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Great Expectations
Chapter XXXI
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
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
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 honor."
"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 endeavored 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.