David Copperfield

Chapter 18 Happy half-day holiday (1)
Chapter 8 Happy half-day holiday (1)
We came before daybreak to the inn where the mail coach stopped, not the one where my tea shop friend was, and I was shown to a cozy little bedroom with the word "Dolphin" on the door.I remember it being cold, even though I had hot tea downstairs in front of the big fire.I am very happy to go to the "Dolphin" bed and fall asleep with the "Dolphin" quilt.

The coachman named Bagis was to pick me up at nine o'clock in the morning.I got up at eight o'clock, a little dizzy from not getting enough sleep at night, and I was ready before the appointed time.He met me as if we hadn't been parted for five minutes and I'd been at the hotel just to change change or something like that.

We were on our way.

"You look well, Mr. Barkiss," I said, expecting him to be pleased.

Mr. Barkis first wiped his face with his cuff, then inspected it, as if the health of his face lay there; but he made no reply to my greeting.

"I have conveyed it for you, Mr. Barkis," said I. "I have written to Peggotty."

"Oh!" said Mr. Baggis.

Mr. Baggis seemed unhappy, and his answer was nonchalant.

"Is it not well written, Mr. Barkis?" I asked after a moment's hesitation.

"Not good," said Mr. Baggis.

"Isn't it that, Mr. Baggis?"

"That's the word," said Bagis, "but it's over there."

I didn't quite understand him, so I asked again: "That's it, Mr. Baggis?"

"No result, no answer." He squinted at me, "There is no answer once I go."

"You expect an answer, don't you, Mr. Barkis?" I said, eyes widening in surprise.Because it's something I never thought about before.

"When a person says yes," Bagis turned his eyes slowly to me again, "doesn't that mean that person is waiting for an answer!"

"Is that so, Mr. Baggis?"

"Yes," added Mr. Barkis, looking at the horse's ear at the same time, "that man has been waiting for an answer since he sent the message."

"Did you ever tell her that, Mr. Bagis?"

"No," Mr. Bagis resumed, snorting, "I've never had a chance to tell her that. I'm not going to tell her that."

"Then you want me to talk, Mr. Barkis?" I asked hesitantly.

"If you will," said Bagis, with another slow look at me, "I'll wait here for an answer. What's her name?"

"You mean her name?"

"Ah!" said Mr. Barkis, nodding his head.

"Her name is Peggotty."

"Her last name or her first name?" Bagis said.

"That's not her name, her name is Clara."

"Really?" Bagis said.

He seemed to find a lot of food for thought in the words, so he sat there thinking, whistling softly.

"Well!" he began again at last, "you say, 'Peggotty! Bagis is waiting for an answer.' She may say, 'What answer?' Then you say, 'Answer what I sent you. .''What's that?' Say, 'Bargis will'!"

Mr. Barkis gave me a cunning hint by bumping his arm hard in the ribs.Since then, he has been lying on the horse as before, and has not made any comment on this issue.At the end of half an hour he took a piece of chalk from his pocket and wrote "Clara Peggotty"--apparently for a personal memorandum.

I am going home now, but that home is no longer what it is, and all I see along the way reminds me of my old happy home, and this is a dream I can never dream again, and what a strange feeling it is.The thought of my mother, Peggotty, and I having once loved each other as one, with no one to come between us, makes me very sad, and makes me uncertain whether I would like to go home or stay away, with Steve. Foz was together, but I still got home and came to our house.I saw the bare old elm shaking its arms in the bleak cold wind, and the crow's nests were still falling down in the cold wind one by one.

The coachman put down my box and left.I walked along the path to the house, keeping my eyes on the windows, fearing at every step that I might see Mr or Miss Murdstone in one of them, with a sullen face.But no faces showed up.I now know how to open the door without knocking before dark, and walk in quietly and softly.

When I walked into the foyer and heard my mother's voice from the old living room, God knows what childish memories that brought back.She is singing in a low voice, I think I must have heard the song she is singing now when I was a baby, the tone of the singing is unfamiliar, but it sounds familiar and fills my whole heart, like an old friend who has been reunited for a long time.

