Kitabı oku: «Большие надежды. Уровень 2 / Great Expectations», sayfa 6
Chapter 9
Of course there was a public-house27 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 Bargemen28, 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 then29. 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 sudden30, 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 monster31, what do you think of me now?”
“I shall not tell you.”
“Why don’t you cry again, you little wretch32?”
“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 me35. And now go! Walk me, walk me!” and we went on again.
