Original subtitles

It is not pleasant to dwell upon the details of my destitution.

After two days on the moors without food, with this feeling of faintness and chill,

must I lay my head on the cold drenched ground?

Shall I be an outcast again this night?

Oh, some people say there is enjoyment in looking back on painful experience past.

I do not.

The light was yet there, shining dim, but constant through the rain.

How desolate, how desperate my own position seemed compared with these.

They were all delicacy and cultivation.

I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs.

Yet beg from them, I must, or die.

What is your business at this hour?

May I speak to your mistresses?

To you?

What can they do for you?

A night shelter, an outhouse anywhere, and a morsel of bread.

Don't shut the door!

I must, the rain is driving in.

Let me see the young lady.

Indeed I won't.

You are not what you ought to be.

Move off!

I fear you have some ill plans again.

But I will.

Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude was gone.

I can but die.

I believe in God.

Let me try to await his will in silence.

All men must die.

Who speaks?

But all are not condemned to meet a premature doom.

Is that you, Mr. St. John?

Yes.

Open quickly.

Oh, come in.

Such a wild night.

Your sisters were uneasy.

And there's been bad folks about us that begot one.

Not gone yet.

Get up, for shame.

Hush, Hannah.

You did your duty in excluding.

Let me do mine in admitting her.

Mr. St. John.

Let's examine into this case, Hannah.

Young woman.

Rise.

Is she yellow or only thamish?

The latter, I think.

Warm some milk.

What is your name?

Jane.

Elliot.

Where do you live?

Where are your friends?

None.

I have none.

Poor pallid wanderer.

It is as well we took her in.

Her state of lethargy is due to excessive and protracted fatigue.

Rather an unusual physiognomy, not indicative of vulgarity or degradation.

She looks sensible, but not at all handsome.

She's not an uneducated person.

Her accent was quite pure.

I imagine she'll recover rapidly enough.

On the third day I was better.

On the fourth I could speak, move.

Did you ever go begging before you came here?

I'm no beggar.

Any more than yourself, are you, young lady?

Oh, I don't understand that.

You'd like no house and no brass.

The wand of a house and brass, by which I suppose you mean money,

does not make a beggar.

Have you a book learned?

Yes, very.

What are you going to do with those gooseberries?

Macameter pies.

Oh, let me pick them, top and ten.

There, I don't want you to do nout.

Please, I must do something.

You'll need a towel, at least your mookie address.

Oh, you've not been used to servant's work, I see by your hands.

Have you ever been to school?

Yes, I was at a boarding school eight years.

Eight?

What ever can you keep yourself for then?

I have.

I trust I shall again.

But never mind what I've been.

Tell me the name of this house.

Some call it Marsh End and some call it Moore House.

And the gentleman who lives here?

Oh, he didn't live here, not Mr. St. John.

He has his own parish at Moreton.

He's a parson?

Aye, don't you?

This was his father's house, all Mr. Rivers.

So his name is Mr. St. John Rivers?

Aye, and his sisters are Diana and Mary.

Their father is dead, you said?

Aye, three weeks in a stroke.

And they have no mother?

Mistress has been dead this many a year.

And I've lived with the family for thirty.

I nursed them all three.

That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant.

I will say that much for you, though you have had the incivility to call me a beggar.

Oh, your mum forgive me of so many cheats goes about.

But you wish to turn me from the door.

And on such a night as you should not have shut out a dog.

Oh, it were hard, but I thought more of the children, not myself.

They'd like nobody to take care of them but me.

I'd like to look sharpish.

You want to think too hardly of me.

No, but I do.

It's not so much because you refuse me shelter.

I might have been an imposter.

But just now you made it a species of reproach that I had no brass and no house.

Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am.

And if you're a Christian, you should not consider poverty a crime.

I ought.

Mr. St. John tells me so too.

I see I were wrong.

But I've a clear different notion on you now to what I had.

You look a right down decent little creature.

I forgive you now.

I accept your account of yourself.

And I shall respect your reluctance to divulge the reasons for your leaving your

post as governess as well as indeed the whereabouts of that employment, Miss Elliot.

You said your name was Jane Elliot.

Yes, I did.

And it is the name I think it expedient to be called at present.

But it is not my real name and to hear it sounds strange.

