CHAPTER VII 84
With this sublime conclusion , Mr . Brocklehurst adjusted the top button of his surtout , muttered something to his family , who rose , bowed to Miss Temple , and then all the great people sailed in state from the room . Turning at the door , my judge said -
" Let her stand half-an-hour longer on that stool , and let no one speak to her during the remainder of the day ."
There was I , then , mounted aloft ; I , who had said I could not bear the shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room , was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy . What my sensations were no language can describe ; but just as they all rose , stifling my breath and constricting my throat , a girl came up and passed me : in passing , she lifted her eyes . What a strange light inspired them ! What an extraordinary sensation that ray sent through me ! How the new feeling bore me up ! It was as if a martyr , a hero , had passed a slave or victim , and imparted strength in the transit . I mastered the rising hysteria , lifted up my head , and took a firm stand on the stool . Helen Burns asked some slight question about her work of Miss Smith , was chidden for the triviality of the inquiry , returned to her place , and smiled at me as she again went by . What a smile ! I remember it now , and I know that it was the effluence of fine intellect , of true courage ; it lit up her marked lineaments , her thin face , her sunken grey eye , like a reflection from the aspect of an angel . Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm " the untidy badge ;" scarcely an hour ago I had heard her condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on the morrow because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out . Such is the imperfect nature of man ! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet ; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd ' s can only see those minute defects , and are blind to the full brightness of the orb .