Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

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But unless I had taken the life of Trabb's boy on that occasion, I
really do not even now see what I could have done save endure. To
have struggled with him in the street, or to have exacted any lower
recompense from him than his heart's best blood, would have been
futile and degrading. Moreover, he was a boy whom no man could
hurt; an invulnerable and dodging serpent who, when chased into a
corner, flew out again between his captor's legs, scornfully
yelping. I wrote, however, to Mr. Trabb by next day's post, to say
that Mr. Pip must decline to deal further with one who could so far
forget what he owed to the best interests of society, as to employ
a boy who excited Loathing in every respectable mind.

The coach, with Mr. Jaggers inside, came up in due time, and I took
my box-seat again, and arrived in London safe - but not sound, for
my heart was gone. As soon as I arrived, I sent a penitential
codfish and barrel of oysters to Joe (as reparation for not having
gone myself), and then went on to Barnard's Inn.

I found Herbert dining on cold meat, and delighted to welcome me
back. Having despatched The Avenger to the coffee-house for an
addition to the dinner, I felt that I must open my breast that very
evening to my friend and chum. As confidence was out of the
question with The Avenger in the hall, which could merely be
regarded in the light of an ante-chamber to the keyhole, I sent him
to the Play. A better proof of the severity of my bondage to that
taskmaster could scarcely be afforded, than the degrading shifts to
which I was constantly driven to find him employment. So mean is
extremity, that I sometimes sent him to Hyde Park Corner to see
what o'clock it was.

Dinner done and we sitting with our feet upon the fender, I said to
Herbert, "My dear Herbert, I have something very particular to tell
you."

"My dear Handel," he returned, "I shall esteem and respect your
confidence."

"It concerns myself, Herbert," said I, "and one other person."

Herbert crossed his feet, looked at the fire with his head on one
side, and having looked at it in vain for some time, looked at me
because I didn't go on.

"Herbert," said I, laying my hand upon his knee, "I love - I adore
- Estella."

Instead of being transfixed, Herbert replied in an easy
matter-of-course way, "Exactly. Well?"

"Well, Herbert? Is that all you say? Well?"

"What next, I mean?" said Herbert. "Of course I know that."

"How do you know it?" said I.

"How do I know it, Handel? Why, from you."

"I never told you."

"Told me! You have never told me when you have got your hair cut,
but I have had senses to perceive it. You have always adored her,
ever since I have known you. You brought your adoration and your
portmanteau here, together. Told me! Why, you have always told me
all day long. When you told me your own story, you told me plainly
that you began adoring her the first time you saw her, when you
were very young indeed."

"Very well, then," said I, to whom this was a new and not unwelcome
light, "I have never left off adoring her. And she has come back, a
most beautiful and most elegant creature. And I saw her yesterday.
And if I adored her before, I now doubly adore her."

"Lucky for you then, Handel," said Herbert, "that you are picked
out for her and allotted to her. Without encroaching on forbidden
ground, we may venture to say that there can be no doubt between
ourselves of that fact. Have you any idea yet, of Estella's views
on the adoration question?"

I shook my head gloomily. "Oh! She is thousands of miles away, from
me," said I.

"Patience, my dear Handel: time enough, time enough. But you have
something more to say?"

"I am ashamed to say it," I returned, "and yet it's no worse to say
it than to think it. You call me a lucky fellow. Of course, I am. I
was a blacksmith's boy but yesterday; I am - what shall I say I am
- to-day?"

"Say, a good fellow, if you want a phrase," returned Herbert,
smiling, and clapping his hand on the back of mine, "a good fellow,
with impetuosity and hesitation, boldness and diffidence, action
and dreaming, curiously mixed in him."

I stopped for a moment to consider whether there really was this
mixture in my character. On the whole, I by no means recognized the
analysis, but thought it not worth disputing.

"When I ask what I am to call myself to-day, Herbert," I went on,
"I suggest what I have in my thoughts. You say I am lucky. I know I
have done nothing to raise myself in life, and that Fortune alone
has raised me; that is being very lucky. And yet, when I think of
Estella--"

("And when don't you, you know?" Herbert threw in, with his eyes on
the fire; which I thought kind and sympathetic of him.)

