David Copperfield

Chapter 3 Gradually Understand Personnel (1)
Chapter 2 Gradually understand personnel (1)
When, after so many years, I look back on the ignorance of my childhood, my mother, with her fair hair and still girlish figure, and Peggotty, who was quite out of shape, loom before me first.Peggotty's eyes were black.

I also remember that they were bending or kneeling on the ground not far from each other, making them look very small to me, and I walked from side to side among them.Peggotty often held out to me her forefinger, which had been worn rough by needlework like a little spice grater.This tactile sensation in my head is inseparable from the actual situation in my mind.

This may just be my fantasy, but I still think that most of us can go back farther back than is assumed, and I believe that most very young children have an astonishing grasp of how closely they see things.Of course, I believe that many adults are also good at seeing things, but it is not so much that they have acquired this ability in adulthood as that they have retained their original talent.Especially when I observe people with this gift, they generally retain a vigor, an optimism, a good-natured quality which they have preserved from childhood.

In this regard, I sometimes wonder whether I have run wild like a wild horse again; but I also feel that these conclusions are based in part on the basis of my own experience; if my account is any indication, Show that I was observant from an early age or that I am an adult with an excellent memory for a happy life, and I fully admit to both traits.

As I mentioned before, when I think back to the unknown period of my childhood, my mother and Peggotty are the first images that come to mind.What else do I remember but them? Let me think about it.

I remembered our house—it was not new, but it was familiar, and I remembered what it was like: Peggotty's kitchen on the lower floor, leading to the back yard; an empty pigeon coop on a middle post in the back yard ; there is a big kennel in the corner of the yard, and there are no dogs; there is also a flock of chickens, which are terribly tall and look scary, wandering all over the yard; When I looked at it from the window, it seemed to pay special attention to me, and I was afraid when I saw its ferocious appearance; there was a flock of geese outside the side door, and they always stretched their necks and waddled after me.

There was also a long corridor--a deep passage--from Peggotty's kitchen to the front door of the house, and on one side of the corridor was a dark storage room, so dark that one walked through it at night. Quicken your pace; for it's hard to tell what's going to pop out among the pots and pots and old tea-chests if no one's there to light a little lamp.From that door came a smell of soap, brewed tea, pepper, candles, and coffee.There were also two drawing-rooms: one was where we (my mother, myself, and Peggotty) sat around in the evenings; the other was the best drawing-room in our house, which we only visited on Sundays.Sitting there was grand, of course, but not very comfortable.That drawing-room had a melancholy air to my eyes, for Peggotty had told me—don't know when, but of course a long time ago—about my father's funeral, and the man in the black coat.One Sunday night, my mother was there telling the story of Lazarus' death and resurrection [Note: See "New Testament" and "John's Gospel" Chapter 11] After hearing it, I was so scared that they had to pick me up from the bed and turn the bedroom Show me the quiet cemetery outside the window, to see if the dead there are all lying quietly in their graves under the silent moonlight.

No matter where I am, I know that there is something as green as the grass in a cemetery, something as shady as the trees there, and something as quiet as the tombstones there.Early in the morning, I got up on my knees from my little bed in the suite in my mother's bedroom and looked out the window, where the sheep were grazing, and I saw the sundial make the sun glow red.I thought to myself, "Aren't sundials happy to tell the time?"

And our family pew in the church (how high the back of the pew is!) has a window by which we can see our house.In the morning prayers Peggotty looked and looked at our house, to be absolutely sure that it was not robbed or set on fire.Although Peggotty's eyes could wander here and there, she was so angry if mine looked away.When I stood on the seat, she frowned at me and told me to see the pastor.But how can I always look at him—even if he is not wearing the white clothes, I can recognize him; I am also afraid that he will wonder why I always look at him, afraid that he will stop praying and come to ask me—then what should I do Okay? Of course yawning is bad, but I gotta have something to do.I looked at my mother, but she pretended not to see me.I looked at a kid in the aisle and he made faces at me.

