Чарльз Диккенс
Большие надежды. Уровень 2 / Great Expectations

Chapter 6

When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe.

“Didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?” asked I one day.

“No, Pip.”

“Why didn’t you ever go to school?”

“Well, Pip,” said Joe; “I’ll tell you. My father, Pip, liked to drink much. So my mother and me we ran away from my father several times. Sometimes my mother said, ‘Joe, you must go to school, child.’ And she put me to school. But my father couldn’t live without us. So he came with a crowd and took us from the houses where we were. He took us home and hammered us.”

“Certainly, poor Joe!”

“My father said I must work. So I went to work. In time I was able to keep him, and I kept him till he went off.”

Joe’s blue eyes turned a little watery. He rubbed first one of them, and then the other, in a most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner, with the round knob on the top of the poker.

“I met your sister,” said Joe, “she was living here alone. Now, Pip,”Joe looked firmly at me; “your sister is very nice and clever.”

“I am glad you think so, Joe.”

“Yes,” returned Joe. “That’s it. You’re right, old chap! When I met your sister, she was bringing you. Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and I said, along with all the folks. When your sister was willing and ready to come to the forge, I said to her, ‘And bring the poor little child. God bless the poor little child,’ I said to your sister, ‘there’s room for him at the forge!’”

I hugged Joe round the neck. He dropped the poker to hug me and said,

“We are the best friends; aren’t we, Pip? Don’t cry, old chap!”

When this little interruption was over, Joe resumed:

“Well, you see; here we are! Your sister a master-mind.^[16] A master-mind. However, here comes the mare!”

Mrs. Joe and Uncle Pumblechook were soon near. Then we were soon all in the kitchen.

“Now,” said Mrs. Joe, with haste and excitement, “if this boy isn’t grateful this night, he never will be! Miss Havisham wants this boy to go and play in her house. And of course he’ll go.”

I heard of Miss Havisham – everybody heard of her – as an immensely rich and grim lady. She lived in a large and dismal house and led a life of seclusion^[17].

“But how did she know Pip?” said Joe, astounded.

“Who said she knew him?” cried my sister. “She just asked Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there. Uncle Pumblechook thinks that that is the boy’s fortune. So he offered to take him into town tonight in his own chaise-cart, and to take him with his own hands to Miss Havisham’s tomorrow morning.”

I was then delivered over to Mr. Pumblechook. He said:

“Boy, be forever grateful!”

“Good-bye, Joe!”

“God bless you, Pip, old chap!”

I never parted from him before. I did not understand why I was going to play at Miss Havisham’s, and what to play at.

Chapter 7

Mr. Pumblechook and I breakfasted at eight o’clock in the parlor behind the shop. I didn’t like Mr. Pumblechook. He said, pompously,

“Seven times nine, boy?^[18]”

I was very hungry, but the math lesson lasted all through the breakfast.

“Seven?” “And four?” “And eight?” “And six?” “And two?” “And ten?” And so on.

For such reasons, I was very glad when ten o’clock came and we started for Miss Havisham’s. Miss Havisham’s house was of old brick, and dismal, and had many iron bars. While we waited at the gate, Mr. Pumblechook said, “And fourteen?” but I did not answer.

A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded,

“What name?”

My conductor replied,

“Pumblechook.”

The voice returned, “Quite right,” and the window was shut again. Then a young lady came across the courtyard, with keys in her hand.

“This,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “is Pip.”

“This is Pip, is it?” returned the young lady, who was very pretty and seemed very proud; “come in, Pip.”

Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when she stopped him.

“Oh!” she said. “Did you wish to see Miss Havisham?”

“If Miss Havisham wished to see me,” returned Mr. Pumblechook, discomfited.

“Ah!” said the girl; “but you see she didn’t.”

Mr. Pumblechook did not protest. My young conductress locked the gate, and we went across the courtyard. It was paved and clean, but grass was growing in every crevice. The cold wind seemed to blow colder there than outside the gate.

“Now, boy, you are at the Manor House,” said the girl.

“Is that the name of this house, miss?”

“One of its names, boy.”

She called me “boy” very often, but she was of about my own age. Anyway, she seemed much older than I, of course.

We went into the house by a side door. The great front entrance had two chains across it outside. The passages were all dark. At last we came to the door of a room, and the girl said, “Go in.”

I answered, more in shyness than politeness, “After you, miss.”

To this she returned:

“Don’t be ridiculous, boy; I am not going in.”

She scornfully walked away, and took the candle with her.

This was very uncomfortable, and I was afraid. However, I knocked and entered. I found myself^[19] in a large room. It was well lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight. It was a dressing-room, but in it was a draped table with a gilded looking-glass.

