Читать книгу Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - Страница 4

My first name was Philip, but when I was a small child I could only manage to say Pip. So Pip was what everybody called me. I lived in a small village in Essex with my sister, who was over twenty years older than me, and married to Joe Gargery, the village blacksmith. My parents had died when I was a baby, so I could not remember them at all, but quite often I used to visit the churchyard, about a mile from the village, to look at their names on their gravestones.

My first memory is of sitting on a gravestone in that churchyard one cold, grey, December afternoon, looking out at the dark, flat, wild marshes divided by the black line of the River Thames, and listening to the rushing sound of the sea in the distance.

‘Don’t say a word!’ cried a terrible voice, as a man jumped up from among the graves and caught hold of me. ‘If you shout I’ll cut your throat!’ He was a big man, dressed all in grey, with an iron chain on his leg. His clothes were wet and torn. He looked exhausted, and hungry, and very fierce. I had never been so frightened in my whole life.

‘Oh! Don’t cut my throat, sir!’ I begged in terror.

‘Tell me your name, boy! Quick!’ he said, still holding me. ‘And show me where you live!’

‘My name’s Pip, sir. And I live in the village over there.’

He picked me up and turned me upside-down. Nothing fell out of my pocket except a piece of old bread. He ate it in two bites, like a dog, and put me back on the gravestone.

‘So where are your father and mother?’ he asked.

‘There, sir,’ I answered, pointing to their graves.

‘What!’ he cried, and was about to run, when he saw where I was pointing. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘I see. They’re dead. Well, who do you live with, if I let you live, which I haven’t decided yet?’

‘With my sister, sir, wife of Joe Gargery, the blacksmith.’

‘Blacksmith, you say?’ And he looked down at his leg. Then he held me by both arms and stared fiercely down into my eyes.

‘Now look here. You bring me a file. You know what that is? And you bring me some food. If you don’t, or if you tell anyone about me, I’ll cut your heart out.’

‘I promise I’ll do it, sir,’ I answered. I was badly frightened and my whole body was trembling.

‘You see,’ he continued, smiling unpleasantly, ‘I travel with a young man, a friend of mine, who roasts boys’ hearts and eats them. He’ll find you, wherever you are, and he’ll have your heart. So bring the file and the food to that wooden shelter over there, early tomorrow morning, if you want to keep your heart, that is. Remember, you promised!’

I watched him turn and walk with difficulty across the marshes, the chain hanging clumsily around his leg. Then I ran home as fast as I could.

My sister, Mrs Joe Gargery, was very proud of the fact that she had brought me up ‘by hand’. Nobody explained to me what this meant, and because she had a hard and heavy hand, which she used freely on her husband as well as me, I supposed that Joe and I were both brought up by hand. She was not a beautiful woman, being tall and thin, with black hair and eyes and a very red face. She clearly felt that Joe and I caused her a lot of trouble, and she frequently complained about it. Joe, on the other hand, was a gentle, kind man with fair hair and weak blue eyes, who quietly accepted her scolding.

Because Joe and I were in the same position of being scolded by Mrs Joe, we were good friends, and Joe protected me from her anger whenever he could. So when I ran breathless into the kitchen, he gave me a friendly warning. ‘She’s out looking for you, Pip! And she’s got the stick with her!’ This stick had been used so often for beating me that it was now quite smooth.

Just then Mrs Joe rushed in.

‘Where have you been, you young monkey?’ she shouted. I jumped behind Joe to avoid being hit with the stick.

‘Only to the churchyard,’ I whispered, starting to cry.

‘Churchyard! If I hadn’t brought you up, you’d be in the churchyard with our parents. You’ll send me to the churchyard one day! Now let me get your supper ready, both of you!’

For the rest of the evening, I thought of nothing but the stranger on the marshes. Sometimes, as the wind blew round the house, I imagined I heard his voice outside, and I thought with horror of the young man who ate boys’ hearts.