|
Great Expectations
For several reasons, and not least because I didn’t clearly know
what Mr Jaggers would be found to be ‘at,’ I replied in the affirma-
tive. We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court,
where a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased
with the fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncom-
fortably chewing something; while my guardian had a woman
under examination or cross-examination – I don’t know which –
and was striking her, and the bench, and everybody present, with
awe. If anybody, of whatsoever degree, said a word that he didn’t
approve of, he instantly required to have it ‘taken down.’ If anybody
wouldn’t make an admission, he said, ‘I’ll have it out of you!’ and
if anybody made an admission, he said, ‘Now I have got you!’ The
magistrates shivered under a single bite of his finger. Thieves and
thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, and shrank when
a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which side he was
on, I couldn’t make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding the
whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe,
he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of
the old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table,
by his denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British
law and justice in that chair that day.
Chapter
6
Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up
a book as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an
acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement,
and comprehension – in the sluggish complexion of his face, and
in the large awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth
as he himself lolled about in a room – he was idle, proud, niggardly,
reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somer-
setshire, who had nursed this combination of qualities until they
made the discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus,
Bentley Drummle had come to Mr Pocket when he was a head
Volume II
201
taller than that gentleman, and half a dozen heads thicker than
most gentlemen.
Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home
when he ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly
attached to her, and admired her beyond measure. He had a
woman’s delicacy of feature, and was – ‘as you may see, though
you never saw her,’ said Herbert to me – exactly like his mother. It
was but natural that I should take to him much more kindly than
to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest evenings of our boating,
he and I should pull homeward abreast of one another, conversing
from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up in our wake
alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He
would always creep inshore like some uncomfortable amphibious
creature, even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his
way; and I always think of him as coming after us in the dark or by
the back-water, when our own two boats were breaking the sunset
or the moonlight in mid-stream.
Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him
with a half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often
coming down to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share
in his chambers often took me up to London. We used to walk
between the two places at all hours. I have an affection for the road
yet (though it is not so pleasant a road as it was then), formed in
the impressibility of untried youth and hope.
When I had been in Mr Pocket’s family a month or two, Mr and
Mrs Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr Pocket’s sister. Georgiana,
whom I had seen at Miss Havisham’s on the same occasion, also
turned up. She was a cousin – an indigestive single woman, who
called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated
me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of
course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest
meanness. Towards Mr Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion
of his own interests, they showed the complacent forbearance I
had heard them express. Mrs Pocket they held in contempt; but
they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily disappointed in
life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon themselves.
These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and
202
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: | 
