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Yes, exactly.

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My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received; no one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had turned against him to avert further irrational violence, I was loaded with general opprobrium.
wantonly: 放纵地, 肆无忌惮地
opprobrium: 非难; 诽谤

"Unjust! --unjust!" said my reason, forced by the agonizing stimulus into precocious though transitory power; and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression --as running away, or if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.
precocious: 早熟的
transitory: 短暂的
get wrought up 激动起来, 被激怒
instigate: 鼓动]
expedient: 权宜之计,应急手段
insupportable: 不能忍受的;不能容忍的

What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could not answer the ceaseless inward question--why I thus suffered; now, at the distance of --I will not say how many years--I see it clearly.
consternation: 惊惶失措
tumult: 混乱
insurrection: 起义, 叛乱, 造反

I was a discord in Gatehead Hall; I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them. They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathize with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of contempt of their judgement. I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child--though equally dependent and friendless--Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone to make me the scapegoat of the nursery.
heterogeneous: 异类的:完全不同的;不一致的
propensity: 倾向,特性
romping: 嬉戏喧闹的, 乱蹦乱闹的
cordiality: 诚实, 诚恳
be less prone to: 不致老是...
scapegoat: 替罪羊

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Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o'clock, and the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight. I heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then my courage sank. My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire. All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so: what thought had I been but just conceiving of starving myself to death? That certainly was a crime: and was I fit to die? Or was the vault under the chancel of Gateshead Church an inviting bourne? In such vault I had been told did Mr. Reed lie buried; and led by this thought to recall his idea, I dwelt on it with gathering dread. I could not remember him, but I knew that he was my own uncle -- my mother's brother -- that he had taken me when a parentless infant to his house; and that in his last moments he had required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children. Mrs. Reed probably considered she had kept this promise; and so she had, I dare say, as well as her nature would permit her: but how could she really like an interloper, not of her race, and unconnected with her, after her husband's death, by any tie? It must have been most irksome to find herself bound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand in the stead of a parent to a strange child she could not love, and to see an uncongenial alien permanently intruded on her own family group.
grove: 小树林
by degrees: 逐渐地
forlorn: 孤独凄凉的
ember: 灰烬, 余烬
ire: 忿怒
vault: 墓穴,墓室
chancel: 教堂高坛
bourne: 目的地
interloper: 闯入者
irksome: 令人厌恶的, 讨厌的, 令人厌烦的
uncongenial: 志趣不相投的

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A singular notion dawned upon me. I doubeted not -- never doubted -- that if Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly; and now, as I sat looking at the white bed and over-shadowed walls -- occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaming mirror -- I began to recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed's spirit, harassed by the wrongs of his siter's child, might quit its abode -- whether in the church vault or in the unknown world of the departed -- and rise before me in this chamber. I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violent grief might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloom some haloed face, bending over me with strange pity. This idea, consolatory in theory, I felt would be terrible if realized: with all my might I endeavoured to stifle it -- I endeavored to be firm. Shaking my hair from my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark room; at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a ray from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind? No; moonlight was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my head. I can now conjecture readily that this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried by some one across the lawn; but then, prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift-darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world. My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort. Steps came running along the outer passage; the key turned, Bessie and Abbot entered.
perjured: 发假誓的, 作伪证的
harass: 折磨; 使烦恼
abode: 住所, 住处
the departed:  死者
hush: 使平静;抚慰
preternatural: 超自然的; 奇异的, 不可思议的
elicit: 诱出,引出
halo: 使有晕轮, 围以光环
stifle: 阻止或抑制;压制]
aperture: 孔, 穴, 缝隙
conjecture: .推测, 猜想
suffocate: 使窒息, 噎住

