David Copperfield

Chapter 13
Chapter 5 Sent From Home (3)
We look at the man.Although it was warm, she seemed to think of nothing but the fire.I think she envies even the stock pot on the stove; she is particularly angry that the stove is being used to boil my eggs and roast my bacon, and I think so because I see her (with all my trepidation) eyes saw her) shook his fist hard at me while cooking on the stove was in progress.The sunlight came in through the little window, and she turned her back to it, and kept the whole fire against her, as if she were heating it, not the other way around.Her posture was like watching the furnace.She laughed with delight when the fire was emptied after my breakfast was ready.

I sat down to eat my delicious meal.At this time, the old woman in that room said to the teacher:

"Have you brought a flute?"

"Bring it." He said.

"Blow it," the old woman begged, "must blow it."

So, the teacher reached under the edge of his clothes, took out a flute divided into three sections, connected it with screws, and immediately started playing.I now think: No one in the world blows worse than this.Of all the sounds I have ever heard, whether natural or produced in various ways, only he played the most miserable.I don't know what tune he played--I doubt if there is any tune in his playing--but the effect of the flute sound on me is: first, I can't help thinking of all my troubles until I can't help crying; It took away my appetite; finally, it made me so sleepy that I couldn't lift my eyelids.Eyes start to close.I began to doze off, and that's when the memories came flooding back.That little room with the corner cupboard open, and the backed chair in it, and the little staircase leading to the room above, and the three peacock feathers on the mantelpiece—I remember thinking as soon as I entered: If the peacock And what to think knowing what was doomed to its rich plumes—all out of my sight, I dozed, I fell asleep.The flute was no longer heard, but the wheels came, and I was on the road again.There was a jerk in the carriage, and I woke up with a start, and the flute came back, and the teacher at Salem's School sat there with his legs crossed, playing weeping, while the women in the room watched with great interest.It was her turn to disappear, and he disappeared, everything disappeared.No flutes, no teachers, no Salem School, no David Copperfield, nothing but deep sleep.

I think the woman of the house came up to him in admiration while I dreamed he was playing that miserable flute.He leaned over from the back of the chair and hugged his neck warmly and vigorously, which interrupted his playing for a while.But, then and since, I was half asleep; and when he resumed playing—his playing was interrupted, it is true—I saw and heard the woman ask Phibitz Mrs. Enn, is that wonderful (referring to the flute), Mrs. Phoebe Tsien replied:

"Ah, ah! Yes!" She nodded toward the stove.

I believe she owes all her playing to the stove.

I seemed to have taken a long nap before the teacher at Salem School took the flute apart into three sections and took me away.We found the carriage nearby and went up to the roof.But I was so sleepy that when we stopped on the road to let someone else get on, they put me in the car and there were no other passengers there, and I slept soundly until I found the car going down a steep hill among the green leaves. Climb up the hill.After a while, the car stopped and the terminal arrived.

A short road took us—I mean the teacher and I—to Salem School, which was surrounded by a high brick wall and looked lifeless.Above a door in the wall is a plaque with the name of Salem School.As we rang the doorbell, a sullen face peered at us through the bars of the door, and as soon as the door opened I saw that the face belonged to a large man.The man's neck was like that of an ox's, he had a wooden leg, his temples protruded, and his hair was cut short to his forehead.

"Freshmen," said the teacher.

The man with the wooden leg looked me around--which didn't take long, as I was not very big--locked the door behind us, and took out the key.We were walking towards the house, which stood among the dark, thick trees, when he called after my guide:

"Hey!"

We looked back and he was standing in the doorway of his cabin with a pair of boots in his hand.

"The bootmaker came," said he, "while you were out, Mr. Meyer, and he said he couldn't fix them any more. He said the boots were nothing like they were, and he wanted to mend them because of you. And strange."

As he spoke, he threw the boots at Mr. Meyer, and Mr. Meyer took a few steps back to pick up his boots.He looked at the boots (I'm afraid he was very sad) as we walked on, and I saw then that he was wearing boots that were so worn out that he couldn't wear them, and that his stockings were torn in one place, like Bloom like a flower bud.

Salem School is a square brick building with an annexe, with a bare exterior without any decoration.Otherwise, the school was very quiet, so I said to Mr. Meyer that I didn't think the students were in the school.But he seemed surprised that I didn't know it was vacation time.All the students have gone to their homes, Mr. and Mrs. and Miss Crigul, the headmaster, have gone to the seashore, and I was sent here during the holidays for my fault as a punishment, and these are all He told me about it when we were walking together.