" - Then, my dear Herbert, I cannot tell you how dependent and
uncertain I feel, and how exposed to hundreds of chances. Avoiding
forbidden ground, as you did just now, I may still say that on the
constancy of one person (naming no person) all my expectations
depend. And at the best, how indefinite and unsatisfactory, only to
know so vaguely what they are!" In saying this, I relieved my mind
of what had always been there, more or less, though no doubt most
since yesterday.

"Now, Handel," Herbert replied, in his gay hopeful way, "it seems
to me that in the despondency of the tender passion, we are looking
into our gift-horse's mouth with a magnifying-glass. Likewise, it
seems to me that, concentrating our attention on the examination,
we altogether overlook one of the best points of the animal. Didn't
you tell me that your guardian, Mr. Jaggers, told you in the
beginning, that you were not endowed with expectations only? And
even if he had not told you so - though that is a very large If, I
grant - could you believe that of all men in London, Mr. Jaggers is
the man to hold his present relations towards you unless he were
sure of his ground?"

I said I could not deny that this was a strong point. I said it
(people often do so, in such cases) like a rather reluctant
concession to truth and justice; - as if I wanted to deny it!

"I should think it was a strong point," said Herbert, "and I should
think you would be puzzled to imagine a stronger; as to the rest,
you must bide your guardian's time, and he must bide his client's
time. You'll be one-and-twenty before you know where you are, and
then perhaps you'll get some further enlightenment. At all events,
you'll be nearer getting it, for it must come at last."

"What a hopeful disposition you have!" said I, gratefully admiring
his cheery ways.

"I ought to have," said Herbert, "for I have not much else. I must
acknowledge, by-the-bye, that the good sense of what I have just
said is not my own, but my father's. The only remark I ever heard
him make on your story, was the final one: "The thing is settled
and done, or Mr. Jaggers would not be in it." And now before I say
anything more about my father, or my father's son, and repay
confidence with confidence, I want to make myself seriously
disagreeable to you for a moment - positively repulsive."

"You won't succeed," said I.

"Oh yes I shall!" said he. "One, two, three, and now I am in for
it. Handel, my good fellow;" though he spoke in this light tone, he
was very much in earnest: "I have been thinking since we have been
talking with our feet on this fender, that Estella surely cannot be
a condition of your inheritance, if she was never referred to by
your guardian. Am I right in so understanding what you have told
me, as that he never referred to her, directly or indirectly, in
any way? Never even hinted, for instance, that your patron might
have views as to your marriage ultimately?"

"Never."

"Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavour of sour grapes, upon
my soul and honour! Not being bound to her, can you not detach
yourself from her? - I told you I should be disagreeable."

I turned my head aside, for, with a rush and a sweep, like the old
marsh winds coming up from the sea, a feeling like that which had
subdued me on the morning when I left the forge, when the mists
were solemnly rising, and when I laid my hand upon the village
finger-post, smote upon my heart again. There was silence between
us for a little while.

"Yes; but my dear Handel," Herbert went on, as if we had been
talking instead of silent, "its having been so strongly rooted in
the breast of a boy whom nature and circumstances made so romantic,
renders it very serious. Think of her bringing-up, and think of
Miss Havisham. Think of what she is herself (now I am repulsive and
you abominate me). This may lead to miserable things."

"I know it, Herbert," said I, with my head still turned away, "but
I can't help it."

"You can't detach yourself?"

"No. Impossible!"

"You can't try, Handel?"

"No. Impossible!"

"Well!" said Herbert, getting up with a lively shake as if he had
been asleep, and stirring the fire; "now I'll endeavour to make
myself agreeable again!"

So he went round the room and shook the curtains out, put the
chairs in their places, tidied the books and so forth that were
lying about, looked into the hall, peeped into the letter-box, shut
the door, and came back to his chair by the fire: where he sat
down, nursing his left leg in both arms.

"I was going to say a word or two, Handel, concerning my father and
my father's son. I am afraid it is scarcely necessary for my
father's son to remark that my father's establishment is not
particularly brilliant in its housekeeping."

"There is always plenty, Herbert," said I: to say something
encouraging.

"Oh yes! and so the dustman says, I believe, with the strongest
approval, and so does the marine-store shop in the back street.
Gravely, Handel, for the subject is grave enough, you know how it
is, as well as I do. I suppose there was a time once when my father
had not given matters up; but if ever there was, the time is gone.
May I ask you if you have ever had an opportunity of remarking,
down in your part of the country, that the children of not exactly
suitable marriages, are always most particularly anxious to be
married?"

