Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (best ereader under 100 TXT) 📖

to be said, save that I had come into great expectations from a

mysterious patron. Biddy nodded her head thoughtfully at the fire

as she took up her work again, and said she would be very

particular; and Joe, still detaining his knees, said, “Ay, ay, I’ll

be ekervally partickler, Pip;” and then they congratulated me

again, and went on to express so much wonder at the notion of my

being a gentleman that I didn’t half like it.

Infinite pains were then taken by Biddy to convey to my sister some

idea of what had happened. To the best of my belief, those efforts

entirely failed. She laughed and nodded her head a great many

times, and even repeated after Biddy, the words “Pip” and

“Property.” But I doubt if they had more meaning in them than an

election cry, and I cannot suggest a darker picture of her state of

mind.

I never could have believed it without experience, but as Joe and

Biddy became more at their cheerful ease again, I became quite

gloomy. Dissatisfied with my fortune, of course I could not be; but

it is possible that I may have been, without quite knowing it,

dissatisfied with myself.

Any how, I sat with my elbow on my knee and my face upon my hand,

looking into the fire, as those two talked about my going away, and

about what they should do without me, and all that. And whenever I

caught one of them looking at me, though never so pleasantly (and

they often looked at me,—particularly Biddy), I felt offended: as

if they were expressing some mistrust of me. Though Heaven knows

they never did by word or sign.

At those times I would get up and look out at the door; for our

kitchen door opened at once upon the night, and stood open on

summer evenings to air the room. The very stars to which I then

raised my eyes, I am afraid I took to be but poor and humble stars

for glittering on the rustic objects among which I had passed my

life.

“Saturday night,” said I, when we sat at our supper of

bread and cheese and beer. “Five more days, and then the day before

the day! They’ll soon go.”

“Yes, Pip,” observed Joe, whose voice sounded hollow in his beer-mug. “They’ll soon go.”

“Soon, soon go,” said Biddy.

“I have been thinking, Joe, that when I go down town on Monday, and

order my new clothes, I shall tell the tailor that I’ll come and

put them on there, or that I’ll have them sent to Mr. Pumblechook’s.

It would be very disagreeable to be stared at by all the people

here.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Hubble might like to see you in your new genteel figure

too, Pip,” said Joe, industriously cutting his bread, with his

cheese on it, in the palm of his left hand, and glancing at my

untasted supper as if he thought of the time when we used to

compare slices. “So might Wopsle. And the Jolly Bargemen might take

it as a compliment.”

“That’s just what I don’t want, Joe. They would make such a

business of it,—such a coarse and common business,—that I

couldn’t bear myself.”

“Ah, that indeed, Pip!” said Joe. “If you couldn’t abear

yourself—”

Biddy asked me here, as she sat holding my sister’s plate, “Have

you thought about when you’ll show yourself to Mr. Gargery, and your

sister and me? You will show yourself to us; won’t you?”

“Biddy,” I returned with some resentment, “you are so exceedingly

quick that it’s difficult to keep up with you.”

(“She always were quick,” observed Joe.)

“If you had waited another moment, Biddy, you would have heard me

say that I shall bring my clothes here in a bundle one evening,—

most likely on the evening before I go away.”

Biddy said no more. Handsomely forgiving her, I soon exchanged an

affectionate good night with her and Joe, and went up to bed. When

I got into my little room, I sat down and took a long look at it,

as a mean little room that I should soon be parted from and raised

above, for ever. It was furnished with fresh young remembrances

too, and even at the same moment I fell into much the same confused

division of mind between it and the better rooms to which I was

going, as I had been in so often between the forge and Miss

Havisham’s, and Biddy and Estella.

The sun had been shining brightly all day on the roof of my attic,

and the room was warm. As I put the window open and stood looking

out, I saw Joe come slowly forth at the dark door, below, and take a

turn or two in the air; and then I saw Biddy come, and bring him a

pipe and light it for him. He never smoked so late, and it seemed

to hint to me that he wanted comforting, for some reason or other.

He presently stood at the door immediately beneath me, smoking his

pipe, and Biddy stood there too, quietly talking to him, and I knew

that they talked of me, for I heard my name mentioned in an

endearing tone by both of them more than once. I would not have

listened for more, if I could have heard more; so I drew away from

the window, and sat down in my one chair by the bedside, feeling it

very sorrowful and strange that this first night of my bright

fortunes should be the loneliest I had ever known.

Looking towards the open window, I saw light wreaths from Joe’s

pipe floating there, and I fancied it was like a blessing from Joe,

—not obtruded on me or paraded before me, but pervading the air we

shared together. I put my light out, and crept into bed; and it was

an uneasy bed now, and I never slept the old sound sleep in it any

more.