Chapter 27

Chapter 27 SOME time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall, I asked, 'What am I to do?' But the answer my mind gave — 'Leave Thornfield at once' — was so prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such words now. 'That I am not Edward Rochester's wife is the least part of my woe, ' I alleged: 'that I have awakened out of most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot do it.' But, then a voice within me averred that I could do it, and foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw laid out for me, and Conscience turned tyrant, held Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty feet in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony. 'Let me be torn away, then!' I cried. 'Let another help me!' 'No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand: your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it.' I rose up suddenly, terror-struck at the solitude which so ruthless a judge haunted — at the silence which so awful a voice filled. My head swam as I stood erect. I perceived that I was sickening from excitement and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips that day, for I had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I now ...