I knew from my mother's lonely humming that she was alone in the house.I quietly walked into the room.Seeing her sitting in front of the fire nursing a baby, she held the baby's hand up to her neck.She looked down at his face while singing to him.Indeed, she was alone.

When I spoke, she cried out in surprise.But as soon as she saw it was me, she cried, "My dear David, my child!" She went to meet me in the middle of the living room, knelt down and kissed me, put my head in her arms against the little baby, and Put his hand to my lips.

I wish I had died with that feeling, it was only fitting for me to go to heaven then.

"This is your little brother," said my mother, and stroked me, "my dear, my poor child!" Then she kissed me again and again, and put her arms around my neck.Just then Peggotty came, and sat on the ground beside us with a thump, and went mad for a quarter of an hour.

No one seemed to have expected my arrival so soon, and the coachman arrived much earlier than usual.It seems that Mr. and Miss Murdstone went out to visit and came back in the evening. I didn't expect my luck.I never expected the three of us to be together again undisturbed, and I felt like the old days came back.

We ate together by the fire, Peggotty serving as the custom, but my mother let her eat with us.I also used my own old saucer with brown battleships at full sail.Peggotty hid it quietly in my absence.I still use my own 'David' mug, and those old knives and forks.

As we ate, I thought it would be a good time to speak for Tibagis, but before I could finish, she put her apron over her face and laughed.

"Peggotty?" said my mother, "what's the matter with you?"

Peggotty laughed still more, and when my mother tried to tear the apron off, she pressed it to her face as if her head were in her pocket.

"What do you want, you stupid thing." My mother said with a smile.

"Oh, the damned fellow," cried Peggotty, "he wants to marry me."

"That would be a perfect match for you," my mother said.

"Oh, I don't know," said Peggotty, "but if he were gold, I don't want him, and I don't want anyone."

"Then why don't you tell him, you ridiculous thing?" my mother said.

"Tell him?" said Peggotty, looking out through the slit of his apron. "He never said a word to me about it. He knows it, and if he dares to say a word, I'll beat him." mouth."

I think her face was redder than ever, redder than anyone else's; and every time she laughed wildly, she covered her face, like this two or three times, before she went on to eat.

I noticed that my mother, though smiling when Peggotty looked at her, was more silent and serious than before.I could see from the very beginning that she had changed.Her face was still beautiful, but sad; her hands were so thin and pale they were almost transparent.But I don't mean these by changes, but a change in her attitude, she becomes irritable and restless.At last she put her hand gently on the old servant's and said:

"My dear Peggotty, you will not marry?"

"Me, ma'am?" said Peggotty, staring at my mother. "My God, who says I'm going to marry?"

"Not getting married right away, are you?" my mother asked gently.

"Never!" cried Peggotty.

My mother shook Peggotty's hand and said:

"Don't you go, Peggotty. Stay with me. Perhaps it won't be long, and what shall I do without you!"

Peggotty cried, "Kill me, and I won't leave. How can you think that in your stupid head?" Because Peggotty was used to treating her like a child like he did back then.

My mother had nothing to say but to thank, and Peggotty went on in her own way:

"I won't leave you, I believe I know myself. Peggotty leaves you, and I'd like her to try! No, never, never!" said Peggotty, folding his arms. "My dear Well, she would never do that. If she did, of course some cats would get what they want, but I wouldn't make those cats what they want. They'd be more upset. I'll stay with you till I'm a bad Old woman with a weird temper, when I am old, deaf, blind, toothless, useless, and not even worth picking faults, then I will go to my guard and beg him to take me in."

"Then, Peggotty," said I, "I must like to see you, and make you a queen."

"God bless my dear darling!" cried Peggotty, "I knew you would." And she thanked me in advance for my hospitality, kissed me, and covered her head with her apron again, and smiled at Mr. Baggis.After laughing, she fed the baby again.Then the dishes were cleared away, and when they were done she put on a new hat, and came in with her work-box, yard-measure, and candle-end (all as before).

