Dans ce texte (l'épisode du feu mis à la chambre de Rochester dans Jane Eyre) composé, dans le désordre, de Jane Eyre soi-même, Jane Slayre de Sherri Browning Erwin, Jane Eyre Laid Bare d'Eve Sinclair, et d'une adaptation pour enfants, à vous de trouver le passage écrit
par Charlotte Brontë !
‘I sat up in bed,
chilled with fear. “Who’s there?’ I called.
Then came a demonic laugh that faded to a sort of gurgling moan.
I threw back the covers and hurried into my clothes – I would run to Mrs. Fairfax for help. But when I peered out of my door into the gallery I saw no one. Then I suddenly noticed smoke – smoke that billowed from Mr. Rochester’s room! And the smoke rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought no more of Mrs. Fairfax; I thought no more of Grace Poole, or the laugh. In an instant, I was within the chamber. Tongues of flame darted round the bed; the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour, Mr. Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep.
‘Wake! wake!’ I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and turned; the smoke had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost; the very sheets were kindling. I rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one was wide and the other deep, and both were filled with water. I heaved them up, deluged the bed and its occupant, flew back to my own room, brought my own water-jug, baptized the couch afresh, and, by God's aid, succeeded in extinguishing the flames which were devouring it.
The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I flung from my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash of the shower-bath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr. Rochester at last. Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself lying in a pool of water.
‘Is there a flood?’ he cried.
‘No, sir,’ I answered; ‘but there has been a fire. Get up, do; you are quenched now; I will fetch you a candle.’
‘In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?’ he demanded. ‘What have you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who is in the room besides you? Have you plotted to drown me?’
‘I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven's name, get up. Somebody has plotted something. You cannot too soon find out who and what it is.’
‘There! I am up now; but at your peril you fetch a candle yet. Wait two minutes till I get into some dry garments, if any dry there be—yes, here is my dressing-gown. Now run!’
I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the gallery. He took it from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the bed, all blackened and scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet round swimming in water.
‘What is it? and who did it?’ he asked. I briefly related to him what had transpired: the strange laugh I had heard in the gallery; the step ascending to the third story; the smoke—the smell of fire which had conducted me to his room; in what state I had found matters there, and how I had deluged him with all the water I could lay hands on.
He listened very gravely. His face, as I went on, expressed more concern than astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had concluded.
‘Shall I call Mrs. Fairfax?’ I asked.
‘Mrs. Fairfax? No; what the deuce would you call her for? What can she do? Let her sleep unmolested. I’m going to leave you a few minutes. I shall take the candle. Remain where you are until I return. Do not move or call anyone. I must pay a visit to the third story. I need to know you are safe and accounted for until I get back.’
He went. I watched the light withdraw. He passed softly up the gallery, opened the staircase door with as little noise as possible, shut it after him, and the last ray vanished. I was left in total darkness. I listened for some noise, but heard nothing. A long time elapsed. At last, the light once more gleamed dimly on the gallery wall, and I heard his unshod feet tread the matting.
‘I have found it all
out’, said he, setting his candle down on the wash stand. ‘It is as I thought.’
‘How, sir?’
‘I forget whether you said you saw anything when you opened your chamber door.’
‘No, sir, only the candlestick on the ground.’
‘But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before, I should think, or something like it?’
‘Yes, sir. Mrs. Fairfax says it is Grace Poole. I have met her and found her rather unremarkable, but now I wonder.’
‘There’s nothing to wonder’, he said quickly. “It is Grace Poole. She is, as you say, unremarkable, except perhaps for her penchant to drink. Gin, I believe, was her poison of choice tonight.’
‘That’s all? A tendency to drink? She tried to burn you in your bed.’
‘Not on purpose. I think she was stumbling about, in her cups, when she got confused trying to find her way back to bed. She must have confused my room for hers and dropped the candle in fright when she heard me snoring. I shall reflect on the subject. Say nothing about it. I will account for this state of affairs. And now, to your own room. I shall do very well on the sofa in the library for the rest of the night. It is near four. In two hours, the servants will be up.’
‘Good night, then, sir,’ I said, departing.
He seemed surprised – inconsistently so, as he had just told me to go.
‘What!’ he exclaimed. ‘Are you quitting me already and in that way? You saved my life, Jane. I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a debt. I cannot say more.’
He paused, gazed at me, and I was drawn in, magnetized by his eyes.
‘Good night again, sir,’ I said, but my voice was no more than a whisper. ‘You do not owe me a debt.’
‘I knew’, he continued, holding my palm now against his lips, ‘you would do me good in some way, at some time. I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you. Their expression and smile did not”’ , again he stopped, closing in, ‘did not strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing.’
I felt the great overcoat he had given me slide from my shoulders to the floor, but I did not feel the loss of heat, because my whole body seemed flushed with a new kind of warmth.
‘I have heard of good genii and I believe there are grains of truth in the wildest fable, for you are mine. My cherished preserver.’
Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look.
You are mine. His words swept into my heart, like the luxurious chord of a harp, but my reason dampened the music. ‘He cannot mean it,’ I thought.
‘I am glad I happened to be awake’, I said, but my knees were trembling and weak. Closer and closer, his eyes drew me in.
Fear overtook me then. Not fear of him, but fear of myself, of the inner life I’d held privately for so long, my desire, my carnal longings, all threatening to rise to the surface and engulf me.
I quickly turned to go. I could not trust myself to stay. I could not trust myself to stare into his eyes and what they suggested.
‘What! You will go?’ he said, reaching out and drawing me back to him.
‘I’m cold, sir,’ I lied.
‘Cold? Yes and standing in a pool! Go, then, Jane, go!’
His voice sounded as if meant it, but he still retained my hand, and I could not free it. I looked from his grip to his eyes. They burned even brighter now.
And then he was gently pulling me towards him, as if he still expected me to take flight. In the soft, dim light of the candle, his face filled my vision.
‘You cannot leave me like this,’ he breathed.
I was trembling uncontrollably, but I could not pull away.
He stared down at me, drawing me further towards his warm embrace. Closer, closer he came, daring me to buckle and move away, but I was hopelessly, blissfully trapped and borne away on those dark seas I had glimpsed in his eyes for so long, leaving the shores of everything I knew to be right to sail into this uncharted water.
Then his arms were around me and then, even before the soft gasp could leave my mouth, his lips were on mine. The simple fusion, in the slip second after it had happened, seemed so obvious that surely it had been destined all along. Quiet, tentative, we stood together suspended in a golden sacred moment. I knew then that I had the choice, that even now it wasn’t too late. I could break away, I could step back onto the shore.
But I couldn’t. There was not enough reason or willpower left within me to resist him. My whole being only wanted this moment to go on and on, and I surrendered to it, melting against him. The, with a low, delicious groan, he seemed to let something go too, the sound of his surrender igniting something within me as surely as the room itself had been aflame earlier.
Oh, reader. The kiss. How many poems, how many novels I had read, and yet nothing had ever come close to describing this feeling. So simple, so lauded and documented, but yet so entirely new to me, and so different to how I imagined. I had kissed Emma, of course but it had not been anything like this.
