Chapter 15

Chapter 15 MR 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 CeIine 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 Belvedere. '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, cashmeres, diamonds, dentelles, &c. In short, I began the process 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 trod 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 fume...