Complicated Love(PART 2 OF 4)
You see, Diane, Mr. Rochester and Jane had face-to-face interactions in half dream and half reality, without knowing it.
half dream and half reality?
Yes, that's it. For Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester created a virtual world where the reality was hidden on purpose. So, in the virtual world, Mr. Rochester and Jane fell in love and seemed to be such an ideal couple as Sana and Adnan were on the net.
What is the reality?
That ghost-like woman in the above episode was not Grace Poole, but Mr. Rochester's mad wife, whom he hid intentionally. And as soon as Jane Eyre came to know the mad wife, Jane broke up with Mr. Rochester and escaped from Thornfield Hall.
I see.
You see, Diane, that Mr. Rochester is so manipulative and insincere because he didn't tell Jane about his mad wife in the first place. Yet, he was coming on to Jane. If I were Jane, I would kick him out of this world. On the contrary, her cousin, St. John, is a sincere, honest, and hard-working man. To me, St. John loved Jane more than Mr. Rochester from the bottom of his heart.
Do you really think so, Kato?
Yes, most definitely I do.
But what makes you think so?
Well, read the following passage. Even Diana, St. John's sister, thought so.
On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window, looking very thoughtful. Diana was a great deal taller than I: she put her hand on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face.
"Jane," she said, "you are always agitated and pale now. I am sure there is something the matter. Tell me what business St. John and you have on hand. I have watched you this half hour from the window: you must forgive my being such a spy, but for a long time I have fancied I hardly know what St. John is a strange being---"
She paused---I did not speak: soon she resumed:---
"That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort and interest he never showed to any one else---to what end? I wish he loved you---does he, Jane?"
I put her cool hand to my hot forehead: "No, Die, not one whit."
"Then why does he follow you so with his eyes---and get you so frequently alone with him, and keep you so continually at his side? Mary and I had both concluded he wished you to marry him."
"He does---he has asked me to be his wife."
Diana clapped her hands. "That is just what we hoped and thought! And you will marry him, Jane, won't you? And then he will stay in England."
"Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to procure a fitting fellow-labourer in his Indian toils."
"What! He wishes you to go to India?"
"Yes!"
"Madness!" she exclaimed. "You would not live three months there, I am certrain. You never shall go: you have not consented---have you, Jane?"
"I have refused to marry him"
"And have consequently displeased him?" she suggested.
"Deeply: he will never forgive me, I fear: yet I offered to accompany him as his sister."
"It was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the task you undertook---one of incessant fatigue: where fatigue kills even the strong; and you are weak. St. John---you know him---would urge you to impossibilities---with him there would be no permission to rest during the hot hours; and fortunately, I have noticed, whatever he exacts, you force yourself to perform. I am astonished you found courage to refuse his hand. You do not love him then, Jane?"
"Not as a husband."
"Yet he is a handsome fellow."
"And I am so plain, you see, Die. We should never suit."
"Plain! You? Not at all. You are much too pretty, as well as too good, to be grilled alive in Carcutta." And again she earnestly conjured me to give up all thoughts of going out with her brother.
"I must, indeed," I said: "for when just now I repeated the offer of serving him foe a deacon, he expressed himself shocked at my want of decency. He seemed to think I had committed an impropriety in proposing to accompany him unmarried: as if I had not from the first hoped to find in him a brother; and habitually regarded him as such."
"What makes you say he does not love you, Jane?"
"You should hear himself on the subject. He has again and again explained that it is not himself, but his office he wishes to mate. He has told me I am formed for labour---not for love: which is true, no doubt. But, in my opinion, if I am not formed for love, it follows that I am not formed for marriage. Would it not be strage, Die, to be chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?"
"Insupportable---unnatural---out of the question!"
"And then," I continued, "though I have only sisterly affection for him now, yet, if forced to be his wife, I can imagine the possibility of conceiving an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of love for him: because he is so talented; and there is often a certain heroic grandeur in his look, manner, and conversation. In that case, my lot would become unspeakably wretched. He would not want me to love him; and if I showed the feeling, he would make me sensible that it was a superfluity unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know he would."
"And yet, St. John is a good man," said Diana.
"He is a good and a great man: but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. It is better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way; lest, in his progress, he should trample them down. Here he comes! I will leave you, Diana." And I hastened upstairs, as I saw him entering the garden.
SOURCE: Chapter 35, "Jane Eyre"
PICTURES: from the Denman Library
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(To be continued)