Wuthering Heights

Chapter 16

"Yeah, I think it's been a long, long time," she muttered suspiciously. "Certainly not. I remember Edgar being so cruel in the living room after their quarrel. I rushed into this room desperately. As soon as I bolted the door, there was a lot of darkness. Cover me, and I fall to the ground. I can't tell Edgar that if he's determined to tease me, I'm sure I'm going to have the same old problem. Don't be mad at him! I can't help it My tongue and brain, perhaps, he didn't guess my pain. I almost didn't have enough senses. To escape him and his voice. It wasn't until the beginning of dawn that I regained my sight and hearing. Nelly, I'm going to tell you what I was thinking, what was going around in my head and back and forth until I worried about my sanity. I was lying there with my head against the leg of the table. Staring dimly at the gray pane of glass, I thought I was shut up on the great oak-panelled bed at home. My heart ached with some great sorrow; but because When I woke up, I couldn't tell what this sadness was about. I tried hard to think about what it was about, and it was so hard to think about it. And, it is incredible to say that the past seven years of my life have become one piece. Blank! I can't remember what they looked like at all. I was a child. My father was just buried, and Hindley ordered Heathcliff to be separated from me, and thus began my misery. I was left alone, This was the first time. After crying all night, I dozed off and woke up. I reached out to push the panel, but it was the tabletop! I brushed my hand along the rug, and the memory It surged, and the grief just now was suddenly swallowed up in a sudden despair. I can't say why I feel so strangely sad, it must be a little crazy for a while, because I can't say what the reason is. But, think about it When I was 12 years old, I was pulled out of Wuthering Heights. Every kind of communication in the past, everything about me, just like Heathcliff’s identity suddenly changed overnight, suddenly became Lady Linton, Mistress of Thrushcross Grange, a Stranger's Wife, a Tramp, an Outcast, and so far from the world that was once mine - just think of the abyss into which I sink Nelly, you can shake your head, but you really helped him to get me out of my mind! You should tell Edgar, of course, and make him let me be quiet! Oh, I'm on fire! I wish I'm outside the door! I wish I was a little girl again, like a little savage, unafraid of ghosts and gods, free and unrestrained, laughing when hurt, and never let them go crazy! Why did I become so Awesome? Why did my blood boil with emotion after just a few words? I am sure as long as I am in the wilderness in the mountains over there, I will become myself again. Open the window wider, open Hook the window hook again! Come on, why don't you move?"

"Because I don't want you to freeze to death," I replied.

"You mean, you don't want to give me a chance to live," she said scowling. "But, I'm not helpless yet, I'll drive by myself."

Before I could stop her, she slipped off the bed, stumbled across the room, pushed open the window, and leaned out, ignoring the cold air like a knife, slashing at her shoulders.

I begged her, and finally planned to drag her back.But soon I discovered that under her mental confusion, her strength far surpassed mine.I'm sure she's insane, because immediately after she talks nonsense and behaves strangely.

There is no moon outside.Everything under the sky is shrouded in hazy darkness, whether it is far or near, no house has a light on it, and everything has been extinguished early.As for the lights of Wuthering Heights, they were beyond the reach of the eyes at all.Still, she insisted, she saw them flickering.

"Look!" she cried eagerly, "that's the candlelight in my room, and the tree is shaking in front of it... That candle is from Joseph's attic... Joseph stays up late, doesn't he? He's waiting for me Go home, go home to lock the gate... Well, let him wait a while. It's a bad road, it's sad to walk. We must go past Gimmerton Church, go that way! We We often tease ghosts together, compare each other's courage, stand in the middle of the tomb, and ask the ghost to just come out... But Heathcliff, if I challenge you now, do you dare? If you dare, I will accompany you You. I don't want to lie there by myself, they'll bury me 12 feet deep and throw that church over me, but I won't rest in peace unless you come with me. Never!"

She paused, and with another strange smile, went on, "He's thinking. He wants me to find him! Find a way out, then! Don't go by the Gimmerton churchyard. . . . So slow! Don't complain, you always follow me!"

Seeing that it would be futile to argue with her madness, I figured out how to find something to wrap her around and not let her go.Because I was really worried about leaving her alone by the wide open window.At this moment, to my astonishment, I heard the click of the latch, and Mr. Linton entered.He had just come out of the study and walked through the porch.Hearing us talking, maybe I was attracted by curiosity, maybe I was worried, and I wanted to see what we had to say, it was late at night.

"Oh, sir!" I exclaimed, as he caught sight of the state of affairs and the desolate atmosphere in the room.I was about to yell, but my yell got stuck between my lips.

