Джейн Эйр / Jane Eyre

While sobbing out this wish in broken accents, some one approached; I started up – again Helen Burns was near me; the fading fires just showed her coming up the long, vacant room; she brought my coffee and bread.

�Come, eat something,’ she said; but I put both away from me, feeling as if a drop or a crumb would have choked me in my present condition. Helen regarded me, probably with surprise; I could not now abate my agitation, though I tried hard; I continued to weep aloud.

She sat down on the ground near me, embraced her knees with her arms, and rested her head upon them; in that attitude she remained silent as an Indian. I was the first who spoke:

�Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be a liar?’

�Everybody, Jane? Why, there are only eighty people who have heard you called so, and the world contains hundreds of millions.’

�But what have I to do with millions? The eighty, I know, despise me.

’

�Jane, you are mistaken; probably not one in the school either despises or dislikes you; many, I am sure, pity you much.’

�How can they pity me after what Mr. Brocklehurst has said?’

�Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god; nor is he even a great and admired man; he is little liked here; he never took steps to make himself liked. Had he treated you as an especial favourite, you would have found enemies, declared or covert, all around you; as it is, the greater number would offer you sympathy if they dared.

Teachers and pupils may look coldly on you for a day or two, but friendly feelings are concealed in their hearts; and if you persevere in doing well, these feelings will ere long appear so much the more evidently for their temporary suppression. Besides, Jane,’ – she paused.

�Well, Helen?’ said I, putting my hand into hers.

She chafed my fingers gently to warm them, and went on:

�If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.’

�No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough; if others don’t love me, I would rather die than live – I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen.