CHAPTER XXVII 399
" Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed ?" His voice rose .
" I advise you to live sinless , and I wish you to die tranquil ."
" Then you snatch love and innocence from me ? You fling me back on lust for a passion -- vice for an occupation ?"
" Mr . Rochester , I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for myself . We were born to strive and endure -- you as well as I : do so . You will forget me before I forget you ."
" You make me a liar by such language : you sully my honour . I declared I could not change : you tell me to my face I shall change soon . And what a distortion in your judgment , what a perversity in your ideas , is proved by your conduct ! Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law , no man being injured by the breach ? for you have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me ?"
This was true : and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me , and charged me with crime in resisting him . They spoke almost as loud as Feeling : and that clamoured wildly . " Oh , comply !" it said . " Think of his misery ; think of his danger -- look at his state when left alone ; remember his headlong nature ; consider the recklessness following on despair -- soothe him ; save him ; love him ; tell him you love him and will be his . Who in the world cares for YOU ? or who will be injured by what you do ?"
Still indomitable was the reply -- " I care for myself . The more solitary , the more friendless , the more unsustained I am , the more I will respect myself . I will keep the law given by God ; sanctioned by man . I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane , and not mad -- as I am now . Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation : they are for such moments as this , when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour ; stringent are they ; inviolate they shall be . If at my individual