"My poor mistress is ill, she has cured me, and there is nothing I can do about her. Please, come and persuade her to bed. Forget your anger, for she wants no one but herself. Listen."

"Catherine ill?" he said, rushing forward. "Close the window, Ellen! Catherine, why..."

He fell silent.Mrs. Linton's haggard look struck him so badly that he could hardly speak.He could only turn his eyes to me, dumbfounded with horror.

"Here she is angry," I went on, "she hardly ate anything, and she never complained, and she let no one in the house till this evening, so we can't tell you how she is. , because we ourselves don't know what it looks like. But that's all right."

I felt that my explanation was out of context, and the host frowned. "It's all right, isn't it? Alan Dean?" he said sternly. "You have to explain clearly why you keep hiding it from me!" He held his wife in his arms and looked at her with great distress.

At first she didn't recognize his look, and there was no shadow of him in her trance staring.Fortunately, her delirium didn't last long. Since her eyes no longer meditated on the darkness outside, she gradually focused her attention on him, and finally found out who was hugging her.

"Ah! There you are, is that you, Edgar Linton?" said she, darting up again. "You're one of those things you find when you don't need you and never find you when you're needed! I think it's time for us to mourn...I know we do... But they can't keep me from going yonder to my strip of home, my resting place, I'll be there before the spring's over! It's over there, not under a church roof, look, in Among the Linton family, a stone monument is erected in the wilderness. You can make up your own mind whether to meet them or come to me!"

"Catherine, what did you say?" said the master. "Am I worthless to you? You love that bastard Heath—"

"Shut up!" cried Mrs. Linton. "Shut up at this moment! If you mention that name, I'll kill you immediately and jump out of the window! What you touch now, you can possess. But before your hand touches me again, my soul will Fly to that hilltop. I don't want you. Edgar, the time is past when I want you. Go back to your books. I'm glad you've got a consolation, because you've had it in me Everything has vanished into thin air.”

"Her heart is racing wild horses. Sir," I broke in. "She's been talking nonsense all night. But let her be at peace and get the care she needs, and she'll recover. From now on, we must be careful not to make her angry."

"I don't want to come to your advice any more," replied Mr. Linton. "You know your mistress is hot-tempered, but you still encourage me to provoke her. And you never mention how she spent the past three days! How cruel! A few months of illness will not lead to such a situation. Variety!"

I started to defend myself.It's really unfair to ask me to be scolded when I think other people are tricky and weird.

"I know Mrs. Linton is violent and domineering," I cried, "but I didn't know that you wanted to add to her ferocity! I didn't know it was to please her. I should turn a blind eye to Mr. Heathcliff. I Told you to have done the duty of a faithful servant, and now I have been rewarded as a faithful servant! Well, here is a lesson, to teach me to be cautious next time. Next time you ask yourself for information !"

"Next time you talk nonsense to me, you're going to get out of here, Alan Dean," he replied.

"Then you'd better hear nothing, I suppose, Mr. Linton?" I said. "Heathcliff has your permission to woo the lady, and every time you are absent, he takes advantage of it, in order to deceive the lady against you, isn't it so?"

Catherine, though dazed, was alert enough to listen to our conversation.

"Ah! Nelly's been a spy," she exclaimed, with great emotion. "Nellie is my hidden enemy. You witch! So you are picking the imp's arrows to hurt us! Let go of me, I will make her regret! I will make her howl and confess her mistake!"

Beneath her brows, mad rage flared up.She struggled desperately to free herself from Linton's arms.I didn't intend to add fuel to the fire, so I decided to make my own way and ask the doctor for help.I leave the bedroom.

As I was walking through the garden to the road, I saw something white move strangely, obviously not from the wind, on a bridle hook fastened to the fence.Although I walked in a hurry, I stopped in my tracks, ready to take a closer look, so as not to be suspicious in the future, and I would never be able to shake it off, thinking that it was a guest from another world.

I couldn't see it clearly, but I felt it clearly, and the clarity astonished me, I don't know why, because it was Miss Isabella's puppy, Fanny, hanging from a handkerchief, and was already dying.

I quickly put down the puppy and carried it into the garden.I evidently saw it follow its mistress upstairs, as she was going to bed.I really wondered how it got out on the hook, some vicious bastard did it.

When I was untying the knot on the hook, I seemed to hear the sudden sound of horseshoes.But I was so full of worries that I forgot to think about the situation. At two o'clock in the morning, in such a place, the sound was really strange.

It so happened that Mr. Kenneth was just going out to see a sick man in the village when I reached his street.I told of Katherine Linton's condition, and he walked back to me right away.

