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Charles Dickens – www.frenglish.ru
Great Expectations
Chapter One
The Man in the Churchyard
It was, I think, the most frightening thing that ever to happened to me. . .
I am a grown man now, but I was a small boy at the time, and I can feel, even yet, the thrill of horror that ran through me on that Christmas Eve, all those years ago.
I had, for some reason, wandered into the churchyard and found the my parent’s grave. It was a raw afternoon towards evening, I remember; the wind was rushing in from the sea and beyond the churchyard wall there stretched the dark flat wilderness of the marsh country, with the river winding across it. I was already a bundle of shivers, feeling lost and afraid, when a figure started up from among the gravestones and scared me half-way out of my skin.
“Hold your noise!” cried a terrible voice. “And keep still, you little devil, or I’ll cut your throat!”
He seized me by the chin; a fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who was wet to the skin and covered in mud; who shook and shivered, and whose teeth chattered in his head as he glared into my eyes.
“Oh, don’t cut my throat, sir,” I begged, in terror. “Pray don’t do it, sir.”
“Tell us your name!” said the man, giving me a little shake. “Quick!”
“Pip, sir.”
“What?” said the man, staring at me.
“It’s really Philip, but everyone calls me Pip.”
“Show us where you live,” he ordered. “Point to the place.”
I pointed to where our village lay, among the trees, a mile or more from the church.
The man looked at me for a moment, then turned me upside-down and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself again—for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels before me—I was seated on a tall gravestone, trembling, while he ate the bread like a hungry beast.
“You young dog!” he said suddenly, with a threatening shake of his head. “What fat cheeks you’ve got! I’ve half a mind to eat you!”
I hurriedly expressed my hope that he wouldn’t, and held tighter to the stone to keep myself from crying.
“Now look here,” said the man, “where’s your mother?”
“There, sir,” said I.
He jumped, started to run away, then stopped and glared at me over his shoulder. I pointed.
“There, sir,” I explained, timidly. “She’s dead—and my father, too.”
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He considered that for a moment.
“Who d’you live with?” he asked. “Supposing I let you live, that is.”
“My sister, sir—Mrs. Joe Gargery—wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith, sir.”
“Blacksmith, eh?” said he, and looked down at his leg.
He stepped forward, seized me by both arms and tilted me back as far as he could hold me, so that his eyes looked most powerfully into mine.
“You know what a file is?” he demanded.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you know what food is?”
After each question he tilted me back a little more.
“You get me a file.” He tilted me again. “And you get me some food.” He tilted me again. “You bring them both to me.” He tilted me again. “Or I’ll cut your heart out.” He tilted me again.
I held on to him with both hands, and said: “Please let me up, sir—and perhaps I shan’t be sick and shall be able to listen better.”
He swung me back, so that the church seemed to turn right over again, then held me by the arms in an upright position on the stone.
“You bring me, tomorrow morning early, that file and some food. You bring the lot to me at that old Battery over there. You do it, and never say a word about having seen me, and you shall be let to live. You fail—or open your mouth to anyone and your heart shall be tore out, roasted, and ate. I’m not alone, as you may think I am. There’s a young man hiding with me; a cruel, awful kind of young man, who has a secret way of getting at a boy to cut his heart out. I’m keeping that young man from harming you at the moment—but only with the greatest of difficulty. I find it very hard to hold that young man off your inside. Now, what do you say?”
I told him that I would get him the file, and what broken bits of food I could, and bring them to the Battery early in the morning.
“Say, Lord strike you dead if you don’t!” said the man.
I did so, and he took me down.
“Now,” he said, “remember what you’ve got to do—and you remember that young man —and you get off home!”
“Goo—good night, sir,” I said timidly, backing away.
“No chance of that for me!” he answered, looking about him over the cold wet flat. “Brrh ! I wish I was a frog!”
At the same time, he held his shivering body in both his arms and limped towards the low church wall. When he reached it he got over it like a man with stiff legs, and then turned to look for me. I waited no longer, but made the best use of my legs and ran all the way home without stopping.
