WUTHERING HEIGHTS
A monologue from the
novel by Emily Brontë
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from Wuthering Heights. Emily Brontë. New York: Harper
& Brothers, 1848. |
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MRS. LINTON: How long is it since I shut myself in
here? It seems a weary number of hours ... it must be more. I
remember being in the parlour after they had quarrelled, and
Edgar being cruelly provoking, and me running into this room
desperate. As soon as ever I had barred the door, utter blackness
overwhelmed me, and I fell on the floor. I couldn't explain to
Edgar how certain I felt of having a fit, or going raging mad,
if he persisted in teasing me! I had no command of tongue, or
brain, and he did not guess my agony, perhaps: it barely left
me sense to try to escape from him and his voice. Before I recovered
sufficiently to see and hear, it began to be dawn, and, Nelly,
I'll tell you what I thought, and what has kept recurring and
recurring till I feared for my reason. I thought as I lay there,
with my head against that table leg, and my eyes dimly discerning
the grey square of the window, that I was enclosed in the oak-panelled
bed at home; and my heart ached with some great grief which,
just waking, I could not recollect. I pondered, and worried myself
to discover what it could be, and, most strangely, the whole
last seven years of my life grew a blank! I did not recall that
they had been at all. I was a child; my father was just buried,
and my misery arose from the separation that Hindley had ordered
between me and Heathcliff. I was laid alone, for the first time;
and, rousing from a dismal doze after a night of weeping, I lifted
my hand to push the panels aside: it struck the table-top! I
swept it along the carpet, and then memory burst in: my late
anguish was swallowed in a paroxysm of despair. I cannot say
why I felt so wildly wretched: it must have been temporary derangement;
for there is scarcely cause. But, supposing at twelve years old
I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association,
and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted
at a stroke into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange,
and the wife of a stranger: an exile, and outcast, thenceforth,
from what had been my world. You may fancy a glimpse of the abyss
where I grovelled! Shake your head as you will, Nelly, you have
helped to unsettle me! You should have spoken to Edgar, indeed
you should, and compelled him to leave me quiet! Oh, I'm burning!
I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half
savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening
under them! Why am I so changed? why does my blood rush into
a hell of tumult at a few words? I'm sure I should be myself
were I once among the heather on those hills. Open the window
again wide: fasten it open! Quick, why don't you move?
MORE
MONOLOGUES BY EMILY BRONTË |
