Emily

Brontë

Wuthering Heights

Die Sturmhöhe

Übersetzt von Grete Rambach
Synchronisation und Ergänzungen © Doppeltext 2022

TITELBLATT

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

IMPRESSUM

CHAPTER I

1801. — I have just re­turned from a vis­it to my land­lord — the sol­it­ary neigh­bour that I shall be troubled with.
This is cer­tainly a beau­ti­ful coun­try! In all Eng­land, I do not be­lieve that I could have fixed on a situ­ation so com­pletely re­moved from the stir of so­ci­ety.
A per­fect mis­an­throp­ist’s heav­en: and Mr. Heath­cliff and I are such a suit­able pair to di­vide the des­ol­a­tion between us.
A cap­it­al fel­low! He little ima­gined how my heart warmed to­wards him
when I be­held his black eyes with­draw so sus­pi­ciously un­der their brows, as I rode up,
and when his fin­gers sheltered them­selves, with a jeal­ous res­ol­u­tion, still fur­ther in his waist­coat, as I an­nounced my name.
‘Mr. Heath­cliff?’ I said.
A nod was the an­swer.
‘Mr. Lock­wood, your new ten­ant, sir. I do my­self the hon­our of call­ing as soon as pos­sible after my ar­rival,
to ex­press the hope that I have not in­con­veni­enced you by my per­sever­ance in so­li­cit­ing the oc­cu­pa­tion of Thrush­cross Grange:
I heard yes­ter­day you had had some thoughts —’
‘Thrush­cross Grange is my own, sir,’ he in­ter­rup­ted, win­cing.
‘I should not al­low any one to in­con­veni­ence me, if I could hinder it — walk in!’
The ‘walk in’ was uttered with closed teeth, and ex­pressed the sen­ti­ment, ‘Go to the Deuce:’
even the gate over which he leant mani­fes­ted no sym­path­ising move­ment to the words;
and I think that cir­cum­stance de­term­ined me to ac­cept the in­vit­a­tion:
I felt in­ter­ested in a man who seemed more ex­ag­ger­atedly re­served than my­self.
When he saw my horse’s breast fairly push­ing the bar­ri­er, he did put out his hand to un­chain it,
and then sul­lenly pre­ceded me up the cause­way, call­ing, as we entered the court,— ‘Joseph, take Mr. Lock­wood’s horse; and bring up some wine.’
‘Here we have the whole es­tab­lish­ment of do­mest­ics, I sup­pose,’ was the re­flec­tion sug­ges­ted by this com­pound or­der.
‘No won­der the grass grows up between the flags, and cattle are the only hedge-cut­ters.’
Joseph was an eld­erly, nay, an old man: very old, per­haps, though hale and sinewy.
‘The Lord help us!’ he so­li­lo­quised in an un­der­tone of peev­ish dis­pleas­ure,
while re­liev­ing me of my horse: look­ing, mean­time, in my face so sourly that I char­it­ably con­jec­tured he must have need of di­vine aid to di­gest his din­ner,
and his pi­ous ejac­u­la­tion had no ref­er­ence to my un­ex­pec­ted ad­vent.
Wuther­ing Heights is the name of Mr. Heath­cliff’s dwell­ing. ‘Wuther­ing’ be­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant pro­vin­cial ad­ject­ive,
de­script­ive of the at­mo­spher­ic tu­mult to which its sta­tion is ex­posed in stormy weath­er.
Pure, bra­cing vent­il­a­tion they must have up there at all times, in­deed:
one may guess the power of the north wind blow­ing over the edge, by the ex­cess­ive slant of a few stun­ted firs at the end of the house;
and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretch­ing their limbs one way, as if crav­ing alms of the sun.
Hap­pily, the ar­chi­tect had foresight to build it strong:
the nar­row win­dows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners de­fen­ded with large jut­ting stones.
Be­fore passing the threshold, I paused to ad­mire a quant­ity of grot­esque carving lav­ished over the front, and es­pe­cially about the prin­cip­al door;
above which, among a wil­der­ness of crum­bling griffins and shame­less little boys, I de­tec­ted the date ‘1500,’ and the name ‘Hare­ton Earn­shaw.’
I would have made a few com­ments, and re­ques­ted a short his­tory of the place from the surly own­er;
but his at­ti­tude at the door ap­peared to de­mand my speedy en­trance,
or com­plete de­par­ture, and I had no de­sire to ag­grav­ate his im­pa­tience pre­vi­ous to in­spect­ing the penet­rali­um.
One stop brought us into the fam­ily sit­ting-room, without any in­tro­duct­ory lobby or pas­sage: they call it here ‘the house’ pre-em­in­ently.