He was a straight man, without much particularity, and he did not hesitate to express his doubts that she would not survive this second attack unless she obeyed his instructions honestly, unlike the previous one. Go back and forth like that.

"Nellie Dean," he said. "I can't help thinking there's something else to it. What happened to Thrushcross Grange? There are rumors here too. A girl as strong and lively as Catherine doesn't fall ill at the slightest whim, and it's not a fatality for such a person." .It's not easy to get her through a high fever or something. How did it happen?"

"My master will tell you," I replied. "But you know the violent nature of the Earnshaws, and Mrs. Linton is the most evil. I may say that the attack was caused by the quarrel. She was in a fit of rage, and she was in a moment of confusion. At least that's what she said." because at the very moment when the noise was most violent she ran out and locked herself up. After that she refused to eat, and now she talks gibberish now and then, always half asleep. She still recognizes the people around her, but her mind is full of All kinds of outlandish ideas, and fantasies."

"Does Mr. Linton regret it?" Kenneth asked in an inquiring tone.

"Regret? If there is any accident, his heart will be broken!" I replied. "If you have to say no, don't scare him."

"Well, I'll tell him to be careful," said my companion. "He didn't heed my warnings. He's going to get what he deserves! He's been quite on fire with Mr. Heathcliff lately, isn't he?"

"Heathcliff is a frequent visitor to the Grange," I replied, "though this is more from the knowledge of his wife from childhood than from the sir's liking for his company. He need not bother to visit at present, for he is very fond of Miss Linton showed some insincerity. I think it's rare for him to come again."

"Has Miss Linton told him to run into trouble?" was the doctor's next question.

"I can't tell what's on her mind," I replied, reluctant to bring up the subject.

"No, what the hell is she," he said, shaking his head. "She's got her own mind! But she's a little fool. I have good sources that say it was last night--it was a beautiful night! She and Heathcliff were walking together in the field behind your house, and left More than two hours. He forced her not to go back, but to mount his horse and go with him! The person who told me this said that there was nothing she could do but swear and swear that she would be ready until the next time. He won't stop until we meet again. When is the next time, he didn't hear. But you have to urge Mr. Linton to be vigilant!"

This news gave me new fears.I left Kenneth behind and pretty much ran all the way back.The puppy was still barking in the garden.It took me about a minute to open the door for it, but instead of going through the door, it sniffed and sniffed on the grass. If I hadn't grabbed it and brought it back to the house, it would have rushed to the road Woolen cloth.

Going upstairs to Isabella's room, my suspicions were confirmed: it was empty.Had I been an hour or two earlier, Mrs. Linton's condition might have prevented her from taking this rash step.But what can I do now?If I pursue them immediately, the chances of catching them are almost nil.In any case, I can't go after him.And I didn't dare to disturb this family, and made the whole family panic.I don't even want to disclose this to my master, he is facing the current disaster, how can he be distracted to bear the second sad thing!

I can't do anything but keep my mouth shut and let nature take its course.Now that Kenneth is here, I will keep a straight face and report to him.

Catherine was sleeping, but she tossed and turned restlessly.Her husband, having succeeded in calming her growing madness, was now leaning over her pillow, scrutinizing every shadow and every change in her painfully contorted features.

The doctor, who had examined the condition himself, told him without loss of hope that it could be cured if only complete and lasting silence should be maintained around her.To me, he implied that the imminent danger was not necessarily death, but permanent loss of sanity.

I did not close my eyes that night, nor did Mr. Linton.Really, I never touched the edge of the bed at all.The servants also got up early, much earlier than usual, and walked back and forth in the mansion on tiptoe, whispering to each other while taking care of each other while performing their duties.Everyone was very active except Miss Isabella, and they began to tell how soundly she had slept.Her brother also asked if she was up, as if impatient for her to show up, and sad that she was so indifferent to her sister-in-law.

I trembled lest he send me to fetch her.But I was relieved that I escaped being the first to announce her elopement.A girl, a very impetuous girl, who had been sent to Gimmerton early in the morning, ran up the stairs, panting, and burst into the bedroom with her mouth open, crying:
"Oh, dear, dear! What trouble do we have? Sir, sir, my lady—"

"Stop making noise!" I immediately yelled at her to go back, very annoyed by her fussy manner.

"Quietly, Mary—what's the matter?" said Mr. Linton. "What's wrong with your lady?"

"She's gone, she's gone!" gasped the girl, that Heathcliff took her away.

"That's nonsense!" Linton yelled, his anger suddenly rising. "That's impossible, why do you have such a weird idea? Alan Dean, go find her. It's unbelievable, it's impossible."

As he spoke, he brought the girl to the door and asked her again, what was the basis for this.

(End of this chapter)