David Copperfield. Charles Dickens

Чтение книги онлайн.

      ‘I have the happiness of knowing your father-in-law,’ whispered Mr. Creakle, taking me by the ear; ‘and a worthy man he is, and a man of a strong character. He knows me, and I know him. Do YOU know me? Hey?’ said Mr. Creakle, pinching my ear with ferocious playfulness.

      ‘Not yet, sir,’ I said, flinching with the pain.

      ‘Not yet? Hey?’ repeated Mr. Creakle. ‘But you will soon. Hey?’

      ‘You will soon. Hey?’ repeated the man with the wooden leg. I afterwards found that he generally acted, with his strong voice, as Mr. Creakle’s interpreter to the boys.

      I was very much frightened, and said, I hoped so, if he pleased. I felt, all this while, as if my ear were blazing; he pinched it so hard.

      ‘I’ll tell you what I am,’ whispered Mr. Creakle, letting it go at last, with a screw at parting that brought the water into my eyes. ‘I’m a Tartar.’

      ‘A Tartar,’ said the man with the wooden leg.

      ‘When I say I’ll do a thing, I do it,’ said Mr. Creakle; ‘and when I say I will have a thing done, I will have it done.’

      ‘—Will have a thing done, I will have it done,’ repeated the man with the wooden leg.

      ‘I am a determined character,’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘That’s what I am. I do my duty. That’s what I do. My flesh and blood’—he looked at Mrs. Creakle as he said this—‘when it rises against me, is not my flesh and blood. I discard it. Has that fellow’—to the man with the wooden leg—‘been here again?’

      ‘No,’ was the answer.

      ‘No,’ said Mr. Creakle. ‘He knows better. He knows me. Let him keep away. I say let him keep away,’ said Mr. Creakle, striking his hand upon the table, and looking at Mrs. Creakle, ‘for he knows me. Now you have begun to know me too, my young friend, and you may go. Take him away.’

      I was very glad to be ordered away, for Mrs. and Miss Creakle were both wiping their eyes, and I felt as uncomfortable for them as I did for myself. But I had a petition on my mind which concerned me so nearly, that I couldn’t help saying, though I wondered at my own courage:

      ‘If you please, sir—’

      Mr. Creakle whispered, ‘Hah! What’s this?’ and bent his eyes upon me, as if he would have burnt me up with them.

      ‘If you please, sir,’ I faltered, ‘if I might be allowed (I am very sorry indeed, sir, for what I did) to take this writing off, before the boys come back—’

      Whether Mr. Creakle was in earnest, or whether he only did it to frighten me, I don’t know, but he made a burst out of his chair, before which I precipitately retreated, without waiting for the escort of the man with the wooden leg, and never once stopped until I reached my own bedroom, where, finding I was not pursued, I went to bed, as it was time, and lay quaking, for a couple of hours.

      Next morning Mr. Sharp came back. Mr. Sharp was the first master, and superior to Mr. Mell. Mr. Mell took his meals with the boys, but Mr. Sharp dined and supped at Mr. Creakle’s table. He was a limp, delicate-looking gentleman, I thought, with a good deal of nose, and a way of carrying his head on one side, as if it were a little too heavy for him. His hair was very smooth and wavy; but I was informed by the very first boy who came back that it was a wig (a second-hand one HE said), and that Mr. Sharp went out every Saturday afternoon to get it curled.

      It was no other than Tommy Traddles who gave me this piece of intelligence. He was the first boy who returned. He introduced himself by informing me that I should find his name on the right-hand corner of the gate, over the top-bolt; upon that I said, ‘Traddles?’ to which he replied, ‘The same,’ and then he asked me for a full account of myself and family.

      It was a happy circumstance for me that Traddles came back first. He enjoyed my placard so much, that he saved me from the embarrassment of either disclosure or concealment, by presenting me to every other boy who came back, great or small, immediately on his arrival, in this form of introduction, ‘Look here! Here’s a game!’ Happily, too, the greater part of the boys came back low-spirited, and were not so boisterous at my expense as I had expected. Some of them certainly did dance about me like wild Indians, and the greater part could not resist the temptation of pretending that I was a dog, and patting and soothing me, lest I should bite, and saying, ‘Lie down, sir!’ and calling me Towzer. This was naturally confusing, among so many strangers, and cost me some tears, but on the whole it was much better than I had anticipated.

      I was not considered as being formally received into the school, however, until J. Steerforth arrived. Before this boy, who was reputed to be a great scholar, and was very good-looking, and at least half-a-dozen years my senior, I was carried as before a magistrate. He inquired, under a shed in the playground, into the particulars of my punishment, and was pleased to express his opinion that it was ‘a jolly shame’; for which I became bound to him ever afterwards.

      ‘What money have you got, Copperfield?’ he said, walking aside with me when he had disposed of my affair in these terms. I told him seven shillings.

      ‘You had better give it to me to take care of,’ he said. ‘At least, you can if you like. You needn’t if you don’t like.’

      I hastened to comply with his friendly suggestion, and opening Peggotty’s purse, turned it upside down into his hand.

      ‘Do you want to spend anything now?’ he asked me.

      ‘No thank you,’ I replied.

      ‘You can, if you like, you know,’ said Steerforth. ‘Say the word.’

      ‘No, thank you, sir,’ I repeated.

      ‘Perhaps СКАЧАТЬ