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"Miss Eyre, are you ill?" said Bessie.
"What a dreadful noise! It went quite through me!" exclaimed Abbot.
"Take me out! Let me go into the nursery!" was my cry.
"What for? Are you hurt? Have you seen something?" again demanded Bessie.
"Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come. " I had now got hold of Bessie's hand, and she did not snatch it from me.
"She has screamed out on purpose," declared Abbot, in some disgust. "And what a scream! If she had been in great pain one would have excused it, but she only wanted to bring us all here; I know her naughty tricks."
"What is all this?" demanded another voice peremptorily; and Mrs. Reed came along the corridor, her cap flying wide, her gown rustling stormily. "Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane Eyre should be left in the red-room till I came to her myself."
"Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma'am," pleaded Bessie.
"Let her go," was the only answer. "Loose Bessie's hands, child: you cannot succeed in getting out by these means, be assured. I abhor artifice, particularly in children; it is my duty to show you that tricks will not answer; you will now stay here an hour longer, and it is only on condition of perfect submission and stillness that I shall liberate you then."
"Oh, aunt! Have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it -- let me be punished some other way! I shall be killed if -- "
"Silence! This violence is almost repulsive";  and so, no doubt, she felt it. I was a precocious actress in her eyes: she sincerely looked on me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous duplicity.
Bessie and Abbot having retreated, Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now frantic anguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust me back and locked me in, without further parley. I heard her sweeping away; and soon after she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit: unconsciousness closed the scene.
peremptorily: 紧急地, 不容分说地, 专横地
artifice: 诡计
precocious: 早熟的
duplicity: 不诚实, 表里不一
parley: (尤指与敌方)会谈, 谈判
fit:  痉挛

This is the end of chapter 2.

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Chapter 3

The next thing I remember is waking up with a feeling as if I had had a frightful nightmare, and seeing before me a terrible red glare, crossed with thick black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with a hollow sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water: agitation, uncertainty, and an all-predominating sense of terror confused my faculties. Ere long, I became aware that some one was handling me; lifting me up and supporting me in a sittting posture, and that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before. I rested my head against a pillow or an arm, and felt easy.
In five minutes more the cloud of bewilderment dissolved: I knew quite well that I was in my own bed, and that the red glare was the nursery fire. It was night: a candle burnt on the table: Bessie stood at the bed-foot with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat in a chair near my pillow, leaning over me.
I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room, an individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed. Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been), I scrutinized the face of the gentleman: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing: for herself and the children she employed a physician.
obnoxious: 不愉快的, 讨厌的
scrutinize: 细看,仔细检查
apothecary: 药剂师

"Well, who am I ?" he asked.
I pronounced his name, offering him at the same time my hand: he took it, smiling and saying, "We shall do very well by and by." Then he laid me down, and addressing Bessie, charged her to be very careful that I was not disturbed during the night. Having given some further directions, and intimated that he should call again the next day, he departed, to my grief: I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat in the chair near my pillow; and as he closed the door after him, all the room darkened and my heart again sank: inexpressible sadness weighed it down.
"Do you feel as if you should sleep, miss?" asked Bessie, rather softly.
Scarcely dared I answer her; for I feared the next sentence might be rough. "I will try."
"Would you like to drink, or could you eat anything?"
"No, thank you, Bessie."
"Then I think I shall go to bed, for it is past twelve o'clock; but you may call me if you want anything in the night."
Wonderful civility this! It emboldened me to ask a question.
"Bessie, what is the matter with me? Am I ill?"
"You fell sick, I suppose, in the red-room with crying; you'll be better soon, no doubt."
embolden: 使大胆, 使有胆量, 使勇敢

Bessie went into the housemaid's apartment which was near. I heard her say,--
"Sarah, come and sleep with me in the nursery; I daren't for my life be alone with that poor child tonight; she might die; it's such a stange thing she should have that fit: I wonder if she saw anything. Missis was rather too hard."
Sarah came back with her; they both went to bed; they were whispering together for half an hour before they fell asleep. I caught scraps of their conversation, from which I was able only too distinctly to infer the main subject discussed.
"Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished" -- "A great black dog behind him" -- "Three loud raps on the chamber door" -- "A light in the churchyard just over his grave" -- &c., &c.

