she really
must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy,
little children."

"What does Bessie say I have done?" I asked.

"Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something
truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner.  Be
seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent."

A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there.  It
contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care
that it should be one stored with pictures.  I mounted into the window-
seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having
drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double
retirement.

Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left
were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the
drear November day.  At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my
book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon.  Afar, it offered a
pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat
shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and
lamentable blast.

I returned to my book--Bewick's History of British Birds: the letterpress
thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet there were
certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite
as a blank.  They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl; of
"the solitary rocks and promontories" by them only inhabited; of the
coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern extremity, the
Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape--

   "Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls,
   Boils round the naked, melancholy isles
   Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge
   Pours in among the stormy Hebrides."

Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland,
Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with "the vast
sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space,--that
reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation
of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround
the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold."  Of
these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all
the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children's brains,
but strangely impressive.  The words in these introductory pages
connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance
to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken
boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing
through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.

I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard, with
its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low horizon,
girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent, attesting the
hour of eventide.

The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine phantoms.

The fiend pinning down the thief's pack behind him, I passed over
quickly: it was an object of terror.

So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant
crowd surrounding a gallows.

Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped
understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: as
interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings,
when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having brought her
ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and
while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and crimped her nightcap
borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure
taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a later period I
discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.

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

"Boh!  Madam Mope!" cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he
found the room apparently empty.

"Where the dickens is she!" he continued.  "Lizzy!  Georgy! (calling to
his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into the rain--bad
animal!"

"It is well I drew the curtain," thought I; and I wished fervently he
might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it out
himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza just
put her head in at the door, and said at once--

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

And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged
forth by the said Jack.

"What do you want?" I asked, with awkward diffidence.

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

John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I,
for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and
unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and
large extremities.  He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him
bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks.  He ought
now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home for a month
or two, "on account of his delicate health."  Mr. Miles, the master,
affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats
sent him from home; but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so
harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John's
sallowness was owing to over-application and, perhaps, to pining after
home.

John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy
to me.  He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week,
nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared
him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near.
There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired,
because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his
inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young master by
taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the
subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did
both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind
her back.

Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent some three
minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without
damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the
blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would
presently deal it.  I wonder if he read that notion in my face; for, all
at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly.  I tottered,
and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his
chair.

"That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since," said he,
"and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the look
you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!"

Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it;
my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the
insult.

"What were you doing behind the curtain?" he asked.

"I was reading."

"Show the book."

I returned to the window and fetched it thence.

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

I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him
lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively
started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume
was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and
cutting it.  The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its
climax; other feelings succeeded.

"Wicked and cruel boy!" I said.  "You are like a murderer--you are like a
slave-driver--you are like the Roman emperors!"

I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of
Nero, Caligula, etc.  Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never
thought thus to have declared aloud.

"What! what!" he cried.  "Did she say that to me?  Did you hear her,
Eliza and Georgiana?  Won't I tell mama? but first--"

He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had
closed with a desperate thing.  I really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer.
I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck, and was
sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations for the time
predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic sort.  I don't very
well know what I did with my hands, but he called me "Rat!  Rat!" and
bellowed out aloud.  Aid was near him: Eliza and Georgiana had run for
Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed
by Bessie and her maid Abbot.  We were parted: I heard the words--

"Dear! dear!  What a fury to fly at Master John!"

"Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!"

Then Mrs. Reed subjoined--

"Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there."  Four hands were
immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs.

