Гордость и предубеждение / Pride and Prejudice. Great Expectations / Большие надежды. Чарльз Диккенс

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      “You are well acquainted with it now?”

      “Why, yes,” said Mr. Wemmick.

      “Is it a very wicked place?” I asked, more for the sake[96] of saying something than for information.

      “You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered in London. But there are plenty of people anywhere, who’ll do that for you.”

      His mouth was such a post-office of a mouth that he had a mechanical appearance of smiling.

      “Do you know where Mr. Matthew Pocket lives?” I asked Mr. Wemmick.

      “Yes,” said he, nodding in the direction. “At Hammersmith,[97] west of London.”

      “Is that far?”

      “Well! Say five miles.”

      “Do you know him?”

      “Yes, I know him. I know him!”

      Barnard’s Inn. I had supposed that establishment to be an hotel kept by Mr. Barnard. I found Barnard to be a disembodied spirit, or a fiction, and his inn the dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed together.

      I looked in dismay at Mr. Wemmick. “Ah!” said he; “the retirement reminds you of the country.”

      He led me into a corner and conducted me up a flight of stairs – to a set of chambers on the top floor. MR. POCKET, JUN., was painted on the door, and there was a label on the letter-box, “Return shortly.[98]”

      “You don’t want me any more?” asked Mr. Wemmick.

      “No, thank you,” said I.

      “As I keep the cash,” Mr. Wemmick observed, “we shall most likely meet pretty often. Good day.”

      “Good day.”

      I put out my hand, and Mr. Wemmick at first looked at it as if he thought I wanted something. Then he looked at me, and said, correcting himself —

      “To be sure! Yes. You’re in the habit of shaking hands?”

      I was rather confused, thinking it must be out of the London fashion, but said yes.

      When we had shaken hands and he was gone, I opened the staircase window. Mr. Pocket, Junior, returned in half an hour. He had a paper-bag under each arm and some strawberries in one hand, and was out of breath.

      “Mr. Pip?” said he.

      “Mr. Pocket?” said I.

      “Dear me!” he exclaimed. “I am extremely sorry. The fact is, I have been out on your account – for I thought, coming from the country, you might like a little fruit after dinner, and I went to Covent Garden Market[99] to get it good. Pray come in, allow me to lead the way. We might like to take a walk about London. I am sure I shall be very happy to show London to you. As to our table, you won’t find that bad, I hope, for it will be supplied from our coffee-house here,[100] and at your expense,[101] such being Mr. Jaggers’s directions. As to our lodging, it’s not by any means splendid, because I have my own bread to earn, and my father hasn’t anything to give me, and I shouldn’t be willing to take it, if he had. This is our sitting-room – just such chairs and tables and carpet and so forth, you see. This is your bedroom; the furniture’s hired for the occasion, but I trust it will answer the purpose; if you should want anything, I’ll go and fetch it. The chambers are retired, and we shall be alone together, but we shan’t fight, I dare say. But, I beg your pardon, you’re holding the fruit all this time. Pray let me take these bags from you. I am quite ashamed.”

      Suddenly Mr. Pocket, Junior, said, falling back —

      “Lord bless me, you’re the prowling boy!”

      “And you,” said I, “are the pale young gentleman!”

      Chapter 22

      The pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one another in Barnard’s Inn, until we both burst out laughing.

      “Well!” said the pale young gentleman, reaching out his hand good-humoredly, “it’s all over now, I hope you’ll forgive me.”

      I derived from this speech that Mr. Herbert Pocket[102] (for Herbert was the pale young gentleman’s name) did not remember anything.

      “Miss Havisham had sent for me, to see if she could take a fancy to me. But she couldn’t – she didn’t.”

      I thought it polite to remark that I was surprised to hear that.

      “Bad taste,” said Herbert, laughing, “but a fact. Yes, she had sent for me on a trial visit, and if I had come out of it successfully, I suppose I should have been provided for; perhaps I should have been engaged to Estella.”

      “How did you bear your disappointment?” I asked.

      “Pooh!” said he, “I didn’t care much for it. She’s a Tartar.[103]”

      “Miss Havisham?”

      “I don’t say no to that, but I meant Estella. That girl’s hard and haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex.[104]”

      “What relation is she to Miss Havisham?”

      “None,” said he. “Only adopted.”

      “Why should she wreak revenge on all the male sex? What revenge?”

      “Lord, Mr. Pip!” said he. “Don’t you know?”

      “No,” said I.

      “Dear me! It’s quite a story, and shall be saved till dinner-time. And now let me take the liberty of asking you a question. How did you come there, that day?”

      I told him, and he was attentive until I had finished, and then burst out laughing again.

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