[ 本帖最后由 Sylvia_scj 于 2008-3-1 12:05 PM 编辑 ]

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At last both slept: the fire and the candle went out. For me, the watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; ear, eye, and mind were alike strained by dread, such dread as children only can feel.
No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the red-room: it only gave my nerves a shock, on which I feel the reverberation to this day. Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering. But I ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did: while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities.
Next day, by noon, I was up and dressed, and sat wrapped in a shawl by the nursery hearth. I felt physically weak and broken down: but my worst ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind: a wretchedness which kept drawing from me silent tears. No sooner had I wiped one salt drop from my cheek than another followed. Yet I thought I ought to have been happy, for none of the Reeds were there -- they were all gone out in the carriage with their mamma. Abbot, too, was sewing in another room, and Bessie, as she moved hither and thither, putting away toys and arranging drawers, addressed to me every now and then a word of unwonted kindness. This state of things should have been to me a paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless fagging; but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such a state that no calm could soothe, and no pleasure excite them agreeably.

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Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with her a tart on a certain brightly painted china plate, whose bird of paradise, nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had been wont to stir in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration; and which plate I had often petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand in order to examine it more closely, but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a privilege. This precious vessel was now placed on my knee, and I was cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it. Vain favour! coming, like most other favours long deferred and often wished for, too late! I could not eat the tart: and the plumage of the bird, the tints of the flowers, seemed strangely faded! I put both plate and tart away. Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word book acted as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch GULLIVER'S TRAVELS from the library. This book I had again and again perused with delight. I considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales:  for as to the elves, having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves and bells, under mushrooms and beneath the ground-ivy mantling old wallnooks, I had at length made up my mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker, and the population more scant; whereas Lilliput and Brobdingnag being, in my creed, solid parts of the earth's surface, I doubted not that I might one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields, houses, and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, and birds of the one realm; and the cornfields forest-high, the mighty mastiffs, the monster cats, the tower-like men and women of the other. Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hands -- when I turned over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to find -- all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions. I closed the book, which I dared no longer peruse, and put it on the table beside the untasted tart.
tart: 果馅饼, 小烘饼
bird of paradise: 极乐鸟
petition: 请求, 恳求
cordially: 诚挚地
deferred: 延缓的
plumage: 鸟类羽毛, 翅膀
peruse: 细读
foxglove: [植]毛地黄
bell: 花冠
ivy: [植]常春藤
mantle: 覆盖
wallnook: 墙的角落
Lilliput: 小人国(英国作家Jonathan Swift所著小说《格列佛游记》[1726年]中的假想国, 其居民身高仅6英寸左右)
Brobdingnag: (格列佛游记中的)大人国
diminutive: 小的
mastiff: 獒犬,大驯犬
eerie: 怪诞的, 可怕的, 不安的, 奇异的
gaunt: 憔悴的
goblin: 妖怪
pigmy: 矮人, 侏儒

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Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and, having washed her hands, she opened a certain little drawer, full of splendid shreds of silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana's doll. Meantime she sang: her song was, --
"In the days when we went gipsying,
A long time ago."
gipsy: 流浪

I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight; for Bessie had a sweet voice -- at least, I thought so. But now, though her voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an indescribable sadness. Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she sang the refrain very slow, very lingerly: "A long time ago" came out like the saddest cadence of a funeral hymn. She passed into another ballad, this time a really doleful one.
refrain: 重复, 叠句, [乐]副歌
cadence: (声音的)抑扬顿挫, 节奏, 韵律, 调子
funeral hymn: 挽歌
doleful: 令人悲伤的

" My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary;
Long is the way, and the mountains are wild;
Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary
Over the path of the poor orphan child.

Why did they send me so far and so lonely,
Up where the moors spread and gray rocks are piled?
Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only
Wathch o'er the steps of a poor orphan child.

Yet, distant and soft, the night-breeze is blowing,
Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild;
God, in His mercy, protection is showing,
Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.

Ev'n should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing,
Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled,
Still will my Father, with promise and blessing,
Take to His bosom the poor orphan child.

There is a thought that for strength should avail me;
Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled;
Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me;
God is a friend to the poor orphan child."