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

completion: The novel begins with the ten-year-old Jane Eyre narrating from the home of the well-off Reed family in Gateshead Hall. Mr. Reed, Jane's uncle, took her into his home after both of her parents died of typhus fever, but he soon died himself. Mrs. Reed was particularly resentful of her husband's favoritism toward Jane and takes every opportunity to neglect and punish her. At the beginning of the narrative, Jane is secluded behind the curtains of a window seat and reading Bewick's "History of British Birds. Although she attempted to join the rest of the family, she was refused permission by Mrs. Reed to play with her cousins Eliza, John, and Georgiana. Although the family mistreats her, Jane still wishes that she could have the same attention and love that her cousins receive from her aunt. The bullying John interrupts Jane's reading and informs her that she has no right to read their books because she is an orphan who is dependent on his family. He strikes her with the book, and Jane surprises him by fighting to defend herself. John is frightened by Jane's zeal and blames her for the fight. As punishment for Jane's inappropriate behavior, Mrs. Reed has two servants lock her in the "red-room," the room in which Mr. Reed died.


prompt:
Chapter: I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance which
greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed
to entertain of me.  The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; or rather
_out_ of myself, as the French would say: I was conscious that a moment's
mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any
other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.

"Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she's like a mad cat."

"For shame! for shame!" cried the lady's-maid.  "What shocking conduct,
Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress's son!  Your
young master."

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

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

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

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

Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature.  This
preparation for bonds, and the additional ignominy it inferred, took a
little of the excitement out of me.

"Don't take them off," I cried; "I will not stir."

In guarantee whereof, I attached myself to my seat by my hands.

"Mind you don't," said Bessie; and when she had ascertained that I was
really subsiding, she loosened her hold of me; then she and Miss Abbot
stood with folded arms, looking darkly and doubtfully on my face, as
incredulous of my sanity.

"She never did so before," at last said Bessie, turning to the Abigail.

"But it was always in her," was the reply.  "I've told Missis often my
opinion about the child, and Missis agreed with me.  She's an underhand
little thing: I never saw a girl of her age with so much cover."

Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said--"You ought to
be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps
you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poorhouse."

I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very
first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind.  This
reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear: very
painful and crushing, but only half intelligible.  Miss Abbot joined in--

"And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed
and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be brought up with
them.  They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none: it
is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself agreeable to
them."

"What we tell you is for your good," added Bessie, in no harsh voice,
"you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you would have
a home here; but if you become passionate and rude, Missis will send you
away, I am sure."

"Besides," said Miss Abbot, "God will punish her: He might strike her
dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go?  Come,
Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn't have her heart for anything.  Say
your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don't
repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and
fetch you away."

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

The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say
never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall
rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it
contained: yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the
mansion.  A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with
curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre;
the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half
shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red;
the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the
walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe,
the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany.  Out
of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the piled-
up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles
counterpane.  Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair
near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and
looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.

This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because
remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was known to be
so seldom entered.  The house-maid alone came here on Saturdays, to wipe
from the mirrors and the furniture a week's quiet dust: and Mrs. Reed
herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contents of a certain
secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments, her
jewel-casket, and a miniature of her deceased husband; and in those last
words lies the secret of the red-room--the spell which kept it so lonely
in spite of its grandeur.

Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed his
last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by the
undertaker's men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecration had
guarded it from frequent intrusion.

My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted,
was a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose before me;
to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken
reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the muffled
windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vacant majesty
of the bed and room.  I was not quite sure whether they had locked the
door; and when I dared move, I got up and went to see.  Alas! yes: no
jail was ever more secure.  Returning, I had to cross before the looking-
glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed.
All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality:
and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and
arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all
else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of
the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie's evening stories
represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing
before the eyes of belated travellers.  I returned to my stool.

Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour for
complete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave
was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to stem a rapid rush
of retrospective thought before I quailed to the dismal present.

All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud indifference,
all his mother's aversion, all the servants' partiality, turned up in my
disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well.  Why was I always
suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for ever condemned?  Why
could I never please?  Why was it useless to try to win any one's favour?
Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected.  Georgiana, who had
a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and insolent carriage,
was universally indulged.  Her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls,
seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase
indemnity for every fault.  John no one thwarted, much less punished;
though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks,
set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit,
and broke the buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory: he called
his mother "old girl," too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin,
similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore
and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still "her own darling."  I dared
commit no fault: I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was termed naughty
and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and from noon to
night.

