I tell this lightly, but it was no light thing to me. For, I cannotadequately express what pain it gave me to think that Estellashould show any favour to a contemptible, clumsy, sulky booby, sovery far below the average. To the present moment, I believe it tohave been referable to some pure fire of generosity anddisinterestedness in my love for her, that I could not endure thethought of her stooping to that hound. No doubt I should have beenmiserable whomsoever she had favoured; but a worthier object wouldhave caused me a different kind and degree of distress.

It was easy for me to find out, and I did soon find out, thatDrummle had begun to follow her closely, and that she allowed himto do it. A little while, and he was always in pursuit of her, andhe and I crossed one another every day. He held on, in a dullpersistent way, and Estella held him on; now with encouragement,now with discouragement, now almost flattering him, now openlydespising him, now knowing him very well, now scarcely rememberingwho he was.

The Spider, as Mr. Jaggers had called him, was used to lying inwait, however, and had the patience of his tribe. Added to that, hehad a blockhead confidence in his money and in his familygreatness, which sometimes did him good service - almost taking theplace of concentration and determined purpose. So, the Spider,doggedly watching Estella, outwatched many brighter insects, andwould often uncoil himself and drop at the right nick of time.

At a certain Assembly Ball at Richmond (there used to be AssemblyBalls at most places then), where Estella had outshone all otherbeauties, this blundering Drummle so hung about her, and with somuch toleration on her part, that I resolved to speak to herconcerning him. I took the next opportunity: which was when she waswaiting for Mrs. Brandley to take her home, and was sitting apartamong some flowers, ready to go. I was with her, for I almostalways accompanied them to and from such places.

"Are you tired, Estella?"

"Rather, Pip."

"You should be."

"Say rather, I should not be; for I have my letter to Satis Houseto write, before I go to sleep."

"Recounting to-night's triumph?" said I. "Surely a very poor one,Estella."

"What do you mean? I didn't know there had been any."

"Estella," said I, "do look at that fellow in the corner yonder,who is looking over here at us."

"Why should I look at him?" returned Estella, with her eyes on meinstead. "What is there in that fellow in the corner yonder - touse your words - that I need look at?"

"Indeed, that is the very question I want to ask you," said I. "Forhe has been hovering about you all night."

"Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures," replied Estella, with aglance towards him, "hover about a lighted candle. Can the candlehelp it?"

"No," I returned; "but cannot the Estella help it?"

"Well!" said she, laughing, after a moment, "perhaps. Yes. Anythingyou like."

"But, Estella, do hear me speak. It makes me wretched that youshould encourage a man so generally despised as Drummle. You knowhe is despised."

"Well?" said she.

"You know he is as ungainly within, as without. A deficient,illtempered, lowering, stupid fellow."

"Well?" said she.

"You know he has nothing to recommend him but money, and aridiculous roll of addle-headed predecessors; now, don't you?"

"Well?" said she again; and each time she said it, she opened herlovely eyes the wider.

To overcome the difficulty of getting past that monosyllable, Itook it from her, and said, repeating it with emphasis, "Well! Then,that is why it makes me wretched."

Now, if I could have believed that she favoured Drummle with anyidea of making me - me - wretched, I should have been in betterheart about it; but in that habitual way of hers, she put me soentirely out of the question, that I could believe nothing of thekind.

"Pip," said Estella, casting her glance over the room, "don't befoolish about its effect on you. It may have its effect on others,and may be meant to have. It's not worth discussing."

"Yes it is," said I, "because I cannot bear that people should say,'she throws away her graces and attractions on a mere boor, thelowest in the crowd.'"

"I can bear it," said Estella.

"Oh! don't be so proud, Estella, and so inflexible."

"Calls me proud and inflexible in this breath!" said Estella,opening her hands. "And in his last breath reproached me forstooping to a boor!"

"There is no doubt you do," said I, something hurriedly, "for Ihave seen you give him looks and smiles this very night, such asyou never give to - me."

