I distinguished Mr. Heathcliff’s step, restlessly measuring the floor, and he frequently broke the silence by a deep inspiration, resembling a groan. He muttered detached words also; the only one I could catch was the name of Catherine, coupled with some wild term of endearment or suffering; and spoken as one would speak to a person present; low and earnest, and wrung from the depth of his soul. I had not courage to walk straight into the apartment; but I desired to divert him from his reverie, and therefore fell foul of the kitchen fire, stirred it, and began to scrape the cinders. It drew him forth sooner than I expected. He opened the door immediately, and said—“Nelly, come here—is it morning? Come in with your light.”
“It is striking four,” I answered. “You want a candle to take upstairs: you might have lit one at this fire.”
“No, I don’t wish to go upstairs,” he said. “Come in, and kindle me a fire, and do anything there is to do about the room.”
“I must blow the coals red first, before I can carry any,” I replied, getting a chair and the bellows.
He roamed to and fro, meantime, in a state approaching distraction; his heavy sighs succeeding each other so thick as to leave no space for common breathing between.
“When day breaks I’ll send for Green,” he said; “I wish to make some legal inquiries of him while I can bestow a thought on those matters, and while I can act calmly. I have not written my will yet; and how to leave my property I cannot determine. I wish I could annihilate it from the face of the earth.”
“I would not talk so, Mr. Heathcliff,” I interposed. “Let your will be a while: you’ll be spared to repent of your many injustices yet! I never expected that your nerves would be disordered: they are, at present, marvellously so, however; and almost entirely through your own fault. The way you’ve passed these three last days might knock up a Titan. Do take some food, and some repose. You need only look at yourself in a glass to see how you require both. Your cheeks are hollow, and your eyes blood-shot, like a person starving with hunger and going blind with loss of sleep.”
“It is not my fault that I cannot eat or rest,” he replied. “I assure you it is through no settled designs. I’ll do both, as soon as I possibly can. But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water rest within arms’ length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I’ll rest. Well, never mind Mr. Green: as to repenting of my injustices, I’ve done no injustice, and I repent of nothing. I’m too happy; and yet I’m not happy enough. My soul’s bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself.”
“Happy, master?” I cried. “Strange happiness! If you would hear me without being angry, I might offer some advice that would make you happier.”
“What is that?” he asked. “Give it.”