第59章

The same conviction had stricken him as me, from the instant he beheld her, that there was no prospect of ultimate recovery there--she was fated, sure to die.

`Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! how can I bear it?' was the first sentence he uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair.And now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish: they did not melt.

`What now?' said Catherine, leaning back, and returning his look with a suddenly clouded brow: her humour was a mere vane for constantly varying caprices.`You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff! And you both came to bewail the deed to me, as if you were the people to be pitied! I shall not pity you, not I.You have killed me--and thriven on it, I think.How strong you are! How many years do you mean to live after I am gone?'

Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her; he attempted to rise, but she seized his hair, and kept him down.

`I wish I could hold you,' she continued bitterly, `till we were both dead! I shouldn't care what you suffered.I care nothing for your sufferings.Why shouldn't you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence, ``That's the grave of Catherine Earnshaw.I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past.I've loved many others since: my children are dearer to me than she was; and at death, I shall not rejoice that Iam going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave them!'' Will you say so, Heathcliff?'

`Don't torture me till I am as mad as yourself,' cried he, wrenching his head free, and grinding his teeth.

The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture.

Well might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her, unless with her mortal body she cast away her moral character also.Her present countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a bloodless lip and scintillating eye; and she retained in her closed fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping.As to her companion, while raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other; and so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the requirements of her condition, that on his letting go I saw four distinct impressions left blue in the colourless skin.

`Are you possessed with a devil,' he pursued savagely, `to talk in that manner to me when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those words will be branded on my memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have left me? You know you lie to say I have killed you: and, Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existence! Is it not sufficient for your infernal selfishness, that while you are at peace I shall writhe in the torments of hell?'

`I shall not be at peace,' moaned Catherine, recalled to a sense of physical weakness by the violent, unequal throbbing of her heart, which beat visibly and audibly under this excess of agitation.She said nothing further till the paroxysm was over; then she continued, more kindly--`I'm not wishing you greater torment than I have, Heathcliff.

I only wish us never to be parted: and should a word of mine distress you hereafter, think I feel the same distress underground, and for my own sake, forgive me! Come here and kneel down again! You never harmed me in your life.Nay, if you nurse anger, that will be worse to remember than my harsh words! Won't you come here again? Do!'

Heathcliff went to the back of her chair, and leant over, but not so far as to let her see his face, which was livid with emotion.She bent round to look at him; he would not permit it: turning abruptly, he walked to the fireplace, where he stood, silent, with his back towards us.Mrs Linton's glance followed him suspiciously: every movement woke a new sentiment in her.After a pause and a prolonged gaze, she resumed;addressing me in accents of indignant disappointment--`Oh, you see, Nelly, he would not relent a moment to keep me out of the grave.That is how I'm loved! Well, never mind.That is not my Heathcliff.I shall love mine yet; and take him with me: he's in my soul.And', added she, musingly, `the thing that irks me most in this shattered prison, after all.I'm tired, tired of being enclosed here.

I'm wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there:

not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart; but really with it, and in it.Nelly, you think you are better and more fortunate than I; in full health and strength: you are sorry for me--very soon that will be altered.I shall be sorry for you.I shall be incomparably beyond and above you all.I wonder he won't be near me!' She went on to herself.`I thought he wished it.

Heathcliff, dear! you should not be sullen now.Do come to me, Heathcliff.'

In her eagerness she rose and supported herself on the arm of the chair.At that earnest appeal he turned to her, looking absolutely desperate.His eyes, wide and wet, at last flashed fiercely on her; his breast heaved convulsively.An instant they held asunder, and then how they met I hardly saw, but Catherine made a spring, and he caught her, and they were locked in an embrace from which I thought my mistress would never be released alive: in fact, to my eyes, she seemed directly insensible.