"Do you want me then," said Estella, turning suddenly with a fixedand serious, if not angry, look, "to deceive and entrap you?"

"Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella?"

"Yes, and many others - all of them but you. Here is Mrs. Brandley.I'll say no more."

And now that I have given the one chapter to the theme that sofilled my heart, and so often made it ache and ache again, I passon, unhindered, to the event that had impended over me longer yet;the event that had begun to be prepared for, before I knew that theworld held Estella, and in the days when her baby intelligence wasreceiving its first distortions from Miss Havisham's wasting hands.

In the Eastern story, the heavy slab that was to fall on the bed ofstate in the flush of conquest was slowly wrought out of thequarry, the tunnel for the rope to hold it in its place was slowlycarried through the leagues of rock, the slab was slowly raised andfitted in the roof, the rope was rove to it and slowly takenthrough the miles of hollow to the great iron ring. All being madeready with much labour, and the hour come, the sultan was arousedin the dead of the night, and the sharpened axe that was to severthe rope from the great iron ring was put into his hand, and hestruck with it, and the rope parted and rushed away, and theceiling fell. So, in my case; all the work, near and afar, thattended to the end, had been accomplished; and in an instant theblow was struck, and the roof of my stronghold dropped upon me.

Chapter 39

I was three-and-twenty years of age. Not another word had I heardto enlighten me on the subject of my expectations, and mytwenty-third birthday was a week gone. We had left Barnard's Innmore than a year, and lived in the Temple. Our chambers were inGarden-court, down by the river.

Mr. Pocket and I had for some time parted company as to our originalrelations, though we continued on the best terms. Notwithstanding myinability to settle to anything - which I hope arose out of therestless and incomplete tenure on which I held my means - I had ataste for reading, and read regularly so many hours a day. Thatmatter of Herbert's was still progressing, and everything with mewas as I have brought it down to the close of the last precedingchapter.

Business had taken Herbert on a journey to Marseilles. I was alone,and had a dull sense of being alone. Dispirited and anxious, longhoping that to-morrow or next week would clear my way, and longdisappointed, I sadly missed the cheerful face and ready responseof my friend.

It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet; and mud,mud, mud, deep in all the streets. Day after day, a vast heavy veilhad been driving over London from the East, and it drove still, asif in the East there were an Eternity of cloud and wind. So furioushad been the gusts, that high buildings in town had had the leadstripped off their roofs; and in the country, trees had been tornup, and sails of windmills carried away; and gloomy accounts hadcome in from the coast, of shipwreck and death. Violent blasts ofrain had accompanied these rages of wind, and the day just closedas I sat down to read had been the worst of all.

Alterations have been made in that part of the Temple since thattime, and it has not now so lonely a character as it had then, noris it so exposed to the river. We lived at the top of the lasthouse, and the wind rushing up the river shook the house thatnight, like discharges of cannon, or breakings of a sea. When therain came with it and dashed against the windows, I thought,raising my eyes to them as they rocked, that I might have fanciedmyself in a storm-beaten lighthouse. Occasionally, the smoke camerolling down the chimney as though it could not bear to go out intosuch a night; and when I set the doors open and looked down thestaircase, the staircase lamps were blown out; and when I shaded myface with my hands and looked through the black windows (openingthem ever so little, was out of the question in the teeth of suchwind and rain) I saw that the lamps in the court were blown out,and that the lamps on the bridges and the shore were shuddering,and that the coal fires in barges on the river were being carriedaway before the wind like red-hot splashes in the rain.

I read with my watch upon the table, purposing to close my book ateleven o'clock. As I shut it, Saint Paul's, and all the manychurch-clocks in the City - some leading, some accompanying, somefollowing - struck that hour. The sound was curiously flawed by thewind; and I was listening, and thinking how the wind assailed andtore it, when I heard a footstep on the stair.

