Jane Eyre
Page 128Mr. Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it. It was one
afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and Adele in the grounds: and
while she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked me to walk
up and down a long beech avenue within sight of her.
He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera-dancer,
Celine Varens, towards whom he had once cherished what he called a
"grande passion." This passion Celine had professed to return with
even superior ardour. He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was:
he believed, as he said, that she preferred his "taille d'athlete"
to the elegance of the Apollo Belvidere.
"And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of the
Gallic sylph for her British gnome, that I installed her in an
hotel; gave her a complete establishment of servants, a carriage,
of ruining myself in the received style, like any other spoony. I
had not, it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame
and destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness not
to deviate an inch from the beaten centre. I had--as I deserved to
have--the fate of all other spoonies. Happening to call one evening
when Celine did not expect me, I found her out; but it was a warm
night, and I was tired with strolling through Paris, so I sat down
in her boudoir; happy to breathe the air consecrated so lately by
her presence. No,--I exaggerate; I never thought there was any
consecrating virtue about her: it was rather a sort of pastille
perfume she had left; a scent of musk and amber, than an odour of
sanctity. I was just beginning to stifle with the fumes of
to open the window and step out on to the balcony. It was moonlight
and gaslight besides, and very still and serene. The balcony was
furnished with a chair or two; I sat down, and took out a cigar,--I
will take one now, if you will excuse me."
Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a
cigar; having placed it to his lips and breathed a trail of Havannah
incense on the freezing and sunless air, he went on "I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was croquant--
(overlook the barbarism)--croquant chocolate comfits, and smoking
alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled along the
fashionable streets towards the neighbouring opera-house, when in an
elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses,
and distinctly seen in the brilliant city-night, I recognised the
heart thumped with impatience against the iron rails I leant upon.
The carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame
(that is the very word for an opera inamorata) alighted: though
muffed in a cloak--an unnecessary encumbrance, by-the-bye, on so
warm a June evening--I knew her instantly by her little foot, seen
peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she skipped from the
carriage-step. Bending over the balcony, I was about to murmur 'Mon
ange'--in a tone, of course, which should be audible to the ear of
love alone--when a figure jumped from the carriage after her;
cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the
pavement, and that was a hatted head which now passed under the
arched porte cochere of the hotel.