The Professor by Charlotte Brontë Read Free Book Online

his advantage; he followed it up.
    "You'll make nothing by trade," continued he; "nothing more than
the crust of dry bread and the draught of fair water on which you
now live; your only chance of getting a competency lies in
marrying a rich widow, or running away with an heiress."
    "I leave such shifts to be put in practice by those who devise
them," said I, rising.
    "And even that is hopeless," he went on coolly. "What widow
would have you? Much less, what heiress? You're not bold and
venturesome enough for the one, nor handsome and fascinating
enough for the other. You think perhaps you look intelligent and
polished; carry your intellect and refinement to market, and tell
me in a private note what price is bid for them."
    Mr. Hunsden had taken his tone for the night; the string he
struck was out of tune, he would finger no other. Averse to
discord, of which I had enough every day and all day long, I
concluded, at last, that silence and solitude were preferable to
jarring converse; I bade him good-night.
    "What! Are you going, lad? Well, good-night: you'll find the
door." And he sat still in front of the fire, while I left the
room and the house. I had got a good way on my return to my
lodgings before I found out that I was walking very fast, and
breathing very hard, and that my nails were almost stuck into the
palms of my clenched hands, and that my teeth were set fast; on
making this discovery, I relaxed both my pace, fists, and jaws,
but I could not so soon cause the regrets rushing rapidly through
my mind to slacken their tide. Why did I make myself a
tradesman? Why did I enter Hunsden's house this evening? Why,
at dawn to-morrow, must I repair to Crimsworth's mill? All that
night did I ask myself these questions, and all that night
fiercely demanded of my soul an answer. I got no sleep; my head
burned, my feet froze; at last the factory bells rang, and I
sprang from my bed with other slaves.

Chapter V
*
    THERE is a climax to everything, to every state of feeling as
well as to every position in life. I turned this truism over in
my mind as, in the frosty dawn of a January morning, I hurried
down the steep and now icy street which descended from Mrs.
King's to the Close. The factory workpeople had preceded me by
nearly an hour, and the mill was all lighted up and in full
operation when I reached it. I repaired to my post in the
counting-house as usual; the fire there, but just lit, as yet
only smoked; Steighton had not yet arrived. I shut the door and
sat down at the desk; my hands, recently washed in half-frozen
water, were still numb; I could not write till they had regained
vitality, so I went on thinking, and still the theme of my
thoughts was the "climax." Self-dissatisfaction troubled
exceedingly the current of my meditations.
    "Come, William Crimsworth," said my conscience, or whatever it is
that within ourselves takes ourselves to task—"come, get a clear
notion of what you would have, or what you would not have. You
talk of a climax; pray has your endurance reached its climax? It
is not four months old. What a fine resolute fellow you imagined
yourself to be when you told Tynedale you would tread in your
father's steps, and a pretty treading you are likely to make of
it! How well you like X—! Just at this moment how redolent
of pleasant associations are its streets, its shops, its
warehouses, its factories! How the prospect of this day cheers
you! Letter-copying till noon, solitary dinner at your lodgings,
letter-copying till evening, solitude; for you neither find
pleasure in Brown's, nor Smith's, nor Nicholl's, nor Eccle's
company; and as to Hunsden, you fancied there was pleasure to be
derived from his society—he! he! how did you like the taste you
had of him last night? was it sweet? Yet he is a talented, an
original-minded man, and even he does not like you; your
self-respect defies you to like him; he has always seen you to
disadvantage; he always will see you to disadvantage; your
positions are