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degrees on a former occasion.
Mr Dombey finished the interview by expressing his hope that Mrs
Pipchin would still remain in office as general superintendent and overseer
of his son, pending his studies at Brighton; and having kissed Paul, and
shaken hands with Florence, and beheld Master Bitherstone in his collar of
state, and made Miss Pankey cry by patting her on the head (in which region
she was uncommonly tender, on account of a habit Mrs Pipchin had of sounding
it with her knuckles, like a cask), he withdrew to his hotel and dinner:
resolved that Paul, now that he was getting so old and well, should begin a
vigorous course of education forthwith, to qualify him for the position in
which he was to shine; and that Doctor Blimber should take him in hand
immediately.
Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Doctor Blimber, he
might consider himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The Doctor only
undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had, always ready, a
supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; and it was at once
the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten with it.
In fact, Doctor Blimber's establishment was a great hot-house, in which
there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew before
their time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual
asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too)
were common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under
Doctor Blimber's cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable
was got off the driest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances.
Nature was of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was
intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other.
This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing was
attended with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right taste about
the premature productions, and they didn't keep well. Moreover, one young
gentleman, with a swollen nose and an excessively large head (the oldest of
the ten who had 'gone through' everything), suddenly left off blowing one
day, and remained in the establishment a mere stalk. And people did say that
the Doctor had rather overdone it with young Toots, and that when he began
to have whiskers he left off having brains.
There young Toots was, at any rate; possessed of the gruffest of voices
and the shrillest of minds; sticking ornamental pins into his shirt, and
keeping a ring in his waistcoat pocket to put on his little finger by
stealth, when the pupils went out walking; constantly falling in love by
sight with nurserymaids, who had no idea of his existence; and looking at
the gas-lighted world over the little iron bars in the left-hand corner
window of the front three pairs of stairs, after bed-time, like a greatly
overgrown cherub who had sat up aloft much too long.
The Doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit of black, with strings at
his knees, and stockings below them. He had a bald head, highly polished; a
deep voice; and a chin so very double, that it was a wonder how he ever
managed to shave into the creases. He had likewise a pair of little eyes
that were always half shut up, and a mouth that was always half expanded
into a grin, as if he had, that moment, posed a boy, and were waiting to
convict him from his own lips. Insomuch, that when the Doctor put his right
hand into the breast of his coat, and with his other hand behind him, and a
fly perceptible wag of his head, made the commonest observation to a nervous
stranger, it was like a sentiment from the sphynx, and settled his business.
The Doctor's was a mighty fine house, fronting the sea. Not a joyful
style of house within, but quite the contrary. Sad-coloured curtains, whose
proportions were spare and lean, hid themselves despondently behind the
windows. The tables and chairs were put away in rows, like figures in a sum;
fires were so rarely lighted in the rooms of ceremony, that they felt like
wells, and a visitor represented the bucket; the dining-room seemed the last
place in the world where any eating or drinking was likely to occur; there
was no sound through all the house but the ticking of a great clock in the
hall, which made itself audible in the very garrets; and sometimes a dull
cooing of young gentlemen at their lessons, like the murmurings of an
assemblage of melancholy pigeons.
Miss Blimber, too, although a slim and graceful maid, did no soft
violence to the gravity of the house. There was no light nonsense about Miss
Blimber. She kept her hair short and crisp, and wore spectacles. She was dry
and sandy with working in the graves of deceased languages. None of your
live languages for Miss Blimber. They must be dead - stone dead - and then
Miss Blimber dug them up like a Ghoul.
Mrs Blimber, her Mama, was not learned herself, but she pretended to
be, and that did quite as well. She said at evening parties, that if she
could have known Cicero, she thought she could have died contented. It was
the steady joy of her life to see the Doctor's young gentlemen go out
walking, unlike all other young gentlemen, in the largest possible
shirt-collars, and the stiffest possible cravats. It was so classical, she
said.
As to Mr Feeder, B.A., Doctor Blimber's assistant, he was a kind of
human barrel-organ, with a little list of tunes at which he was continually
working, over and over again, without any variation. He might have been
fitted up with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early life, if his destiny
had been favourable; but it had not been; and he had only one, with which,
in a monotonous round, it was his occupation to bewilder the young ideas of
Doctor Blimber's young gentlemen. The young gentlemen were prematurely full
of carking anxieties. They knew no rest from the pursuit of stony-hearted
verbs, savage noun-substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts
of exercises that appeared to them in their dreams. Under the forcing
system, a young gentleman usually took leave of his spirits in three weeks.
He had all the cares of the world on his head in three months. He conceived
bitter sentiments against his parents or guardians in four; he was an old
misanthrope, in five; envied Curtius that blessed refuge in the earth, in
six; and at the end of the first twelvemonth had arrived at the conclusion,
from which he never afterwards departed, that all the fancies of the poets,
and lessons of the sages, were a mere collection of words and grammar, and
had no other meaning in the world.
But he went on blow, blow, blowing, in the Doctor's hothouse, all the
time; and the Doctor's glory and reputation were great, when he took his
wintry growth home to his relations and friends.
Upon the Doctor's door-steps one day, Paul stood with a fluttering
heart, and with his small right hand in his father's. His other hand was
locked in that of Florence. How tight the tiny pressure of that one; and how
loose and cold the other!
Mrs Pipchin hovered behind the victim, with her sable plumage and her
hooked beak, like a bird of ill-omen. She was out of breath - for Mr Dombey,
full of great thoughts, had walked fast - and she croaked hoarsely as she
waited for the opening of the door.
'Now, Paul,' said Mr Dombey, exultingly. 'This is the way indeed to be
Dombey and Son, and have money. You are almost a man already.'
'Almost,' returned the child.
Even his childish agitation could not master the sly and quaint yet
touching look, with which he accompanied the reply.
It brought a vague expression of dissatisfaction into Mr Dombey's face;
but the door being opened, it was quickly gone
'Doctor Blimber is at home, I believe?' said Mr Dombey.
The man said yes; and as they passed in, looked at Paul as if he were a
little mouse, and the house were a trap. He was a weak-eyed young man, with
the first faint streaks or early dawn of a grin on his countenance. It was
mere imbecility; but Mrs Pipchin took it into her head that it was
impudence, and made a snap at him directly.
'How dare you laugh behind the gentleman's back?' said Mrs Pipchin.
'And what do you take me for?'
'I ain't a laughing at nobody, and I'm sure I don't take you for
nothing, Ma'am,' returned the young man, in consternation.
'A pack of idle dogs!' said Mrs Pipchin, 'only fit to be turnspits. Go
and tell your master that Mr Dombey's here, or it'll be worse for you!'
The weak-eyed young man went, very meekly, to discharge himself of this
commission; and soon came back to invite them to the Doctor's study.
'You're laughing again, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, when it came to her
turn, bringing up the rear, to pass him in the hall.
'I ain't,' returned the young man, grievously oppressed. 'I never see
such a thing as this!'
'What is the matter, Mrs Pipchin?' said Mr Dombey, looking round.
'Softly! Pray!'
Mrs Pipchin, in her deference, merely muttered at the young man as she
passed on, and said, 'Oh! he was a precious fellow' - leaving the young man,
who was all meekness and incapacity, affected even to tears by the incident.
But Mrs Pipchin had a way of falling foul of all meek people; and her
friends said who could wonder at it, after the Peruvian mines!
The Doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe at each
knee, books all round him, Homer over the door, and Minerva on the
mantel-shelf. 'And how do you do, Sir?' he said to Mr Dombey, 'and how is my
little friend?' Grave as an organ was the Doctor's speech; and when he
ceased, the great clock in the hall seemed (to Paul at least) to take him
up, and to go on saying, 'how, is, my, lit, tle, friend? how, is, my, lit,
tle, friend?' over and over and over again.
The little friend being something too small to be seen at all from
where the Doctor sat, over the books on his table, the Doctor made several
futile attempts to get a view of him round the legs; which Mr Dombey
perceiving, relieved the Doctor from his embarrassment by taking Paul up in
his arms, and sitting him on another little table, over against the Doctor,
in the middle of the room.
'Ha!' said the Doctor, leaning back in his chair with his hand in his
breast. 'Now I see my little friend. How do you do, my little friend?'
The clock in the hall wouldn't subscribe to this alteration in the form
of words, but continued to repeat how, is, my, lit, tle, friend? how, is,
my, lit, tle, friend?'
'Very well, I thank you, Sir,' returned Paul, answering the clock quite
as much as the Doctor.
'Ha!' said Doctor Blimber. 'Shall we make a man of him?'
'Do you hear, Paul?' added Mr Dombey; Paul being silent.
'Shall we make a man of him?' repeated the Doctor.
'I had rather be a child,' replied Paul.
'Indeed!' said the Doctor. 'Why?'
The child sat on the table looking at him, with a curious expression of
suppressed emotion in his face, and beating one hand proudly on his knee as
if he had the rising tears beneath it, and crushed them. But his other hand
strayed a little way the while, a little farther - farther from him yet -
until it lighted on the neck of Florence. 'This is why,' it seemed to say,
and then the steady look was broken up and gone; the working lip was
loosened; and the tears came streaming forth.
'Mrs Pipchin,' said his father, in a querulous manner, 'I am really
very sorry to see this.'
'Come away from him, do, Miss Dombey,' quoth the matron.
'Never mind,' said the Doctor, blandly nodding his head, to keep Mrs
Pipchin back. 'Never mind; we shall substitute new cares and new
impressions, Mr Dombey, very shortly. You would still wish my little friend
to acquire - '
'Everything, if you please, Doctor,' returned Mr Dombey, firmly.