I stared wide-eyed at the classroom he took me into, the loneliest, most desolate place I had ever seen.It is still vivid.It was a long room with three rows of desks and six rows of benches, and the walls were covered with hooks for hanging hats and slates.The dirty floor was littered with old notebooks and exercise books.The silkworm houses made of those old books are also scattered on the desks.In the musty-smelling attic made of cardboard and wire, two poor little white mice abandoned by the owner walked up and down, staring at every corner with their red eyes, trying to find what to eat.A bird was in a cage not much bigger than itself, jumping up and down on the perch two inches high, making a sad sound of flapping wings, but it neither called nor sang.There was a strange, unhygienic smell in the room, like mildew in thick corduroy trousers, or like books rotting because of a lack of ventilation.If the room had no roof when it was built, ink rain, ink snow, ink hail, and ink wind would not have splashed so much ink into the room from the sky all year round.

Mr. Meyer came upstairs, carrying the irreparable pair of boots.I walked slowly across the room.At this time, I found a cardboard notice lying flat on a desk, which read: "Beware he bites!"

I hurriedly climbed onto the desk.At this moment, Mr. Maier came back, he was very strange.

"Excuse me, sir," I said, "I'm sorry, but I was looking for the dog."

"Dog," he said, "what dog?"

"Isn't it a dog, sir?"

"That's one to watch out for, sir."

"No, Copperfield," he said with a straight face, "that's not a dog, that's a student. I was ordered to put this sign on your back. I'm sorry to start you off like this, but I can't help it." .”

As he spoke, he took me down, and tied the notice board to my shoulder, and from now on, I must carry it wherever I go.

I have suffered so much for this.Whether anyone can see me or not, I always feel like someone is watching it.The hard-hearted man with the wooden leg made it harder for me.He has the power; whenever he sees me leaning against a tree, or a fence, or a house, he screams, "Hey, you sir! You Copperfield! Show that notice-board, or I'll Expose you!" The playground is a stone-paved yard facing the school and the office, so I know that the workmen, the butcher, and the baker have all seen it.In a word, anyone who comes to the school, whoever they are, will see it.I remember that I also began to be afraid of myself, thinking that I was really a biting wild child.

There is an old gate on the playground, and the students have the habit of engraving their names on it.The door was covered with such marks.I'm afraid they'll be back at the end of the holidays, and as I read the names I can't help imagining how this one would read frantically: "Beware he bites." Tiftes's—always carved his name deepest, and many times; I'm sure he'd read the notices in a strong voice, and then pull my hair.The second was Thomas Traddles, and I was afraid he would joke about it, and pretend to be afraid of me.The third is George Temple, who may sing the notice as a song.I looked at the door, like a disturbed little animal, and saw that the owners of all the names flatly refused to associate with me, and cried out in a peculiar tone: "Beware he bites!" said Mr. Meyer, There were 45 students in the school at the time.

Facing desks and benches.That's what I always think when I look at the other empty beds.I dreamed all night, in which my mother was with me as before, at parties at Mr. Peggotty's, and the cows ambled on the outside of the carriage box, and dined with that unfortunate friend the waiter, and people Staring at me and screaming because they found me in my pajamas with that notice board hanging up.

It was unbearable to live like this! Every day, I had to do long hours of homework with Mr. Maier, but I managed to do it smoothly.Before and after this, I went for a walk—as mentioned, under the watchful eye of Wooden Legs.How well I remember—the damp around the school house, the cracked green flagstones in the yard, an old leaking bucket, and some hideous discolored tree trunks that leaked more water than others in rainy days , these trees are less ventilated than other trees in the sun.At one o'clock, Mr. Meyer and I--dinner at one end of a long dining-room, filled with pine tables, smelled of oil.Then we do our homework again until we drink tea.At this time, Mr. Meyer drank from a blue teacup, and I drank from a tin can.Throughout the day, Mr. Meyer sat at his separate desk in the classroom, using pens, ink, rulers, ledgers, and writing paper to calculate the accounts for the first half of the year (as far as I found out), and kept busy until evening. Seven or eight o'clock.After finishing work at night, I played the flute until I almost felt that he was going to gradually blow himself into the top hole of the flute, and finally let it out slowly from the keys.

I think that the little me, with my head propped up, sat in the dimly lit classroom, listening to Mr. Meyer playing, while reciting the homework for the next day.I imagined closing the book and listening to Mr. Meyer's doleful playing, from which I heard the old voices at home, and the wind on the Yarmouth beach, and I felt sad.I imagined myself going to bed through those deserted houses, weeping without Peggotty's comfort at my bedside.Pictured myself going downstairs in the morning, looking out from a gloomy opening in the window by the stairs at the school clock hanging on the outer roof, with a weathercock on it; I'm afraid it's Jay Steerforth The time will come for classes with others.Every day I have a moment of dread, second only to the moment when the wooden-legged man opens the rusty gate to let Mr. Krigul in.In all these situations, I always thought that I was a very dangerous person, bearing that same warning.

Mr. Meyer and I didn't talk much, but never harshly.I think we've become friends who don't talk much.One thing I almost forgot: sometimes he talked to himself, sneered, clenched his fists, gritted his teeth, and pulled his hair. At first, I was so scared by that, but I got used to it after a while.

(End of this chapter)