David Copperfield

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On further consideration this appeared so likely, that I abandoned
my scheme, which had had a more promising appearance in words than
in action; resolving henceforth to be satisfied with my child-wife,
and to try to change her into nothing else by any process. I was
heartily tired of being sagacious and prudent by myself, and of
seeing my darling under restraint; so I bought a pretty pair of
ear-rings for her, and a collar for Jip, and went home one day to
make myself agreeable.

Dora was delighted with the little presents, and kissed me
joyfully; but there was a shadow between us, however slight, and I
had made up my mind that it should not be there. If there must be
such a shadow anywhere, I would keep it for the future in my own
breast.

I sat down by my wife on the sofa, and put the ear-rings in her
ears; and then I told her that I feared we had not been quite as
good company lately, as we used to be, and that the fault was mine.
Which I sincerely felt, and which indeed it was.

'The truth is, Dora, my life,' I said; 'I have been trying to be
wise.'

'And to make me wise too,' said Dora, timidly. 'Haven't you,
Doady?'

I nodded assent to the pretty inquiry of the raised eyebrows, and
kissed the parted lips.

'It's of not a bit of use,' said Dora, shaking her head, until the
ear-rings rang again. 'You know what a little thing I am, and what
I wanted you to call me from the first. If you can't do so, I am
afraid you'll never like me. Are you sure you don't think,
sometimes, it would have been better to have -'

'Done what, my dear?' For she made no effort to proceed.

'Nothing!' said Dora.

'Nothing?' I repeated.

She put her arms round my neck, and laughed, and called herself by
her favourite name of a goose, and hid her face on my shoulder in
such a profusion of curls that it was quite a task to clear them
away and see it.

'Don't I think it would have been better to have done nothing, than
to have tried to form my little wife's mind?' said I, laughing at
myself. 'Is that the question? Yes, indeed, I do.'

'Is that what you have been trying?' cried Dora. 'Oh what a
shocking boy!'

'But I shall never try any more,' said I. 'For I love her dearly
as she is.'

'Without a story - really?' inquired Dora, creeping closer to me.

'Why should I seek to change,' said I, 'what has been so precious
to me for so long! You never can show better than as your own
natural self, my sweet Dora; and we'll try no conceited
experiments, but go back to our old way, and be happy.'

'And be happy!' returned Dora. 'Yes! All day! And you won't mind
things going a tiny morsel wrong, sometimes?'

'No, no,' said I. 'We must do the best we can.'

'And you won't tell me, any more, that we make other people bad,'
coaxed Dora; 'will you? Because you know it's so dreadfully
cross!'

'No, no,' said I.

'It's better for me to be stupid than uncomfortable, isn't it?'
said Dora.

'Better to be naturally Dora than anything else in the world.'

'In the world! Ah, Doady, it's a large place!'

She shook her head, turned her delighted bright eyes up to mine,
kissed me, broke into a merry laugh, and sprang away to put on
Jip's new collar.

So ended my last attempt to make any change in Dora. I had been
unhappy in trying it; I could not endure my own solitary wisdom; I
could not reconcile it with her former appeal to me as my
child-wife. I resolved to do what I could, in a quiet way, to
improve our proceedings myself, but I foresaw that my utmost would
be very little, or I must degenerate into the spider again, and be
for ever lying in wait.

And the shadow I have mentioned, that was not to be between us any
more, but was to rest wholly on my own heart? How did that fall?

The old unhappy feeling pervaded my life. It was deepened, if it
were changed at all; but it was as undefined as ever, and addressed
me like a strain of sorrowful music faintly heard in the night. I
loved my wife dearly, and I was happy; but the happiness I had
vaguely anticipated, once, was not the happiness I enjoyed, and
there was always something wanting.

In fulfilment of the compact I have made with myself, to reflect my
mind on this paper, I again examine it, closely, and bring its
secrets to the light. What I missed, I still regarded - I always
regarded - as something that had been a dream of my youthful fancy;
that was incapable of realization; that I was now discovering to be
so, with some natural pain, as all men did. But that it would have
been better for me if my wife could have helped me more, and shared
the many thoughts in which I had no partner; and that this might
have been; I knew.