I looked into the sunlight coming in through the open door of the porch, and I saw a sheep—the sheep I meant was not a sinner, but a slaughtered sheep; church meaning.I just thought that if I looked at it a little longer, I might be tempted to say something aloud; what would I be like then! I looked up at the talisman on the wall and thought of the recently deceased Bougas Sir, I wonder what Mrs. Bougas felt when Mr. Bougas was dying on the hospital bed and the doctor couldn't do anything? I don't know if they invited Mr. Qillpool, and whether he was helpless? If Wouldn't he like it to be brought up to him once a week then? I looked at Mr. Chillpool in his Sunday scarf, and then I looked at the pulpit, and I thought, This pulpit is a fun place, Think of it as a castle, and let another kid attack up the ladder; I'd hit him on the head with a tasseled velvet cushion, and that would be fun.My eyes were closing slowly now; at first I could faintly hear the vicar singing a drowsy hymn, then I could hear nothing, and at last I fell with a thump under the seat, and Polgo He took me out of the church half dead.

Then I saw the outside of our house.The latticed windows in the bedroom were open, letting in a breath of fresh air.The broken crow's nest was still swinging up and down among the elms deep in the front garden.Now I'm at the back of the garden again, this back garden behind the one where the empty pigeon coops and the empty kennels were - I still vaguely remember that it was really a nice butterfly nursery; There was a gate with a hook and lock; there were trees laden with fruit, larger, more numerous, and more ripe than in any other garden; there my mother picked fruit and put it in baskets, and I Then he watched from the sidelines, secretly stuffed the gooseberry into his mouth, swallowed it in one gulp, and then tried his best to pretend that nothing had happened.In winter we played in the twilight and danced in the living room.Until finally, breathless, my mother sat resting in the armchair, and I watched her twist her lustrous curls around her fingers, then stretch to straighten the top of her dress.Only I know best that she loves beauty and takes pride in her beauty.

This is part of my childhood memory.Also, I think both of us—my mother and I—were a little afraid of Peggotty, and a lot of the time we listened to her.These are my opinions—if that can be called an opinion—from our family.

One evening, when my mother had gone to pass a long night at a neighbor's house, Peggotty and I sat by the fire in the drawing-room.I just finished reading her a crocodile story.Either I read too clearly, or the poor thing listened too carefully; for when I finished she came up with the theory that the crocodile was a vegetable.I was really tired from reading at that time, and I wanted to sleep very much; but I had permission from my mother to sleep very late until she came back.Since I have this kind of privilege, I would rather be sleepy than sleep.I was already very sleepy, and I just felt that Peggotty was getting bigger and bigger.Pushing my eyelids apart with two fingers, I looked hard at Peggotty as she sat sewing, and at the little piece of candle stub she had left to wipe the thread—it was a very old thing, and I was all over the place. They are all crumpled; look at the little grass-roofed house where her tape measure "lives"; look at her sewing box with a sliding lid that depicts the panorama of St. Paul's Cathedral; look at the copper thimble she wears on her hand; look at herself, I actually think she looks very cute.I was so sleepy that I knew if I couldn't see for a little while I would fall asleep.

"So," I said suddenly, "were you ever married?"

"What? Master Wei," said Peggotty, "how can you ask such a question?"

When she answered me, she was obviously surprised, and I woke up with a fright.So she stopped what she was doing, stared at me, and pulled the needle to the end of the thread.

"Have you ever been married, Peggotty?" said I. "You are very pretty, aren't you?"

Of course I know that she is different from my mother, and I only see her as another model of beauty.In the best parlour, there was a red velvet footstool on which my mother had painted a bouquet of flowers.The footstool's base seemed to me to be exactly the same as Peggotty's skin.Only the stool is smooth and Peggotty is rough.

"I am beautiful, David?" said Peggotty. "My dear, is that so, my dear! How can you mention marriage?"

"I don't understand either—a woman can't marry more than one man at the same time, can she, Peggotty?"

"Of course not," replied Peggotty at once.

"But if a woman marries a man, and that man dies, then she can marry a second man, can't she, Peggotty?"

"That's all right," said Peggotty. "If she wants to marry, it's a matter of opinion, my dear."

"What do you think of that, Peggotty?" I said.

She looked at me in surprise.

"I think—" Peggotty paused, looking away from me, before he continued, "I've never been married, and I don't want to. That's what I think about the matter. "

"Are you not angry, Peggotty, are you not angry?" I asked again, after sitting restlessly for a while.

(End of this chapter)