Jane Eyre (1943)

Orson Welles: Edward Rochester

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Quotes 

• Edward Rochester : Are you always drawn to the loveless and unfriended?

  Jane Eyre : When it's deserved.

• Jane Eyre : Do you think I can stay here become nothing to you? Do you think because I'm poor and obscure and plain that I'm soulless and heartless? I have as much soul is you and fully as much heart. But if God had gifted me with wealth and beauty, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me as it is now for me to leave you. There, I've spoken my heart, now let me go...

  Edward Rochester : Jane, Jane... you strange, almost unearthly thing. You that I love as my own flesh.

  Jane Eyre : Don't mock me now.

• Jane Eyre : I should never mistake informality for insolence. One, I rather like; the other, no free-born person would submit to, even for a salary.

  Edward Rochester : Humbug! Most free-born people would submit to anything for a salary.

• Edward Rochester : I put my requests in an absurd way. The fact is once and for all, I do not wish to treat you as an inferior, but I've baffled through varied experiences with many men of many nations and roved over the globe while you've spent your whole life with one set of people in one house. Don't you agree it gives me the right to be masterful and abrupt?

  Jane Eyre : Do as you please, sir. You pay me 30 pounds a year for receiving your orders.

• Blanche Ingram : [as she and Rochester emerge from the house into the garden:]  It is a beautiful place, your Thornfield.

  Edward Rochester : As a dungeon, it serves its purpose.

  Blanche Ingram : Dungeon? Why, it's a paradise!

  [Rochester grunts. Blanche goes on:] 

  Blanche Ingram : Though of course, if one lived here, one would really have to have a house in London, wouldn't one?

  Edward Rochester : [dry:]  Unquestionably. And a little apartment in Paris, perhaps a villa on the Mediterranean.

  Blanche Ingram : How delightful that would be! But Thornfield would always be there, as a retreat from the world. A green haven of peace and... and love.

  Edward Rochester : Love? Who's talking of love? All a fellow needs is a bit of distraction. A houseful of beautiful women every now and then to keep him from brooding on his woes -

  [chuckling:] 

  Edward Rochester : peering too closely into the mysteries of his heart.

  Blanche Ingram : That is, if he has a heart. And sometimes I wonder, Edward, if you really do have one.

  Edward Rochester : [unperturbed:]  Have I ever done or said anything to make you believe that I have? If so, I assure you it was quite unintentional.

  Blanche Ingram : Are you never serious?

  Edward Rochester : Never more than at this moment, except perhaps when I'm eating my dinner.

  Blanche Ingram : Really, Edward, you can be revoltingly coarse sometimes.

  Edward Rochester : [not as a question:]  Can I ever be anything else.

  Blanche Ingram : Can you?

  [She lays a hand on his arm and draws him around to look at her] 

  Blanche Ingram : Would I have come to Thornfield if you couldn't?

  Edward Rochester : Ha, that's a very nice point, Blanche. Would you, or would you not? We'll begin by considering the significant facts of the case. Mr. Rochester is revoltingly coarse, and as ugly as sin...

  Blanche Ingram : [interrupting:]  Edward! I...

  Edward Rochester : [light and cheerful, all through:]  Allow me, my dear Blanche - I repeat, as ugly as sin. Secondly, he flirts sometimes, but is careful never to talk about love or marriage. However - this is the third point - Lady Ingram is somewhat impoverished,

  [she gives him a sharp look] 

  Edward Rochester : whereas the revolting Mr. Rochester has an assured income of eight thousand a year. Now in view of all this, what is the attitude that Miss Blanche may be expected to take? From my experience of the world, I'd surmise that she would ignore the coarseness, et cetera, until such time as Mr. R is safely...

  Blanche Ingram : How dare you!

  Edward Rochester : [laughing outright]  Now now now, no horseplay!

  Blanche Ingram : I've never been so grossly insulted in all my...

  Edward Rochester : [quite cheerful]  Insulted? My dear Blanche, I merely paid you the enormous compliment of being completely honest!

  Blanche Ingram : Mr. Rochester, you are a boor and a cur!

  [He watches as she stalks off. Fade to black. Fade up: the Ingram party is riding away from Thornfield] 

• Edward Rochester : Jane, what you see may shock and frighten and confuse you. I beg you not to seek an explanation. Don't try to understand. Whatever the appearance, you must trust me.

• Edward Rochester : Cold fingers. They were warmer last night.

• Edward Rochester : Hurry. We must have him off. I've tried so long to avoid exposure. I shall make very certain it doesn't come now.

• Edward Rochester : Let us sit here in peace, even though we shall be destined never to sit here again.

• Edward Rochester : Sometimes I have a queer feeling with regard to you, Jane. Especially when you're near me as now. It's as if I had a string somewhere under my left rib, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in corresponding corner of your little frame. And if we should have to be parted, that cord of communion would be snapped.

• Edward Rochester : Whatever happens, do not move from here. Whatever happens, do not open a door. Either door.