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"Come, Miss Jane, don't cry," said Bessie, as she finished. She might as well have said to the fire, "Don't burn!" but how could she divine the morbid suffering to which I was a prey? In the course of the morning Mr. Lloyd came again.
"What, already up!" said he, as he entered the nursery. "Well, nurse, how is she?"
Bessie answered that I was doing very well.
"Then she ought to look more cheerful. Come here, Miss Jane: your name is Jane, is it not?"
"Yes, sir; Jane Eyre."
"Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre: can you tell me what about? Have you any pain?"
"No, sir."
"Oh! I dare say she is crying because she could not go out with missis in the carriage," interposed Bessie.
"Surely not! why, she is too old for such pettishness."
I thought so too; and my self-esteem being wounded by a false charge, I answered promptly, "I never cried for such a thing in my life: I hate going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable."
"Oh, fie, Miss!" said Bessie.
divine: 占卜,猜想
interpose: 插话
pettish: 易怒的, 闹情绪的
fie: 呸:用来表示不喜欢或不同意

The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled. I was standing before him: he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small and gray, not very bright; but I dare say I should think them shrewd now: he had a hard-featured yet goodnatured-looking face. Having considered me at leisure, he said, "What made you ill yesterday?"
"She had a fall," said Bessie, again putting in her word.
"Fall! why, that is like a baby again! Can't she manage to walk at her age? She must be eight or nine years old."
"I was knocked down," was the blunt explanation, jerked out of me by another pang of mortified pride; "but that did not make me ill," I added; while Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff.
As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell rang for the servants' dinner; he knew what it was. "That's for you, nurse," said he; "you can go down; I'll give Miss Jane a lecture till you come back."
Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gateshead Hall.
"The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?" pursued Mr. Lloyd, when Bessie was gone.
"I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost, till after dark."
I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time: "Ghost! What, you are a baby after all! You are afraid of ghosts?"
"Of Mr. Reed's ghost I am; he died in that room, and was laid out there. Neither Bessie nor any one else will go into it at night, if they can help it; and it was cruel to shut me up alone without a candle -- so cruel that I think I shall never forget it."
"Nonsense! And is it that makes you so miserable? Are you afraid now in daylight?"
"No: but night will come again before long; and besides, I am unhappy -- very unhappy, for other things."
snuff: 鼻烟

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"What other things? Can you tell me some of them?"
How much I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficult it was to frame any answer! Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to express the result of the process in words. Fearful, however, of losing this first and only opportunity of relieving my grief by imparting it, I, after a disturbed pause, contrived to frame a meagre, though, as far as it went, true response.
impart: 告知;透露
contrive: 设法做到
meagre:  贫弱的
"For one thing, I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters,"
"You have a kind aunt and cousins."
Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced,
bungle: 搞坏事情;笨拙地做
"But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the red-room."
Mr. Lloyd a second time produced his snuff-box.
"Don't you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?" asked he. "Are you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?"
"It is not my house, sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be here than a servant."
"Pooh! you can't be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place?"
"If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman."
"Perhaps you may -- who knows? Have you any relations besides Mrs. Reed?"
"I think not, sir."
"None belonging to your father?"
"I don't know: I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I might have some poor, low relations called Eyre, but she knew nothing about them."
"If you had such, would you like to go to them?"
I reflected. Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty for me was synonymous with degradation.
grim: 严酷的
grate: 壁炉, 炉
debase: 贬低, 降低
"No; I should not like to belong to poor people," was my reply.
"Not even if they were kind to you?"
I shook my head; I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind, and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor woman I saw sometimes nursing their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of the village of Gateshead: no, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.
caste: 社会地位

[ 本帖最后由 Sylvia_scj 于 2008-3-6 10:58 AM 编辑 ]

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回复 44# 的帖子

Thank you.

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"But are your relatives so very poor? Are they working people?"
"I cannot tell; Aunt Reed says if I have any they must be a beggarly set; I should not like to go a-begging."
"Would you like to go to school?"
Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was; Bessie sometimes spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks, wore backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise; John Reed hated his school and abused his master; but John Reed's tastes were no rule for mine, and if Bessie's accounts of school discipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before coming to Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her details of certain accomplishments attained by these same young ladies were, I thought, equally attractive. She boasted of beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers by them executed; of songs they could sing and pieces they could play, of purses they could net, of French books they could translate; till my spirit was moved to emulation, as I listened. Besides, school would be a complete change; it implied a long journey, and entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.
"I should indeed like to go to school," was the audible conclusion of my musings.
stocks: 足枷
exceedingly: 非常地, 极度地
genteel: 优雅的
precise: 严格的; 拘泥的, 陈规的
emulation: 竞争, 效法

