Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Madness & Love

“Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you don't know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should hate you?" 

"I do indeed, sir." 

"Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat--your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me.” 

― Charlotte BrontëJane Eyre

2 comments:

Wally B said...

That was my father during the last 2 years of Mom's life. He embraced her in his sleep as her last breath left her body, snugged together like two spoons in a cutlery drawer.

Marcheline said...

I absolutely adored Orson Welles in the 1944 movie version, and more recently fell for Michael Fassbender in the 2011 recreation! Those bad boys, they're so dreamy...