Your real name you will not give.

No.

I fear discovery and whatever disclosure might lead to it, I avoid.

I'm sure you're right.

Now do, brother, let her be at peace for a while.

I cannot, Diana.

If I am to give the aid, this lady requests.

You desire to be independent of us.

Yes, I do.

Show me work or how to seek it.

That is all I ask.

Then let me go.

But till then let me stay here.

I dread another assay of the horrors of homeless destitution.

Indeed you shall stay here.

You must.

My sisters, you see, have pleasure in keeping you.

As they would in cherishing a wild bird with a broken wing.

But I feel more inclination to put you in the way of keeping yourself.

But observe, my sphere is narrow.

I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish.

My help must be of the humblest kind.

She said she's willing to do anything honest she can do.

Why are you so crusty, St. John?

Some people are inclined to despise the day of small things, Diana.

Oh, I wouldn't.

I'll be a dressmaker, a plain workwoman.

Servant, nurse girl, if I can do no better.

Right.

If such is, your true spirit.

I promise to aid you.

And had I forgotten Mr. Rochester all this while?

Not for a moment.

His idea was still with me.

Because it was not a vapour sunshine could disperse.

It was a name, graven on a tablet.

Fated to last as long as the marble it inscribed.

Diana and Mary became as two sisters to me.

Our natures dovetailed.

But the strongest mutual affection was the result.

Their brother, however, was another matter.

Diana, Mary.

We shall have windberry pie for supper, St. John.

Come through, I beg you.

Why, Miss Jay, you have picked a quantity.

Diana and Mary did.

I idle by the stream quite right.

You gather your strength.

Nothing.

No.

Amen.

We can yet live.

It makes us no worse off than we were before.

Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the

picture of what might have been had our uncle chosen.

And contrasts it somewhat too vividly with what is.

Is anything wrong?

A private matter.

Both sisters seemed struck.

The tidings, whatever they were, seemed more momentous than afflicting.

May I know what has occurred?

Yes, of course.

Our Uncle John has died.

You may think us hard-hearted not to be more

moved by the death of so near a relation.

But we have never known him or seen him.

Our father and he quarrelled long ago.

And it was through Uncle John's advice that

father lost most of his property in a speculation.

Father always cherished the idea that he would atone by leaving us a competency.

But he has not.

Better receive thirty guineas between us to purchase mourning rings.

Oh, I'm sorry.

We were, of course, foolish to hope.

Fulfill now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of thy servants, as may be most

expedient for them, granting in this world knowledge of

thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting.

Amen.

Good night, Mr. Sinclair.

Good night, Hannah.

Will you stay a moment?

Good night, brother.

Good night, brother.

Good night.

You have heard of employment for me?

Yes, but it is a service of poverty and obscurity.

You may even think it degrading.

My parish at Moreton requires a school for girls, and that school requires a mistress.

Will you take the post?

Oh, yes.

I thank you with all my heart.

But you comprehend me.

It is a village school.

Your scholars will be poor girls, quite unlettered.

There is a small cottage also attached to the school, two rooms only.

It will be a monstrous labor.

I understand what I undertake.

Very well.

So be it.

I'm going to be going now, Miss Elliot.

Oh, thank you, Ruth.

Home you go, then.

Take your wages.

Oh, thank you, ma'am.

You pictured our school just like.

Do you think so?

Aye, ma'am.

Oh, Ruth, tell Mary Garrett not to forget the Holly she promised for tomorrow.

No, ma'am.

Good night.

Good night, Ruth.

Good night.

I thought myself happy.

Had I not made the right choice?

Shunning temptation, adhering to principle.

My labors as a schoolmistress were now rewarded

in the village with cordial salutations.

I lived amidst general regard.

Why then do I find myself weeping?

I cannot stay long.

I've only brought a little parcel my sister sent me yesterday.

And their letter, too.

It is addressed to you, too, as well as myself.

Thank you.

I think it's a colour box.

Some pencils and paper.

But you must open it.

Oh, you're right.

It is most welcome.

I hear nothing but praise of you on all sides in the village.

Your pupil's progress has been remarkable.

Do you now begin to enjoy a sense of tranquillity, Jane?

I do not repine.

Nor look back.

I feel my solitude occasionally once the day's work is done.