My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no
one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had turned
against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded with
general opprobrium.

"Unjust!--unjust!" said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into
precocious though transitory power: and Resolve, equally wrought up,
instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable
oppression--as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never
eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.

What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon!  How all my
brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection!  Yet in what
darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought!  I could
not answer the ceaseless inward question--_why_ I thus suffered; now, at
the distance of--I will not say how many years, I see it clearly.

I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had nothing
in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage.  If
they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them.  They were not
bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathise with one
amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in
capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their
interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the
germs of indignation at their treatment, of contempt of their judgment.  I
know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome,
romping child--though equally dependent and friendless--Mrs. Reed would
have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have
entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants
would have been less prone to make me the scapegoat of the nursery.

Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o'clock, and the
beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight.  I heard the rain
still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind howling
in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then
my courage sank.  My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn
depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire.  All said I was
wicked, and perhaps I might be so; what thought had I been but just
conceiving of starving myself to death?  That certainly was a crime: and
was I fit to die?  Or was the vault under the chancel of Gateshead Church
an inviting bourne?  In such vault I had been told did Mr. Reed lie
buried; and led by this thought to recall his idea, I dwelt on it with
gathering dread.  I could not remember him; but I knew that he was my own
uncle--my mother's brother--that he had taken me when a parentless infant
to his house; and that in his last moments he had required a promise of
Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children.
Mrs. Reed probably considered she had kept this promise; and so she had,
I dare say, as well as her nature would permit her; but how could she
really like an interloper not of her race, and unconnected with her,
after her husband's death, by any tie?  It must have been most irksome to
find herself bound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand in the stead of a
parent to a strange child she could not love, and to see an uncongenial
alien permanently intruded on her own family group.

A singular notion dawned upon me.  I doubted not--never doubted--that if
Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly; and now, as I
sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls--occasionally also
turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaming mirror--I began to
recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the
violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish the
perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed's spirit,
harassed by the wrongs of his sister's child, might quit its
abode--whether in the church vault or in the unknown world of the
departed--and rise before me in this chamber.  I wiped my tears and
hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violent grief might waken a
preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloom some haloed
face, bending over me with strange pity.  This idea, consolatory in
theory, I felt would be terrible if realised: with all my might I
endeavoured to stifle it--I endeavoured to be firm.  Shaking my hair from
my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark room;
at this moment a light gleamed on the wall.  Was it, I asked myself, a
ray from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind?  No; moonlight
was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling
and quivered over my head.  I can now conjecture readily that this streak
of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried by some
one across the lawn: but then, prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken
as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift darting beam was a
herald of some coming vision from another world.  My heart beat thick, my
head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of
wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance
broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort.
Steps came running along the outer passage; the key turned, Bessie and
Abbot entered.

"Miss Eyre, are you ill?" said Bessie.

"What a dreadful noise! it went quite through me!" exclaimed Abbot.

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

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

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

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

"What is all this?" demanded another voice peremptorily; and Mrs. Reed
came along the corridor, her cap flying wide, her gown rustling stormily.
"Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane Eyre should be left
in the red-room till I came to her myself."

"Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma'am," pleaded Bessie.

"Let her go," was the only answer.  "Loose Bessie's hand, child: you
cannot succeed in getting out by these means, be assured.  I abhor
artifice, particularly in children; it is my duty to show you that tricks
will not answer: you will now stay here an hour longer, and it is only on
condition of perfect submission and stillness that I shall liberate you
then."

"O aunt! have pity!  Forgive me!  I cannot endure it--let me be punished
some other way!  I shall be killed if--"

"Silence!  This violence is all most repulsive:" and so, no doubt, she
felt it.  I was a precocious actress in her eyes; she sincerely looked on
me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous
duplicity.

Bessie and Abbot having retreated, Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now frantic
anguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust me back and locked me in, without
farther parley.  I heard her sweeping away; and soon after she was gone,
I suppose I had a species of fit: unconsciousness closed the scene.