'Yes,' said the Doctor, who, with his half-shut eyes, and his usual
smile, seemed to survey Paul with the sort of interest that might attach to
some choice little animal he was going to stuff. 'Yes, exactly. Ha! We shall
impart a great variety of information to our little friend, and bring him
quickly forward, I daresay. I daresay. Quite a virgin soil, I believe you
said, Mr Dombey?'
'Except some ordinary preparation at home, and from this lady,' replied
Mr Dombey, introducing Mrs Pipchin, who instantly communicated a rigidity to
her whole muscular system, and snorted defiance beforehand, in case the
Doctor should disparage her; 'except so far, Paul has, as yet, applied
himself to no studies at all.'
Doctor Blimber inclined his head, in gentle tolerance of such
insignificant poaching as Mrs Pipchin's, and said he was glad to hear it. It
was much more satisfactory, he observed, rubbing his hands, to begin at the
foundation. And again he leered at Paul, as if he would have liked to tackle
him with the Greek alphabet, on the spot.
'That circumstance, indeed, Doctor Blimber,' pursued Mr Dombey,
glancing at his little son, 'and the interview I have already had the
pleasure of holding with you, renders any further explanation, and
consequently, any further intrusion on your valuable time, so unnecessary,
that - '
'Now, Miss Dombey!' said the acid Pipchin.
'Permit me,' said the Doctor, 'one moment. Allow me to present Mrs
Blimber and my daughter; who will be associated with the domestic life of
our young Pilgrim to Parnassus Mrs Blimber,' for the lady, who had perhaps
been in waiting, opportunely entered, followed by her daughter, that fair
Sexton in spectacles, 'Mr Dombey. My daughter Cornelia, Mr Dombey. Mr
Dombey, my love,' pursued the Doctor, turning to his wife, 'is so confiding
as to - do you see our little friend?'
Mrs Blimber, in an excess of politeness, of which Mr Dombey was the
object, apparently did not, for she was backing against the little friend,
and very much endangering his position on the table. But, on this hint, she
turned to admire his classical and intellectual lineaments, and turning
again to Mr Dombey, said, with a sigh, that she envied his dear son.
'Like a bee, Sir,' said Mrs Blimber, with uplifted eyes, 'about to
plunge into a garden of the choicest flowers, and sip the sweets for the
first time Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Terence, Plautus, Cicero. What a world of
honey have we here. It may appear remarkable, Mr Dombey, in one who is a
wife - the wife of such a husband - '
'Hush, hush,' said Doctor Blimber. 'Fie for shame.'
'Mr Dombey will forgive the partiality of a wife,' said Mrs Blimber,
with an engaging smile.
Mr Dombey answered 'Not at all:' applying those words, it is to be
presumed, to the partiality, and not to the forgiveness.
'And it may seem remarkable in one who is a mother also,' resumed Mrs
Blimber.
'And such a mother,' observed Mr Dombey, bowing with some confused idea
of being complimentary to Cornelia.
'But really,' pursued Mrs Blimber, 'I think if I could have known
Cicero, and been his friend, and talked with him in his retirement at
Tusculum (beau-ti-ful Tusculum!), I could have died contented.'
A learned enthusiasm is so very contagious, that Mr Dombey half
believed this was exactly his case; and even Mrs Pipchin, who was not, as we
have seen, of an accommodating disposition generally, gave utterance to a
little sound between a groan and a sigh, as if she would have said that
nobody but Cicero could have proved a lasting consolation under that failure
of the Peruvian MInes, but that he indeed would have been a very Davy-lamp
of refuge.
Cornelia looked at Mr Dombey through her spectacles, as if she would
have liked to crack a few quotations with him from the authority in
question. But this design, if she entertained it, was frustrated by a knock
at the room-door.
'Who is that?' said the Doctor. 'Oh! Come in, Toots; come in. Mr
Dombey, Sir.' Toots bowed. 'Quite a coincidence!' said Doctor Blimber. 'Here
we have the beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega Our head boy, Mr Dombey.'
The Doctor might have called him their head and shoulders boy, for he
was at least that much taller than any of the rest. He blushed very much at
finding himself among strangers, and chuckled aloud.
'An addition to our little Portico, Toots,' said the Doctor; 'Mr
Dombey's son.'
Young Toots blushed again; and finding, from a solemn silence which
prevailed, that he was expected to say something, said to Paul, 'How are
you?' in a voice so deep, and a manner so sheepish, that if a lamb had
roared it couldn't have been more surprising.
'Ask Mr Feeder, if you please, Toots,' said the Doctor, 'to prepare a
few introductory volumes for Mr Dombey's son, and to allot him a convenient
seat for study. My dear, I believe Mr Dombey has not seen the dormitories.'
'If Mr Dombey will walk upstairs,' said Mrs Blimber, 'I shall be more
than proud to show him the dominions of the drowsy god.'
With that, Mrs Blimber, who was a lady of great suavity, and a wiry
figure, and who wore a cap composed of sky-blue materials, pied upstairs
with Mr Dombey and Cornelia; Mrs Pipchin following, and looking out sharp
for her enemy the footman.
While they were gone, Paul sat upon the table, holding Florence by the
hand, and glancing timidly from the Doctor round and round the room, while
the Doctor, leaning back in his chair, with his hand in his breast as usual,
held a book from him at arm's length, and read. There was something very
awful in this manner of reading. It was such a determined, unimpassioned,
inflexible, cold-blooded way of going to work. It left the Doctor's
countenance exposed to view; and when the Doctor smiled suspiciously at his
author, or knit his brows, or shook his head and made wry faces at him, as
much as to say, 'Don't tell me, Sir; I know better,' it was terrific.
Toots, too, had no business to be outside the door, ostentatiously
examining the wheels in his watch, and counting his half-crowns. But that
didn't last long; for Doctor Blimber, happening to change the position of
his tight plump legs, as if he were going to get up, Toots swiftly vanished,
and appeared no more.
Mr Dombey and his conductress were soon heard coming downstairs again,
talking all the way; and presently they re-entered the Doctor's study.
'I hope, Mr Dombey,' said the Doctor, laying down his book, 'that the
arrangements meet your approval.'
'They are excellent, Sir,' said Mr Dombey.
'Very fair, indeed,' said Mrs Pipchin, in a low voice; never disposed
to give too much encouragement.
'Mrs Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, wheeling round, 'will, with your
permission, Doctor and Mrs Blimber, visit Paul now and then.'
'Whenever Mrs Pipchin pleases,' observed the Doctor.
'Always happy to see her,' said Mrs Blimber.
'I think,' said Mr Dombey, 'I have given all the trouble I need, and
may take my leave. Paul, my child,' he went close to him, as he sat upon the
table. 'Good-bye.'
'Good-bye, Papa.'
The limp and careless little hand that Mr Dombey took in his, was
singularly out of keeping with the wistful face. But he had no part in its
sorrowful expression. It was not addressed to him. No, no. To Florence - all
to Florence.
If Mr Dombey in his insolence of wealth, had ever made an enemy, hard
to appease and cruelly vindictive in his hate, even such an enemy might have
received the pang that wrung his proud heart then, as compensation for his
injury.
He bent down, over his boy, and kissed him. If his sight were dimmed as
he did so, by something that for a moment blurred the little face, and made
it indistinct to him, his mental vision may have been, for that short time,
the clearer perhaps.
'I shall see you soon, Paul. You are free on Saturdays and Sundays, you
know.'
'Yes, Papa,' returned Paul: looking at his sister. 'On Saturdays and
Sundays.'
'And you'll try and learn a great deal here, and be a clever man,' said
Mr Dombey; 'won't you?'
'I'll try,' returned the child, wearily.
'And you'll soon be grown up now!' said Mr Dombey.
'Oh! very soon!' replied the child. Once more the old, old look passed
rapidly across his features like a strange light. It fell on Mrs Pipchin,
and extinguished itself in her black dress. That excellent ogress stepped
forward to take leave and to bear off Florence, which she had long been
thirsting to do. The move on her part roused Mr Dombey, whose eyes were
fixed on Paul. After patting him on the head, and pressing his small hand
again, he took leave of Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber, with
his usual polite frigidity, and walked out of the study.
Despite his entreaty that they would not think of stirring, Doctor
Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber all pressed forward to attend him to
the hall; and thus Mrs Pipchin got into a state of entanglement with Miss
Blimber and the Doctor, and was crowded out of the study before she could
clutch Florence. To which happy accident Paul stood afterwards indebted for
the dear remembrance, that Florence ran back to throw her arms round his
neck, and that hers was the last face in the doorway: turned towards him
with a smile of encouragement, the brighter for the tears through which it
beamed.
It made his childish bosom heave and swell when it was gone; and sent
the globes, the books, blind Homer and Minerva, swimming round the room. But
they stopped, all of a sudden; and then he heard the loud clock in the hall
still gravely inquiring 'how, is, my, lit, tle, friend? how, is, my, lit,
tle, friend?' as it had done before.
He sat, with folded hands, upon his pedestal, silently listening. But
he might have answered 'weary, weary! very lonely, very sad!' And there,
with an aching void in his young heart, and all outside so cold, and bare,
and strange, Paul sat as if he had taken life unfurnished, and the
upholsterer were never coming.
Paul's Education
After the lapse of some minutes, which appeared an immense time to
little Paul Dombey on the table, Doctor Blimber came back. The Doctor's walk
was stately, and calculated to impress the juvenile mind with solemn
feelings. It was a sort of march; but when the Doctor put out his right
foot, he gravely turned upon his axis, with a semi-circular sweep towards
the left; and when he put out his left foot, he turned in the same manner
towards the right. So that he seemed, at every stride he took, to look about
him as though he were saying, 'Can anybody have the goodness to indicate any
subject, in any direction, on which I am uninformed? I rather think not'
Mrs Blimber and Miss Blimber came back in the Doctor's company; and the
Doctor, lifting his new pupil off the table, delivered him over to Miss
Blimber.
