Chapter 35 Chapter Thirty-One

Yesterday was sunny, quiet and cold.I went to the Heights as I had intended: my housekeeper begged me to deliver a note to her lady, and I did not refuse, for the respectable woman did not find her request strange.The front door was open, but, as on my last visit, the guard gate was fastened: I knocked, and Earnshaw was ushered from the garden; he unleashed the chain, and I entered. .The guy was handsome enough for a redneck.I paid special attention to him this time, but obviously he doesn't take advantage of him at all. I asked if Mr. Heathcliff was at home?No, he replied; but he would be at home at dinner.It was eleven o'clock, and I declared that I intended to go in and wait for him; and he dropped his tools at once, and went in with me, not as a master, but as a watch-dog.

We went in together; Catherine was there, prepping vegetables for lunch, so she was doing her part; she looked a little darker and less spirited than when I first saw her.She hardly raised her eyes to look at me, never bowing her head slightly in response to my bow and greeting good morning, in spite of the usual forms of politeness as before. "She doesn't look very pleasant," I thought, "not as Mrs Dean would have me believe. She's a beauty, yes, but not an angel." Earnshaw obstinately bade her carry the vegetables into the kitchen. "You carry it yourself," she said, pushing those away as soon as she was done; and seated herself on a stool by the window, where she began to carve the shapes of birds and beasts with the turnip skin she held in her bosom.I approached her, pretending to look at the garden, and, it seemed to me, deftly dropped Mrs Dean's note on her lap, without Hareton noticing it—but she asked aloud: "What's that?" He sneered and threw it away.

"A letter from your old friend, the steward of the Grange," I answered, troubled by her exposure of my kindness, and afraid that she would take it for my own.She would have picked it up with joy at this, but Hareton got the better of her.He got hold of it, put it in his waistcoat pocket, and said Mr. Heathcliff must look first.Then Catherine silently turned her face away, and furtively took out her handkerchief, and wiped her eyes; and her cousin, after struggling to suppress his tenderness, drew out the letter again, Very unceremoniously dropped on the floor next to her.Catherine took it, and read it eagerly; then she asked me, now clearly and now vaguely, a few words about her former home; and, looking fixedly at the hills, murmured:

"How I should like to ride Minny up there! How I should like to climb up! Ah! I'm so tired--I'm locked up, Hareton!" She leaned her pretty head back on the window-sill, half Yawning, half-sighing, sinking into a dazed state of sorrow; whatever, and not knowing whether we're paying attention to her. "Mrs. Heathcliff," said I, after sitting silently, "you don't know that I am an acquaintance of yours, do you? I am very fond of you, and I think it strange that you refuse to come and talk to me." My steward never tires of speaking of you, and of praising you; and if I return with no news of you or of you to her, except that you have received her letters, and say nothing, she will Very disappointed!"

She looked as if surprised by this statement, and asked: "Does Ellen like you?" "Yes, I like it very much." I replied without hesitation. "You must tell her," she went on, "I want to answer her letter, but I have nothing to write with: not even a book from which I can tear a sheet." "No books!" I yelled. "If I had freedom to ask, how could you get by here without books? Though I have a large study, I'm often bored at the Grange; and I'd be desperate to take my books away." !" "I always read when I had books," said Catherine, "and Heathcliff never read; so it occurred to him to destroy mine. I did not see a single one for weeks." Books. Only once did I turn Joseph's religious books into a rage; another time, Hareton, I saw in your room a secret stash of books—some Latin and Greek and some stories and poems: all old friends. Poems I brought—you put them away like magpies collect keys, only stealing—they are of no use to you; or you Hide them maliciously, and if you can't enjoy them, let no one else. Or are you out of jealousy, giving Mr. Heathcliff advice to snatch my treasures? But most of them are written in my head and etched in my heart, you can't take that away from me!"

When his cousin announced his private literary collection, Earnshaw blushed and stammered angrily in denial of the charges against him. "Mr. Hareton is eager to increase his knowledge," I said, reassuring him. "He's not jealous of your knowledge, but wants to compete with it. In a few years he'll be a brilliant scholar." ①The original text uses these two words on purpose, because "envious" uses "envious" and "competition" uses "emu-lous" (meaning to see the virtuous and think like the same), here it is used to seek a similar sound.

"At the same time he wants me to be a fool," Catherine replied. "Yes, I heard him try to spell it out to himself, and what a mistake he made! I wish you'd say the hunting song again, as you did yesterday: that was ridiculous. I heard you, I heard You look up new words in the dictionary and curse because you can't read the explanations!" The young man obviously felt so badly that he was ridiculed first for being ignorant and then ridiculed for trying to get rid of it.I was of a similar opinion; and recalling Mrs. Ding's anecdote about his first attempt to break through the ignorance he had been brought up in, I said:

"But, Mrs. Heathcliff, we each have a beginning, and each stumble on the threshold. We shall stumble still, if our teachers will only mock and not help us. " "Ah," she replied, "I don't like to limit his achievements: but he has no right to claim mine, and amuses me with his annoying mistakes and incorrect pronunciations! These Books, both prose and verse, are sacrosanct to me by other associations; and I do not want them to be corrupted and profane in his mouth! Besides, he just chooses from all books, some The few chapters I recited the most seem to be making trouble on purpose."