Of course.

It is hard to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature.

But it may be done.

I know from experience.

A year ago I was myself intensely miserable because I

thought I'd made a mistake in entering the ministry.

Its uniformed duties weirded me to death.

I burned for the more active life of the world, for the destiny of an artist,

author, orator, politician.

Anything rather than a priest, yes.

A soldier even.

But God all the while had given me an errand to bear which afar I needed all the

skills and strengths of soldiers, statesmen, and orator.

For all these center in the good mission I.

And so I resolved to be.

From that moment all doubts cleared.

The fetters dissolved.

I had bend my nature to the will of God.

So may you, Jane.

I wonder...

You still have not said why you braved the snow to come?

I grew tired of my mute books and empty room.

Besides, since yesterday I have experienced the

excitement of a person to whom a tale has been half told.

I'm impatient to hear the sequel.

I wish Diane and Mary could come and live with you.

They, the Dupour, must work.

Have you heard from them?

Not since the letter I brought you last week.

And your own arrangements with the Missionary Society.

You've not been summoned away sooner than expected.

No, would that I had.

It would be too good to befall me.

Now... I spoke of a tale half told.

Let me assume the part of narrator, though I must warn

you the story may sound somewhat hackneyed in your ears.

Twenty years ago a poor curate fell in love

with a rich man's daughter and she with him.

They married.

The girl's family at once disowned her.

Within two years the rash pair were dead.

I have seen their grave.

They left a daughter.

Mr. Rivers.

Charity received her, carried the friendless thing to the house of its rich

maternal relations to be reared by an aunt-in-law.

I come to names now.

She was called Mrs. Reed of Gateshead.

Do not trouble yourself to tell me the rest.

After ten years Mrs. Reed transferred this orphan

to Lowood School where you so long resided.

Finally she left to be a governess, as you did, to undertake

the education of the ward of a certain Mr. Rochester.

Mr. Rivers, I do not wish to hear more.

I must insist.

Of Mr. Rochester's character I know nothing but the fact

that he proposed honorable marriage to this young girl.

And at the very altar she discovered he had a wife yet alive.

Though a lunatic.

What his subsequent conduct and proposals were I do not know, but the governess fled.

And every research after her has so far been in vain.

Yet that she should be found has become a matter of urgency.

Why?

Do you have news of Mr. Rochester?

How is he?

Where is he?

What's he doing?

Is he well?

You should rather ask the name of the governess and

the nature of the event which requires her appearance.

You know nothing of Mr. Rochester.

No more than I have imparted.

Oh.

And that I learnt from the letter of a solicitor, a Mr. Briggs.

His informant was a lady, Alice Fairfax.

Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre.

I knew a Jane Elliot.

You will, I hope.

Forgive me.

This caught my eye the last time I called.

You must have written your true name in an idle moment.

Yes, I must have.

You own the name and renounce the alias?

Oh, of course.

But did no one go to Thornfield?

You forget essential points in pursuing trifles.

You do not ask why Mr. Briggs sought after you.

Well, what did he want?

Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead, that he has

left you all his property and that you are now rich.

Ay, but I cannot be.

Yes, rich, quite in errors.

It is a fine thing to be lifted in a moment from poverty to wealth.

But it is not a matter one can comprehend all at once.

Still you do not ask how much you are worth.

How much?

Oh, nothing much to speak of.

A trifling twenty thousand pounds.

Well, if you were a murderess discovered you could scarcely look more aghast.

But it is a large sum.

Don't you think there's been a mistake?

Perhaps you read the figures wrong.

It is written in words, not figures.

Twenty thousand.

Well, I must leave you to your sorrows.

Wait.

Puzzles me why this solicitor should write to you.

The clergy are often appealed to about odd matters.

No, that does not satisfy me.

Another time.

It is late.

No, tonight.

I should rather not.

But you shall.

You must.

Very well.

It is simple enough.

You are not perhaps aware that I am your namesake, that I was christened St.

John Eyre Rivers.

No.

In an instant, by instinct, I knew how the matter stood.

Eyre was your mother's name?

Yes, it was.

She had two brothers.

One my father, the other my uncle of Madeira.

You have guessed correctly.

But then you and Diane and Mary are my cousins.

We are cousins, yes.

Now.