We sat around the fire, talking and laughing happily.I told them how powerful Mr. Krigul was, and they took pity on me.I told them how well Steerforth was, and Peggotty said she would go twenty miles to see him.When the baby woke up, I hugged and teased him; when he slept, I slipped quietly to my mother, and sat there with my arms around her waist, as was my long-lost habit, with my little red cheek resting on her shoulder. I felt her beautiful hair hanging down on me like an angel's wings. I was so happy.

When I sit by the fire like this, looking at the phantoms in the red hot coals, I feel that I have never left; and almost convinced that nothing I remembered was real except my mother, Peggotty, and myself.

While the fire was burning, Peggotty kept mending a sock. She put the sock on her left hand like a glove, and held the needle in her right hand, and sewed every time the fire flickered.I can't figure out whose socks these are, where the steady stream of socks that need mending comes from; since I was first a baby, she seems to have been doing that kind of sewing forever, and never doing anything else thing.

"I should like to know," said Peggotty (she sometimes pondered unexpected subjects), "what has become of David's aunt."

"Oh, Peggotty!" my mother, who was thinking about something, suddenly came to her senses and said, "Why are you so confused!"

"Because or not, madam, I should like to know," said Peggotty.

"What made you think of her?" my mother asked, "There are so many people in the world, is there no one else to think about?"

"I don't know why," said Peggotty, "probably because I'm stupid, because I can't pick the people I want, and they come and go or don't come or go at all. I want to know How is she now?"

"Peggotty, you are so full of nonsense," replied my mother, "that one would think you wish her to do it again."

"Of course she won't!" cried Peggotty.

"Then don't mention such unpleasant things again, my dear," said my mother. "There is no doubt that Miss Bessie is shut up in her remote cabin forever and ever, and in any case she will not appear again. .”

"No!" said Peggotty. "No, not at all. What I want to know is what she might leave us, if she dies."

"Why, Peggotty," replied my mother, "you are talking nonsense! Don't you know that David offended her from birth?"

"I suppose she must forgive him now?" said Peggotty suggestively.

"Why?" my mother asked sternly.

"He's got a brother now, I mean," said Peggotty.

My mother burst into tears at once, not understanding why Peggotty said such things.

"It doesn't look as if the poor little thing in the cradle is doing you or anybody any good, you thoughtful thing!" she said, "you'd better marry that coachman, Bagis, and why don't you go ah!"

"Wouldn't Miss Murdstone be happy if I went?" said Peggotty.

"You have a wicked heart, Peggotty," said my mother, "and you hate Miss Murdstone to death. You want to keep the key and let you distribute things? If you think so, I will No wonder. You know she is acting out of kindness and kindness in my housekeeping! You should understand that, Peggotty."

Peggotty muttered "What kindness!"

"I understand your awkwardness," said my mother, "I understand you, Peggotty. I wonder why you don't blush. But I'll say the same thing, and now it's Maud. Miss Stone, you can't say it if you don't want to. You don't listen to her all the time, I'm too thoughtless and too—"

"Pretty," interposed Peggotty.

"Well," my mother said with a half-smile, "is it my fault if she's so stupid?"

"No one said it was your fault," said Peggotty.

"No, and I hope not!" said my mother. "Didn't you hear her say and say, for that reason, she spared me all these troubles, which she thought I couldn't afford, and I couldn't do it myself?" Knows she can't stand trouble. Doesn't she always get up early and go to bed late, busy? Doesn't she do all kinds of things and go into all kinds of places, like the coal shed, the pantry, and I don't know what —those places suck—you mean there’s no heart in it?”

"I don't mean that," said Peggotty.

"Well, Peggotty," replied my mother, "you are always like that except at work, and you are satisfied. When you spoke of Mr. Murdstone's kindness—"

"I never talk about it," said Peggotty.

(End of this chapter)