Sweet, beautiful, amazing, dark, wonderful Jane Eyre.
This is my favorite novel. Of all time. Bar none. It was written over 150 years ago, and it is so beautiful to me in heart, in passion, and in scope that I cannot form words to convey it.
When I read it, my heart feels like it will pound it's way out of my chest to escape the chains around it.
Rochester loves her. He loves Jane with every fiber of his being. He knows she is too young for him. He's in his 40's, and she is barely 19. He knows she is kind, gentle, and absolutely trusting of him to protect her, and hold her fast. He looks deep into her loving, sweet, endearing eyes and it takes every bit of power and strength he has as a man not to circle her waist with one arm and pull her close to him and press her lips to his.
And it happens again and again in the book...almost. You can almost envision the moment. She is about a head shorter than him, and he reaches out a hand to her, and she take his hand like a lady should, allowing him to be a gentleman....but instead of looking away, she gazes slightly upward, deep into his eyes, and she ensnares him with one flash of hers.
She literally owns him with one demure, adorable bat of her eyelashes.
When they first meet, he asks her to come and sit in a chair next to him, but later on, she begins sitting at his feet, because she wants to. She kneels by him, not in worship, but in love. She looks upward to him with deep, powerful eyes that say "I'm kneeling at your feet, Sir. What would you have me do now?" but in his mind, when he sees her kneeling there with those searching eyes gazing up at him, he crumbles under their weight, and he worships her instead.
The relationship they share is so different from what society would call normal. So forbidden, and yet so powerful. You can tell from the moment they meet at the dinner party on the staircase that she wants to collapse in his arms and let him take her to places both mentally and physically that she has only dreamed of. Maybe thinking of him as she clutched her nightgown around her at night. The teddy bear she might have held against her breast as a child was preparing the way for his head to be lain against that same place, except this time, her heartbeat would be hammering with the same need he has for her, and the childhood desires inside her would now be grown up in one passionate moment.
He looks into her eyes every day, knowing that she is forbidden to him. She's half his age. She's his governess. His au pair. His subordinate. To even lay one finger on her is completely out of the question, and yet, when she stands in front of him, with her face cast downward out of personal insecurity, he speaks to her like a father...a teacher...a lover, and says "Jane, look at me." and when her eyes meet his, she trembles, not out of fear, but because she knows he loves her. He tells her how beautiful she is, and how wonderful her heart is, and in doing so, she loves him even more.
He wants her, with everything he is. When she stands near him, his heartbeat quickens, and he almost cannot bear her proximity. His passion is so real, and with one quick move, he could sweep her up from her place at his feet, carry her to his chamber, lie her on his bed, and love her in every way imaginable, and she would welcome it.
...and he would. Oh, God he would.
But she is off-limits to him.
She knows it.
And a part of her loves it.
She gazes upward at him, as if to say "I would give you my entire being for your own. If only you would just take it, Sir."
But she is off-limits to him.
...and her eyes tease him again, and again, and again.
Oh, how I love this book.
Love.
(...if you read this, tell me.)
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