Now I have found wealth indeed.

Wealth to the heart.

I am glad.

Did I not say you neglected essentials to chase trifles?

You were serious a moment ago when I told you that you had

got a fortune now for a matter of no moment, you are excited.

What can you mean?

It may be of no importance to you.

You have sisters and do not care for a cousin.

But I had nobody and now three relations.

Two, if you do not choose to be counted, are born into my world, full grown.

Oh, I say again, I am glad.

Have I not said you are governed too much by the heart's affections, Jane?

Oh, I am.

I confess it.

So much so that I...

Well, you must write to Diane and Mary and tell them to come home directly.

I intend to benefit them with five thousand pounds apiece.

And you also.

Jane, you really must tranquilize your feelings.

But why?

You cannot fail to see that twenty thousand pounds, divided

equally between the four of us, gives five thousand years.

No, this is acting on first impulses.

Yes, and it is also just.

Our uncle... Our uncle should have done what I propose.

Three morning wings.

Possibly, but he did not.

Therefore, no division is necessary.

And you may, with a clear conscience, consider

the entire fortune absolutely your own.

Oh, but I could not.

And I shall not.

God rest you merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay.

Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day.

My insistence was rewarded.

More house refurbished, the legacy divided justly.

Immutably.

Even our lawyers smiled to see natural justice performed.

It was a time of holiday.

And we are all content.

Save Sinjan.

He had another master to serve.

His was the ambition of the high master spirit which aims to fill a place in the

first rank of those who are redeemed from Earth.

Jane.

What are you doing?

Learning German.

As well as I am able.

Will you help me study Hindustani?

You are not in earnest.

It will be a great service.

I would have asked my sisters, but I have observed

in you a greater capacity for application.

Will you do me and God this favor?

Jane.

May I interrupt this lesson?

It is important.

Of course.

I leave for India in six weeks.

God will protect you.

You have undertaken his work.

Yes.

There is my glory and joy.

I am the servant of an infallible master.

It seems strange to me that all around me

do not burn to enlist under the same banner.

All have not your powers.

It would be folly for the feeble to attempt to march with the strong.

I do not speak to the feeble, Jane.

You are not feeble.

I?

Neither in spirit nor body.

Jane.

Come with me to India.

Come as my helpmate and fellow laborer.

It was as if I had a summons from heaven.

But I was no apostle.

Sir, have some mercy.

God intended you for a missionary's wife.

It is not personal but mental adornments he has given you.

You were formed for a labor, not for love.

A missionary's wife.

You must, shall be.

I claim you.

Not for my pleasure but for my sovereign service.

I am not fitted for it.

I have no vocation.

Who is fit for the work?

None.

Yet we are chosen.

In my missionary life I have never studied missionary labors.

Then I can help you, Jane.

I can set your task from hour to hour.

But where are my powers for such an undertaking?

I do not feel them.

Do not persuade me to attempt what I cannot perform.

You can.

Have I not observed you?

In the village school you performed well, a labor uncongenial to your inclinations.

In the calm with which you learned of your inheritance,

I read of a mind clear of the vice of Demus.

Luca has no undue power over you.

In the resolute readiness through which you cut your wealth into four shares,

I recognized a soul that reveled in the flame and excitement of sacrifice.

Jane, you are docile, diligent, courageous, very gentle and very heroic.

Cease to mistrust yourself.

I trust you unreservedly.

As a conductress of Indian schools and a helper among

Indian women, your assistance will be to me invaluable.

My iron shroud contracted round me.

I could do what he wanted if life was spared me.

He would never love me, but oh, he'd approve me.

I would show him such energies, resources he had never suspected I possessed.

Your answer, Jane.

But marriage to him would be a monstrous martyrdom of half my nature.

Jane.

I am ready to go with you to India if I may go free as a sister to you.

That cannot be.

I want a wife.

The sole helpmate I can influence efficiently

in life and retain absolutely till death.

Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John.

Seek one fitted to you.

I will go with you as a missionary, but not as a wife.

Do you think God will be satisfied with half a sacrifice?

It is the cause of God I advocate.

I cannot accept on his behalf divided allegiance.

Why?

I will give my heart to God.

You do not want it.

Jane, we must be married.

There is no other way and undoubtedly enough of love would follow upon marriage

to render the union right even in your eyes.