'Cornelia,' said the Doctor, 'Dombey will be your charge at first.
Bring him on, Cornelia, bring him on.'
Miss Blimber received her young ward from the Doctor's hands; and Paul,
feeling that the spectacles were surveying him, cast down his eyes.
'How old are you, Dombey?' said Miss Blimber.
'Six,' answered Paul, wondering, as he stole a glance at the young
lady, why her hair didn't grow long like Florence's, and why she was like a
boy.
'How much do you know of your Latin Grammar, Dombey?' said Miss
Blimber.
'None of it,' answered Paul. Feeling that the answer was a shock to
Miss Blimber's sensibility, he looked up at the three faces that were
looking down at him, and said:
'I have'n't been well. I have been a weak child. I couldn't learn a
Latin Grammar when I was out, every day, with old Glubb. I wish you'd tell
old Glubb to come and see me, if you please.'
'What a dreadfully low name' said Mrs Blimber. 'Unclassical to a
degree! Who is the monster, child?'
'What monster?' inquired Paul.
'Glubb,' said Mrs Blimber, with a great disrelish.
'He's no more a monster than you are,' returned Paul.
'What!' cried the Doctor, in a terrible voice. 'Ay, ay, ay? Aha! What's
that?'
Paul was dreadfully frightened; but still he made a stand for the
absent Glubb, though he did it trembling.
'He's a very nice old man, Ma'am,' he said. 'He used to draw my couch.
He knows all about the deep sea, and the fish that are in it, and the great
monsters that come and lie on rocks in the sun, and dive into the water
again when they're startled, blowing and splashing so, that they can be
heard for miles. There are some creatures, said Paul, warming with his
subject, 'I don't know how many yards long, and I forget their names, but
Florence knows, that pretend to be in distress; and when a man goes near
them, out of compassion, they open their great jaws, and attack him. But all
he has got to do,' said Paul, boldly tendering this information to the very
Doctor himself, 'is to keep on turning as he runs away, and then, as they
turn slowly, because they are so long, and can't bend, he's sure to beat
them. And though old Glubb don't know why the sea should make me think of my
Mama that's dead, or what it is that it is always saying - always saying! he
knows a great deal about it. And I wish,' the child concluded, with a sudden
falling of his countenance, and failing in his animation, as he looked like
one forlorn, upon the three strange faces, 'that you'd let old Glubb come
here to see me, for I know him very well, and he knows me.
'Ha!' said the Doctor, shaking his head; 'this is bad, but study will
do much.'
Mrs Blimber opined, with something like a shiver, that he was an
unaccountable child; and, allowing for the difference of visage, looked at
him pretty much as Mrs Pipchin had been used to do.
'Take him round the house, Cornelia,' said the Doctor, 'and familiarise
him with his new sphere. Go with that young lady, Dombey.'
Dombey obeyed; giving his hand to the abstruse Cornelia, and looking at
her sideways, with timid curiosity, as they went away together. For her
spectacles, by reason of the glistening of the glasses, made her so
mysterious, that he didn't know where she was looking, and was not indeed
quite sure that she had any eyes at all behind them.
Cornelia took him first to the schoolroom, which was situated at the
back of the hall, and was approached through two baize doors, which deadened
and muffled the young gentlemen's voices. Here, there were eight young
gentlemen in various stages of mental prostration, all very hard at work,
and very grave indeed. Toots, as an old hand, had a desk to himself in one
corner: and a magnificent man, of immense age, he looked, in Paul's young
eyes, behind it.
Mr Feeder, B.A., who sat at another little desk, had his Virgil stop
on, and was slowly grinding that tune to four young gentlemen. Of the
remaining four, two, who grasped their foreheads convulsively, were engaged
in solving mathematical problems; one with his face like a dirty window,
from much crying, was endeavouring to flounder through a hopeless number of
lines before dinner; and one sat looking at his task in stony stupefaction
and despair - which it seemed had been his condition ever since breakfast
time.
The appearance of a new boy did not create the sensation that might
have been expected. Mr Feeder, B.A. (who was in the habit of shaving his
head for coolness, and had nothing but little bristles on it), gave him a
bony hand, and told him he was glad to see him - which Paul would have been
very glad to have told him, if he could have done so with the least
sincerity. Then Paul, instructed by Cornelia, shook hands with the four
young gentlemen at Mr Feeder's desk; then with the two young gentlemen at
work on the problems, who were very feverish; then with the young gentleman
at work against time, who was very inky; and lastly with the young gentleman
in a state of stupefaction, who was flabby and quite cold.
Paul having been already introduced to Toots, that pupil merely
chuckled and breathed hard, as his custom was, and pursued the occupation in
which he was engaged. It was not a severe one; for on account of his having
'gone through' so much (in more senses than one), and also of his having, as
before hinted, left off blowing in his prime, Toots now had licence to
pursue his own course of study: which was chiefly to write long letters to
himself from persons of distinction, adds 'P. Toots, Esquire, Brighton,
Sussex,' and to preserve them in his desk with great care.
These ceremonies passed, Cornelia led Paul upstairs to the top of the
house; which was rather a slow journey, on account of Paul being obliged to
land both feet on every stair, before he mounted another. But they reached
their journey's end at last; and there, in a front room, looking over the
wild sea, Cornelia showed him a nice little bed with white hangings, close
to the window, on which there was already beautifully written on a card in
round text - down strokes very thick, and up strokes very fine - DOMBEY;
while two other little bedsteads in the same room were announced, through
like means, as respectively appertaining unto BRIGGS and TOZER.
Just as they got downstairs again into the hall, Paul saw the weak-eyed
young man who had given that mortal offence to Mrs Pipchin, suddenly seize a
very large drumstick, and fly at a gong that was hanging up, as if he had
gone mad, or wanted vengeance. Instead of receiving warning, however, or
being instantly taken into custody, the young man left off unchecked, after
having made a dreadful noise. Then Cornelia Blimber said to Dombey that
dinner would be ready in a quarter of an hour, and perhaps he had better go
into the schoolroom among his 'friends.'
So Dombey, deferentially passing the great clock which was still as
anxious as ever to know how he found himself, opened the schoolroom door a
very little way, and strayed in like a lost boy: shutting it after him with
some difficulty. His friends were all dispersed about the room except the
stony friend, who remained immoveable. Mr Feeder was stretching himself in
his grey gown, as if, regardless of expense, he were resolved to pull the
sleeves off.
'Heigh ho hum!' cried Mr Feeder, shaking himself like a cart-horse. 'Oh
dear me, dear me! Ya-a-a-ah!'
Paul was quite alarmed by Mr Feeder's yawning; it was done on such a
great scale, and he was so terribly in earnest. All the boys too (Toots
excepted) seemed knocked up, and were getting ready for dinner - some newly
tying their neckcloths, which were very stiff indeed; and others washing
their hands or brushing their hair, in an adjoining ante-chamber - as if
they didn't think they should enjoy it at all.
Young Toots who was ready beforehand, and had therefore nothing to do,
and had leisure to bestow upon Paul, said, with heavy good nature:
'Sit down, Dombey.'
'Thank you, Sir,' said Paul.
His endeavouring to hoist himself on to a very high window-seat, and
his slipping down again, appeared to prepare Toots's mind for the reception
of a discovery.
'You're a very small chap;' said Mr Toots.
'Yes, Sir, I'm small,' returned Paul. 'Thank you, Sir.'
For Toots had lifted him into the seat, and done it kindly too.
'Who's your tailor?' inquired Toots, after looking at him for some
moments.
'It's a woman that has made my clothes as yet,' said Paul. 'My sister's
dressmaker.'
'My tailor's Burgess and Co.,' said Toots. 'Fash'nable. But very dear.'
Paul had wit enough to shake his head, as if he would have said it was
easy to see that; and indeed he thought so.
'Your father's regularly rich, ain't he?' inquired Mr Toots.
'Yes, Sir,' said Paul. 'He's Dombey and Son.'
'And which?' demanded Toots.
'And Son, Sir,' replied Paul.
Mr Toots made one or two attempts, in a low voice, to fix the Firm in
his mind; but not quite succeeding, said he would get Paul to mention the
name again to-morrow morning, as it was rather important. And indeed he
purposed nothing less than writing himself a private and confidential letter
from Dombey and Son immediately.
By this time the other pupils (always excepting the stony boy) gathered
round. They were polite, but pale; and spoke low; and they were so depressed
in their spirits, that in comparison with the general tone of that company,
Master Bitherstone was a perfect Miller, or complete Jest Book.' And yet he
had a sense of injury upon him, too, had Bitherstone.
'You sleep in my room, don't you?' asked a solemn young gentleman,
whose shirt-collar curled up the lobes of his ears.
'Master Briggs?' inquired Paul.
'Tozer,' said the young gentleman.
Paul answered yes; and Tozer pointing out the stony pupil, said that
was Briggs. Paul had already felt certain that it must be either Briggs or
Tozer, though he didn't know why.
'Is yours a strong constitution?' inquired Tozer.
Paul said he thought not. Tozer replied that he thought not also,
judging from Paul's looks, and that it was a pity, for it need be. He then
asked Paul if he were going to begin with Cornelia; and on Paul saying
'yes,' all the young gentlemen (Briggs excepted) gave a low groan.
It was drowned in the tintinnabulation of the gong, which sounding
again with great fury, there was a general move towards the dining-room;
still excepting Briggs the stony boy, who remained where he was, and as he
was; and on its way to whom Paul presently encountered a round of bread,
genteelly served on a plate and napkin, and with a silver fork lying
crosswise on the top of it.
