Author’s Notes:
The agony. I cringe at the pain in this chapter but admire the articulation.
Jane steps outside her room and all but faints into his arms. Then notes “There was such deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy in his manner;” – manly energy? What is manly energy?
He picks her up, carries her downstairs and feeds her by hand, yowza.
Then, with all of her pain, Jane is focused and clear about what is needed to be done. He threatens violence and she calms him by bursting into tears.
So he tells her his story. He was young and could not be faulted for some of it, but the path of melancholy lasciviousness was all his own.
It is difficult to read this knowing that he had this choice and it was a selfish one. She may have been mad, but he was the one who locked her in a tower. It was better than an asylum, but was it? It is the bitter taste in the cocktail, it is looking from our perspective and seeing the cruelty of Bertha’s imprisonment.
Bertha is described as an idiot, but she is smart enough to get the key to her cell -twice.
He describes his mistresses and how they were inferiors and Jane, still thinking her self this way, holds on to that thought to help her in her break with him.
When he is desperate, at his fever pitch she holds her ground and it is flipping amazing.