It in­cludes kit­chen and par­lour, gen­er­ally; but I be­lieve at Wuther­ing Heights the kit­chen is forced to re­treat al­to­geth­er into an­oth­er quarter:
at least I dis­tin­guished a chat­ter of tongues, and a clat­ter of culin­ary utensils, deep with­in;
and I ob­served no signs of roast­ing, boil­ing, or bak­ing, about the huge fire­place;
nor any glit­ter of cop­per sauce­pans and tin cul­lenders on the walls.
One end, in­deed, re­flec­ted splen­didly both light and heat from ranks of im­mense pew­ter dishes,
in­ter­spersed with sil­ver jugs and tank­ards, tower­ing row after row, on a vast oak dress­er, to the very roof.
The lat­ter had nev­er been un­der-drawn: its en­tire ana­tomy lay bare to an in­quir­ing eye,
ex­cept where a frame of wood laden with oat­cakes and clusters of legs of beef, mut­ton, and ham, con­cealed it.
Above the chim­ney were sun­dry vil­lain­ous old guns, and a couple of horse-pis­tols:
and, by way of or­na­ment, three gaud­ily-painted can­is­ters dis­posed along its ledge.
The floor was of smooth, white stone; the chairs, high-backed, prim­it­ive struc­tures, painted green: one or two heavy black ones lurk­ing in the shade.
In an arch un­der the dress­er re­posed a huge, liv­er-col­oured bitch point­er,
sur­roun­ded by a swarm of squeal­ing pup­pies; and oth­er dogs haunted oth­er re­cesses.
The apart­ment and fur­niture would have been noth­ing ex­traordin­ary as be­long­ing to a homely, north­ern farm­er,
with a stub­born coun­ten­ance, and stal­wart limbs set out to ad­vant­age in knee-breeches and gaiters.
Such an in­di­vidu­al seated in his arm-chair, his mug of ale froth­ing on the round table be­fore him,
is to be seen in any cir­cuit of five or six miles among these hills, if you go at the right time after din­ner.
But Mr. Heath­cliff forms a sin­gu­lar con­trast to his abode and style of liv­ing.
He is a dark-skinned gipsy in as­pect, in dress and man­ners a gen­tle­man:
that is, as much a gen­tle­man as many a coun­try squire: rather slov­enly, per­haps,
yet not look­ing amiss with his neg­li­gence, be­cause he has an erect and hand­some fig­ure; and rather mor­ose.
Pos­sibly, some people might sus­pect him of a de­gree of un­der-bred pride;
I have a sym­path­et­ic chord with­in that tells me it is noth­ing of the sort:
I know, by in­stinct, his re­serve springs from an aver­sion to showy dis­plays of feel­ing — to mani­fest­a­tions of mu­tu­al kind­li­ness.
He’ll love and hate equally un­der cov­er, and es­teem it a spe­cies of im­per­tin­ence to be loved or hated again.
No, I’m run­ning on too fast: I be­stow my own at­trib­utes over-lib­er­ally on him.
Mr. Heath­cliff may have en­tirely dis­sim­il­ar reas­ons for keep­ing his hand out of the way
when he meets a would-be ac­quaint­ance, to those which ac­tu­ate me.
Let me hope my con­sti­tu­tion is al­most pe­cu­li­ar: my dear moth­er used to say
I should nev­er have a com­fort­able home; and only last sum­mer I proved my­self per­fectly un­worthy of one.
While en­joy­ing a month of fine weath­er at the sea-coast, I was thrown into the com­pany of a most fas­cin­at­ing creature:
a real god­dess in my eyes, as long as she took no no­tice of me.
I ‘nev­er told my love’ vo­cally; still, if looks have lan­guage, the merest idi­ot might have guessed I was over head and ears:
she un­der­stood me at last, and looked a re­turn — the sweetest of all ima­gin­able looks.
And what did I do? I con­fess it with shame — shrunk icily into my­self, like a snail;
at every glance re­tired colder and farther; till fi­nally the poor in­no­cent was led to doubt her own senses,
and, over­whelmed with con­fu­sion at her sup­posed mis­take, per­suaded her mamma to de­camp.
By this curi­ous turn of dis­pos­i­tion I have gained the repu­ta­tion of de­lib­er­ate heart­less­ness; how un­deserved, I alone can ap­pre­ci­ate.
I took a seat at the end of the hearth­stone op­pos­ite that to­wards which my land­lord ad­vanced,
and filled up an in­ter­val of si­lence by at­tempt­ing to caress the can­ine moth­er, who had left her nurs­ery,
