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Chapter 32. The Beginning of a Long Journey
Chapter 33. Blissful
Chapter 34. My Aunt Astonishes Me
Chapter 35. Depression
Chapter 36. Enthusiasm
Chapter 37. A Little Cold Water
Chapter 38. A Dissolution of Partnership
Chapter 39. Wickfield and Heep
Chapter 40. The Wanderer
Chapter 41. Dora's Aunts
Chapter 42. Mischief
Chapter 43. Another Retrospect
Chapter 44. Our Housekeeping
Chapter 45. Mr. Dick Fulfils My Aunt's Predictions
Chapter 46. Intelligence
Chapter 47. Martha
Chapter 48. Domestic
Chapter 49. I Am Involved in Mystery
Chapter 50. Mr. Peggotty's Dream Comes True
Chapter 51. The Beginning of a Longer Journey
Chapter 52. I Assist at an Explosion
Chapter 53. Another Retrospect
Chapter 54. Mr. Micawber's Transactions
Chapter 55. Tempest
Chapter 56. The New Wound, and the Old
Chapter 57. The Emigrants
Chapter 58. Absence
Chapter 59. Return
Chapter 60. Agnes
Chapter 61. I Am Shown Two Interesting Penitents
Chapter 62. A Light Shines on My Way
Chapter 63. A Visitor
Chapter 64. A Last Retrospect
What is natural in me, is natural in many other men, I infer, and so I am not afraid to write that I never had loved Steerforth better than when the ties that bound me to him were broken. In the keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more of all that was brilliant in him, I softened more towards all that was good in him, I did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name, than ever I had done in the height of my devotion to him. Deeply as I felt my own unconscious part in his pollution of an honest home, I believed that if I had been brought face to face with him, I could not have uttered one reproach. I should have loved him so well still – though he fascinated me no longer – I should have held in so much tenderness the memory of my affection for him, that I think I should have been as weak as a spirit-wounded child, in all but the entertainment of a thought that we could ever be re-united. That thought I never had. I felt, as he had felt, that all was at an end between us. What his remembrances of me were, I have never known – they were light enough, perhaps, and easily dismissed – but mine of him were as the remembrances of a cherished friend, who was dead.
Yes, Steerforth, long removed from the scenes of this poor history! My sorrow may bear involuntary witness against you at the judgement Throne; but my angry thoughts or my reproaches never will, I know!
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As to Mrs. Gummidge, if I were to endeavour to describe how she ran down the street by the side of the coach, seeing nothing but Mr. Peggotty on the roof, through the tears she tried to repress, and dashing herself against the people who were coming in the opposite direction, I should enter on a task of some difficulty. Therefore I had better leave her sitting on a baker's door-step, out of breath, with no shape at all remaining in her bonnet, and one of her shoes off, lying on the pavement at a considerable distance.
When we got to our journey's end, our first pursuit was to look about for a little lodging for Peggotty, where her brother could have a bed. We were so fortunate as to find one, of a very clean and cheap description, over a chandler's shop, only two streets removed from me. When we had engaged this domicile, I bought some cold meat at an eating-house, and took my fellow-travellers home to tea; a proceeding, I regret to state, which did not meet with Mrs. Crupp's approval, but quite the contrary. I ought to observe, however, in explanation of that lady's state of mind, that she was much offended by Peggotty's tucking up her widow's gown before she had been ten minutes in the place, and setting to work to dust my bedroom. This Mrs. Crupp regarded in the light of a liberty, and a liberty, she said, was a thing she never allowed.
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