Kitabı oku: «Большие надежды. Уровень 2 / Great Expectations», sayfa 8

Chapter 13

My home was not a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister’s temper. Anyway, I was very proud and happy to enter the forge. Now the reality was quite different, I only felt that I was dusty with the dust of small-coal.

What if Estella, sooner or later, sees me, with a black face and hands? She will despise me. I felt more ashamed of home than ever, in my own ungracious breast.

“Joe,” said I one day; “don’t you think I must make Miss Havisham a visit?”

“Well, Pip,” returned Joe. “What for?”

He pulled hard at his pipe.

“You see, Pip,” Joe pursued, “Miss Havisham said “goodbye” to you. That’s all.”

“Yes, Joe. I heard her. But, Joe, I want to thank Miss Havisham, or show that I remember her. My dear Joe, please give me a half-holiday tomorrow.”

So, tomorrow I found myself again near Miss Havisham’s house. Miss Sarah Pocket came to the gate. No Estella.

“How, then? You here again?” said Miss Pocket. “What do you want?”

I said that I only came to see how Miss Havisham was. Sarah let me in. Everything was unchanged, and Miss Havisham was alone.

“Well?” said she. “I hope you want nothing? You’ll get nothing.”

“No indeed, Miss Havisham. I only wanted you to know that I am doing very well in my apprenticeship, and I am always much obliged to you.”

“There, there! Come now and then; come on your birthday. Ay!” she cried suddenly, “you are looking round for Estella? Hey?”

I stammered that I hoped she was well.

“Abroad,” said Miss Havisham; “educating for a lady; prettier than ever. Do you feel that you lost her?”

There was such a malignant enjoyment in her utterance of the last words, that I was did not know what to say. So I left. I felt more than ever dissatisfied with my home and with my trade and with everything.

As I was loitering along the High Street, Mr. Wopsle saw me.

“There’s something wrong,” said he, “at your place, Pip!”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I can’t quite understand. Somebody entered the house when Joe Gargery was out. The convicts. Somebody was attacked and hurt.”

We were running, and we made no stop until we got into our kitchen. It was full of people; the whole village was there, or in the yard. There was a surgeon, and there was Joe, and there were some women, all on the floor in the midst of the kitchen. My sister was lying without sense or movement on the bare boards.

Joe was at the Three Jolly Bargemen, smoking his pipe, from a quarter after eight o’clock to a quarter before ten. When Joe went home at five minutes before ten, he found her on the floor, and promptly called in assistance.

My sister was struck with something blunt and heavy, on the head and spine. And on

The Constables and the Bow Street men from London³⁹ were about the house for a week or two. Long after these events, my sister lay very ill in bed. Her sight was disturbed, so that she saw objects multiplied. Her hearing was greatly impaired; her memory also; and her speech was unintelligible. However, her temper was greatly improved, and she was patient.

Chapter 14

I now fell into a regular routine of apprenticeship life. The most remarkable event was the arrival of my birthday. I paid another visit to Miss Havisham. I found Miss Sarah Pocket still on duty at the gate. Miss Havisham spoke of Estella in the same words. The interview lasted but a few minutes. She gave me a guinea when I was going, and told me to come again on my next birthday

The dull old house was unchanging, the yellow light in the darkened room, the faded spectre in the chair by the dressing-table glass stood still. Daylight never entered the house. It bewildered me, and under its influence I continued to hate my trade and to be ashamed of home.

Wopsle’s cousin Biddy came to help me and Joe. Biddy was a kind and intelligent but poor young woman. She was not beautiful – she was common, and could not be like Estella – but she was pleasant and wholesome and sweet-tempered. She had curiously thoughtful and attentive eyes; eyes that were very pretty and very good. I liked to talk to her, and she usually listened to me with great attention.

“Biddy,” said I one day, “we must talk together. Let us have a quiet walk on the marshes next Sunday.”

It was summer-time, and lovely weather. When we passed the village and the church and the churchyard, and were out on the marshes and began to see the sails of the ships, I said,

“Biddy, I want to be a gentleman.”

“Oh,” she returned. “What for?”

“Biddy,” said I, with some severity, “I have particular reasons for it.”

“You know best, Pip; but don’t you think you are happier as you are?”

“Biddy,” I exclaimed, impatiently, “I am not at all happy as I am. I am disgusted with my life. Don’t be absurd.”

“Was I absurd?” said Biddy; “I am sorry for that; I didn’t mean to be. I only want you to be comfortable.”

“I want to lead a very different sort of life. I am dissatisfied and uncomfortable, coarse and common!”

Biddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and looked far more attentively at me.

“Who said it?” she asked.

I answered,

“The beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham’s, and she’s more beautiful than anybody ever was. I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be a gentleman because of her.”

“Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over?⁴⁰” Biddy quietly asked me, after a pause.

“I don’t know,” I moodily answered. “I admire her dreadfully.”

Biddy was the wisest of girls. She put her hand upon my hands, one after another, and gently took them out of my hair.

“I am glad of one thing,” said Biddy, “and that is your confidence, Pip. And I am glad of another thing: you may trust me. Shall we walk a little farther, or go home?”

“Biddy,” I cried, got up, put my arm round her neck, and gave her a kiss, “I shall always tell you everything.”

“Till you’re a gentleman,” said Biddy.

“You know I never shall be, so that’s always.”

“Ah!” said Biddy, quite in a whisper. And then repeated, with her former pleasant change, “shall we walk a little farther, or go home?”

I said to myself,

“Pip, what a fool you are!”

We talked a good deal as we walked, and all that Biddy said seemed right.

“Biddy,” said I, when we were walking homeward, “if I fall in love with you, that will be all right.”

“But you never will, you see,” said Biddy.

Biddy was immeasurably better than Estella, and the plain honest working life offered me sufficient means of self-respect and happiness. At those times, I decided conclusively that I was becoming a partner with Joe and Biddy.