and was sneak­ing wolfishly to the back of my legs, her lip curled up, and her white teeth wa­ter­ing for a snatch.
My caress pro­voked a long, gut­tur­al gnarl.
‘You’d bet­ter let the dog alone,’ growled Mr. Heath­cliff in uni­son, check­ing fiercer demon­stra­tions with a punch of his foot.
‘She’s not ac­cus­tomed to be spoiled — not kept for a pet.’ Then, strid­ing to a side door, he shouted again, ‘Joseph!’
Joseph mumbled in­dis­tinctly in the depths of the cel­lar, but gave no in­tim­a­tion of as­cend­ing;
so his mas­ter dived down to him, leav­ing me vis-a-vis the ruf­fi­anly bitch and a pair of grim shaggy sheep-dogs,
who shared with her a jeal­ous guard­i­an­ship over all my move­ments.
Not anxious to come in con­tact with their fangs, I sat still;
but, ima­gin­ing they would scarcely un­der­stand ta­cit in­sults, I un­for­tu­nately in­dulged in wink­ing and mak­ing faces at the trio,
and some turn of my physiognomy so ir­rit­ated madam, that she sud­denly broke into a fury and leapt on my knees.
I flung her back, and hastened to in­ter­pose the table between us.
This pro­ceed­ing aroused the whole hive:
half-a-dozen four-footed fiends, of vari­ous sizes and ages, is­sued from hid­den dens to the com­mon centre.
I felt my heels and coat-laps pe­cu­li­ar sub­jects of as­sault;
and par­ry­ing off the lar­ger com­batants as ef­fec­tu­ally as I could with the poker,
I was con­strained to de­mand, aloud, as­sist­ance from some of the house­hold in re-es­tab­lish­ing peace.
Mr. Heath­cliff and his man climbed the cel­lar steps with vex­a­tious phlegm:
I don’t think they moved one second faster than usu­al, though the hearth was an ab­so­lute tem­pest of wor­ry­ing and yelp­ing.
Hap­pily, an in­hab­it­ant of the kit­chen made more des­patch: a lusty dame, with tucked-up gown,
bare arms, and fire-flushed cheeks, rushed into the midst of us flour­ish­ing a fry­ing-pan: and used that weapon,
and her tongue, to such pur­pose, that the storm sub­sided ma­gic­ally, and she only re­mained, heav­ing like a sea after a high wind, when her mas­ter entered on the scene.
‘What the dev­il is the mat­ter?’ he asked, eye­ing me in a man­ner that I could ill en­dure, after this in­hos­pit­able treat­ment.
‘What the dev­il, in­deed!’ I muttered.
‘The herd of pos­sessed swine could have had no worse spir­its in them than those an­im­als of yours, sir.
You might as well leave a stranger with a brood of ti­gers!’
‘They won’t meddle with per­sons who touch noth­ing,’ he re­marked, put­ting the bottle be­fore me, and restor­ing the dis­placed table.
‘The dogs do right to be vi­gil­ant. Take a glass of wine?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Not bit­ten, are you?’
‘If I had been, I would have set my signet on the biter.’
Heath­cliff’s coun­ten­ance re­laxed into a grin.
‘Come, come,’ he said, ‘you are flur­ried, Mr. Lock­wood. Here, take a little wine.
Guests are so ex­ceed­ingly rare in this house that I and my dogs, I am will­ing to own, hardly know how to re­ceive them. Your health, sir?’
I bowed and re­turned the pledge; be­gin­ning to per­ceive that it would be fool­ish to sit sulk­ing for the mis­be­ha­viour of a pack of curs;
be­sides, I felt loth to yield the fel­low fur­ther amuse­ment at my ex­pense; since his hu­mour took that turn.
He — prob­ably swayed by pruden­tial con­sid­er­a­tion of the folly of of­fend­ing a good ten­ant
— re­laxed a little in the lac­on­ic style of chip­ping off his pro­nouns and aux­il­i­ary verbs, and in­tro­duced what he sup­posed would be a sub­ject of in­terest to me,
— a dis­course on the ad­vant­ages and dis­ad­vant­ages of my present place of re­tire­ment.
I found him very in­tel­li­gent on the top­ics we touched;
and be­fore I went home, I was en­cour­aged so far as to vo­lun­teer an­oth­er vis­it to-mor­row.
He evid­ently wished no re­pe­ti­tion of my in­tru­sion. I shall go, not­with­stand­ing.
It is as­ton­ish­ing how so­ci­able I feel my­self com­pared with him.

Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights / Die Sturmhöhe
Zweisprachige Ausgabe
Übersetzt von Grete Rambach

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