|
Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
 |
||||
|
Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
||||
|
|
||||
|
384 satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.’ ‘Well, sir, I will stay with you: I have said so.’ ‘Yes-but you understand one thing by staying with me; and I understand another. You, perhaps, could make up your mind to be about my hand and chair-to wait on me as a kind little nurse (for you have an affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which prompt you to make sacrifices for those you pity), and that ought to suffice for me no doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly feelings for you: do you think so? Come-tell me.’ ‘I will think what you like, sir: I am content to be only your nurse, if you think it better.’ ‘But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet: you are young-you must marry one day.’ ‘I don’t care about being married.’ ‘You should care, Janet: if I were what I once was, I would try to make you care-but-a sightless block!’ He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more cheerful, and took fresh courage: these last words gave me an insight as to where the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment. I resumed a livelier vein of conversation. ‘It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you,’ said I, parting his thick and long uncut locks; ‘for I see you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a “faux air” of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair reminds me of eagles’ feathers; whether your nails are grown like birds’ claws or not, I have not yet noticed.’ ‘On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails,’ he said, drawing the mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me. ‘It is a mere stump-a ghastly sight! Don’t you think so, Jane?’ ‘It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes-and the scar of fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you.’ ‘I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm, and my cicatrised visage.’ ‘Did you? Don’t tell me so-lest I should say something disparaging to your judgment. Now, let me leave you an instant, to make a better fire, and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there is a good fire?’ ‘Yes; with the right eye I see a glow-a ruddy haze.’ ‘And you see the candles?’ ‘Very dimly-each is a luminous cloud.’ ‘Can you see me?’ ‘No, my fairy: but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you.’ ‘When do you take supper?’ ‘I never take supper.’ ‘But you shall have some to-night. I am hungry: so are you, I daresay, only you forget.’ Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order: I prepared him, likewise, a comfortable repast. My spirits were excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper, and for a long |
