"Very willingly," he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little
distance up the pass, threw himself down on a swell of heath, and
there lay still.
"I CAN do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and acknowledge
that," I meditated, -- "that is, if life be spared me. But I feel
mine is not the existence to be long protracted under an Indian
sun. What then? He does not care for that: when my time came to
die, he would resign me, in all serenity and sanctity, to the God
who gave me. The case is very plain before me. In leaving England,
I should leave a loved but empty land -- Mr. Rochester is not there;
and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me? My business
is to live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag
on from day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible change in
circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of course (as St.
John once said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the
one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most
glorious man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble cares
and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the void left
by uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say,
Yes -- and yet I shudder. Alas! If I join St. John, I abandon
half myself: if I go to India, I go to premature death. And how
will the interval between leaving England for India, and India for
the grave, be filled? Oh, I know well! That, too, is very clear
to my vision. By straining to satisfy St. John till my sinews ache,
I SHALL satisfy him -- to the finest central point and farthest
outward circle of his expectations. If I DO go with him -- if I
DO make the sacrifice he urges, I will make it absolutely: I will
throw all on the altar -- heart, vitals, the entire victim. He will
never love me; but he shall approve me; I will show him energies
he has not yet seen, resources he has never suspected. Yes, I can
work as hard as he can, and with as little grudging.
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