I scorn your idea of love.

It is a counterfeit sentiment you offer.

And yes, St. John, I scorn you when you offer it.

I scarcely expected such an answer.

I think I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn.

Forgive my words, but it is your own fault.

You have introduced a topic on which our natures are at variance.

Dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage.

No.

It is long cherished.

But I shall urge you no further at present.

Reflect and consider well.

Who is it?

Diane.

Come in.

Jane.

You must tell me what business you and my brother have on hand.

So agitated.

So pale.

I wish he loved you, Jane.

Does he?

Not one weight.

Then why does he follow you with his eyes and get you so frequently alone with him?

Both Mary and I had concluded that he wished you to marry him.

Oh, he has asked me to be his wife, or rather

a fitting fellow laborer in his Indian toys.

He wishes you to go to India?

Yes.

But that is madness.

You would not live three months in India.

You have not consented.

I have refused to marry him.

And consequently displeased him?

Deeply.

And yet I offer to accompany him as a sister.

It was fantastic folly to do so, Jane.

But he is so good, so noble.

I cannot be insensitive to his virtues.

He would urge you to impossibilities, and you would force yourself to perform them.

I am astonished you even found courage to refuse his hand.

You do not love him, Jane.

Not as a husband.

And yet if forced to be his wife, I can imagine the possibility of.

conceiving an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of love for him.

But he would not want me to love him.

In that case, your lot would become unspeakably wretched.

He has told me I am formed for labor, not for love.

If true it follows, I am not formed for marriage.

Your brother is good and great, Diana, but he forgets pitilessly the

feelings and claims of those less exalted than himself.

He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his god,

and he shall be my son.

But the fearful, the unbelieving, shall have their part in the lake which

burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

Henceforth I knew what fate Singian feared for me, had

not Mr. Brocklehurst when I was ten feared the same.

Good night.

Good night.

Good night, mother.

Good night.

I wish you a pleasant journey to Cambridge.

I shall return in a fortnight, Jane.

That space is yet left to you.

May God give you the strength to choose the path of

rightful duty, to do all things to the glory of God.

He spoke earnestly, mildly.

Oh, I was tempted to cease struggling, to rush down the torrent of his will into

the Gulf of his existence and there lose my own.

Could you decide now?

If I were but certain, were I convinced it is God's will, I should marry you.

I could vow to do so here.

Now, come afterwards what would.

My prayers are heard.

Jane, you long to do what is right.

Do it.

You can.

You must.

Oh, God, show me the path.

Jane.

Jane.

I'm coming.

Jane.

Wait for me.

Where are you?

Where?

Oh, I will come.

I will.

That voice was not superstition, but the work of nature.

She was roused and did no miracle, but her best.

Jane.

Do not question me, cousin.

I too have a master to serve.

Once more on the road to Thornfield, I felt like a messenger pigeon returning home.

I recall that voice I heard, that inward sensation I'd experienced.

When said it come?

It seemed in me, not in the external world.

Was it a mere nervous impression?

A delusion?

If it were, then I should find my master either gone or still at Thornfield Hall.

And who besides him?

His lunatic wife?

Oh, God, I'll have lost my labor.

Return to the inn.

Ask information there.

No.

I must see the hall.

Oh, God.

Delusion.

It's late, Mr. Rochester.

Is he dead?

I meant the present, gentlemen.

Mr. Edward's father, ma'am.

The present?

Mr. Edward Rochester's alive.

Well, in a way of speaking, I... What way?

What way?

You being a stranger, you won't have heard.

That hall's quite a ruin.

Burned to the ground last Autumn at dead of night.

I witnessed the fire we sent.

Mass of flames.

And was it his... How did the fire originate?

Oh, yes.

There was a lady, a lunatic, kept at the hall.

They guessed it was she.

But a queer thing happened about a year ago.

There was a governess at the hall, and Mr. Rochester fell in love with his governess.

But the fire... Yeah, I'm coming to that.

See, Mr. Rochester fell in love with his governess.

He set store on her above everything.

Though none but him thought her handsome.

Small, plain little thing, not more than twenty.

And Mr. Rochester rising forty.

But the fire, was it suspected the lunatic had started?

Oh, yes, ma'am.

