Great Expectations

n our arrival in Denmark, we found the king and queen of that country
elevated in two arm-chairs on a kitchen-table, holding a Court. The
whole of the Danish nobility were in attendance; consisting of a noble
boy in the wash-leather boots of a gigantic ancestor, a venerable Peer
with a dirty face who seemed to have risen from the people late in
life, and the Danish chivalry with a comb in its hair and a pair of
white silk legs, and presenting on the whole a feminine appearance. My
gifted townsman stood gloomily apart, with folded arms, and I could
have wished that his curls and forehead had been more probable.

Several curious little circumstances transpired as the action
proceeded. The late king of the country not only appeared to have been
troubled with a cough at the time of his decease, but to have taken it
with him to the tomb, and to have brought it back. The royal phantom
also carried a ghostly manuscript round its truncheon, to which it had
the appearance of occasionally referring, and that too, with an air of
anxiety and a tendency to lose the place of reference which were
suggestive of a state of mortality. It was this, I conceive, which led
to the Shade’s being advised by the gallery to “turn over!”—a
recommendation which it took extremely ill. It was likewise to be noted
of this majestic spirit, that whereas it always appeared with an air of
having been out a long time and walked an immense distance, it
perceptibly came from a closely contiguous wall. This occasioned its
terrors to be received derisively. The Queen of Denmark, a very buxom
lady, though no doubt historically brazen, was considered by the public
to have too much brass about her; her chin being attached to her diadem
by a broad band of that metal (as if she had a gorgeous toothache), her
waist being encircled by another, and each of her arms by another, so
that she was openly mentioned as “the kettle-drum.” The noble boy in
the ancestral boots was inconsistent, representing himself, as it were
in one breath, as an able seaman, a strolling actor, a grave-digger, a
clergyman, and a person of the utmost importance at a Court
fencing-match, on the authority of whose practised eye and nice
discrimination the finest strokes were judged. This gradually led to a
want of toleration for him, and even—on his being detected in holy
orders, and declining to perform the funeral service—to the general
indignation taking the form of nuts. Lastly, Ophelia was a prey to such
slow musical madness, that when, in course of time, she had taken off
her white muslin scarf, folded it up, and buried it, a sulky man who
had been long cooling his impatient nose against an iron bar in the
front row of the gallery, growled, “Now the baby’s put to bed let’s
have supper!” Which, to say the least of it, was out of keeping.

Upon my unfortunate townsman all these incidents accumulated with
playful effect. Whenever that undecided Prince had to ask a question or
state a doubt, the public helped him out with it. As for example; on
the question whether ’twas nobler in the mind to suffer, some roared
yes, and some no, and some inclining to both opinions said “Toss up for
it;” and quite a Debating Society arose. When he asked what should such
fellows as he do crawling between earth and heaven, he was encouraged
with loud cries of “Hear, hear!” When he appeared with his stocking
disordered (its disorder expressed, according to usage, by one very
neat fold in the top, which I suppose to be always got up with a flat
iron), a conversation took place in the gallery respecting the paleness
of his leg, and whether it was occasioned by the turn the ghost had
given him. On his taking the recorders,—very like a little black flute
that had just been played in the orchestra and handed out at the
door,—he was called upon unanimously for Rule Britannia. When he
recommended the player not to saw the air thus, the sulky man said,
“And don’t you do it, neither; you’re a deal worse than him!” And I
grieve to add that peals of laughter greeted Mr. Wopsle on every one of
these occasions.

But his greatest trials were in the churchyard, which had the
appearance of a primeval forest, with a kind of small ecclesiastical
wash-house on one side, and a turnpike gate on the other. Mr. Wopsle in
a comprehensive black cloak, being descried entering at the turnpike,
the gravedigger was admonished in a friendly way, “Look out! Here’s the
undertaker a coming, to see how you’re a getting on with your work!” I
believe it is well known in a constitutional country that Mr. Wopsle
could not possibly have returned the skull, after moralizing over it,
without dusting his fingers on a white napkin taken from his breast;
but even that innocent and indispensable action did not pass without
the comment, “Wai-ter!” The arrival of the body for interment (in an
empty black box with the lid tumbling open), was the signal for a
general joy, which was much enhanced by the discovery, among the
bearers, of an individual obnoxious to identification. The joy attended
Mr. Wopsle through his struggle with Laertes on the brink of the
orchestra and the grave, and slackened no more until he had tumbled the
king off the kitchen-table, and had died by inches from the ankles
upward.

We had made some pale efforts in the beginning to applaud Mr. Wopsle;
but they were too hopeless to be persisted in. Therefore we had sat,
feeling keenly for him, but laughing, nevertheless, from ear to ear. I
laughed in spite of myself all the time, the whole thing was so droll;
and yet I had a latent impression that there was something decidedly
fine in Mr. Wopsle’s elocution,—not for old associations’ sake, I am
afraid, but because it was very slow, very dreary, very uphill and
downhill, and very unlike any way in which any man in any natural
circumstances of life or death ever expressed himself about anything.
When the tragedy was over, and he had been called for and hooted, I
said to Herbert, “Let us go at once, or perhaps we shall meet him.”