Hareton's chest heaved silently: he was wrestling with a severe sense of humiliation and anger, which was not easy to suppress.I arose, with a noble desire to relieve him of his embarrassment, and stood in the doorway, admiring the view.He also left the room, following my example; but presently reappeared, with half a dozen books in his hand, which he threw into Catherine's arms, and cried, "Take it! I shall never hear , don't read them, and don't think about them again!" "I don't want any now," she replied. "I think of you when I see these books, and I hate them."

She opened a book that was evidently frequently turned over, read a passage in a beginner's drawl, then laughed and threw the book away. "Listen," she said defiantly, and began reciting an old rhyme in the same accent. But his self-love kept him from suffering any more.I heard, and didn't entirely disapprove of, a way of using my hands to stop her arrogant tongue.The little wretch had done his best to hurt her cousin's sensitive though uncultivated feelings, and corporal punishment was his only means of reckoning and getting revenge on the wrongdoer.Hareton then collected them all and threw them into the fire.I read in his face what anguish it was that made him offer this sacrifice in anger.I suppose that, as the books were burned, he recalled the joy they had given him, and the sense of triumphant and unending joy he felt in them.I think I also guessed what encouraged him to study in secret.He had been content with daily labor and the enjoyment of rough cattle until Catherine came into his way of life.Shame at her contempt, combined with a hope of her approval, were his first motives for advancement, and his efforts to advance, which neither shielded him from contempt nor won him approval, produced exactly the opposite result.

"Yes, that's all a brute like you can get from those books!" cried Catherine, sucking her wounded lips, and watching the fire with angry eyes. "Now you'd better shut up!" he replied fiercely. His excitement overwhelmed him.He hurried to the gate, and I made way for him to go through.But before he could pass the doorstep, Mr. Heathcliff, coming up the masonry, meeting him, grabbed him by the shoulder and asked, "What are you doing now, my boy?" "Nothing, nothing," he said, and broke free to chew his sorrow and anger alone. Heathcliff, watching him behind his back, sighed. "It would be queer if I got in my way," he grunted, not knowing that I was behind him, "but when I searched for his father in his face, I found her day by day! Damn it! Hareton Why do you look like her? I can't look at him." He kept his eyes on the ground and walked in sullenly.There was an uneasy, anxious expression on his face that I had never seen before; he himself looked thinner.His daughter-in-law, seeing him from the window, ran away to the kitchen, so I was left alone. "I'm glad to see you out again, Mr. Lockwood," he said, answering my greeting. "Partly from selfish motives: I don't think I can make up for your loss in this desolate place. More than once I have wondered what brought you here." "A silly whim, I'm afraid, sir," was my answer, "or else a silly whim will tempt me away again. I am going to London next week, and I must give you advance notice that I am at I have no intention of keeping Thrushcross Grange beyond the twelve months I have agreed. I am sure I shall not live there any longer." "Oh, really; you don't like being exiled anymore, do you?" he said. "But if you've come to ask to stop paying rent where you no longer live, you're traveling at your own expense: and I've never been sympathetic in demanding my dues from anyone." "I didn't come to ask to stop paying or anything," I exclaimed, very annoyed. "I'll settle it with you now if you want," I said, taking the blotter from my pocket. "No, no," he answered dryly, "if you don't come back, you'll leave enough money to cover your debts. I'm not busy. Sit down and have lunch with us; an insurance Revisits are always welcome. Catherine! Come on, where are you?" Catherine reappeared, carrying a plate of knives and forks. You can dine with Joseph," whispered Heathcliff to himself, "and stay in the kitchen until he is gone. " She followed his instructions swiftly: perhaps she had no intention of breaking the law.Living among fools and misanthropists, she probably would not have been able to appreciate even the better types. With Mr. Heathcliff on one side of me, grim and sullen, and Hareton on the other, silent, I resigned early after a somewhat unpleasant meal.I would have gone by the back door, in order to have a last look at Catherine, and annoy old Joseph; but Hareton was ordered to lead my horse, and my master himself accompanied me to the door, so I failed. "How dreary life is in this family!" I thought as I rode down the high road. "If Lady Linton Heathcliff and I were to fall in love, as her good nurse wished, and to move together into the lively surroundings of the town, it would be for her the realization of something more than mythical. It's romantic!"