What nervous folly made me start, and awfully connect it with thefootstep of my dead sister, matters not. It was past in a moment,and I listened again, and heard the footstep stumble in coming on.Remembering then, that the staircase-lights were blown out, I tookup my reading-lamp and went out to the stair-head. Whoever wasbelow had stopped on seeing my lamp, for all was quiet.

"There is some one down there, is there not?" I called out, lookingdown.

"Yes," said a voice from the darkness beneath.

"What floor do you want?"

"The top. Mr. Pip."

"That is my name. - There is nothing the matter?"

"Nothing the matter," returned the voice. And the man came on.

I stood with my lamp held out over the stair-rail, and he cameslowly within its light. It was a shaded lamp, to shine upon abook, and its circle of light was very contracted; so that he wasin it for a mere instant, and then out of it. In the instant, I hadseen a face that was strange to me, looking up with anincomprehensible air of being touched and pleased by the sight ofme.

Moving the lamp as the man moved, I made out that he wassubstantially dressed, but roughly; like a voyager by sea. That hehad long iron-grey hair. That his age was about sixty. That he wasa muscular man, strong on his legs, and that he was browned andhardened by exposure to weather. As he ascended the last stair ortwo, and the light of my lamp included us both, I saw, with astupid kind of amazement, that he was holding out both his hands tome.

"Pray what is your business?" I asked him.

"My business?" he repeated, pausing. "Ah! Yes. I will explain mybusiness, by your leave."

"Do you wish to come in?"

"Yes," he replied; "I wish to come in, Master."

I had asked him the question inhospitably enough, for I resentedthe sort of bright and gratified recognition that still shone inhis face. I resented it, because it seemed to imply that heexpected me to respond to it. But, I took him into the room I hadjust left, and, having set the lamp on the table, asked him ascivilly as I could, to explain himself.

He looked about him with the strangest air - an air of wonderingpleasure, as if he had some part in the things he admired - and hepulled off a rough outer coat, and his hat. Then, I saw that hishead was furrowed and bald, and that the long iron-grey hair grewonly on its sides. But, I saw nothing that in the least explainedhim. On the contrary, I saw him next moment, once more holding outboth his hands to me.

"What do you mean?" said I, half suspecting him to be mad.

He stopped in his looking at me, and slowly rubbed his right handover his head. "It's disapinting to a man," he said, in a coarsebroken voice, "arter having looked for'ard so distant, and come sofur; but you're not to blame for that - neither on us is to blamefor that. I'll speak in half a minute. Give me half a minute,please."

He sat down on a chair that stood before the fire, and covered hisforehead with his large brown veinous hands. I looked at himattentively then, and recoiled a little from him; but I did notknow him.

"There's no one nigh," said he, looking over his shoulder; "isthere?"

"Why do you, a stranger coming into my rooms at this time of thenight, ask that question?" said I.

"You're a game one," he returned, shaking his head at me with adeliberate affection, at once most unintelligible and mostexasperating; "I'm glad you've grow'd up, a game one! But don'tcatch hold of me. You'd be sorry arterwards to have done it."

I relinquished the intention he had detected, for I knew him! Evenyet, I could not recall a single feature, but I knew him! If thewind and the rain had driven away the intervening years, hadscattered all the intervening objects, had swept us to thechurchyard where we first stood face to face on such differentlevels, I could not have known my convict more distinctly than Iknew him now as he sat in the chair before the fire. No need totake a file from his pocket and show it to me; no need to take thehandkerchief from his neck and twist it round his head; no need tohug himself with both his arms, and take a shivering turn acrossthe room, looking back at me for recognition. I knew him before hegave me one of those aids, though, a moment before, I had not beenconscious of remotely suspecting his identity.

He came back to where I stood, and again held out both his hands.Not knowing what to do - for, in my astonishment I had lost myself-possession - I reluctantly gave him my hands. He grasped themheartily, raised them to his lips, kissed them, and still heldthem.

Title: Great Expectations
Author: Charles Dickens
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