You, rare, unearthly thing

We‘re good friends, aren‘t we?

Yes, sir.

I have a strange feeling with regard to you as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs tightly knotted to a similar string in you. And if you were to leave, I‘m afraid that cord of commune will snap. And I have a notion that I‘ll take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, you‘d forget me.

How? I have lived a full life here. I have not been trampled on, I have not been petrified, I have not been excluded from every glimpse of what is bright. I have known you, Mr Rochester. And it strikes me with anguish to be torn from you.

Then why must you leave?

Because of your wife!

I have no wife.

But you ought to be married!

Jane, you must stay.

And become nothing to you? Am I a machine without feelings? Do you think that because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, that I am soulless and heartless? I have as much soul as you and full as much heart. And if God had blessed me with beauty and wealth, I could make it as hard for you to leave me as it is for I to leave you. I am not speaking to you, through mortal flesh, it is my spirit that addresses your spirit, as it would pass through the grave and stood in God‘s feet: equal, as we are.

As we are!

I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.

Then let your will decide your destiny. I offer you my hand, my heart. Jane, I ask you to pass through life at my side. You are my equal and my likeness. Will you marry me?

Are you mocking me?

You doubt me.

Entirely. Your bride is Miss Ingram.

Miss Ingram? She is the machine without feelings. It‘s you. You, rare, unearthly thing. Poor and obscure as you are, please accept me as your husband. I must have you for my own.

You wish me to be your wife?

I swear it.

You love me?

I do.

Then, sir, I will marry you.