This was such a singular question, that I asked him in return, "Is
it so?"

"I don't know," said Herbert, "that's what I want to know. Because
it is decidedly the case with us. My poor sister Charlotte who was
next me and died before she was fourteen, was a striking example.
Little Jane is the same. In her desire to be matrimonially
established, you might suppose her to have passed her short
existence in the perpetual contemplation of domestic bliss. Little
Alick in a frock has already made arrangements for his union with a
suitable young person at Kew. And indeed, I think we are all
engaged, except the baby."

"Then you are?" said I.

"I am," said Herbert; "but it's a secret."

I assured him of my keeping the secret, and begged to be favoured
with further particulars. He had spoken so sensibly and feelingly
of my weakness that I wanted to know something about his strength.

"May I ask the name?" I said.

"Name of Clara," said Herbert.

"Live in London?"

"Yes. Perhaps I ought to mention," said Herbert, who had become
curiously crestfallen and meek, since we entered on the interesting
theme, "that she is rather below my mother's nonsensical family
notions. Her father had to do with the victualling of
passenger-ships. I think he was a species of purser."

"What is he now?" said I.

"He's an invalid now," replied Herbert.

"Living on - ?"

"On the first floor," said Herbert. Which was not at all what I
meant, for I had intended my question to apply to his means. "I
have never seen him, for he has always kept his room overhead,
since I have known Clara. But I have heard him constantly. He makes
tremendous rows - roars, and pegs at the floor with some frightful
instrument." In looking at me and then laughing heartily, Herbert
for the time recovered his usual lively manner.

"Don't you expect to see him?" said I.

"Oh yes, I constantly expect to see him," returned Herbert,
"because I never hear him, without expecting him to come tumbling
through the ceiling. But I don't know how long the rafters may
hold."

When he had once more laughed heartily, he became meek again, and
told me that the moment he began to realize Capital, it was his
intention to marry this young lady. He added as a self-evident
proposition, engendering low spirits, "But you can't marry, you
know, while you're looking about you."

As we contemplated the fire, and as I thought what a difficult
vision to realize this same Capital sometimes was, I put my hands
in my pockets. A folded piece of paper in one of them attracting my
attention, I opened it and found it to be the playbill I had
received from Joe, relative to the celebrated provincial amateur of
Roscian renown. "And bless my heart," I involuntarily added aloud,
"it's to-night!"

This changed the subject in an instant, and made us hurriedly
resolve to go to the play. So, when I had pledged myself to comfort
and abet Herbert in the affair of his heart by all practicable and
impracticable means, and when Herbert had told me that his
affianced already knew me by reputation and that I should be
presented to her, and when we had warmly shaken hands upon our
mutual confidence, we blew out our candles, made up our fire,
locked our door, and issued forth in quest of Mr. Wopsle and
Denmark.

Chapter 31

On our arrival in Denmark, we found the king and queen of that
country elevated in two arm-chairs on a kitchen-table, holding a
Court. The whole of the Danish nobility were in attendance;
consisting of a noble boy in the wash-leather boots of a gigantic
ancestor, a venerable Peer with a dirty face who seemed to have
risen from the people late in life, and the Danish chivalry with a
comb in its hair and a pair of white silk legs, and presenting on
the whole a feminine appearance. My gifted townsman stood gloomily
apart, with folded arms, and I could have wished that his curls and
forehead had been more probable.