Between these two irreconcilable conclusions: the one, that what I
felt was general and unavoidable; the other, that it was particular
to me, and might have been different: I balanced curiously, with no
distinct sense of their opposition to each other. When I thought
of the airy dreams of youth that are incapable of realization, I
thought of the better state preceding manhood that I had outgrown;
and then the contented days with Agnes, in the dear old house,
arose before me, like spectres of the dead, that might have some
renewal in another world, but never more could be reanimated here.

Sometimes, the speculation came into my thoughts, What might have
happened, or what would have happened, if Dora and I had never
known each other? But she was so incorporated with my existence,
that it was the idlest of all fancies, and would soon rise out of
my reach and sight, like gossamer floating in the air.

I always loved her. What I am describing, slumbered, and half
awoke, and slept again, in the innermost recesses of my mind.
There was no evidence of it in me; I know of no influence it had in
anything I said or did. I bore the weight of all our little cares,
and all my projects; Dora held the pens; and we both felt that our
shares were adjusted as the case required. She was truly fond of
me, and proud of me; and when Agnes wrote a few earnest words in
her letters to Dora, of the pride and interest with which my old
friends heard of my growing reputation, and read my book as if they
heard me speaking its contents, Dora read them out to me with tears
of joy in her bright eyes, and said I was a dear old clever, famous
boy.

'The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart.' Those
words of Mrs. Strong's were constantly recurring to me, at this
time; were almost always present to my mind. I awoke with them,
often, in the night; I remember to have even read them, in dreams,
inscribed upon the walls of houses. For I knew, now, that my own
heart was undisciplined when it first loved Dora; and that if it
had been disciplined, it never could have felt, when we were
married, what it had felt in its secret experience.

'There can be no disparity in marriage, like unsuitability of mind
and purpose.' Those words I remembered too. I had endeavoured to
adapt Dora to myself, and found it impracticable. It remained for
me to adapt myself to Dora; to share with her what I could, and be
happy; to bear on my own shoulders what I must, and be happy still.
This was the discipline to which I tried to bring my heart, when I
began to think. It made my second year much happier than my first;
and, what was better still, made Dora's life all sunshine.

But, as that year wore on, Dora was not strong. I had hoped that
lighter hands than mine would help to mould her character, and that
a baby-smile upon her breast might change my child-wife to a woman.
It was not to be. The spirit fluttered for a moment on the
threshold of its little prison, and, unconscious of captivity, took
wing.

'When I can run about again, as I used to do, aunt,' said Dora, 'I
shall make Jip race. He is getting quite slow and lazy.'

'I suspect, my dear,' said my aunt quietly working by her side, 'he
has a worse disorder than that. Age, Dora.'

'Do you think he is old?' said Dora, astonished. 'Oh, how strange
it seems that Jip should be old!'

'It's a complaint we are all liable to, Little One, as we get on in
life,' said my aunt, cheerfully; 'I don't feel more free from it
than I used to be, I assure you.'

'But Jip,' said Dora, looking at him with compassion, 'even little
Jip! Oh, poor fellow!'

'I dare say he'll last a long time yet, Blossom,' said my aunt,
patting Dora on the cheek, as she leaned out of her couch to look
at Jip, who responded by standing on his hind legs, and baulking
himself in various asthmatic attempts to scramble up by the head
and shoulders. 'He must have a piece of flannel in his house this
winter, and I shouldn't wonder if he came out quite fresh again,
with the flowers in the spring. Bless the little dog!' exclaimed
my aunt, 'if he had as many lives as a cat, and was on the point of
losing 'em all, he'd bark at me with his last breath, I believe!'

Dora had helped him up on the sofa; where he really was defying my
aunt to such a furious extent, that he couldn't keep straight, but
barked himself sideways. The more my aunt looked at him, the more
he reproached her; for she had lately taken to spectacles, and for
some inscrutable reason he considered the glasses personal.

Dora made him lie down by her, with a good deal of persuasion; and
when he was quiet, drew one of his long ears through and through
her hand, repeating thoughtfully, 'Even little Jip! Oh, poor
fellow!'

'His lungs are good enough,' said my aunt, gaily, 'and his dislikes
are not at all feeble. He has a good many years before him, no
doubt. But if you want a dog to race with, Little Blossom, he has
lived too well for that, and I'll give you one.'

'Thank you, aunt,' said Dora, faintly. 'But don't, please!'

'No?' said my aunt, taking off her spectacles.