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

completion: Jane resists physically and verbally as the servants Bessie and Miss Abbot lead her to the red-room, named for the color of its drapery and furniture. The room also contains a miniature portrait of Mr. Reed, who has been dead nine years; his actual body lies in a vault under the Gateshead church. Before they lock her up, the servants reprimand Jane for her disobedience and warn her against angering God. As Jane considers their reprimands, she becomes angry at the injustice of her family situation, wondering why she is always mistreated while her cousins are pampered and petted. She catches her ghostly reflection in the mirror and, thinking about her miserable condition and about her dead uncle, recalls how he took the orphaned Jane in and made Mrs. Reed promise to take care of her. Suddenly, a ray of light enters the room, and Jane cries out, believing that the light is the ghost of her uncle. Her scream of terror alerts Bessie, Miss Abbot, and Mrs. Reed, but they accuse her of trickery and refuse to free her. After they leave, Jane faints.


prompt:
Chapter: The next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling as if I had had a
frightful nightmare, and seeing before me a terrible red glare, crossed
with thick black bars.  I heard voices, too, speaking with a hollow
sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water: agitation,
uncertainty, and an all-predominating sense of terror confused my
faculties.  Ere long, I became aware that some one was handling me;
lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture, and that more
tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before.  I rested my head
against a pillow or an arm, and felt easy.

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

I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and
security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room, an
individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed.
Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me
than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been), I scrutinised the
face of the gentleman: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary,
sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing: for
herself and the children she employed a physician.

"Well, who am I?" he asked.

I pronounced his name, offering him at the same time my hand: he took it,
smiling and saying, "We shall do very well by-and-by."  Then he laid me
down, and addressing Bessie, charged her to be very careful that I was
not disturbed during the night.  Having given some further directions,
and intimates that he should call again the next day, he departed; to my
grief: I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat in the chair near
my pillow; and as he closed the door after him, all the room darkened and
my heart again sank: inexpressible sadness weighed it down.

"Do you feel as if you should sleep, Miss?" asked Bessie, rather softly.

Scarcely dared I answer her; for I feared the next sentence might be
rough.  "I will try."

"Would you like to drink, or could you eat anything?"

"No, thank you, Bessie."

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

Wonderful civility this!  It emboldened me to ask a question.

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

"You fell sick, I suppose, in the red-room with crying; you'll be better
soon, no doubt."

Bessie went into the housemaid's apartment, which was near.  I heard her
say--

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

Sarah came back with her; they both went to bed; they were whispering
together for half-an-hour before they fell asleep.  I caught scraps of
their conversation, from which I was able only too distinctly to infer
the main subject discussed.

"Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished"--"A great
black dog behind him"--"Three loud raps on the chamber door"--"A light in
the churchyard just over his grave," etc., etc.

At last both slept: the fire and the candle went out.  For me, the
watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; strained by
dread: such dread as children only can feel.

No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the red-
room; it only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the reverberation to
this day.  Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some fearful pangs of mental
suffering, but I ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did:
while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only uprooting my
bad propensities.

Next day, by noon, I was up and dressed, and sat wrapped in a shawl by
the nursery hearth.  I felt physically weak and broken down: but my worse
ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind: a wretchedness which
kept drawing from me silent tears; no sooner had I wiped one salt drop
from my cheek than another followed.  Yet, I thought, I ought to have
been happy, for none of the Reeds were there, they were all gone out in
the carriage with their mama.  Abbot, too, was sewing in another room,
and Bessie, as she moved hither and thither, putting away toys and
arranging drawers, addressed to me every now and then a word of unwonted
kindness.  This state of things should have been to me a paradise of
peace, accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless
fagging; but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such a state that no
calm could soothe, and no pleasure excite them agreeably.

Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with her a tart
on a certain brightly painted china plate, whose bird of paradise,
nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had been wont to stir in
me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration; and which plate I had often
petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand in order to examine it more
closely, but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a
privilege.  This precious vessel was now placed on my knee, and I was
cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it.  Vain
favour! coming, like most other favours long deferred and often wished
for, too late!  I could not eat the tart; and the plumage of the bird,
the tints of the flowers, seemed strangely faded: I put both plate and
tart away.  Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word _book_ acted as
a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver's Travels from
the library.  This book I had again and again perused with delight.  I
considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of
interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales: for as to the elves,
having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves and bells, under
mushrooms and beneath the ground-ivy mantling old wall-nooks, I had at
length made up my mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of
England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker,
and the population more scant; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in
my creed, solid parts of the earth's surface, I doubted not that I might
one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields,
houses, and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, and birds
of the one realm; and the corn-fields forest-high, the mighty mastiffs,
the monster cats, the tower-like men and women, of the other.  Yet, when
this cherished volume was now placed in my hand--when I turned over its
leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now,
never failed to find--all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt
goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most
desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions.  I closed the
book, which I dared no longer peruse, and put it on the table, beside the
untasted tart.

Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and having washed
her hands, she opened a certain little drawer, full of splendid shreds of
silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana's doll.
Meantime she sang: her song was--

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

I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight; for
Bessie had a sweet voice,--at least, I thought so.  But now, though her
voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an indescribable sadness.
Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she sang the refrain very low, very
lingeringly; "A long time ago" came out like the saddest cadence of a
funeral hymn.  She passed into another ballad, this time a really doleful
one.

   "My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary;
      Long is the way, and the mountains are wild;
   Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary
      Over the path of the poor orphan child.

   Why did they send me so far and so lonely,
      Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled?
   Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only
      Watch o'er the steps of a poor orphan child.

   Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing,
      Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild,
   God, in His mercy, protection is showing,
      Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.

   Ev'n should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing,
      Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled,
   Still will my Father, with promise and blessing,
      Take to His bosom the poor orphan child.

   There is a thought that for strength should avail me,
      Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled;
   Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me;
      God is a friend to the poor orphan child."

"Come, Miss Jane, don't cry," said Bessie as she finished.  She might as
well have said to the fire, "don't burn!" but how could she divine the
morbid suffering to which I was a prey?  In the course of the morning Mr.
Lloyd came again.

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

Bessie answered that I was doing very well.

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

"Yes, sir, Jane Eyre."

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

"No, sir."

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

"Surely not! why, she is too old for such pettishness."

I thought so too; and my self-esteem being wounded by the false charge, I
answered promptly, "I never cried for such a thing in my life: I hate
going out in the carriage.  I cry because I am miserable."

"Oh fie, Miss!" said Bessie.

The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled.  I was standing before
him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small and grey;
not very bright, but I dare say I should think them shrewd now: he had a
hard-featured yet good-natured looking face.  Having considered me at
leisure, he said--

"What made you ill yesterday?"

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

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

"I was knocked down," was the blunt explanation, jerked out of me by
another pang of mortified pride; "but that did not make me ill," I added;
while Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff.

As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell rang for
the servants' dinner; he knew what it was.  "That's for you, nurse," said
he; "you can go down; I'll give Miss Jane a lecture till you come back."

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

"The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?" pursued Mr. Lloyd when
Bessie was gone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What other things?  Can you tell me some of them?"

How much I wished to reply fully to this question!  How difficult it was
to frame any answer!  Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their
feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know
not how to express the result of the process in words.  Fearful, however,
of losing this first and only opportunity of relieving my grief by
imparting it, I, after a disturbed pause, contrived to frame a meagre,
though, as far as it went, true response.

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

"You have a kind aunt and cousins."

Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced--

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

Mr. Lloyd a second time produced his snuff-box.

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

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

"Pooh! you can't be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place?"

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

"Perhaps you may--who knows?  Have you any relations besides Mrs. Reed?"

"I think not, sir."

"None belonging to your father?"

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

"If you had such, would you like to go to them?"

I reflected.  Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to
children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable
poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes,
scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty
for me was synonymous with degradation.

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

"Not even if they were kind to you?"