Several curious little circumstances transpired as the action
proceeded. The late king of the country not only appeared to have
been troubled with a cough at the time of his decease, but to have
taken it with him to the tomb, and to have brought it back. The
royal phantom also carried a ghostly manuscript round its
truncheon, to which it had the appearance of occasionally
referring, and that, too, with an air of anxiety and a tendency to
lose the place of reference which were suggestive of a state of
mortality. It was this, I conceive, which led to the Shade's being
advised by the gallery to "turn over!" - a recommendation which it
took extremely ill. It was likewise to be noted of this majestic
spirit that whereas it always appeared with an air of having been
out a long time and walked an immense distance, it perceptibly came
from a closely contiguous wall. This occasioned its terrors to be
received derisively. The Queen of Denmark, a very buxom lady,
though no doubt historically brazen, was considered by the public
to have too much brass about her; her chin being attached to her
diadem by a broad band of that metal (as if she had a gorgeous
toothache), her waist being encircled by another, and each of her
arms by another, so that she was openly mentioned as "the
kettledrum." The noble boy in the ancestral boots, was
inconsistent; representing himself, as it were in one breath, as an
able seaman, a strolling actor, a grave-digger, a clergyman, and a
person of the utmost importance at a Court fencing-match, on the
authority of whose practised eye and nice discrimination the finest
strokes were judged. This gradually led to a want of toleration for
him, and even - on his being detected in holy orders, and declining
to perform the funeral service - to the general indignation taking
the form of nuts. Lastly, Ophelia was a prey to such slow musical
madness, that when, in course of time, she had taken off her white
muslin scarf, folded it up, and buried it, a sulky man who had been
long cooling his impatient nose against an iron bar in the front
row of the gallery, growled, "Now the baby's put to bed let's have
supper!" Which, to say the least of it, was out of keeping.

Upon my unfortunate townsman all these incidents accumulated with
playful effect. Whenever that undecided Prince had to ask a
question or state a doubt, the public helped him out with it. As
for example; on the question whether 'twas nobler in the mind to
suffer, some roared yes, and some no, and some inclining to both
opinions said "toss up for it;" and quite a Debating Society arose.
When he asked what should such fellows as he do crawling between
earth and heaven, he was encouraged with loud cries of "Hear,
hear!" When he appeared with his stocking disordered (its disorder
expressed, according to usage, by one very neat fold in the top,
which I suppose to be always got up with a flat iron), a
conversation took place in the gallery respecting the paleness of
his leg, and whether it was occasioned by the turn the ghost had
given him. On his taking the recorders - very like a little black
flute that had just been played in the orchestra and handed out at
the door - he was called upon unanimously for Rule Britannia. When
he recommended the player not to saw the air thus, the sulky man
said, "And don't you do it, neither; you're a deal worse than him!"
And I grieve to add that peals of laughter greeted Mr. Wopsle on
every one of these occasions.

But his greatest trials were in the churchyard: which had the
appearance of a primeval forest, with a kind of small
ecclesiastical wash-house on one side, and a turnpike gate on the
other. Mr. Wopsle in a comprehensive black cloak, being descried
entering at the turnpike, the gravedigger was admonished in a
friendly way, "Look out! Here's the undertaker a-coming, to see how
you're a-getting on with your work!" I believe it is well known in
a constitutional country that Mr. Wopsle could not possibly have
returned the skull, after moralizing over it, without dusting his
fingers on a white napkin taken from his breast; but even that
innocent and indispensable action did not pass without the comment
"Wai-ter!" The arrival of the body for interment (in an empty black
box with the lid tumbling open), was the signal for a general joy
which was much enhanced by the discovery, among the bearers, of an
individual obnoxious to identification. The joy attended Mr. Wopsle
through his struggle with Laertes on the brink of the orchestra and
the grave, and slackened no more until he had tumbled the king off
the kitchen-table, and had died by inches from the ankles upward.

We had made some pale efforts in the beginning to applaud Mr.
Wopsle; but they were too hopeless to be persisted in. Therefore we
had sat, feeling keenly for him, but laughing, nevertheless, from
ear to ear. I laughed in spite of myself all the time, the whole
thing was so droll; and yet I had a latent impression that there
was something decidedly fine in Mr. Wopsle's elocution - not for old
associations' sake, I am afraid, but because it was very slow, very
dreary, very up-hill and down-hill, and very unlike any way in
which any man in any natural circumstances of life or death ever
expressed himself about anything. When the tragedy was over, and he
had been called for and hooted, I said to Herbert, "Let us go at
once, or perhaps we shall meet him."

We made all the haste we could down-stairs, but we were not quick
enough either. Standing at the door was a Jewish man with an
unnatural heavy smear of eyebrow, who caught my eyes as we
advanced, and said, when we came up with him:

"Mr. Pip and friend?"

Identity of Mr. Pip and friend confessed.

"Mr. Waldengarver," said the man, "would be glad to have the
honour."

"Waldengarver?" I repeated - when Herbert murmured in my ear,
"Probably Wopsle."

"Oh!" said I. "Yes. Shall we follow you?"

"A few steps, please." When we were in a side alley, he turned and
asked, "How did you think he looked? - I dressed him."