We made all the haste we could downstairs, but we were not quick enough
either. Standing at the door was a Jewish man with an unnatural heavy
smear of eyebrow, who caught my eyes as we advanced, and said, when we
came up with him,—

“Mr. Pip and friend?”

Identity of Mr. Pip and friend confessed.

“Mr. Waldengarver,” said the man, “would be glad to have the honour.”

“Waldengarver?” I repeated—when Herbert murmured in my ear, “Probably
Wopsle.”

“Oh!” said I. “Yes. Shall we follow you?”

“A few steps, please.” When we were in a side alley, he turned and
asked, “How did you think he looked?—I dressed him.”

I don’t know what he had looked like, except a funeral; with the
addition of a large Danish sun or star hanging round his neck by a blue
ribbon, that had given him the appearance of being insured in some
extraordinary Fire Office. But I said he had looked very nice.

“When he come to the grave,” said our conductor, “he showed his cloak
beautiful. But, judging from the wing, it looked to me that when he see
the ghost in the queen’s apartment, he might have made more of his
stockings.”

I modestly assented, and we all fell through a little dirty swing door,
into a sort of hot packing-case immediately behind it. Here Mr. Wopsle
was divesting himself of his Danish garments, and here there was just
room for us to look at him over one another’s shoulders, by keeping the
packing-case door, or lid, wide open.

“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Wopsle, “I am proud to see you. I hope, Mr. Pip,
you will excuse my sending round. I had the happiness to know you in
former times, and the Drama has ever had a claim which has ever been
acknowledged, on the noble and the affluent.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Waldengarver, in a frightful perspiration, was trying to
get himself out of his princely sables.

“Skin the stockings off Mr. Waldengarver,” said the owner of that
property, “or you’ll bust ’em. Bust ’em, and you’ll bust
five-and-thirty shillings. Shakspeare never was complimented with a
finer pair. Keep quiet in your chair now, and leave ’em to me.”

With that, he went upon his knees, and began to flay his victim; who,
on the first stocking coming off, would certainly have fallen over
backward with his chair, but for there being no room to fall anyhow.

I had been afraid until then to say a word about the play. But then,
Mr. Waldengarver looked up at us complacently, and said,—

“Gentlemen, how did it seem to you, to go, in front?”

Herbert said from behind (at the same time poking me), “Capitally.” So
I said “Capitally.”

“How did you like my reading of the character, gentlemen?” said Mr.
Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, with patronage.

Herbert said from behind (again poking me), “Massive and concrete.” So
I said boldly, as if I had originated it, and must beg to insist upon
it, “Massive and concrete.”

“I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen,” said Mr. Waldengarver,
with an air of dignity, in spite of his being ground against the wall
at the time, and holding on by the seat of the chair.

“But I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengarver,” said the man who was
on his knees, “in which you’re out in your reading. Now mind! I don’t
care who says contrairy; I tell you so. You’re out in your reading of
Hamlet when you get your legs in profile. The last Hamlet as I dressed,
made the same mistakes in his reading at rehearsal, till I got him to
put a large red wafer on each of his shins, and then at that rehearsal
(which was the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of the pit, and
whenever his reading brought him into profile, I called out “I don’t
see no wafers!” And at night his reading was lovely.”

Mr. Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as to say “a faithful
Dependent—I overlook his folly;” and then said aloud, “My view is a
little classic and thoughtful for them here; but they will improve,
they will improve.”

Herbert and I said together, O, no doubt they would improve.

“Did you observe, gentlemen,” said Mr. Waldengarver, “that there was a
man in the gallery who endeavoured to cast derision on the service,—I
mean, the representation?”

We basely replied that we rather thought we had noticed such a man. I
added, “He was drunk, no doubt.”

“O dear no, sir,” said Mr. Wopsle, “not drunk. His employer would see
to that, sir. His employer would not allow him to be drunk.”

“You know his employer?” said I.

Mr. Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened them again; performing both
ceremonies very slowly. “You must have observed, gentlemen,” said he,
“an ignorant and a blatant ass, with a rasping throat and a countenance
expressive of low malignity, who went through—I will not say
sustained—the rôle (if I may use a French expression) of Claudius, King
of Denmark. That is his employer, gentlemen. Such is the profession!”

Without distinctly knowing whether I should have been more sorry for
Mr. Wopsle if he had been in despair, I was so sorry for him as it was,
that I took the opportunity of his turning round to have his braces put
on,—which jostled us out at the doorway,—to ask Herbert what he thought
of having him home to supper? Herbert said he thought it would be kind
to do so; therefore I invited him, and he went to Barnard’s with us,
wrapped up to the eyes, and we did our best for him, and he sat until
two o’clock in the morning, reviewing his success and developing his
plans. I forget in detail what they were, but I have a general
recollection that he was to begin with reviving the Drama, and to end
with crushing it; inasmuch as his decease would leave it utterly bereft
and without a chance or hope.

Miserably I went to bed after all, and miserably thought of Estella,
and miserably dreamed that my expectations were all cancelled, and that
I had to give my hand in marriage to Herbert’s Clara, or play Hamlet to
Miss Havisham’s Ghost, before twenty thousand people, without knowing
twenty words of it.