Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.
– Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Chapter 4. When Jane stands up to her Aunt Reed she feels a sense of triumph and vengeance. But as a child doing battle with an adult, her passionate outburst also leaves her with feelings of remorse and guilt. In one simile she compares the taste to “aromatic wine,” but in another the sensation is “as if I had been poisoned.” After this passage Jane goes on to say: “Willingly would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed’s pardon; but I knew, partly from experience and partly from instinct, that was the way to make her repulse me with double scorn, thereby re-exciting every turbulent impulse of my nature.”