A house; visitations; a cold

My parents just bought a house in Mishawaka – the first they’ve owned. Since they’re living in Ecuador, Mary performed the negotiations and signed the papers on their behalf.

Samuel and Karin & I will benefit considerably from this purchase. Later this week, we’ll move into the house, and we’ll pay a discounted rate to live there. (We won’t relinquish our apartment until the end of January, however.) Jasper and Ziva will come with us, of course, and they’ll benefit from having more space in which to run around.

We toured the house last Friday night. A ceiling fan captured Samuel’s interest:

My parents will remain in Ecuador until they take their next furlough in the United States. That will be their first period in their new house. Afterward, they may return to Ecuador, or they may retire in the United States.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

David is visiting. He hides at Notre Dame and writes for many hours each day. He hopes to complete a dissertation chapter for his university, Rice, before Christmas Eve. Then he’ll have more time for extracurriculars.

Meanwhile, in Texas, his daughter, Ada, and his wife, Ana, are visited by Ana’s parents.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Today, Samuel is two months old. He is enduring his first cold. His chest is heavily congested. He shrieks bitterly when we use a tube to suck fluid from his nostrils.

Jane Eyre, pt. 3

And so I’ve reached the end of Jane Eyre, which I began reading in January. In March, I remarked upon Mr Rochester’s “marvelous ferocity.” Now here’s someone worth knowing, I thought. But I expected his brutal way of speaking would be tamed by love.

Fortunately I was wrong. Love embraced it:

I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once kept a sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavour to study all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid.

And so I (JP) was treated to a stimulating ping-pong match: Rochester slamming and spinning with all his force; Jane neutralizing each blow, often with a mere “Yes, sir” or “No, sir”: these artless, artful utterances causing Rochester to stagger. Jane says “Master” and “Sir” to Rochester knowing that she owns him; and when she says “I love you” it’s the freshest sentence in the world.

There are other interesting competitions in the book, not least the one between heavenly and earthly pursuits. But the novel’s greatest achievement is its depiction of two true originals and their delight in one another.

(And yet I worry that outside of fiction, this ping-pong match would be unsustainable. Over time, would sour words continue to excite? Or would they inevitably corrode?)