I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means of being
kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be
uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I saw sometimes nursing
their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of the
village of Gateshead: no, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at
the price of caste.

"But are your relatives so very poor?  Are they working people?"

"I cannot tell; Aunt Reed says if I have any, they must be a beggarly
set: I should not like to go a begging."

"Would you like to go to school?"

Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was: Bessie sometimes
spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks, wore
backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise: John
Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but John Reed's tastes were
no rule for mine, and if Bessie's accounts of school-discipline (gathered
from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before coming to
Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her details of certain
accomplishments attained by these same young ladies were, I thought,
equally attractive.  She boasted of beautiful paintings of landscapes and
flowers by them executed; of songs they could sing and pieces they could
play, of purses they could net, of French books they could translate;
till my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened.  Besides, school
would be a complete change: it implied a long journey, an entire
separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.

"I should indeed like to go to school," was the audible conclusion of my
musings.

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

Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard rolling up
the gravel-walk.

"Is that your mistress, nurse?" asked Mr. Lloyd.  "I should like to speak
to her before I go."

Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfast-room, and led the way out.
In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, I presume,
from after-occurrences, that the apothecary ventured to recommend my
being sent to school; and the recommendation was no doubt readily enough
adopted; for as Abbot said, in discussing the subject with Bessie when
both sat sewing in the nursery one night, after I was in bed, and, as
they thought, asleep, "Missis was, she dared say, glad enough to get rid
of such a tiresome, ill-conditioned child, who always looked as if she
were watching everybody, and scheming plots underhand."  Abbot, I think,
gave me credit for being a sort of infantine Guy Fawkes.

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

Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, "Poor Miss Jane
is to be pitied, too, Abbot."

"Yes," responded Abbot; "if she were a nice, pretty child, one might
compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for such a
little toad as that."

"Not a great deal, to be sure," agreed Bessie: "at any rate, a beauty
like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same condition."

"Yes, I doat on Miss Georgiana!" cried the fervent Abbot.  "Little
darling!--with her long curls and her blue eyes, and such a sweet colour
as she has; just as if she were painted!--Bessie, I could fancy a Welsh
rabbit for supper."

"So could I--with a roast onion.  Come, we'll go down."  They went.

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

completion: Jane wakes up, dimly aware of voices and of someone supporting her. She soon realizes that she is in her bed and sees Bessie and Mr. Lloyd, the apothecary. He gives instructions for Jane's care and departs, and Bessie, more concerned than before over Jane's health, sleeps in the neighboring room in case Jane needs anything during the night. Jane sleeps and awakens the next day feeling terrible. The Reed family is away, and Bessie brings Jane a fruit tart and her favorite book, "Gulliver's Travels. Yet, Jane still feels so distressed from her experience in the red-room that she is unable to eat the tart or even enjoy the fantastical tales of "Gulliver's Travels" as she normally does. She cries after Bessie sings her a sad song about an orphan. Mr. Lloyd returns and, once Bessie is gone, Jane tries to tell him about the ghost of Mr. Reed that she saw. He does not believe her, and whenever she brings up the abuses she suffers at Gateshead, he observes that she is lucky to live in such a beautiful house. Jane thinks that she has some poor relatives, but, after Mr. Lloyd's prompting, admits that she would not like to live with them, even if they were kind. Mr. Lloyd then asks her if she would like to go to school. After some contemplation, Jane concludes that school would be an improvement over Gateshead, and she begins to be excited about the possibility. The family returns, and Mr. Lloyd speaks with Mrs. Reed with the recommendation of sending Jane to school. Later, while pretending to be asleep, Jane overhears Miss Abbot and Bessie discussing her parent's history. Jane's mother was a member of the wealthy Reed family but was cut off financially when she married a poor clergyman against the wishes of her father. Soon after Jane's birth, her parents died of typhus while visiting poor people in a manufacturing town. Miss Abbot and Bessie admit that Jane's background is a tragic one, but admit that it would be easier to pity her if she were a pretty, likable child.