Chapter 31

Great Expectations

by Charles Dickens

On 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 kettledrum." 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 up-hill and down-hill, 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 down-stairs, 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, Oh, 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."

"Oh 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 role (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.