I don't know what he had looked like, except a funeral; with the
addition of a large Danish sun or star hanging round his neck by a
blue ribbon, that had given him the appearance of being insured in
some extraordinary Fire Office. But I said he had looked very nice.

"When he come to the grave," said our conductor, "he showed his
cloak beautiful. But, judging from the wing, it looked to me that
when he see the ghost in the queen's apartment, he might have made
more of his stockings."

I modestly assented, and we all fell through a little dirty swing
door, into a sort of hot packing-case immediately behind it. Here
Mr. Wopsle was divesting himself of his Danish garments, and here
there was just room for us to look at him over one another's
shoulders, by keeping the packing-case door, or lid, wide open.

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Wopsle, "I am proud to see you. I hope, Mr.
Pip, you will excuse my sending round. I had the happiness to know
you in former times, and the Drama has ever had a claim which has
ever been acknowledged, on the noble and the affluent."

Meanwhile, Mr. Waldengarver, in a frightful perspiration, was trying
to get himself out of his princely sables.

"Skin the stockings off, Mr. Waldengarver," said the owner of that
property, "or you'll bust 'em. Bust 'em, and you'll bust
five-and-thirty shillings. Shakspeare never was complimented with a
finer pair. Keep quiet in your chair now, and leave 'em to me."

With that, he went upon his knees, and began to flay his victim;
who, on the first stocking coming off, would certainly have fallen
over backward with his chair, but for there being no room to fall
anyhow.

I had been afraid until then to say a word about the play. But
then, Mr. Waldengarver looked up at us complacently, and said:

"Gentlemen, how did it seem to you, to go, in front?"

Herbert said from behind (at the same time poking me), "capitally."
So I said "capitally."

"How did you like my reading of the character, gentlemen?" said Mr.
Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, with patronage.

Herbert said from behind (again poking me), "massive and concrete."
So I said boldly, as if I had originated it, and must beg to insist
upon it, "massive and concrete."

"I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen," said Mr.
Waldengarver, with an air of dignity, in spite of his being ground
against the wall at the time, and holding on by the seat of the
chair.

"But I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengarver," said the man who
was on his knees, "in which you're out in your reading. Now mind! I
don't care who says contrairy; I tell you so. You're out in your
reading of Hamlet when you get your legs in profile. The last
Hamlet as I dressed, made the same mistakes in his reading at
rehearsal, till I got him to put a large red wafer on each of his
shins, and then at that rehearsal (which was the last) I went in
front, sir, to the back of the pit, and whenever his reading
brought him into profile, I called out "I don't see no wafers!" And
at night his reading was lovely."

Mr. Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as to say "a faithful
dependent - I overlook his folly;" and then said aloud, "My view is
a little classic and thoughtful for them here; but they will
improve, they will improve."

Herbert and I said together, Oh, no doubt they would improve.

"Did you observe, gentlemen," said Mr. Waldengarver, "that there was
a man in the gallery who endeavoured to cast derision on the
service - I mean, the representation?"

We basely replied that we rather thought we had noticed such a man.
I added, "He was drunk, no doubt."

"Oh dear no, sir," said Mr. Wopsle, "not drunk. His employer would
see to that, sir. His employer would not allow him to be drunk."

"You know his employer?" said I.

Mr. Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened them again; performing both
ceremonies very slowly. "You must have observed, gentlemen," said
he, "an ignorant and a blatant ass, with a rasping throat and a
countenance expressive of low malignity, who went through - I will
not say sustained - the role (if I may use a French expression) of
Claudius King of Denmark. That is his employer, gentlemen. Such is
the profession!"

Without distinctly knowing whether I should have been more sorry
for Mr. Wopsle if he had been in despair, I was so sorry for him as
it was, that I took the opportunity of his turning round to have
his braces put on - which jostled us out at the doorway - to ask
Herbert what he thought of having him home to supper? Herbert said
he thought it would be kind to do so; therefore I invited him, and
he went to Barnard's with us, wrapped up to the eyes, and we did
our best for him, and he sat until two o'clock in the morning,
reviewing his success and developing his plans. I forget in detail
what they were, but I have a general recollection that he was to
begin with reviving the Drama, and to end with crushing it;
inasmuch as his decease would leave it utterly bereft and without a
chance or hope.

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