Quite certain.

You see, she was Mr. Rochester's wife.

They all thought him a bachelor.

It all come out when he attempted to marry this governess.

Please.

I must know what you mean when you say Mr. Rochester's alive, in a way of speaking.

Was he hurt in the fire?

Was he... Stone blinded, ma'am.

Blinded?

Aye, and his left arm remained.

He tried to rescue the mad woman, climbed up into the attics when all was burning.

But she eluded him, went up onto the battlements.

Saw her standing there against the flames.

He begged her to come down.

He called to her.

But she gie a spring, and the next moment she lay smashed on the paving below.

Dead?

As dead as the stones on which her brains and blood were scattered.

It was frightful.

Oh, God.

See, it was Mr. Rochester's courage that did... And is he now abroad?

No, he's at Fern Dean.

Manor house, some 30 mile away.

Desolate spot.

Quite broken down, this area is.

His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour.

A year's space could not quell or blight its vigorous prime.

Yet he looked desperate, brooding in his blind ferocity.

Where was his daring stride now?

Let me alone!

Leah?

Sir?

How are you, Leah?

Oh, is it really you, Miss?

Yes.

And how are you, John?

Nicely, thank you, Miss.

This search far and wide for you, Miss, after a fire.

You heard about the fire at Thornfield?

Yes, the landlord of the George at Milk had informed me.

And of Mr. Rochester's accident?

Yes.

Oh, John, could you go down to the Turnpike house?

Would you like to work there?

Of course, Miss.

Could you arrange for me to stay the night, Leah?

I've travelled far.

I think so, Miss.

Excuse me.

When you go in, tell Mr. Rochester a person wishes to speak to him,

but do not give my name.

I don't think he'll see you, Miss.

He refuses anybody.

Because his kindness blinded him.

So I believe.

And kindness, my kindness, would give him eyes again.

You're to send in your name and your business, Miss.

Oh, is that what he ran for, Leah?

Yes, Miss, he always has candles, although he is blind.

Give me the tray.

Shh, pilot, lie down.

What is it?

Leah, is it you?

Leah's in the kitchen.

Who is it?

What is it?

Who speaks?

Pilot knows me.

And John and Leah.

I only came this evening.

Great God, what delusion has come over me.

What sweet madness.

Neither, sir.

Where is the speaker?

Or is it only a voice?

Oh, God, I cannot see.

But I must feel or my heart will stop and my brain burst.

Whoever... Whatever you are, be perceptible to touch or I cannot live.

Yes, sir.

Her very fingers.

There must be more of her.

Is it Jane?

This is her shape and size.

And this her voice, she is all here.

Her heart too.

Jane Eyre.

Jane Eyre.

Yes, I've come back to you.

I found you out.

In truth, in the flesh, my living Jane.

You touch me, you hold me, sir.

I'm not cold like a corpse nor vacant like air, am I?

My living darling.

No, I cannot be so blessed.

It's a dream, such as I've had when I've kissed her.

That's that.

But I always awoke and found her gone.

Gentle, soft dream.

You will fly too.

But kiss me before you go, Jane.

No, sir.

It is you.

You're not dead in some ditch, under some stream.

Nor a pining outcast among strangers.

No, sir.

I'm an independent woman.

What do you mean?

My uncle in Madeira left me five thousand pounds.

This is practical.

This is real.

I should never dream that.

Besides, there's that peculiar voice of hers.

So animating and peacock.

It cheers my withered heart.

And you're an independent woman.

A rich woman.

I am my own mistress.

I can choose to stay with you if I wish.

Do you?

A blind lamer to like me.

If you do not object, I will be your neighbor, your nurse, your housekeeper, your.

..

Had I too rashly overleaped conventionalities, I'd made the proposal

from the idea that he wished and would ask me to be his wife.

Perhaps I had played the fool unwittingly.

No, don't believe me.

I've touched you and heard you.

I cannot give up these joys.

I will stay, I have said so.

To be my nurse?

You're young.

You must... ...marry someday.

I do not care about being married.

You should care, Janet.

If I were as I once was, I'd try and make you care.

But... ...a sightless bloke.

I took fresh courage seeing now where the difficulty lay.

It's time someone undertook to rehumanize you.

You look like...

...Nabugneser in the fields.