• Edward Rochester : You're my little friend, Jane, aren't you?

  Jane Eyre : I like to serve you, sir, in everything that's right.

  Edward Rochester : But if I asked you to do something you thought was wrong, what then?

• Edward Rochester : Jane, I want you to use your fancy. Suppose yourself a boy, a thoughtless, impetuous boy indulged from childhood upwards. Imagine yourself in some remote, foreign land. Conceive that you there commit a capital error, one that cuts you off from the possibility of all human joys! You're in despair. You wander about vainly seeking contentment and empty pleasure.

• Edward Rochester : Take a candle with you. Leave the door open. Sit down at the piano. Play a tune.

  [Jane plays] 

  Edward Rochester : Enough! You play a little, I see, like any other English schoolgirl. Perhaps rather better than some, but not well.

• Edward Rochester : Excuse my tone of command. I'm used to saying, ''Do this,'' and it is done. I cannot alter my customary habits.

• Edward Rochester : Do you play the piano?

  Jane Eyre : A little.

  Edward Rochester : Of course. That's the established answer.

• Edward Rochester : Now, just hand me my whip.

• Edward Rochester : Miss, Eyre, I'm not fond of the prattle of children As you see, I'm a crusty old bachelor, and I have no pleasant associations connected with their lisp. In this house, the only aIternative is the prattle of a simple-minded old lady which is nearly as bad. Today, I feel disposed to be gregarious and communicative, and I believe you could amuse me.

• Edward Rochester : Does my forehead not please you? What do you tell from my head? Am I a fool?

• Edward Rochester : Well, Miss Eyre, have you no tongue?

  Jane Eyre : I was waiting, sir, until l was spoken to.

  Edward Rochester : Very proper.

• Edward Rochester : You have rather a look of another world. I marvelled where you got that sort of face. When you came on me in the mist, I found myself thinking of fairy tales. I had half a mind to demand whether you'd bewitched my horse. Indeed, I'm not sure yet.

• Edward Rochester : I'm not a kindly man, though l did once have a sort of tenderness of heart. You doubt that?

  Jane Eyre : No, sir.

  Edward Rochester : Since then, fortune's knocked me about, and kneaded me with her knuckles till I flatter myself I'm as hard and tough as an India rubber ball with, perhaps, one small, sensitive point in the middle of the lump. Does that leave hope for me?

  Jane Eyre : Hope of what, sir?

  Edward Rochester : My retransformation from India rubber back to flesh.

• Edward Rochester : Jane, if all the people in that room came and spat on me, what would you do?

  Jane Eyre : I'd turn them out of the room, if I could.

  Edward Rochester : If I were to go to them, and they only looked coldly at me and dropped off and left me, one by one, what then? Would you go with them?

  Jane Eyre : I would stay with you, sir.

  Edward Rochester : To comfort me?

  Jane Eyre : Yes, sir. To comfort you as well as I could.

• Edward Rochester : I was thinking only of myself, my own private memories and feelings. The fact is, nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man - one of the better kind, but circumstance decreed otherwise. I was as green as you once. Aye, grass green. Now my spring is gone, leaving me what? This little artificial French flower.

• Edward Rochester : You're afraid of me. You wish to escape me. In my presence, you are hesitant to smile gaily or speak too freely. Admit that you're afraid.

  Jane Eyre : I'm bewildered, sir, but I am certainly not afraid.

• Edward Rochester : Poor little Adele, trying to console herself from my unkindness to her. The child has dancing in her blood and coquetry in the very marrow of her bones.

• Edward Rochester : I wish I were on a quiet island with only you; trouble and danger and hideous recollection far away.

• Edward Rochester : You look very puzzled, young lady, and a puzzled air becomes you. Besides, it keeps those searching eyes of yours away from my face.

• Edward Rochester : One of the maids had a bad dream, woke up screaming. Moral of that is, don't eat toasted cheese for supper.

• Edward Rochester : Love's a strange thing, Miss Eyre. You can know that a person's worthless, without heart or mind or scruple, yet suffer to the point of torture when she betrays you.

• Edward Rochester : You don't know these young ladies of fashion. They may not admire my person, but I assure you, they dote on my purse.

• Edward Rochester : I could crush you between my hands, but your spirt would still be free.

• Edward Rochester : Someone was walking there in the moonlight - a strange little elfin-like creature.

• Edward Rochester : I'm going to marry Mademoiselle and take Mademoiselle to the moon and find a cave in one of the white valleys, and Mademoiselle will live with us there forever. Do you approve?

  Adele Varens : Monsieur, there's no one I'd rather you marry, not even Mrs. Fairfax.

• Edward Rochester : I fled from this place. My fixed desire was to find a woman I could love, a contrast to the fury I'd left here. What did I find? A French dancing girl, a Viennese milliner, a Neapolitan contessa with a taste for jewelry.

• Edward Rochester : Her very fingers. What small, soft fingers!