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"Well, well; who knows what may happen?" said Mr. Lloyd, as he got up. "The child ought to have change of air and scene," he added, speaking to himself; "nerves not in a good state."
Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard rolling up the gravel-walk.
"Is that your mistress, nurse?" asked Mr. Lloyd. "I should like to speak to her before I go."
Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfast-room and led the way out. In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, I presume, from after-occurrence, that the apothecary ventured to recommend my being sent to school; and the recommendation was no doubt readily enough adopted; for as Abbot said, in discussing the subject with Bessie, when both sat sewing in the nursery one night after I was in bed, and, as they thought, asleep, "Missis was, she dared say, glad enough to get rid of such a tiresome ill-conditioned child, who always looked as if she were watching everybody, and scheming plots underhand." Abbot, I think, gave me credit for being a sort of infantine Guy Fawkes.
gravelwalk: 砂砾小路
ill-conditioned: 性情坏的, 坏脾气的, 坏心肠的
underhand: 秘密地, 阴险地

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On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, from Miss Abbot's communications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated, and where that disease was then prevalent; that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other.
Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, "Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied too, Abbot."
"Yes," responded Abbot; "if she were a nice, pretty child, one might compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for such a little toad as that."
"Not a great deal, to be sure," agreed Bessie:"at any rate, a beauty like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same condition."
"Yes, I dote on Miss Georgiana!" cried the fervent Abbot. "Litte darling! -- with her long curls and her blue eyes, and such a sweet colour as she has; just as if she were painted! -- Bessie, I could fancy a Welsh rabbit for supper."
"So could I -- with a roast onion. Come, we'll go down." They went.
clergyman: 牧师, 教士
typhus: [医]斑疹伤寒症
curacy: 副牧师的职务
toad: 讨厌的家伙
dote on: 溺爱, 宠爱
fervent: 热情的,强烈的
Welsh rabbit: 威尔士干酪

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Chapter 4

From my discourse with Mr. Lloyd, and from the above reported conference between Bessie and Abbot, I gathered enought of hope to suffice as a motive for wishing to get well: a change seemed near -- I desired and waited it in silence. It tarried, however; days and weeks passed; I had regained my normal state of health, but no new allusion was made to the subject over which I brooded. Mrs. Reed surveyed me at times with a severe eye, but seldom addressed me; since my illness she had drawn a more marked line of separation than ever between me and her own children, appointing me a small closet to sleep in by myself, condemning me to take my meals alone, and pass all my time in the nursery, while my cousins were constantly in the drawing-room. Not a hint, however, did she drop about sending me to school; still I felt an instinctive certainty that she would not long endure me under the same roof with her; for her glance, now more than ever, when turned on me, expressed an insuperable and rooted aversion.
discourse: 谈话, 谈论
tarry: 耽搁
brood: 沉思
drop: To say or offer casually: 随便地说或提供:drop a hint. 给个暗示

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Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to me as little as possible; John thrust his tongue in his cheek whenever he saw me, and once attempted chastisement; but as I instantly turned against him, roused by the same sentiment of deep ire and desperate revolt which had stirred my corruption before, he thought it better to desist, and ran from me, uttering execrations, and vowing I had burst his nose. I had, indeed, levelled at that prominent feature as hard a blow as my knuckles could inflict; and when I saw that either that or my look daunted him I had the greatest inclination to follow up my advantage to purpose, but he was already with his mamma. I heard him in a blubbering tone commence the tale of how "that nasty Jane Eyre" had flown at him like a wild cat; he was stopped rather harshly --
"Don't talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her: she is not worthy of notice. I do not choose that either you or your sisters should associate with her."
Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly, and without at all deliberating on my words ---
"They are not fit to associate with me."
chastisement: 通过痛打等惩罚
ire: 愤怒
desist: 停止
execration: 咒骂语
blubber:  哭泣
banister: 栏杆的支柱, 楼梯的扶栏