In an arm-chair, sat a very strange lady. She was dressed in rich materials – satins, and lace, and silks – all of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair. She had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay on the table.

“Who is it?” said the lady.

“Pip, ma’am.”

“Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close.”

A clock in the room stopped at twenty minutes to nine.

“Look at me,” said Miss Havisham. “You are not afraid of me?”

“No.”

“Do you know what I touch here?” she laid her hands, one upon the other, on her left side.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What do I touch?”

“Your heart.”

“Broken!”

She uttered the word with strong emphasis, and with a weird smile.

“I am tired,” said Miss Havisham. “I want diversion. Play. I sometimes have sick fancies. There, there!” with an impatient movement of the fingers of her right hand; “play, play, play!”

I was looking at Miss Havisham.

“Are you sullen and obstinate?”

“No, ma’am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can’t play just now. It’s so new here, and so strange, and so fine and melancholy…”

Before she spoke again, she turned her eyes from me, and looked at the dress she wore, and at the dressing-table, and finally at herself in the looking-glass.

“So new to him,” she muttered, “so old to me; so strange to him, so familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us! Call Estella.”

As she was still looking at the reflection of herself, I thought she was still talking to herself.

“Call Estella,” she repeated. “You can do that. Call Estella. At the door.”

I called Estella. Soon her light came along the dark passage like a star. Miss Havisham beckoned her to come close, and took up a jewel from the table.

“Your own, one day, my dear, and you will use it well. Let me see you play cards with this boy.”

“With this boy? Why, he is a common laboring boy^[20]!”

Miss Havisham answered,

“Well? You can break his heart.”

“What do you play, boy?” asked Estella, with the greatest disdain.

“Nothing but beggar my neighbor^[21], miss.”

“Beggar him^[22],” said Miss Havisham to Estella.

So we sat down to cards. The lady was corpse-like, as we played.

“What coarse hands he has, this boy!” said Estella with disdain. “And what thick boots!”

Her contempt for me was very strong. She won the game, and I dealt. I misdealt, and she called me a stupid, clumsy laboring-boy.

“You say nothing of her,” remarked Miss Havisham to me. “She says many hard things of you, but you say nothing of her. What do you think of her?”

“I don’t like to say,” I stammered.

“Tell me in my ear,” said Miss Havisham.

“I think she is very proud,” I replied, in a whisper.

“Anything else?”

“I think she is very pretty.”

“Anything else?”

“I think she is very insulting.”

“Anything else?”

“I want to go home.”

“And never see her again, though she is so pretty?”

“I am not sure. But I want to go home now.”

“You will go soon,” said Miss Havisham, aloud. “Play.”

I played the game to an end with Estella, and she beggared me. She threw the cards down on the table.

“When shall I have you here again?” said Miss Havisham. “Let me think. Come again after six days. You hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Estella, take him down. Let him have something to eat. Go, Pip.”

I followed the candle down. Estella opened the side entrance.

“Wait here, you boy,” said Estella.

She disappeared and closed the door.

She came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer. She put the mug down on the stones of the yard, and gave me the bread and meat. She did not look at me. I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry. Tears started to my eyes. The girl looked at me with a quick delight, then she left me.

I looked about me for a place to hide my face in and cried. As I cried, I kicked the wall.

Then I noticed Estella. She laughed contemptuously, pushed me out, and locked the gate upon me. I went straight to Mr. Pumblechook’s. Then I walked to our forge. I remembered that I was a common laboring-boy; that my hands were coarse; that my boots were thick.

Chapter 8

When I reached home, my sister was very curious to know all about Miss Havisham’s. She asked many questions. Then old Pumblechook came over at tea-time.

“Well, boy,” Uncle Pumblechook began, as soon as he was seated in the chair of honor^[23] by the fire. “How did you get on up town?^[24]”

I answered, “Pretty well, sir,” and my sister shook her fist at me.

“Pretty well?” Mr. Pumblechook repeated. “Pretty well is no answer. Tell us what you mean by pretty well, boy?”

“I mean pretty well,” I answered.

My sister was ready to hit me. I had no defence, for Joe was busy in the forge. Mr. Pumblechook interposed,

“No! Don’t lose your temper. Leave this lad to me, ma’am; leave this lad to me.”

Then Mr. Pumblechook turned me towards him and said,

“Boy! Tell me about Miss Havisham.”

“She is very tall and dark,” I told him.

“Good!” said Mr. Pumblechook conceitedly. “Now, boy! What was she doing, when you went in today?”

“She was sitting,” I answered, “in a black velvet coach.”

Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another and both repeated,

“In a black velvet coach?”

“Yes,” said I. “And Miss Estella – that’s her niece, I think – brought her some cake and wine.”

“Was anybody else there?” asked Mr. Pumblechook.

“Four dogs,” said I.

“Large or small?”

“Immense,” said I.

Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another again, in utter amazement.

“Can this be possible, uncle?” asked Mrs. Joe. “What can the boy mean?”

“I’ll tell you, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “My opinion is, it’s a sedan-chair^[25]. She passes her days in a sedan-chair. But the boy went there to play. What did you play at, boy?”

“We played with flags,” I said.

“Flags!” echoed my sister.

“Yes,” said I. “Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red one, and Miss Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out at the coach-window. And then we all waved our swords and hurrahed.”

“Swords!” repeated my sister. “Where did you get swords from?”

“Out of a cupboard,” said I. “And I saw pistols in it – and jam – and pills. And there was no daylight in the room, but it was all lighted up with candles.”

“That’s true, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook, with a grave nod. “I think that Miss Havisham will “do something” for the boy. Maybe a handsome premium^[26] for schooling.”

Chapter 9

Of course there was a public-house^[27] in the village, and of course Joe liked sometimes to smoke his pipe there. I received strict orders from my sister to call for him at the Three Jolly Bargemen^[28], that evening, on my way from school, and bring him home. To the Three Jolly Bargemen, therefore, I directed my steps.

It was Saturday night. I merely wished the landlord good evening, and passed into the common room at the end of the passage, where there was a bright large kitchen fire. Joe was smoking his pipe in company with Mr. Wopsle and a stranger. Joe greeted me as usual with “Halloa, Pip, old chap!” The stranger turned his head and looked at me.

His head was all on one side, and one of his eyes was half shut up. He had a pipe in his mouth. He took it out and nodded. So, I nodded, and then he nodded again.

“You were saying,” said the strange man to Joe, “that you were a blacksmith.”

“Yes. I said it, you know,” said Joe.

“What’ll you drink, Mr. -? You didn’t mention your name, by the way.”

Joe mentioned it now, and the strange man called him by it.

“What’ll you drink, Mr. Gargery? I will pay.”

“Well,” said Joe, “to tell you the truth, I like to pay myself.”

“No,” returned the stranger, “it’s a Saturday night too. Come!”

“I don’t want to spoil the company,” said Joe. “Rum.”

“Rum,” repeated the stranger.

“Rum,” said Mr. Wopsle.

“Three Rums!” cried the stranger.

“This gentleman,” observed Joe, “is our clerk at church.”

“Aha!” said the stranger, quickly. “The lonely church, right out on the marshes, with graves round it!”

The stranger put his legs up on the settle. He wore a handkerchief tied over his head. “I am not acquainted with this country, gentlemen, but it seems a solitary country towards the river. Do you find any gypsies, now, or tramps, or vagrants of any sort, out there?”

“No,” said Joe; “none but a runaway convict now and then^[29]. Eh, Mr. Wopsle?”

Mr. Wopsle assented; but not warmly. The stranger looked at me again and said, “He’s a nice boy. What is his name?”

“Pip,” said Joe.

“Son of yours?”

“Well,” said Joe, meditatively, “no. No, he isn’t.”

“Nephew?” said the strange man.

“Well,” said Joe, “no, he is not my nephew.”

“What is he?” asked the stranger.

The strange man looked at nobody but me. He tasted his rum. Then he stirred it; not with a spoon, but with a file.

After that he wiped the file and put it in a breast-pocket. It was Joe’s file, and I knew that he knew my convict, the moment I saw the instrument.

“Wait, Mr. Gargery,” said the strange man. “I think I’ve got a shilling somewhere in my pocket, and if I have, the boy will have it.”

He gave it to me.

“Yours!” said he.

I thanked him. He told Joe and Mr. Wopsle good-night, and left.

Chapter 10

At the appointed time I returned to Miss Havisham’s. Estella locked the gate, and again preceded me into the dark passage. She took the candle, looked over her shoulder and said,

“Come this way today,” and took me to quite another part of the house.

The passage was a long one. At the end of it she stopped, and put her candle down and opened a door. Here, the daylight reappeared, and I found myself in a small paved courtyard. There was a clock in the outer wall of this house. Like the clock in Miss Havisham’s room, and like Miss Havisham’s watch, it stopped at twenty minutes to nine.

We went into a gloomy room with a low ceiling, on the ground-floor at the back.

As we were going with our candle, Estella stopped all of a sudden^[30], and said, with her face quite close to mine,

“Well?”

“Well, miss?”