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Chapter Two
Morning on the Marsh
My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I. She was not a good-looking woman. She was too tall and thin, and her skin was very red, and I had an idea that she must have forced Joe to marry her, in much the same way that she forced me to do a good many things I had no wish to do. Joe was a big, strong fellow, fairhaired and blue-eyed, always good-natured and sweet-tempered.
They were in the kitchen when I reached home. Mrs. Joe looked at the clock.
“Where have you been, you young monkey?” she demanded.
“To the churchyard,” I answered in a little, timid voice.
“Hah!” said Mrs. Joe, looking angrily from her husband to me. “The pair of you will drive me to the churchyard one of these days!”
Joe was sitting in the chimney-corner, and I crept over and sat opposite him while my sister set the tea things. We all jumped and started as there came the sound of a distant explosion.
“Joe,” I said, “was that great guns?”
“Yes,” said Joe. “There’s another convict off.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Escaped! Escaped!” explained my sister impatiently.
“What’s a convict?” I asked Joe.
“There was one off last night,” said Joe, “after the sunset gun. And they fired warning of him. Now, it seems, they’re firing warning of another.”
“Who’s firing?” said I.
“Lord bless the boy!” exclaimed my sister. “It’s from the Hulks!”
“And please—what’s Hulks?” I asked.
“Hulks are prison-ships, right across the marshes,” said Joe.
“I wonder who’s put into prison-ships, and why they’re put there?” I said, hopefully.
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It was too much for my sister.
“That’s the way with this boy!” she said. “Answer him one question, and he’ll ask you a dozen directly. People are put in the Hulks because they murder, and rob, and do all sorts of bad things; and they always begin by asking questions. Now, you get along to bed!”
As I went upstairs in the dark I felt sure that I was on my way to the Hulks. I had begun by asking qucstions, and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe. If I slept at all that night, it was only to dream that I was floating down the river on a strong tide, to a place where a terrible young man was waiting to cut out my heart.
At the first faint dawn of morning, I got up and went downstairs. Every board upon the way seemed to call after me, “Stop thief!” and “Get up, Mrs. Joe!” I stole some bread, a piece of cheese, about half a jar of pickles, some brandy from a stone bottle (which I poured into a glass bottle that had once contained medicine), and a beautiful round meat pie, which I took in the hope that it would not be missed for some time.
There was a door in the kitchen which gave on to Joe’s forge; I unlocked that door, and got a file from among Joe’s tools. Then I opened the house door, and ran for the misty marshes.
I knew my way to the Battery, for I had been down there on a Sunday with Joe. I had just crossed a ditch which I knew to be close to the Battery, when I saw the man sitting on the ground. His back was towards me, and he had his arms folded and was leaning forward, heavy with sleep.
I moved up quietly and touched him on the shoulder. He instantly jumped up. It was not the same man, but another!
Yet this man was dressed in coarse grey, too, and had a great iron on his leg, and was everything that the other man was. All this I saw in a moment, for I had only a moment to see it in; he swore, made a hit at me, and then he ran off into the mist and I lost him.
I was in a great fright.
“It’s the young man!” I thought, and made for the Battery at full speed.
There was the right man, still holding his trembling body with both arms, limping up and down while he waited for me. He was terribly cold, to be sure, and his eyes looked so hungry that when I handed him the file, I thought he might have tried to eat it if he hadn’t seen my bundle.
“What’s in the bottle, boy?” he asked.
“Brandy,” I told him.
He was already pushing food down his throat in a most curious manner—more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent hurry than a man who was eating it—but he left off to drink some of the spirit. All the time he kept staring into the mist, often stopping to listen.
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“You brought no one with you?” he said suddenly. “Or got anyone to follow you?”
“No, sir! No!”
“Well” he said. “ I believe you. You’d be a fierce young wretch at your age, if you’d help to trap a poor convict, hunted as near death as I am!”
I pitied his misery, and watched him settle down with the pie.
“I’m glad you enjoy it,” I said.
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