Doctor Blimber was already in his place in the dining-room, at the top
of the table, with Miss Blimber and Mrs Blimber on either side of him. Mr
Feeder in a black coat was at the bottom. Paul's chair was next to Miss
Blimber; but it being found, when he sat in it, that his eyebrows were not
much above the level of the table-cloth, some books were brought in from the
Doctor's study, on which he was elevated, and on which he always sat from
that time - carrying them in and out himself on after occasions, like a
little elephant and castle.'
Grace having been said by the Doctor, dinner began. There was some nice
soup; also roast meat, boiled meat, vegetables, pie, and cheese. Every young
gentleman had a massive silver fork, and a napkin; and all the arrangements
were stately and handsome. In particular, there was a butler in a blue coat
and bright buttons, who gave quite a winey flavour to the table beer; he
poured it out so superbly.
Nobody spoke, unless spoken to, except Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and
Miss Blimber, who conversed occasionally. Whenever a young gentleman was not
actually engaged with his knife and fork or spoon, his eye, with an
irresistible attraction, sought the eye of Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, or
Miss Blimber, and modestly rested there. Toots appeared to be the only
exception to this rule. He sat next Mr Feeder on Paul's side of the table,
and frequently looked behind and before the intervening boys to catch a
glimpse of Paul.
Only once during dinner was there any conversation that included the
young gentlemen. It happened at the epoch of the cheese, when the Doctor,
having taken a glass of port wine, and hemmed twice or thrice, said:
'It is remarkable, Mr Feeder, that the Romans - '
At the mention of this terrible people, their implacable enemies, every
young gentleman fastened his gaze upon the Doctor, with an assumption of the
deepest interest. One of the number who happened to be drinking, and who
caught the Doctor's eye glaring at him through the side of his tumbler, left
off so hastily that he was convulsed for some moments, and in the sequel
ruined Doctor Blimber's point.
'It is remarkable, Mr Feeder,' said the Doctor, beginning again slowly,
'that the Romans, in those gorgeous and profuse entertainments of which we
read in the days of the Emperors, when luxury had attained a height unknown
before or since, and when whole provinces were ravaged to supply the
splendid means of one Imperial Banquet - '
Here the offender, who had been swelling and straining, and waiting in
vain for a full stop, broke out violently.
'Johnson,' said Mr Feeder, in a low reproachful voice, 'take some
water.'
The Doctor, looking very stern, made a pause until the water was
brought, and then resumed:
'And when, Mr Feeder - '
But Mr Feeder, who saw that Johnson must break out again, and who knew
that the Doctor would never come to a period before the young gentlemen
until he had finished all he meant to say, couldn't keep his eye off
Johnson; and thus was caught in the fact of not looking at the Doctor, who
consequently stopped.
'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Mr Feeder, reddening. 'I beg your
pardon, Doctor Blimber.'
'And when,' said the Doctor, raising his voice, 'when, Sir, as we read,
and have no reason to doubt - incredible as it may appear to the vulgar - of
our time - the brother of Vitellius prepared for him a feast, in which were
served, of fish, two thousand dishes - '
'Take some water, Johnson - dishes, Sir,' said Mr Feeder.
'Of various sorts of fowl, five thousand dishes.'
'Or try a crust of bread,' said Mr Feeder.
'And one dish,' pursued Doctor Blimber, raising his voice still higher
as he looked all round the table, 'called, from its enormous dimensions, the
Shield of Minerva, and made, among other costly ingredients, of the brains
of pheasants - '
'Ow, ow, ow!' (from Johnson.)
'Woodcocks - '
'Ow, ow, ow!'
'The sounds of the fish called scari - '
'You'll burst some vessel in your head,' said Mr Feeder. 'You had
better let it come.'
'And the spawn of the lamprey, brought from the Carpathian Sea,'
pursued the Doctor, in his severest voice; 'when we read of costly
entertainments such as these, and still remember, that we have a Titus - '
'What would be your mother's feelings if you died of apoplexy!' said Mr
Feeder.
'A Domitian - '
'And you're blue, you know,' said Mr Feeder.
'A Nero, a Tiberius, a Caligula, a Heliogabalus, and many more, pursued
the Doctor; 'it is, Mr Feeder - if you are doing me the honour to attend -
remarkable; VERY remarkable, Sir - '
But Johnson, unable to suppress it any longer, burst at that moment
into such an overwhelming fit of coughing, that although both his immediate
neighbours thumped him on the back, and Mr Feeder himself held a glass of
water to his lips, and the butler walked him up and down several times
between his own chair and the sideboard, like a sentry, it was a full five
minutes before he was moderately composed. Then there was a profound
silence.
'Gentlemen,' said Doctor Blimber, 'rise for Grace! Cornelia, lift
Dombey down' - nothing of whom but his scalp was accordingly seen above the
tablecloth. 'Johnson will repeat to me tomorrow morning before breakfast,
without book, and from the Greek Testament, the first chapter of the Epistle
of Saint Paul to the Ephesians. We will resume our studies, Mr Feeder, in
half-an-hour.'
The young gentlemen bowed and withdrew. Mr Feeder did likewise. During
the half-hour, the young gentlemen, broken into pairs, loitered arm-in-arm
up and down a small piece of ground behind the house, or endeavoured to
kindle a spark of animation in the breast of Briggs. But nothing happened so
vulgar as play. Punctually at the appointed time, the gong was sounded, and
the studies, under the joint auspices of Doctor Blimber and Mr Feeder, were
resumed.
As the Olympic game of lounging up and down had been cut shorter than
usual that day, on Johnson's account, they all went out for a walk before
tea. Even Briggs (though he hadn't begun yet) partook of this dissipation;
in the enjoyment of which he looked over the cliff two or three times
darkly. Doctor Blimber accompanied them; and Paul had the honour of being
taken in tow by the Doctor himself: a distinguished state of things, in
which he looked very little and feeble.
Tea was served in a style no less polite than the dinner; and after
tea, the young gentlemen rising and bowing as before, withdrew to fetch up
the unfinished tasks of that day, or to get up the already looming tasks of
to-morrow. In the meantime Mr Feeder withdrew to his own room; and Paul sat
in a corner wondering whether Florence was thinking of him, and what they
were all about at Mrs Pipchin's.
Mr Toots, who had been detained by an important letter from the Duke of
Wellington, found Paul out after a time; and having looked at him for a long
while, as before, inquired if he was fond of waistcoats.
Paul said 'Yes, Sir.'
'So am I,' said Toots.
No word more spoke Toots that night; but he stood looking at Paul as if
he liked him; and as there was company in that, and Paul was not inclined to
talk, it answered his purpose better than conversation.
At eight o'clock or so, the gong sounded again for prayers in the
dining-room, where the butler afterwards presided over a side-table, on
which bread and cheese and beer were spread for such young gentlemen as
desired to partake of those refreshments. The ceremonies concluded by the
Doctor's saying, 'Gentlemen, we will resume our studies at seven to-morrow;'
and then, for the first time, Paul saw Cornelia Blimber's eye, and saw that
it was upon him. When the Doctor had said these words, 'Gentlemen, we will
resume our studies at seven tomorrow,' the pupils bowed again, and went to
bed.
In the confidence of their own room upstairs, Briggs said his head
ached ready to split, and that he should wish himself dead if it wasn't for
his mother, and a blackbird he had at home Tozer didn't say much, but he
sighed a good deal, and told Paul to look out, for his turn would come
to-morrow. After uttering those prophetic words, he undressed himself
moodily, and got into bed. Briggs was in his bed too, and Paul in his bed
too, before the weak-eyed young man appeared to take away the candle, when
he wished them good-night and pleasant dreams. But his benevolent wishes
were in vain, as far as Briggs and Tozer were concerned; for Paul, who lay
awake for a long while, and often woke afterwards, found that Briggs was
ridden by his lesson as a nightmare: and that Tozer, whose mind was affected
in his sleep by similar causes, in a minor degree talked unknown tongues, or
scraps of Greek and Latin - it was all one to Paul- which, in the silence of
night, had an inexpressibly wicked and guilty effect.
Paul had sunk into a sweet sleep, and dreamed that he was walking hand
in hand with Florence through beautiful gardens, when they came to a large
sunflower which suddenly expanded itself into a gong, and began to sound.
Opening his eyes, he found that it was a dark, windy morning, with a
drizzling rain: and that the real gong was giving dreadful note of
preparation, down in the hall.
So he got up directly, and found Briggs with hardly any eyes, for
nightmare and grief had made his face puffy, putting his boots on: while
Tozer stood shivering and rubbing his shoulders in a very bad humour. Poor
Paul couldn't dress himself easily, not being used to it, and asked them if
they would have the goodness to tie some strings for him; but as Briggs
merely said 'Bother!' and Tozer, 'Oh yes!' he went down when he was
otherwise ready, to the next storey, where he saw a pretty young woman in
leather gloves, cleaning a stove. The young woman seemed surprised at his
appearance, and asked him where his mother was. When Paul told her she was
dead, she took her gloves off, and did what he wanted; and furthermore
rubbed his hands to warm them; and gave him a kiss; and told him whenever he
wanted anything of that sort - meaning in the dressing way - to ask for
'Melia; which Paul, thanking her very much, said he certainly would. He then
proceeded softly on his journey downstairs, towards the room in which the
young gentlemen resumed their studies, when, passing by a door that stood
ajar, a voice from within cried, 'Is that Dombey?' On Paul replying, 'Yes,
Ma'am:' for he knew the voice to be Miss Blimber's: Miss Blimber said, 'Come
in, Dombey.' And in he went. Miss Blimber presented exactly the appearance
she had presented yesterday, except that she wore a shawl. Her little light
curls were as crisp as ever, and she had already her spectacles on, which
made Paul wonder whether she went to bed in them. She had a cool little
sitting-room of her own up there, with some books in it, and no fire But
Mr Dombey finished the interview by expressing his hope that Mrs
Pipchin would still remain in office as general superintendent and overseer
of his son, pending his studies at Brighton; and having kissed Paul, and
shaken hands with Florence, and beheld Master Bitherstone in his collar of
state, and made Miss Pankey cry by patting her on the head (in which region
she was uncommonly tender, on account of a habit Mrs Pipchin had of sounding
it with her knuckles, like a cask), he withdrew to his hotel and dinner:
resolved that Paul, now that he was getting so old and well, should begin a
vigorous course of education forthwith, to qualify him for the position in
which he was to shine; and that Doctor Blimber should take him in hand
immediately.
Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Doctor Blimber, he
might consider himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The Doctor only
undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had, always ready, a
supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; and it was at once
the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten with it.
In fact, Doctor Blimber's establishment was a great hot-house, in which
there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew before
their time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual
asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too)
were common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under
Doctor Blimber's cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable
was got off the driest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances.
Nature was of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was
intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other.
This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing was
attended with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right taste about
the premature productions, and they didn't keep well. Moreover, one young
gentleman, with a swollen nose and an excessively large head (the oldest of
the ten who had 'gone through' everything), suddenly left off blowing one
day, and remained in the establishment a mere stalk. And people did say that
the Doctor had rather overdone it with young Toots, and that when he began
to have whiskers he left off having brains.
There young Toots was, at any rate; possessed of the gruffest of voices
and the shrillest of minds; sticking ornamental pins into his shirt, and
keeping a ring in his waistcoat pocket to put on his little finger by
stealth, when the pupils went out walking; constantly falling in love by
sight with nurserymaids, who had no idea of his existence; and looking at
the gas-lighted world over the little iron bars in the left-hand corner
window of the front three pairs of stairs, after bed-time, like a greatly
overgrown cherub who had sat up aloft much too long.
The Doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit of black, with strings at
his knees, and stockings below them. He had a bald head, highly polished; a
deep voice; and a chin so very double, that it was a wonder how he ever
managed to shave into the creases. He had likewise a pair of little eyes
that were always half shut up, and a mouth that was always half expanded
into a grin, as if he had, that moment, posed a boy, and were waiting to
convict him from his own lips. Insomuch, that when the Doctor put his right
hand into the breast of his coat, and with his other hand behind him, and a
fly perceptible wag of his head, made the commonest observation to a nervous
stranger, it was like a sentiment from the sphynx, and settled his business.
The Doctor's was a mighty fine house, fronting the sea. Not a joyful
style of house within, but quite the contrary. Sad-coloured curtains, whose
proportions were spare and lean, hid themselves despondently behind the
windows. The tables and chairs were put away in rows, like figures in a sum;
fires were so rarely lighted in the rooms of ceremony, that they felt like
wells, and a visitor represented the bucket; the dining-room seemed the last
place in the world where any eating or drinking was likely to occur; there
was no sound through all the house but the ticking of a great clock in the
hall, which made itself audible in the very garrets; and sometimes a dull
cooing of young gentlemen at their lessons, like the murmurings of an
assemblage of melancholy pigeons.
Miss Blimber, too, although a slim and graceful maid, did no soft
violence to the gravity of the house. There was no light nonsense about Miss
Blimber. She kept her hair short and crisp, and wore spectacles. She was dry
and sandy with working in the graves of deceased languages. None of your
live languages for Miss Blimber. They must be dead - stone dead - and then
Miss Blimber dug them up like a Ghoul.
Mrs Blimber, her Mama, was not learned herself, but she pretended to
be, and that did quite as well. She said at evening parties, that if she
could have known Cicero, she thought she could have died contented. It was
the steady joy of her life to see the Doctor's young gentlemen go out
walking, unlike all other young gentlemen, in the largest possible
shirt-collars, and the stiffest possible cravats. It was so classical, she
said.
As to Mr Feeder, B.A., Doctor Blimber's assistant, he was a kind of
human barrel-organ, with a little list of tunes at which he was continually
working, over and over again, without any variation. He might have been
fitted up with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early life, if his destiny
had been favourable; but it had not been; and he had only one, with which,
in a monotonous round, it was his occupation to bewilder the young ideas of
Doctor Blimber's young gentlemen. The young gentlemen were prematurely full
of carking anxieties. They knew no rest from the pursuit of stony-hearted
verbs, savage noun-substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts
of exercises that appeared to them in their dreams. Under the forcing
system, a young gentleman usually took leave of his spirits in three weeks.
He had all the cares of the world on his head in three months. He conceived
bitter sentiments against his parents or guardians in four; he was an old
misanthrope, in five; envied Curtius that blessed refuge in the earth, in
six; and at the end of the first twelvemonth had arrived at the conclusion,
from which he never afterwards departed, that all the fancies of the poets,
and lessons of the sages, were a mere collection of words and grammar, and
had no other meaning in the world.
But he went on blow, blow, blowing, in the Doctor's hothouse, all the
time; and the Doctor's glory and reputation were great, when he took his
wintry growth home to his relations and friends.
Upon the Doctor's door-steps one day, Paul stood with a fluttering
heart, and with his small right hand in his father's. His other hand was
locked in that of Florence. How tight the tiny pressure of that one; and how
loose and cold the other!
Mrs Pipchin hovered behind the victim, with her sable plumage and her
hooked beak, like a bird of ill-omen. She was out of breath - for Mr Dombey,
full of great thoughts, had walked fast - and she croaked hoarsely as she
waited for the opening of the door.
'Now, Paul,' said Mr Dombey, exultingly. 'This is the way indeed to be
Dombey and Son, and have money. You are almost a man already.'
'Almost,' returned the child.
Even his childish agitation could not master the sly and quaint yet
touching look, with which he accompanied the reply.
It brought a vague expression of dissatisfaction into Mr Dombey's face;
but the door being opened, it was quickly gone
'Doctor Blimber is at home, I believe?' said Mr Dombey.
The man said yes; and as they passed in, looked at Paul as if he were a
little mouse, and the house were a trap. He was a weak-eyed young man, with
the first faint streaks or early dawn of a grin on his countenance. It was
mere imbecility; but Mrs Pipchin took it into her head that it was
impudence, and made a snap at him directly.
'How dare you laugh behind the gentleman's back?' said Mrs Pipchin.
'And what do you take me for?'
'I ain't a laughing at nobody, and I'm sure I don't take you for
nothing, Ma'am,' returned the young man, in consternation.
'A pack of idle dogs!' said Mrs Pipchin, 'only fit to be turnspits. Go
and tell your master that Mr Dombey's here, or it'll be worse for you!'
The weak-eyed young man went, very meekly, to discharge himself of this
commission; and soon came back to invite them to the Doctor's study.
'You're laughing again, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, when it came to her
turn, bringing up the rear, to pass him in the hall.
'I ain't,' returned the young man, grievously oppressed. 'I never see
such a thing as this!'
'What is the matter, Mrs Pipchin?' said Mr Dombey, looking round.
'Softly! Pray!'
Mrs Pipchin, in her deference, merely muttered at the young man as she
passed on, and said, 'Oh! he was a precious fellow' - leaving the young man,
who was all meekness and incapacity, affected even to tears by the incident.
But Mrs Pipchin had a way of falling foul of all meek people; and her
friends said who could wonder at it, after the Peruvian mines!
The Doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe at each
knee, books all round him, Homer over the door, and Minerva on the
mantel-shelf. 'And how do you do, Sir?' he said to Mr Dombey, 'and how is my
little friend?' Grave as an organ was the Doctor's speech; and when he
ceased, the great clock in the hall seemed (to Paul at least) to take him
up, and to go on saying, 'how, is, my, lit, tle, friend? how, is, my, lit,
tle, friend?' over and over and over again.
The little friend being something too small to be seen at all from
where the Doctor sat, over the books on his table, the Doctor made several
futile attempts to get a view of him round the legs; which Mr Dombey
perceiving, relieved the Doctor from his embarrassment by taking Paul up in
his arms, and sitting him on another little table, over against the Doctor,
in the middle of the room.
'Ha!' said the Doctor, leaning back in his chair with his hand in his
breast. 'Now I see my little friend. How do you do, my little friend?'
The clock in the hall wouldn't subscribe to this alteration in the form
of words, but continued to repeat how, is, my, lit, tle, friend? how, is,
my, lit, tle, friend?'
'Very well, I thank you, Sir,' returned Paul, answering the clock quite
as much as the Doctor.
'Ha!' said Doctor Blimber. 'Shall we make a man of him?'
'Do you hear, Paul?' added Mr Dombey; Paul being silent.
'Shall we make a man of him?' repeated the Doctor.
'I had rather be a child,' replied Paul.
'Indeed!' said the Doctor. 'Why?'
The child sat on the table looking at him, with a curious expression of
suppressed emotion in his face, and beating one hand proudly on his knee as
if he had the rising tears beneath it, and crushed them. But his other hand
strayed a little way the while, a little farther - farther from him yet -
until it lighted on the neck of Florence. 'This is why,' it seemed to say,
and then the steady look was broken up and gone; the working lip was
loosened; and the tears came streaming forth.
'Mrs Pipchin,' said his father, in a querulous manner, 'I am really
very sorry to see this.'
'Come away from him, do, Miss Dombey,' quoth the matron.
'Never mind,' said the Doctor, blandly nodding his head, to keep Mrs
Pipchin back. 'Never mind; we shall substitute new cares and new
impressions, Mr Dombey, very shortly. You would still wish my little friend
to acquire - '
'Everything, if you please, Doctor,' returned Mr Dombey, firmly.