'I couldn't have any other dog but Jip,' said Dora. 'It would be
so unkind to Jip! Besides, I couldn't be such friends with any
other dog but Jip; because he wouldn't have known me before I was
married, and wouldn't have barked at Doady when he first came to
our house. I couldn't care for any other dog but Jip, I am afraid,
aunt.'

'To be sure!' said my aunt, patting her cheek again. 'You are
right.'

'You are not offended,' said Dora. 'Are you?'

'Why, what a sensitive pet it is!' cried my aunt, bending over her
affectionately. 'To think that I could be offended!'

'No, no, I didn't really think so,' returned Dora; 'but I am a
little tired, and it made me silly for a moment - I am always a
silly little thing, you know, but it made me more silly - to talk
about Jip. He has known me in all that has happened to me, haven't
you, Jip? And I couldn't bear to slight him, because he was a
little altered - could I, Jip?'

Jip nestled closer to his mistress, and lazily licked her hand.

'You are not so old, Jip, are you, that you'll leave your mistress
yet?' said Dora. 'We may keep one another company a little
longer!'

My pretty Dora! When she came down to dinner on the ensuing Sunday,
and was so glad to see old Traddles (who always dined with us on
Sunday), we thought she would be 'running about as she used to do',
in a few days. But they said, wait a few days more; and then, wait
a few days more; and still she neither ran nor walked. She looked
very pretty, and was very merry; but the little feet that used to
be so nimble when they danced round Jip, were dull and motionless.

I began to carry her downstairs every morning, and upstairs every
night. She would clasp me round the neck and laugh, the while, as
if I did it for a wager. Jip would bark and caper round us, and go
on before, and look back on the landing, breathing short, to see
that we were coming. My aunt, the best and most cheerful of
nurses, would trudge after us, a moving mass of shawls and pillows.
Mr. Dick would not have relinquished his post of candle-bearer to
anyone alive. Traddles would be often at the bottom of the
staircase, looking on, and taking charge of sportive messages from
Dora to the dearest girl in the world. We made quite a gay
procession of it, and my child-wife was the gayest there.

But, sometimes, when I took her up, and felt that she was lighter
in my arms, a dead blank feeling came upon me, as if I were
approaching to some frozen region yet unseen, that numbed my life.
I avoided the recognition of this feeling by any name, or by any
communing with myself; until one night, when it was very strong
upon me, and my aunt had left her with a parting cry of 'Good
night, Little Blossom,' I sat down at my desk alone, and cried to
think, Oh what a fatal name it was, and how the blossom withered in
its bloom upon the tree!

CHAPTER 49
I AM INVOLVED IN MYSTERY

I received one morning by the post, the following letter, dated
Canterbury, and addressed to me at Doctor's Commons; which I read
with some surprise:

'MY DEAR SIR,

'Circumstances beyond my individual control have, for a
considerable lapse of time, effected a severance of that intimacy
which, in the limited opportunities conceded to me in the midst of
my professional duties, of contemplating the scenes and events of
the past, tinged by the prismatic hues of memory, has ever afforded
me, as it ever must continue to afford, gratifying emotions of no
common description. This fact, my dear sir, combined with the
distinguished elevation to which your talents have raised you,
deters me from presuming to aspire to the liberty of addressing the
companion of my youth, by the familiar appellation of Copperfield!
It is sufficient to know that the name to which I do myself the
honour to refer, will ever be treasured among the muniments of our
house (I allude to the archives connected with our former lodgers,
preserved by Mrs. Micawber), with sentiments of personal esteem
amounting to affection.

'It is not for one, situated, through his original errors and a
fortuitous combination of unpropitious events, as is the foundered
Bark (if he may be allowed to assume so maritime a denomination),
who now takes up the pen to address you - it is not, I repeat, for
one so circumstanced, to adopt the language of compliment, or of
congratulation. That he leaves to abler and to purer hands.

'If your more important avocations should admit of your ever
tracing these imperfect characters thus far - which may be, or may
not be, as circumstances arise - you will naturally inquire by what
object am I influenced, then, in inditing the present missive?
Allow me to say that I fully defer to the reasonable character of
that inquiry, and proceed to develop it; premising that it is not
an object of a pecuniary nature.

'Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may
possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or
directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be
permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for
ever dispelled - that my peace is shattered and my power of
enjoyment destroyed - that my heart is no longer in the right place
- and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker
is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at
his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the
better. But I will not digress.
'Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the
assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's influence, though exercised
in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my
intention to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a
respite of eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan
scenes of past enjoyment. Among other havens of domestic
tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards
the King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D. V.) on the
outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil
process, the day after tomorrow, at seven in the evening,
precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is
accomplished.

'I do not feel warranted in soliciting my former friend Mr.
Copperfield, or my former friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner
Temple, if that gentleman is still existent and forthcoming, to
condescend to meet me, and renew (so far as may be) our past
relations of the olden time. I confine myself to throwing out the
observation, that, at the hour and place I have indicated, may be
found such ruined vestiges as yet
'Remain,
'Of
'A
'Fallen Tower,
'WILKINS MICAWBER.

'P.S. It may be advisable to superadd to the above, the statement
that Mrs. Micawber is not in confidential possession of my
intentions.'

I read the letter over several times. Making due allowance for Mr.
Micawber's lofty style of composition, and for the extraordinary
relish with which he sat down and wrote long letters on all
possible and impossible occasions, I still believed that something
important lay hidden at the bottom of this roundabout
communication. I put it down, to think about it; and took it up
again, to read it once more; and was still pursuing it, when
Traddles found me in the height of my perplexity.

'My dear fellow,' said I, 'I never was better pleased to see you.
You come to give me the benefit of your sober judgement at a most
opportune time. I have received a very singular letter, Traddles,
from Mr. Micawber.'

'No?' cried Traddles. 'You don't say so? And I have received one
from Mrs. Micawber!'

With that, Traddles, who was flushed with walking, and whose hair,
under the combined effects of exercise and excitement, stood on end
as if he saw a cheerful ghost, produced his letter and made an
exchange with me. I watched him into the heart of Mr. Micawber's
letter, and returned the elevation of eyebrows with which he said
"'Wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging
flame!" Bless me, Copperfield!'- and then entered on the perusal of
Mrs. Micawber's epistle.

It ran thus:

'My best regards to Mr. Thomas Traddles, and if he should still
remember one who formerly had the happiness of being well
acquainted with him, may I beg a few moments of his leisure time?
I assure Mr. T. T. that I would not intrude upon his kindness, were
I in any other position than on the confines of distraction.

'Though harrowing to myself to mention, the alienation of Mr.
Micawber (formerly so domesticated) from his wife and family, is
the cause of my addressing my unhappy appeal to Mr. Traddles, and
soliciting his best indulgence. Mr. T. can form no adequate idea
of the change in Mr. Micawber's conduct, of his wildness, of his
violence. It has gradually augmented, until it assumes the
appearance of aberration of intellect. Scarcely a day passes, I
assure Mr. Traddles, on which some paroxysm does not take place.
Mr. T. will not require me to depict my feelings, when I inform him
that I have become accustomed to hear Mr. Micawber assert that he
has sold himself to the D. Mystery and secrecy have long been his
principal characteristic, have long replaced unlimited confidence.
The slightest provocation, even being asked if there is anything he
would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish for a
separation. Last night, on being childishly solicited for
twopence, to buy 'lemon-stunners' - a local sweetmeat - he
presented an oyster-knife at the twins!

'I entreat Mr. Traddles to bear with me in entering into these
details. Without them, Mr. T. would indeed find it difficult to
form the faintest conception of my heart-rending situation.

'May I now venture to confide to Mr. T. the purport of my letter?
Will he now allow me to throw myself on his friendly consideration?
Oh yes, for I know his heart!

'The quick eye of affection is not easily blinded, when of the
female sex. Mr. Micawber is going to London. Though he studiously
concealed his hand, this morning before breakfast, in writing the
direction-card which he attached to the little brown valise of
happier days, the eagle-glance of matrimonial anxiety detected, d,
o, n, distinctly traced. The West-End destination of the coach, is
the Golden Cross. Dare I fervently implore Mr. T. to see my
misguided husband, and to reason with him? Dare I ask Mr. T. to
endeavour to step in between Mr. Micawber and his agonized family?
Oh no, for that would be too much!