Your hair remind me of eagle's feathers.

But your nails have grown like bird's claws I've not yet noticed.

On this arm I have neither hand nor nails.

A mere stump.

It is a pity to see it.

A pity to see your eyes.

And scorn you for it.

And the worst of it is one is in danger of making too much of you and...

...loving you too well for all that.

I must leave you and make a fire.

I'll light the candles.

Can you tell when there's a good fire?

Yes.

I see a glow, a red haze.

And the candles?

Very dimly.

Each a luminous cloud.

Can you see me?

No, my elf.

I'm only thankful to hear you.

And touch you.

When do you take supper?

I never take supper.

You shall tonight.

I'm hungry.

So are you, I dare say, only... ...you forget.

Who the deuce have you been with, Jane?

With good people, sir.

Far better than you.

They've not diminished your impudence.

Who were they?

You shall not get it out of me tonight.

You must wait till tomorrow.

To leave my tale half-toed will be a sort of...

...security that I shall appear at your breakfast table to finish it.

And I shall bring you not a glass of water, but...

...an egg at least, to say nothing of fried ham.

You changeling... ...fairy-born and human bread.

Now, I shall leave you.

I've been travelling and I'm tired.

Jane, one word more.

Are there any ladies in the house where you've been?

Good night, sir.

Miss Parson Rivers is your cousin?

Yes.

Do you like him?

He's a very good man.

A good man, hmm.

By that do you mean a respectable well-conducted man of fifty?

Or sixty?

St. John is but twenty-nine, sir.

But his brain, rather soft.

You shrug your shoulders to hear him talk.

He talks little, but ever to the point.

He is thoroughly educated.

But priggish, parsonical.

Sort of a raw curate, half strangled by his white neckcloth.

He dresses well.

He is a handsome man, tall with fair hair.

Blue eyes and a Grecian profile.

Damn him.

Perhaps you'd rather not sit so close to me, Miss Eyre.

Why not, Mr. Rochester?

The picture you've just drawn is suggestive of a rather too overwhelming contrast.

Your words have delineated very prettily.

A graceful Apollo.

Your eyes dwell on a Vulcan.

A real blacksmith, blind and maimed into the bargain.

I had not thought of it before, but you are rather like Vulcan, sir.

Hmm.

After you'd returned to reside with your newly

discovered cousins, did rivers spend much time there?

Oh, yes.

The back parlour was both his study and ours.

What did you study?

German and a little Hindustani.

Hindustani?

What use could that language be to you?

He wished me to go with him to India, sir.

Ah, the root of the matter.

He wanted you to marry him.

He asked me to marry him.

Then you must go to the husband you've chosen, this St. John Rivers.

But he is not my husband, nor ever will be.

Oh, he's good and great, but severe as an iceberg.

Must I leave you, sir, to go to him?

I only wanted to tease you a little to make you less sad.

But my scarred vision, my crippled strength...

They are honourable scars, sir.

Your sacrifice is legendary.

None but speaks well of you.

Possibly.

And the result is I'm no better than the old

lightning-struck Chestnut tree at Thornfield.

What right would that ruin have to bid a

budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?

You are no ruin, sir.

Oh, Thornfield, maybe.

I have seen it.

But you are not.

Friends will ever lean towards you.

But I want... a wife, Jane.

Do you, sir?

Yes.

Is it news to you?

Well, of course.

You've said nothing of it before.

Is it unwelcome news?

That depends on your choice.

Which you shall make for me.

I will abide by your decision.

Choose, then, sir.

Her who loves you best.

Oh.

I will choose her I love best.

Jane, will you marry me?

Yes, sir.

A cripple, 20 years older than yourself, whom you'll have to lead about by the hand?

Yes, sir.

Truly, Jane?

Most truly.

Oh, my darling.

God bless you and reward you.

To be your wife is for me.

To be as happy as I can be on earth.

Because you delight in sacrifice.

What do I sacrifice?

Famine for food, expectation for content.

Jane suits me.

Do I suit her?

To the finest fiber of my nature, sir.

I married him.

I hold myself supremely blessed.

Because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine.

Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union.

But gradually the obscurity clouding his left eye cleared.

The sky is no longer a blank to him.

The earth no longer a void.

God has tempered judgment with mercy.