'Yes,' said the Doctor, who, with his half-shut eyes, and his usual
smile, seemed to survey Paul with the sort of interest that might attach to
some choice little animal he was going to stuff. 'Yes, exactly. Ha! We shall
impart a great variety of information to our little friend, and bring him
quickly forward, I daresay. I daresay. Quite a virgin soil, I believe you
said, Mr Dombey?'
'Except some ordinary preparation at home, and from this lady,' replied
Mr Dombey, introducing Mrs Pipchin, who instantly communicated a rigidity to
her whole muscular system, and snorted defiance beforehand, in case the
Doctor should disparage her; 'except so far, Paul has, as yet, applied
himself to no studies at all.'
Doctor Blimber inclined his head, in gentle tolerance of such
insignificant poaching as Mrs Pipchin's, and said he was glad to hear it. It
was much more satisfactory, he observed, rubbing his hands, to begin at the
foundation. And again he leered at Paul, as if he would have liked to tackle
him with the Greek alphabet, on the spot.
'That circumstance, indeed, Doctor Blimber,' pursued Mr Dombey,
glancing at his little son, 'and the interview I have already had the
pleasure of holding with you, renders any further explanation, and
consequently, any further intrusion on your valuable time, so unnecessary,
that - '
'Now, Miss Dombey!' said the acid Pipchin.
'Permit me,' said the Doctor, 'one moment. Allow me to present Mrs
Blimber and my daughter; who will be associated with the domestic life of
our young Pilgrim to Parnassus Mrs Blimber,' for the lady, who had perhaps
been in waiting, opportunely entered, followed by her daughter, that fair
Sexton in spectacles, 'Mr Dombey. My daughter Cornelia, Mr Dombey. Mr
Dombey, my love,' pursued the Doctor, turning to his wife, 'is so confiding
as to - do you see our little friend?'
Mrs Blimber, in an excess of politeness, of which Mr Dombey was the
object, apparently did not, for she was backing against the little friend,
and very much endangering his position on the table. But, on this hint, she
turned to admire his classical and intellectual lineaments, and turning
again to Mr Dombey, said, with a sigh, that she envied his dear son.
'Like a bee, Sir,' said Mrs Blimber, with uplifted eyes, 'about to
plunge into a garden of the choicest flowers, and sip the sweets for the
first time Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Terence, Plautus, Cicero. What a world of
honey have we here. It may appear remarkable, Mr Dombey, in one who is a
wife - the wife of such a husband - '
'Hush, hush,' said Doctor Blimber. 'Fie for shame.'
'Mr Dombey will forgive the partiality of a wife,' said Mrs Blimber,
with an engaging smile.
Mr Dombey answered 'Not at all:' applying those words, it is to be
presumed, to the partiality, and not to the forgiveness.
'And it may seem remarkable in one who is a mother also,' resumed Mrs
Blimber.
'And such a mother,' observed Mr Dombey, bowing with some confused idea
of being complimentary to Cornelia.
'But really,' pursued Mrs Blimber, 'I think if I could have known
Cicero, and been his friend, and talked with him in his retirement at
Tusculum (beau-ti-ful Tusculum!), I could have died contented.'
A learned enthusiasm is so very contagious, that Mr Dombey half
believed this was exactly his case; and even Mrs Pipchin, who was not, as we
have seen, of an accommodating disposition generally, gave utterance to a
little sound between a groan and a sigh, as if she would have said that
nobody but Cicero could have proved a lasting consolation under that failure
of the Peruvian MInes, but that he indeed would have been a very Davy-lamp
of refuge.
Cornelia looked at Mr Dombey through her spectacles, as if she would
have liked to crack a few quotations with him from the authority in
question. But this design, if she entertained it, was frustrated by a knock
at the room-door.
'Who is that?' said the Doctor. 'Oh! Come in, Toots; come in. Mr
Dombey, Sir.' Toots bowed. 'Quite a coincidence!' said Doctor Blimber. 'Here
we have the beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega Our head boy, Mr Dombey.'
The Doctor might have called him their head and shoulders boy, for he
was at least that much taller than any of the rest. He blushed very much at
finding himself among strangers, and chuckled aloud.
'An addition to our little Portico, Toots,' said the Doctor; 'Mr
Dombey's son.'
Young Toots blushed again; and finding, from a solemn silence which
prevailed, that he was expected to say something, said to Paul, 'How are
you?' in a voice so deep, and a manner so sheepish, that if a lamb had
roared it couldn't have been more surprising.
'Ask Mr Feeder, if you please, Toots,' said the Doctor, 'to prepare a
few introductory volumes for Mr Dombey's son, and to allot him a convenient
seat for study. My dear, I believe Mr Dombey has not seen the dormitories.'
'If Mr Dombey will walk upstairs,' said Mrs Blimber, 'I shall be more
than proud to show him the dominions of the drowsy god.'
With that, Mrs Blimber, who was a lady of great suavity, and a wiry
figure, and who wore a cap composed of sky-blue materials, pied upstairs
with Mr Dombey and Cornelia; Mrs Pipchin following, and looking out sharp
for her enemy the footman.
While they were gone, Paul sat upon the table, holding Florence by the
hand, and glancing timidly from the Doctor round and round the room, while
the Doctor, leaning back in his chair, with his hand in his breast as usual,
held a book from him at arm's length, and read. There was something very
awful in this manner of reading. It was such a determined, unimpassioned,
inflexible, cold-blooded way of going to work. It left the Doctor's
countenance exposed to view; and when the Doctor smiled suspiciously at his
author, or knit his brows, or shook his head and made wry faces at him, as
much as to say, 'Don't tell me, Sir; I know better,' it was terrific.
Toots, too, had no business to be outside the door, ostentatiously
examining the wheels in his watch, and counting his half-crowns. But that
didn't last long; for Doctor Blimber, happening to change the position of
his tight plump legs, as if he were going to get up, Toots swiftly vanished,
and appeared no more.
Mr Dombey and his conductress were soon heard coming downstairs again,
talking all the way; and presently they re-entered the Doctor's study.
'I hope, Mr Dombey,' said the Doctor, laying down his book, 'that the
arrangements meet your approval.'
'They are excellent, Sir,' said Mr Dombey.
'Very fair, indeed,' said Mrs Pipchin, in a low voice; never disposed
to give too much encouragement.
'Mrs Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, wheeling round, 'will, with your
permission, Doctor and Mrs Blimber, visit Paul now and then.'
'Whenever Mrs Pipchin pleases,' observed the Doctor.
'Always happy to see her,' said Mrs Blimber.
'I think,' said Mr Dombey, 'I have given all the trouble I need, and
may take my leave. Paul, my child,' he went close to him, as he sat upon the
table. 'Good-bye.'
'Good-bye, Papa.'
The limp and careless little hand that Mr Dombey took in his, was
singularly out of keeping with the wistful face. But he had no part in its
sorrowful expression. It was not addressed to him. No, no. To Florence - all
to Florence.
If Mr Dombey in his insolence of wealth, had ever made an enemy, hard
to appease and cruelly vindictive in his hate, even such an enemy might have
received the pang that wrung his proud heart then, as compensation for his
injury.
He bent down, over his boy, and kissed him. If his sight were dimmed as
he did so, by something that for a moment blurred the little face, and made
it indistinct to him, his mental vision may have been, for that short time,
the clearer perhaps.
'I shall see you soon, Paul. You are free on Saturdays and Sundays, you
know.'
'Yes, Papa,' returned Paul: looking at his sister. 'On Saturdays and
Sundays.'
'And you'll try and learn a great deal here, and be a clever man,' said
Mr Dombey; 'won't you?'
'I'll try,' returned the child, wearily.
'And you'll soon be grown up now!' said Mr Dombey.
'Oh! very soon!' replied the child. Once more the old, old look passed
rapidly across his features like a strange light. It fell on Mrs Pipchin,
and extinguished itself in her black dress. That excellent ogress stepped
forward to take leave and to bear off Florence, which she had long been
thirsting to do. The move on her part roused Mr Dombey, whose eyes were
fixed on Paul. After patting him on the head, and pressing his small hand
again, he took leave of Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber, with
his usual polite frigidity, and walked out of the study.
Despite his entreaty that they would not think of stirring, Doctor
Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber all pressed forward to attend him to
the hall; and thus Mrs Pipchin got into a state of entanglement with Miss
Blimber and the Doctor, and was crowded out of the study before she could
clutch Florence. To which happy accident Paul stood afterwards indebted for
the dear remembrance, that Florence ran back to throw her arms round his
neck, and that hers was the last face in the doorway: turned towards him
with a smile of encouragement, the brighter for the tears through which it
beamed.
It made his childish bosom heave and swell when it was gone; and sent
the globes, the books, blind Homer and Minerva, swimming round the room. But
they stopped, all of a sudden; and then he heard the loud clock in the hall
still gravely inquiring 'how, is, my, lit, tle, friend? how, is, my, lit,
tle, friend?' as it had done before.
He sat, with folded hands, upon his pedestal, silently listening. But
he might have answered 'weary, weary! very lonely, very sad!' And there,
with an aching void in his young heart, and all outside so cold, and bare,
and strange, Paul sat as if he had taken life unfurnished, and the
upholsterer were never coming.
Paul's Education
After the lapse of some minutes, which appeared an immense time to
little Paul Dombey on the table, Doctor Blimber came back. The Doctor's walk
was stately, and calculated to impress the juvenile mind with solemn
feelings. It was a sort of march; but when the Doctor put out his right
foot, he gravely turned upon his axis, with a semi-circular sweep towards
the left; and when he put out his left foot, he turned in the same manner
towards the right. So that he seemed, at every stride he took, to look about
him as though he were saying, 'Can anybody have the goodness to indicate any
subject, in any direction, on which I am uninformed? I rather think not'
Mrs Blimber and Miss Blimber came back in the Doctor's company; and the
Doctor, lifting his new pupil off the table, delivered him over to Miss
Blimber.
