Читать книгу Большие надежды. Уровень 2 / Great Expectations - Чарльз Диккенс, Geoffrey Palmer, Miriam Margolyes - Страница 7

When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe.

“Didn’t you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?” asked I one day.

“No, Pip.”

“Why didn’t you ever go to school?”

“Well, Pip,” said Joe; “I’ll tell you. My father, Pip, liked to drink much. So my mother and me we ran away from my father several times. Sometimes my mother said, ‘Joe, you must go to school, child.’ And she put me to school. But my father couldn’t live without us. So he came with a crowd and took us from the houses where we were. He took us home and hammered us.”

“Certainly, poor Joe!”

“My father said I must work. So I went to work. In time I was able to keep him, and I kept him till he went off.”

Joe’s blue eyes turned a little watery. He rubbed first one of them, and then the other, in a most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner, with the round knob on the top of the poker.

“I met your sister,” said Joe, “she was living here alone. Now, Pip,”Joe looked firmly at me; “your sister is very nice and clever.”

“I am glad you think so, Joe.”

“Yes,” returned Joe. “That’s it. You’re right, old chap! When I met your sister, she was bringing you. Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and I said, along with all the folks. When your sister was willing and ready to come to the forge, I said to her, ‘And bring the poor little child. God bless the poor little child,’ I said to your sister, ‘there’s room for him at the forge!’”

I hugged Joe round the neck. He dropped the poker to hug me and said,

“We are the best friends; aren’t we, Pip? Don’t cry, old chap!”

When this little interruption was over, Joe resumed:

“Well, you see; here we are! Your sister a master-mind.[16] A master-mind. However, here comes the mare!”

Mrs. Joe and Uncle Pumblechook were soon near. Then we were soon all in the kitchen.

“Now,” said Mrs. Joe, with haste and excitement, “if this boy isn’t grateful this night, he never will be! Miss Havisham wants this boy to go and play in her house. And of course he’ll go.”

I heard of Miss Havisham – everybody heard of her – as an immensely rich and grim lady. She lived in a large and dismal house and led a life of seclusion[17].

“But how did she know Pip?” said Joe, astounded.

“Who said she knew him?” cried my sister. “She just asked Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there. Uncle Pumblechook thinks that that is the boy’s fortune. So he offered to take him into town tonight in his own chaise-cart, and to take him with his own hands to Miss Havisham’s tomorrow morning.”

I was then delivered over to Mr. Pumblechook. He said:

“Boy, be forever grateful!”

“Good-bye, Joe!”

“God bless you, Pip, old chap!”

I never parted from him before. I did not understand why I was going to play at Miss Havisham’s, and what to play at.