CHAPTER XXVI 375
confidence destroyed ! Mr . Rochester was not to me what he had been ; for he was not what I had thought him . I would not ascribe vice to him ; I would not say he had betrayed me ; but the attribute of stainless truth was gone from his idea , and from his presence I must go : THAT I perceived well . When -- how -- whither , I could not yet discern ; but he himself , I doubted not , would hurry me from Thornfield . Real affection , it seemed , he could not have for me ; it had been only fitful passion : that was balked ; he would want me no more . I should fear even to cross his path now : my view must be hateful to him . Oh , how blind had been my eyes ! How weak my conduct !
My eyes were covered and closed : eddying darkness seemed to swim round me , and reflection came in as black and confused a flow . Self-abandoned , relaxed , and effortless , I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river ; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains , and felt the torrent come : to rise I had no will , to flee I had no strength . I lay faint , longing to be dead . One idea only still throbbed life-like within me -- a remembrance of God : it begot an unuttered prayer : these words went wandering up and down in my rayless mind , as something that should be whispered , but no energy was found to express them -
" Be not far from me , for trouble is near : there is none to help ."
It was near : and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it -- as I had neither joined my hands , nor bent my knees , nor moved my lips -- it came : in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me . The whole consciousness of my life lorn , my love lost , my hope quenched , my faith death-struck , swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass . That bitter hour cannot be described : in truth , " the waters came into my soul ; I sank in deep mire : I felt no standing ; I came into deep waters ; the floods overflowed me ."