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Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but, on hearing this strange and audacious declaration, she ran nimbly up the stair, swept me like a whirlwind into the nursery, and crushing me down on the edge of my crib, dared me in an emphatic voice to rise from that place, or utter one syllable, during the remainder of the day.
"What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?" was my scarcely voluntary demand. I say scarcely voluntary, for it seemed as if my tongue pronounced words without my will consenting to their utterance: something spoke out of me over which I had no control.
"What?" said Mrs. Reed under her breath: her usually cold, composed gray eye became troubled with a look of fear; she took her hand from my arm, and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether I were child or fiend. I was now in for it.
"My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so can papa and mamma; they know how you shut me up all day long, and how you wish me dead."
Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits: she shook me most soundly, she boxed both my ears, and then left me without a word. Bessie supplied the hiatus by a homily of an hour's length, in which she proved beyond a doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child ever reared under a roof. I half believed her, for I felt, indeed, only bad feelings surging in my breast.
audacious: 大胆的, 卤莽的
nimbly: 敏捷地, 机敏地
fiend: 魔鬼
rally: 重振,恢复
hiatus: (时间)间歇
homily: (冗长乏味的)说教
be in for it: 骑虎难下, 势必倒霉

[ 本帖最后由 Sylvia_scj 于 2008-3-8 08:12 PM 编辑 ]

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November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas and the New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual festive cheer; presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given. From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of the gaiety consisted in witnessing the daily appareling of Eliza and Georgiana, and seeing them descend to the drawing-room, dressed out in thin muslin frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair elaborately ringleted; and afterwards, in listening to the sound of the piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro of the butler and footman, to the jingling of glass and china as refreshments were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the drawing-room doors opened and closed. When tired of this occupation, I would retire from the stairhead to the solitary and silent nursery: there, though somewhat sad, I was not miserable. To speak truth, I had not the least wish to go into company, for in company I was very rarely noticed: and if Bessie had but been kind and companionable, I should have deemed it a treat to spend the evenings quietly with her, instead of passing them under the formidable eye of Mrs. Reed, in a room full of ladies and gentlemen. But Bessie, as soon as she had dressed her young ladies, used to take herself off to the lively regions of the kitchen and housekeeper’s room, generally bearing the candle along with her. I then sat with my doll on my knee, till the fire got low, glancing round occasionally to make sure that nothing worse than myself haunted the shadowy room; and when the embers sank to a dull red, I undressed hastily, tugging at knots and strings as I best might, and sought shelter from cold and darkness in my crib. To this crib I always took my doll; human beings must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doted on this little toy, half fancying it alive and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded in my nightgown; and when it lay there safe and warm, I was comparatively happy, believing it to be happy likewise.
Gaiety: 欢乐的气氛
Apparel: (精致的)衣服
Muslin: 一种薄细的棉布
Frock: 上衣, 外衣
Sash: (妇女、儿童用的)彩带, 腰带, 饰带
Ringlet: 卷发
Butler: 男管家
Refreshment: 点心, 饮料
Ember: 余烬
Dearth: 缺乏
Graven image: 塑像; 木或石雕的偶像
Scarecrow: 稻草人, 衣衫褴褛的人

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Long did the hours seem while I waited the departure of the company, and listened for the sound of Bessie’s step on the stairs. Sometimes she would come up in the interval to seek her thimble or her scissors, or perhaps to bring me something by way of supper – a bun or a cheese-cake – then she would sit on the bed while I ate it, and when I had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me, and twice she kissed me, and said, “Good night, Miss Jane.” When thus gentle, Bessie seemed to me the best, prettiest, kindest being in the world; and I wished most intensely that she would always be so pleasant and amiable, and never push me about, or scold, or task me unreasonably, as she was too often wont to do. Bessie Lee must, I think, have been a girl of good natural capacity, for she was smart in all she did, and had a remarkable knack of narrative; so, at least, I judged from the impression made on me by her nursery tales. She was pretty, too, if my recollections of her face and person are correct. I remember her as a slim young woman, with black hair, dark eye, very nice features, and good, clear complexion; but she had a capricious and hasty temper, and indifferent ideas of principle or justice; still, such as she was, I preferred her to any one else at Gateshead Hall.
Thimble: 顶针
By way of: 作为
Bun: 小圆面包
Capricious: 反复无常的

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