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Wuthering Heights, Chapter 15
are dearer to me than she was; and at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her; I
shall be sorry that I must leave them! Will you say so, Heathcliff?”
“Don’t torture me till I am as mad as yourself,” cried he, wrenching his head free,
and grinding his teeth.
The two,
to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture. Well might
Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her, unless with her mortal
body she cast away her moral character also. Her present countenance had a wild
vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a bloodless lip and scintillating eye; and she
retained in her closed fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping. As to her
companion, while
raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other;
and so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the requirements of her condition, that
on his letting go I saw four distinct impressions left blue in the colourless skin.
“Are you possessed with a devil,” he pursued savagely. “to talk in that manner to
me when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those words will be branded on my
memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have left me? You know you lie to say
I have killed you: and, Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my
existence! Is it not sufficient for your infernal selfishness, that
while you are at peace I
shall writhe in the torments of hell?”
“I shall not be at peace,” moaned Catherine, recalled to a sense of physical
weakness by the violent, unequal throbbing of her heart, which beat visibly and audibly
under this excess of agitation. She said nothing further till the paroxysm was over;
then she continued, more kindly—“I’m not wishing you greater torment than I have,
Heathcliff. I only wish us never to be parted: and should
a word of mine distress you
hereafter, think I feel the same distress underground, and for my own sake, forgive me!
Come here and kneel down again! You never harmed me in your life. Nay, if you nurse
anger, that will be worse to remember than my harsh words! Won’t you come here
again? Do!”
Heathcliff went to the back of her chair, and leant over, but not so far as to let her
see his face, which was livid with emotion.
She bent round to look at him; he would
not permit it: turning abruptly, he walked to the fireplace, where he stood, silent, with
his back towards us. Mrs. Linton’s glance followed him suspiciously: every movement
woke a new sentiment in her. After a pause and a prolonged gaze, she resumed;
addressing me in accents of indignant disappointment—
“Oh, you see, Nelly, he would not relent a moment to keep me out of the grave.
That is how I’m loved! Well, never mind. That is not my Heathcliff. I shall love mine