Jane Eyre
Page 301A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants! Who
were they? They could not be the daughters of the elderly person at
the table; for she looked like a rustic, and they were all delicacy
and cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs: and yet,
as I gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every lineament. I
cannot call them handsome--they were too pale and grave for the
word: as they each bent over a book, they looked thoughtful almost
to severity. A stand between them supported a second candle and two
great volumes, to which they frequently referred, comparing them,
seemingly, with the smaller books they held in their hands, like
translation. This scene was as silent as if all the figures had
been shadows and the firelit apartment a picture: so hushed was it,
I could hear the cinders fall from the grate, the clock tick in its
obscure corner; and I even fancied I could distinguish the click-
click of the woman's knitting-needles. When, therefore, a voice
broke the strange stillness at last, it was audible enough to me.
"Listen, Diana," said one of the absorbed students; "Franz and old
Daniel are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a dream
from which he has awakened in terror--listen!" And in a low voice
for it was in an unknown tongue--neither French nor Latin. Whether
it were Greek or German I could not tell.
"That is strong," she said, when she had finished: "I relish it."
The other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister,
repeated, while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read.
At a later day, I knew the language and the book; therefore, I will
here quote the line: though, when I first heard it, it was only
like a stroke on sounding brass to me--conveying no meaning:"'Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht.' Good!
good!" she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled. "There
is worth a hundred pages of fustian. 'Ich wage die Gedanken in der
Schale meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms.'
I like it!"
Both were again silent.
"Is there ony country where they talk i' that way?" asked the old
woman, looking up from her knitting.