'Cornelia,' said the Doctor, 'Dombey will be your charge at first.
Bring him on, Cornelia, bring him on.'
Miss Blimber received her young ward from the Doctor's hands; and Paul,
feeling that the spectacles were surveying him, cast down his eyes.
'How old are you, Dombey?' said Miss Blimber.
'Six,' answered Paul, wondering, as he stole a glance at the young
lady, why her hair didn't grow long like Florence's, and why she was like a
boy.
'How much do you know of your Latin Grammar, Dombey?' said Miss
Blimber.
'None of it,' answered Paul. Feeling that the answer was a shock to
Miss Blimber's sensibility, he looked up at the three faces that were
looking down at him, and said:
'I have'n't been well. I have been a weak child. I couldn't learn a
Latin Grammar when I was out, every day, with old Glubb. I wish you'd tell
old Glubb to come and see me, if you please.'
'What a dreadfully low name' said Mrs Blimber. 'Unclassical to a
degree! Who is the monster, child?'
'What monster?' inquired Paul.
'Glubb,' said Mrs Blimber, with a great disrelish.
'He's no more a monster than you are,' returned Paul.
'What!' cried the Doctor, in a terrible voice. 'Ay, ay, ay? Aha! What's
that?'
Paul was dreadfully frightened; but still he made a stand for the
absent Glubb, though he did it trembling.
'He's a very nice old man, Ma'am,' he said. 'He used to draw my couch.
He knows all about the deep sea, and the fish that are in it, and the great
monsters that come and lie on rocks in the sun, and dive into the water
again when they're startled, blowing and splashing so, that they can be
heard for miles. There are some creatures, said Paul, warming with his
subject, 'I don't know how many yards long, and I forget their names, but
Florence knows, that pretend to be in distress; and when a man goes near
them, out of compassion, they open their great jaws, and attack him. But all
he has got to do,' said Paul, boldly tendering this information to the very
Doctor himself, 'is to keep on turning as he runs away, and then, as they
turn slowly, because they are so long, and can't bend, he's sure to beat
them. And though old Glubb don't know why the sea should make me think of my
Mama that's dead, or what it is that it is always saying - always saying! he
knows a great deal about it. And I wish,' the child concluded, with a sudden
falling of his countenance, and failing in his animation, as he looked like
one forlorn, upon the three strange faces, 'that you'd let old Glubb come
here to see me, for I know him very well, and he knows me.
'Ha!' said the Doctor, shaking his head; 'this is bad, but study will
do much.'
Mrs Blimber opined, with something like a shiver, that he was an
unaccountable child; and, allowing for the difference of visage, looked at
him pretty much as Mrs Pipchin had been used to do.
'Take him round the house, Cornelia,' said the Doctor, 'and familiarise
him with his new sphere. Go with that young lady, Dombey.'
Dombey obeyed; giving his hand to the abstruse Cornelia, and looking at
her sideways, with timid curiosity, as they went away together. For her
spectacles, by reason of the glistening of the glasses, made her so
mysterious, that he didn't know where she was looking, and was not indeed
quite sure that she had any eyes at all behind them.
Cornelia took him first to the schoolroom, which was situated at the
back of the hall, and was approached through two baize doors, which deadened
and muffled the young gentlemen's voices. Here, there were eight young
gentlemen in various stages of mental prostration, all very hard at work,
and very grave indeed. Toots, as an old hand, had a desk to himself in one
corner: and a magnificent man, of immense age, he looked, in Paul's young
eyes, behind it.
Mr Feeder, B.A., who sat at another little desk, had his Virgil stop
on, and was slowly grinding that tune to four young gentlemen. Of the
remaining four, two, who grasped their foreheads convulsively, were engaged
in solving mathematical problems; one with his face like a dirty window,
from much crying, was endeavouring to flounder through a hopeless number of
lines before dinner; and one sat looking at his task in stony stupefaction
and despair - which it seemed had been his condition ever since breakfast
time.
The appearance of a new boy did not create the sensation that might
have been expected. Mr Feeder, B.A. (who was in the habit of shaving his
head for coolness, and had nothing but little bristles on it), gave him a
bony hand, and told him he was glad to see him - which Paul would have been
very glad to have told him, if he could have done so with the least
sincerity. Then Paul, instructed by Cornelia, shook hands with the four
young gentlemen at Mr Feeder's desk; then with the two young gentlemen at
work on the problems, who were very feverish; then with the young gentleman
at work against time, who was very inky; and lastly with the young gentleman
in a state of stupefaction, who was flabby and quite cold.
Paul having been already introduced to Toots, that pupil merely
chuckled and breathed hard, as his custom was, and pursued the occupation in
which he was engaged. It was not a severe one; for on account of his having
'gone through' so much (in more senses than one), and also of his having, as
before hinted, left off blowing in his prime, Toots now had licence to
pursue his own course of study: which was chiefly to write long letters to
himself from persons of distinction, adds 'P. Toots, Esquire, Brighton,
Sussex,' and to preserve them in his desk with great care.
These ceremonies passed, Cornelia led Paul upstairs to the top of the
house; which was rather a slow journey, on account of Paul being obliged to
land both feet on every stair, before he mounted another. But they reached
their journey's end at last; and there, in a front room, looking over the
wild sea, Cornelia showed him a nice little bed with white hangings, close
to the window, on which there was already beautifully written on a card in
round text - down strokes very thick, and up strokes very fine - DOMBEY;
while two other little bedsteads in the same room were announced, through
like means, as respectively appertaining unto BRIGGS and TOZER.
Just as they got downstairs again into the hall, Paul saw the weak-eyed
young man who had given that mortal offence to Mrs Pipchin, suddenly seize a
very large drumstick, and fly at a gong that was hanging up, as if he had
gone mad, or wanted vengeance. Instead of receiving warning, however, or
being instantly taken into custody, the young man left off unchecked, after
having made a dreadful noise. Then Cornelia Blimber said to Dombey that
dinner would be ready in a quarter of an hour, and perhaps he had better go
into the schoolroom among his 'friends.'
So Dombey, deferentially passing the great clock which was still as
anxious as ever to know how he found himself, opened the schoolroom door a
very little way, and strayed in like a lost boy: shutting it after him with
some difficulty. His friends were all dispersed about the room except the
stony friend, who remained immoveable. Mr Feeder was stretching himself in
his grey gown, as if, regardless of expense, he were resolved to pull the
sleeves off.
'Heigh ho hum!' cried Mr Feeder, shaking himself like a cart-horse. 'Oh
dear me, dear me! Ya-a-a-ah!'
Paul was quite alarmed by Mr Feeder's yawning; it was done on such a
great scale, and he was so terribly in earnest. All the boys too (Toots
excepted) seemed knocked up, and were getting ready for dinner - some newly
tying their neckcloths, which were very stiff indeed; and others washing
their hands or brushing their hair, in an adjoining ante-chamber - as if
they didn't think they should enjoy it at all.
Young Toots who was ready beforehand, and had therefore nothing to do,
and had leisure to bestow upon Paul, said, with heavy good nature:
'Sit down, Dombey.'
'Thank you, Sir,' said Paul.
His endeavouring to hoist himself on to a very high window-seat, and
his slipping down again, appeared to prepare Toots's mind for the reception
of a discovery.
'You're a very small chap;' said Mr Toots.
'Yes, Sir, I'm small,' returned Paul. 'Thank you, Sir.'
For Toots had lifted him into the seat, and done it kindly too.
'Who's your tailor?' inquired Toots, after looking at him for some
moments.
'It's a woman that has made my clothes as yet,' said Paul. 'My sister's
dressmaker.'
'My tailor's Burgess and Co.,' said Toots. 'Fash'nable. But very dear.'
Paul had wit enough to shake his head, as if he would have said it was
easy to see that; and indeed he thought so.
'Your father's regularly rich, ain't he?' inquired Mr Toots.
'Yes, Sir,' said Paul. 'He's Dombey and Son.'
'And which?' demanded Toots.
'And Son, Sir,' replied Paul.
Mr Toots made one or two attempts, in a low voice, to fix the Firm in
his mind; but not quite succeeding, said he would get Paul to mention the
name again to-morrow morning, as it was rather important. And indeed he
purposed nothing less than writing himself a private and confidential letter
from Dombey and Son immediately.
By this time the other pupils (always excepting the stony boy) gathered
round. They were polite, but pale; and spoke low; and they were so depressed
in their spirits, that in comparison with the general tone of that company,
Master Bitherstone was a perfect Miller, or complete Jest Book.' And yet he
had a sense of injury upon him, too, had Bitherstone.
'You sleep in my room, don't you?' asked a solemn young gentleman,
whose shirt-collar curled up the lobes of his ears.
'Master Briggs?' inquired Paul.
'Tozer,' said the young gentleman.
Paul answered yes; and Tozer pointing out the stony pupil, said that
was Briggs. Paul had already felt certain that it must be either Briggs or
Tozer, though he didn't know why.
'Is yours a strong constitution?' inquired Tozer.
Paul said he thought not. Tozer replied that he thought not also,
judging from Paul's looks, and that it was a pity, for it need be. He then
asked Paul if he were going to begin with Cornelia; and on Paul saying
'yes,' all the young gentlemen (Briggs excepted) gave a low groan.
It was drowned in the tintinnabulation of the gong, which sounding
again with great fury, there was a general move towards the dining-room;
still excepting Briggs the stony boy, who remained where he was, and as he
was; and on its way to whom Paul presently encountered a round of bread,
genteelly served on a plate and napkin, and with a silver fork lying
crosswise on the top of it.
