I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly
countenance--these blue, still lips forbidden to unclose--these eyes
now shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on
me, and ever glazed with the dulness of horror. I must dip my hand
again and again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the
trickling gore. I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane
on my employment; the shadows darken on the wrought, antique
tapestry round me, and grow black under the hangings of the vast old
bed, and quiver strangely over the doors of a great cabinet
opposite--whose front, divided into twelve panels, bore, in grim
design, the heads of the twelve apostles, each enclosed in its
separate panel as in a frame; while above them at the top rose an
ebon crucifix and a dying Christ.
According as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered
here or glanced there, it was now the bearded physician, Luke, that
bent his brow; now St. John's long hair that waved; and anon the
devilish face of Judas, that grew out of the panel, and seemed
gathering life and threatening a revelation of the arch-traitor--of
Satan himself--in his subordinate's form.
Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for
the movements of the wild beast or the fiend in yonder side den.
But since Mr. Rochester's visit it seemed spellbound: all the night
I heard but three sounds at three long intervals,--a step creak, a
momentary renewal of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human
groan.
Then my own thoughts worried me. What crime was this that lived
incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled
nor subdued by the owner?--what mystery, that broke out now in fire
and now in blood, at the deadest hours of night? What creature was
it, that, masked in an ordinary woman's face and shape, uttered the
voice, now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of
prey?
And this man I bent over--this commonplace, quiet stranger--how had
he become involved in the web of horror? and why had the Fury flown
at him? What made him seek this quarter of the house at an untimely
season, when he should have been asleep in bed? I had heard Mr.
Rochester assign him an apartment below--what brought him here! And
why, now, was he so tame under the violence or treachery done him?
Why did he so quietly submit to the concealment Mr. Rochester
enforced? Why DID Mr. Rochester enforce this concealment? His
guest had been outraged, his own life on a former occasion had been
hideously plotted against; and both attempts he smothered in secrecy
and sank in oblivion! Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was submissive to Mr.
Rochester; that the impetuous will of the latter held complete sway
over the inertness of the former: the few words which had passed
between them assured me of this. It was evident that in their
former intercourse, the passive disposition of the one had been
habitually influenced by the active energy of the other: whence
then had arisen Mr. Rochester's dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason's
arrival? Why had the mere name of this unresisting individual--whom
his word now sufficed to control like a child--fallen on him, a few
hours since, as a thunderbolt might fall on an oak?