“Am I pretty?”

“Yes; I think you are very pretty.”

“Am I insulting?”

“Not so much so as you were last time,” said I.

“Not so much so?”

“No.”

She slapped my face.

“Now?” said she. “You little coarse monster^[31], what do you think of me now?”

“I shall not tell you.”

“Why don’t you cry again, you little wretch^[32]?”

“Because I’ll never cry for you again,” said I.

As we were going up, we met a gentleman.

“Whom do we have here?” asked the gentleman.

“A boy,” said Estella.

He was a burly man of an exceedingly dark complexion, with an exceedingly large head, and a large hand. He took my chin in his large hand. He was prematurely bald on the top of his head, and had bushy black eyebrows.

“Boy of the neighborhood? Hey?” said he.

“Yes, sir,” said I.

“How do you come here?”

“Miss Havisham sent for me, sir,” I explained.

“Well! Behave yourself,” said he and frowned at me, “you behave yourself!^[33]”

With those words, he released me and went his way down stairs. We were soon in Miss Havisham’s room. Estella left me, and I stood there before Miss Havisham.

“So!” she said, “Are you ready to play?”

“I don’t think I am, ma’am.”

“Not at cards again?” she demanded.

“Yes, ma’am; I could do that.”

“Since you are unwilling to play, boy,” said Miss Havisham, impatiently, “are you willing to work?”

I said I was willing.

“Then go into that opposite room,” said she and pointed at the door behind me with her withered hand, “and wait there till I come.”

I crossed the staircase and entered the room she indicated. From that room, too, the daylight was completely excluded. It had an airless smell that was oppressive. The most prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth.

Black beetles fascinated my attention. I was watching them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder. In her other hand she had a stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the witch.

“This,” said she and pointed to the long table with her stick, “is where I will be laid when I am dead. They will come and look at me here.”

I shrank under her touch.

“What do you think that is?” she asked me; “that, where those cobwebs are?”

“I can’t guess what it is, ma’am.”

“It’s a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!”

She looked all round the room and then said,

“Come, come, come! Walk me, walk me!^[34]”

She was not physically strong, and after a little time said,

“Slower! Call Estella!”

I roared that name as on the previous occasion. When her light appeared, I returned to Miss Havisham, and we started away again round and round the room.

Estella brought with her the three ladies and the gentleman. I didn’t know what to do.

“Dear Miss Havisham,” said a guest. “How well you look!”

“I do not,” returned Miss Havisham. “I am yellow skin and bone. And how are you, Camilla?” said Miss Havisham.

“Thank you, Miss Havisham,” she returned, “I am well. Matthew could not come,” “Matthew will come and see me at last,” said Miss Havisham, sternly, when I am on that table. That will be his place – there, at my head! And yours will be there! And your husband’s there! And Sarah Pocket’s there! And Georgiana’s there! Now you all know where to sit when you come to feast upon me^[35]. And now go! Walk me, walk me!” and we went on again.

“Bless you, Miss Havisham dear!” said the guests.

Miss Havisham still walked with her hand on my shoulder, but more and more slowly. At last she stopped before the fire, and said,

“This is my birthday, Pip. On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of decay came here. The mice gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice gnawed at me.”

She held the head of her stick against her heart.

“When the ruin is complete,” said she, “they lay me dead, in my bride’s dress on the bride’s table!”

I remained quiet. Estella returned, and she too remained quiet. At last, Miss Havisham said,

“You two, play cards; why don’t you begin?”

With that, we returned to her room, and sat down as before. I was beggared, as before; and again, as before, Miss Havisham watched us all the time and directed my attention to Estella’s beauty.

We played some half-dozen games, then I went down to the yard and ate some food. After that I found myself in the dismal corner. I looked in and, to my great surprise, saw a pale young gentleman with red eyelids and light hair. This pale young gentleman quickly disappeared, and reappeared beside me.

“Halloa!” said he, “young fellow!”

I said, “Halloa!”

“Who let you in?” said he.

“Miss Estella.”

“Come and fight,” said the pale young gentleman. “But stop a minute. I must give you a reason for fighting. There it is!”

He pulled my hair, dipped his head, and butted it into my stomach. He did not hit me hard. I hit him, too, and he fell against the wall. He went on his knees backwards and said,

“That means you win.”

He seemed brave and innocent. I said,

“Can I help you?”

“No thank you,” he answered.

“Good afternoon,” I said

“Same to you.”

When I got into the courtyard, I found Estella with the keys. She stepped back into the passage, and beckoned me.

“Come here! You may kiss me, if you like.”

I kissed her cheek as she turned it to me.