'If Mr. Copperfield should yet remember one unknown to fame, will
Mr. T. take charge of my unalterable regards and similar
entreaties? In any case, he will have the benevolence to consider
this communication strictly private, and on no account whatever to
be alluded to, however distantly, in the presence of Mr. Micawber.
If Mr. T. should ever reply to it (which I cannot but feel to be
most improbable), a letter addressed to M. E., Post Office,
Canterbury, will be fraught with less painful consequences than any
addressed immediately to one, who subscribes herself, in extreme
distress,

'Mr. Thomas Traddles's respectful friend and suppliant,

'EMMA MICAWBER.'

'What do you think of that letter?' said Traddles, casting his eyes
upon me, when I had read it twice.

'What do you think of the other?' said I. For he was still reading
it with knitted brows.

'I think that the two together, Copperfield,' replied Traddles,
'mean more than Mr. and Mrs. Micawber usually mean in their
correspondence - but I don't know what. They are both written in
good faith, I have no doubt, and without any collusion. Poor
thing!' he was now alluding to Mrs. Micawber's letter, and we were
standing side by side comparing the two; 'it will be a charity to
write to her, at all events, and tell her that we will not fail to
see Mr. Micawber.'

I acceded to this the more readily, because I now reproached myself
with having treated her former letter rather lightly. It had set
me thinking a good deal at the time, as I have mentioned in its
place; but my absorption in my own affairs, my experience of the
family, and my hearing nothing more, had gradually ended in my
dismissing the subject. I had often thought of the Micawbers, but
chiefly to wonder what 'pecuniary liabilities' they were
establishing in Canterbury, and to recall how shy Mr. Micawber was
of me when he became clerk to Uriah Heep.

However, I now wrote a comforting letter to Mrs. Micawber, in our
joint names, and we both signed it. As we walked into town to post
it, Traddles and I held a long conference, and launched into a
number of speculations, which I need not repeat. We took my aunt
into our counsels in the afternoon; but our only decided conclusion
was, that we would be very punctual in keeping Mr. Micawber's
appointment.

Although we appeared at the stipulated place a quarter of an hour
before the time, we found Mr. Micawber already there. He was
standing with his arms folded, over against the wall, looking at
the spikes on the top, with a sentimental expression, as if they
were the interlacing boughs of trees that had shaded him in his
youth.

When we accosted him, his manner was something more confused, and
something less genteel, than of yore. He had relinquished his
legal suit of black for the purposes of this excursion, and wore
the old surtout and tights, but not quite with the old air. He
gradually picked up more and more of it as we conversed with him;
but, his very eye-glass seemed to hang less easily, and his
shirt-collar, though still of the old formidable dimensions, rather
drooped.

'Gentlemen!' said Mr. Micawber, after the first salutations, 'you
are friends in need, and friends indeed. Allow me to offer my
inquiries with reference to the physical welfare of Mrs.
Copperfield in esse, and Mrs. Traddles in posse, - presuming, that
is to say, that my friend Mr. Traddles is not yet united to the
object of his affections, for weal and for woe.'

We acknowledged his politeness, and made suitable replies. He then
directed our attention to the wall, and was beginning, 'I assure
you, gentlemen,' when I ventured to object to that ceremonious form
of address, and to beg that he would speak to us in the old way.

'My dear Copperfield,' he returned, pressing my hand, 'your
cordiality overpowers me. This reception of a shattered fragment
of the Temple once called Man - if I may be permitted so to express
myself - bespeaks a heart that is an honour to our common nature.
I was about to observe that I again behold the serene spot where
some of the happiest hours of my existence fleeted by.'

'Made so, I am sure, by Mrs. Micawber,' said I. 'I hope she is
well?'

'Thank you,' returned Mr. Micawber, whose face clouded at this
reference, 'she is but so-so. And this,' said Mr. Micawber,
nodding his head sorrowfully, 'is the Bench! Where, for the first
time in many revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of
pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed, from day to day, by
importune voices declining to vacate the passage; where there was
no knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to; where
personal service of process was not required, and detainees were
merely lodged at the gate! Gentlemen,' said Mr. Micawber, 'when the
shadow of that iron-work on the summit of the brick structure has
been reflected on the gravel of the Parade, I have seen my children
thread the mazes of the intricate pattern, avoiding the dark marks.
I have been familiar with every stone in the place. If I betray
weakness, you will know how to excuse me.'