Джейн Эйр / Jane Eyre

Уже после смерти автора свет увидел первый роман Шарлотты «Учитель». Писательница-романистка Элизабет Гаскелл написала биографию РЁ. Бронте. Р?менно благодаря этому жизнь сестер Бронте, как Рё РёС… романы, оказались столь широко известны публике. РЎ тех РїРѕСЂ творчество сестер Бронте Рё РёС… СЃСѓРґСЊР±Р° неизменно завоевывают сердца читателей.

Chapter 1

It was impossible to take a walk that day. Since dinner the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was out of the question. Instead, we had to amuse ourselves indoors.[1 - we had to amuse ourselves indoors. – нам пришлось находить себе занятие дома.

] I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons. My cousins, Eliza, John and Georgiana Reed were sitting round their mama in the drawing-room by the fire-side, but I was not allowed to join the group.

“You, Jane, are excluded from our company until I hear from Bessie that you can behave like a proper, sweet little girl,” announced Mrs. Reed.

“What does Bessie say I have done?” I asked.

“Jane, I don’t like questioners; don’t answer me back.[2 - don’t answer me back – не пререкайтесь] Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.”

I went into another room, with a bookcase in it. I took one of the books, Bewick’s History of British Birds, and climbed into the window seat. I drew the curtain, gathered up my feet, and sat cross-legged, like a Turk. Then I immersed myself into another world.

I was now discovering the shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with �the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and that reservoir of frost and snow. Of these death white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children’s brains, but strangely impressive.

The book contained pictures, and each picture told a story.