The Art of Honest Conversation — Jane Eyre

After several days of barely seeing Mr. Rochester while he is busy with business and visitors, Jane is called down on a rainy night to the dining-room, where Adèle is finally opening the box of presents she has been waiting for. Rochester, settled by the fire and clearly warmed by wine, calls Mrs. Fairfax in to manage Adèle and pulls Jane's chair near his own. Studying her, he asks abruptly whether she thinks him handsome, and Jane answers, before she can stop herself, 'No, sir.' The blunt reply seems to delight him as much as it surprises him, and he presses her further about his forehead, his temper, and his right to claim authority over her. Jane refuses to flatter him; she tells him that age and experience only earn obedience when they have been used well, and that very few masters even bother to ask whether their paid subordinates feel hurt by their orders. Encouraged by her candor, Rochester begins to confide in her, admitting that fortune knocked him onto a wrong tack at twenty-one and that remorse is now the poison of his life. When he speaks of seizing a new pleasure as sweet as wild honey, Jane warns him it will sting and taste bitter. He insists that unheard-of circumstances justify unheard-of rules and that he has a right to declare any new line of action right; Jane answers that the human and fallible should not arrogate a power belonging to the divine and perfect alone. As she rises to put Adèle to bed, the child bounds back into the room in a rose satin dress and rosebud wreath that exactly mimics her mother Céline Varens on the stage. Rochester's face hardens, he confesses that he keeps the girl mostly as a way of expiating old sins, and he sends Jane off for the night.