David Copperfield

Chapter 73 Returning to the Steerforth House (1)
Chapter 29 Returning to the Steerforth House (1)
In the morning I said to Mr. Spenlow that I would take a few days' leave.Since I hadn't received any wages yet, the uncompromising Mr. Joggins was not offended, so he granted me my leave without much trouble.I also took the opportunity to say hello to Miss Spenlow.When I spoke, my voice was stuck in my throat and refused to come out, and my eyes became blurred.Mr. Spenlow answered me with no more passion than a common man, saying he thanked me for my greeting, and that she was in good health.

We apprentice civil jurists, the seedlings of the noble class of future attorneys, were so highly regarded that I was almost always at my ease.But as I did not wish to be in Highgate before one or two o'clock that day, and also because we had another small case of excommunication in our court that morning, Mr. Spenlow and I were pleased to attend the hearing. .The case was brought to trial by Diptins to save Bullock's soul.These two men were members of the Church, and one of them pushed the second onto a pump whose handles were in a school building built on the gable of the church roof, so the push was against the Church. The case is over.It was such an interesting case that I sat in the stagecoach for Highgate thinking of Doctors' College and Mr Spenlow's claim that the touch of Doctors' College would bring down the country that words.

Mrs Steerforth was glad to see me, and so was Rosa Dartle.I was delighted to find that Lytimus was not there, and that we were served by a timid little maid with a blue knot in her hat, who went to the drawing room.The look in that little girl's eyes, if you look at it occasionally, makes people more happy and less panicked than that decent person.But I had not been in the house for a moment before I noticed more than anything that Miss Dartle was looking at me carefully, and at the same time seemed to be secretly comparing my face with Steerforth's, with the intention of seeing the whole thing. What will be the difference between the two.So that whenever I looked at her I always saw those piercing, tiny black eyes on her face fixed on me, either suddenly turning from me to Steerforth, or looking at both of us at the same time. individual face.When she saw that I saw it, she did not stop at all in this scorching probing, but kept her piercing eyes fixed on me with that more intent expression.Although I had a clear conscience, and I was justifiable in anything that might have led her to suspect that I had done something wrong, I recoiled from her strange eyes, whose hungering gleam I couldn't stand.

All that day she seemed to hang over the whole family.If I spoke to Steerforth in his room, I could hear her clothes rattle in the little passage outside; if we two played our old tricks on the back lawn , I saw her face, like a lamp swimming around, moving from one window to another, finally fixed in one window, looking at us.When the four of us wandered out together in the afternoon, she would hold my arm tight like a pair of pincers, and leave me behind till Steerforth and his mother were far away, before she talk to me.

"It's been a long time since you've been with us," she said. "Is it true that your work is so fascinating, so fascinating, that it absorbs all your thoughts? The reason I ask you This is just because I want to figure out everything I can't understand, but is your work really that attractive?"

I replied that I loved my job, but not as much as she said.

"Oh, I'm glad to know that, because I always want to be corrected when I'm wrong," said Rosa Duttle. "You mean, perhaps, that your job is somewhat monotonous, don't you? "

"Well," I replied, "it might be a little monotonous job."

"Oh! So you have to lighten up and brighten up your life every now and then—say, do something interesting, don't you?" she said. Son—for him? I don't mean you."

She glanced towards the place where Steerforth was walking with his mother, in order to let me know whom she meant.But apart from this, I could not understand at all the meaning of what she said.

"Doesn't that--I don't mean it, but I do want to see--doesn't that fascinate him? Doesn't that make him, perhaps, more negligent than usual in calling on his blind doting One o'clock?" She glanced in their direction again, and then at me.Her glance seemed to see through everything in my heart.

"Miss Dartle," I answered her, "please don't believe—"

"I didn't!" she said. "Why, I'm not one to wonder. I'm just asking a question. I'm not expressing an opinion. I'm going to form my opinion from what you've said. Well, that's not it." ?Well, then, I see that's how it is, and I'm overjoyed."

"The fact of the matter," I said tremblingly, "is that I can tell you responsibly that Steerforth has been away from home longer than usual, but that has nothing to do with me, even now, if I hadn't listened to you. , I really don't understand. I haven't seen him for a long time, until last night."

"Never seen it before!"

"Indeed, Miss Dartle, never."

Her eyes stared at me motionlessly, and at that moment, I noticed that her face became thinner and her face became more terrifying.Her old scar spread more and more, until it reached her distorted upper lip, penetrated into her lower lip, and branched out diagonally from her face.It seemed to me that there was something ghastly in that scar, in the light of her eyes.She looked at me intently and said to me:

"So what the hell is he doing?"

I repeated what she had said, not so much to her as to myself, for I was so overwhelmed at the time.

"So what the hell is he doing?" she said, but with a kind of impatience that seemed to burn her. "He always looked at me with that inscrutable look in his eyes. What are you doing helping him? If you value decency and loyalty so much, I will never force you to betray your friend. I just want you to tell me what it is that tempted him: Is it anger? Is it hatred? Is it arrogance? Is it restlessness? Is it arrogant thoughts? Is it love? What is it?"

"Miss Dartle," I answered her, "Steerforth is still Steerforth to me, and I don't see any change in him. But how can I express myself so that you Believe me? I don't see any change in him. I almost believe nothing. I don't even know what you mean."

She was still looking at me intently. At that time, a kind of convulsion made me feel a sense of pain, invading the terrible scar, and made the corner of her lips lift outward, as if to express disdain, or to express A sympathy for the object of her contempt.She put her hand hastily on the scar--her hand was so thin and delicate that I had thought of it and the fineness of it when I saw her lift it over the scar before the fire. She compared it to China—and said, with swift, fierce enthusiasm: "I swear you to secrecy about this matter." With that, she fell silent.

Mrs. Steerforth was especially happy when she was with her son.Steerforth, this time, took extra care and respect for her.I was delighted to see them together, not only because of their closeness, but also because of the resemblance between them, and the haughty, frivolous manner in him , in her, softened by character and age into a benevolent dignity.I have been thinking that, luckily, there were no major differences among them, or else two such characters--or rather, two slightly different shades of the same character--would be more likely than all two extremely different characters. , are even more difficult to reconcile.This opinion does not come from my own analytical observations, but from Rosa Dartle's words.At dinner she said:

"Oh, please tell me whoever you are, because I've been thinking about this all day and I'm trying to figure out why?"

"What are you trying to find out, Rosa?" Mrs. Steerforth said, taking it up. "Oh, please, I beg you, don't be so secretive, will you?"

"Mystery!" she cried. "Oh, really? Am I really that?"

"Haven't I often begged you," said Mrs. Steeles, "to get the point across in your own natural way?"

"Oh, so it is not my own natural way!" she replied, "and now you must forgive me, for I ask you to teach me. We never know ourselves."

(End of this chapter)