Doctor Blimber was already in his place in the dining-room, at the top
of the table, with Miss Blimber and Mrs Blimber on either side of him. Mr
Feeder in a black coat was at the bottom. Paul's chair was next to Miss
Blimber; but it being found, when he sat in it, that his eyebrows were not
much above the level of the table-cloth, some books were brought in from the
Doctor's study, on which he was elevated, and on which he always sat from
that time - carrying them in and out himself on after occasions, like a
little elephant and castle.'
Grace having been said by the Doctor, dinner began. There was some nice
soup; also roast meat, boiled meat, vegetables, pie, and cheese. Every young
gentleman had a massive silver fork, and a napkin; and all the arrangements
were stately and handsome. In particular, there was a butler in a blue coat
and bright buttons, who gave quite a winey flavour to the table beer; he
poured it out so superbly.
Nobody spoke, unless spoken to, except Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and
Miss Blimber, who conversed occasionally. Whenever a young gentleman was not
actually engaged with his knife and fork or spoon, his eye, with an
irresistible attraction, sought the eye of Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, or
Miss Blimber, and modestly rested there. Toots appeared to be the only
exception to this rule. He sat next Mr Feeder on Paul's side of the table,
and frequently looked behind and before the intervening boys to catch a
glimpse of Paul.
Only once during dinner was there any conversation that included the
young gentlemen. It happened at the epoch of the cheese, when the Doctor,
having taken a glass of port wine, and hemmed twice or thrice, said:
'It is remarkable, Mr Feeder, that the Romans - '
At the mention of this terrible people, their implacable enemies, every
young gentleman fastened his gaze upon the Doctor, with an assumption of the
deepest interest. One of the number who happened to be drinking, and who
caught the Doctor's eye glaring at him through the side of his tumbler, left
off so hastily that he was convulsed for some moments, and in the sequel
ruined Doctor Blimber's point.
'It is remarkable, Mr Feeder,' said the Doctor, beginning again slowly,
'that the Romans, in those gorgeous and profuse entertainments of which we
read in the days of the Emperors, when luxury had attained a height unknown
before or since, and when whole provinces were ravaged to supply the
splendid means of one Imperial Banquet - '
Here the offender, who had been swelling and straining, and waiting in
vain for a full stop, broke out violently.
'Johnson,' said Mr Feeder, in a low reproachful voice, 'take some
water.'
The Doctor, looking very stern, made a pause until the water was
brought, and then resumed:
'And when, Mr Feeder - '
But Mr Feeder, who saw that Johnson must break out again, and who knew
that the Doctor would never come to a period before the young gentlemen
until he had finished all he meant to say, couldn't keep his eye off
Johnson; and thus was caught in the fact of not looking at the Doctor, who
consequently stopped.
'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Mr Feeder, reddening. 'I beg your
pardon, Doctor Blimber.'
'And when,' said the Doctor, raising his voice, 'when, Sir, as we read,
and have no reason to doubt - incredible as it may appear to the vulgar - of
our time - the brother of Vitellius prepared for him a feast, in which were
served, of fish, two thousand dishes - '
'Take some water, Johnson - dishes, Sir,' said Mr Feeder.
'Of various sorts of fowl, five thousand dishes.'
'Or try a crust of bread,' said Mr Feeder.
'And one dish,' pursued Doctor Blimber, raising his voice still higher
as he looked all round the table, 'called, from its enormous dimensions, the
Shield of Minerva, and made, among other costly ingredients, of the brains
of pheasants - '
'Ow, ow, ow!' (from Johnson.)
'Woodcocks - '
'Ow, ow, ow!'
'The sounds of the fish called scari - '
'You'll burst some vessel in your head,' said Mr Feeder. 'You had
better let it come.'
'And the spawn of the lamprey, brought from the Carpathian Sea,'
pursued the Doctor, in his severest voice; 'when we read of costly
entertainments such as these, and still remember, that we have a Titus - '
'What would be your mother's feelings if you died of apoplexy!' said Mr
Feeder.
'A Domitian - '
'And you're blue, you know,' said Mr Feeder.
'A Nero, a Tiberius, a Caligula, a Heliogabalus, and many more, pursued
the Doctor; 'it is, Mr Feeder - if you are doing me the honour to attend -
remarkable; VERY remarkable, Sir - '
But Johnson, unable to suppress it any longer, burst at that moment
into such an overwhelming fit of coughing, that although both his immediate
neighbours thumped him on the back, and Mr Feeder himself held a glass of
water to his lips, and the butler walked him up and down several times
between his own chair and the sideboard, like a sentry, it was a full five
minutes before he was moderately composed. Then there was a profound
silence.
'Gentlemen,' said Doctor Blimber, 'rise for Grace! Cornelia, lift
Dombey down' - nothing of whom but his scalp was accordingly seen above the
tablecloth. 'Johnson will repeat to me tomorrow morning before breakfast,
without book, and from the Greek Testament, the first chapter of the Epistle
of Saint Paul to the Ephesians. We will resume our studies, Mr Feeder, in
half-an-hour.'
The young gentlemen bowed and withdrew. Mr Feeder did likewise. During
the half-hour, the young gentlemen, broken into pairs, loitered arm-in-arm
up and down a small piece of ground behind the house, or endeavoured to
kindle a spark of animation in the breast of Briggs. But nothing happened so
vulgar as play. Punctually at the appointed time, the gong was sounded, and
the studies, under the joint auspices of Doctor Blimber and Mr Feeder, were
resumed.
As the Olympic game of lounging up and down had been cut shorter than
usual that day, on Johnson's account, they all went out for a walk before
tea. Even Briggs (though he hadn't begun yet) partook of this dissipation;
in the enjoyment of which he looked over the cliff two or three times
darkly. Doctor Blimber accompanied them; and Paul had the honour of being
taken in tow by the Doctor himself: a distinguished state of things, in
which he looked very little and feeble.
Tea was served in a style no less polite than the dinner; and after
tea, the young gentlemen rising and bowing as before, withdrew to fetch up
the unfinished tasks of that day, or to get up the already looming tasks of
to-morrow. In the meantime Mr Feeder withdrew to his own room; and Paul sat
in a corner wondering whether Florence was thinking of him, and what they
were all about at Mrs Pipchin's.
Mr Toots, who had been detained by an important letter from the Duke of
Wellington, found Paul out after a time; and having looked at him for a long
while, as before, inquired if he was fond of waistcoats.
Paul said 'Yes, Sir.'
'So am I,' said Toots.
No word more spoke Toots that night; but he stood looking at Paul as if
he liked him; and as there was company in that, and Paul was not inclined to
talk, it answered his purpose better than conversation.
At eight o'clock or so, the gong sounded again for prayers in the
dining-room, where the butler afterwards presided over a side-table, on
which bread and cheese and beer were spread for such young gentlemen as
desired to partake of those refreshments. The ceremonies concluded by the
Doctor's saying, 'Gentlemen, we will resume our studies at seven to-morrow;'
and then, for the first time, Paul saw Cornelia Blimber's eye, and saw that
it was upon him. When the Doctor had said these words, 'Gentlemen, we will
resume our studies at seven tomorrow,' the pupils bowed again, and went to
bed.
In the confidence of their own room upstairs, Briggs said his head
ached ready to split, and that he should wish himself dead if it wasn't for
his mother, and a blackbird he had at home Tozer didn't say much, but he
sighed a good deal, and told Paul to look out, for his turn would come
to-morrow. After uttering those prophetic words, he undressed himself
moodily, and got into bed. Briggs was in his bed too, and Paul in his bed
too, before the weak-eyed young man appeared to take away the candle, when
he wished them good-night and pleasant dreams. But his benevolent wishes
were in vain, as far as Briggs and Tozer were concerned; for Paul, who lay
awake for a long while, and often woke afterwards, found that Briggs was
ridden by his lesson as a nightmare: and that Tozer, whose mind was affected
in his sleep by similar causes, in a minor degree talked unknown tongues, or
scraps of Greek and Latin - it was all one to Paul- which, in the silence of
night, had an inexpressibly wicked and guilty effect.
Paul had sunk into a sweet sleep, and dreamed that he was walking hand
in hand with Florence through beautiful gardens, when they came to a large
sunflower which suddenly expanded itself into a gong, and began to sound.
Opening his eyes, he found that it was a dark, windy morning, with a
drizzling rain: and that the real gong was giving dreadful note of
preparation, down in the hall.
So he got up directly, and found Briggs with hardly any eyes, for
nightmare and grief had made his face puffy, putting his boots on: while
Tozer stood shivering and rubbing his shoulders in a very bad humour. Poor
Paul couldn't dress himself easily, not being used to it, and asked them if
they would have the goodness to tie some strings for him; but as Briggs
merely said 'Bother!' and Tozer, 'Oh yes!' he went down when he was
otherwise ready, to the next storey, where he saw a pretty young woman in
leather gloves, cleaning a stove. The young woman seemed surprised at his
appearance, and asked him where his mother was. When Paul told her she was
dead, she took her gloves off, and did what he wanted; and furthermore
rubbed his hands to warm them; and gave him a kiss; and told him whenever he
wanted anything of that sort - meaning in the dressing way - to ask for
'Melia; which Paul, thanking her very much, said he certainly would. He then
proceeded softly on his journey downstairs, towards the room in which the
young gentlemen resumed their studies, when, passing by a door that stood
ajar, a voice from within cried, 'Is that Dombey?' On Paul replying, 'Yes,
Ma'am:' for he knew the voice to be Miss Blimber's: Miss Blimber said, 'Come
in, Dombey.' And in he went. Miss Blimber presented exactly the appearance
she had presented yesterday, except that she wore a shawl. Her little light
curls were as crisp as ever, and she had already her spectacles on, which
made Paul wonder whether she went to bed in them. She had a cool little
sitting-room of her own up there, with some books in it, and no fire But