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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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350 In her absence, I began to beg for Zillah’s place at the Heights, offering to resign mine to her; but he would suffer it on no account. He bid me be silent; and then, for the first time, allowed himself a glance round the room, and a look at the pictures. Having studied Mrs. Linton, he said: “I shall have that home. Not because I need it, but--” He turned abruptly to the fire, and continued, with what, for lack of a better word, I must call a smile-- “I’ll tell you what I did yesterday! I got the sexton, who was digging Linton’s grave, to remove the earth off her coffin-lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there, when I saw her face again--it is hers yet--he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose, and covered it up--not Linton’s side, damn him! I wish he’d been soldered in lead--and I bribed the sexton to pull it away, when I’m laid there, and slide mine out too. I’ll have it made so; and then, by the time Linton gets to us, he’ll not know which is which!” “You were very wicked, Mr. Heathcliff!” I exclaimed; “were you not ashamed to disturb the dead?” “I disturbed nobody, Nelly,” he replied, “and I gave some ease to myself. I shall be a great deal more comfortable now; and you’ll have a better chance of keeping me underground, when I get there. Disturbed her? No! she has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen years--incessantly--remorselessly--till yesternight; and yesternight I was tranquil. I dreamt I was sleeping the last sleep by that sleeper, with my heart stopped and my cheek frozen against hers.” “And if she had been dissolved into earth, or worse, what would |
