Speaker 1: Chapter fifty six of Great Expectations. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Great
Speaker 1: Expectations by Charles Dickens, chapter fifty six. He lay in
Speaker 1: prison very ill during the whole interval between his committal
Speaker 1: for trial and the coming round of the sessions. He
Speaker 1: had broken two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs,
Speaker 1: and he breathed with great pain and difficulty, which increased daily.
Speaker 1: It was a consequence of his hurt that he spoke
Speaker 1: so low as to be scarcely audible. Therefore he spoke
Speaker 1: very little, but he was ever ready to listen to me,
Speaker 1: and it became the first duty of my life to
Speaker 1: say to him and read to him why I knew
Speaker 1: he ought to hear. Being far too ill to remain
Speaker 1: in the common prison, he was removed after the first
Speaker 1: day or so into the infirmary. This gave me opportunities
Speaker 1: of being with him that I could not otherwise have had,
Speaker 1: And but for his illness, he would have been put
Speaker 1: in irons, for he was regarded as a determined prison breaker,
Speaker 1: and I knew not what else. Although I saw him
Speaker 1: every day, it was for only a short time. Hence
Speaker 1: the regularly recurring spaces of our separation were long enough
Speaker 1: to record on his face any slight changes that occurred
Speaker 1: in his physical state. I do not recollect that I
Speaker 1: once saw any change in it for the better. He
Speaker 1: wasted and became slowly weaker and worse day by day,
Speaker 1: from the day when the prison door closed upon him.
Speaker 1: The kind of submission or resignation that he showed was
Speaker 1: that of a man who was tired out. I sometimes
Speaker 1: derived an impression from his manner, or from a whispered
Speaker 1: word or two which escaped him, that he pondered over
Speaker 1: the question whether he might have been a better man
Speaker 1: under better circumstances. But he never justified himself by a
Speaker 1: hint tending that way, or tried to bend the past
Speaker 1: out of its eternal shape. It happened on two or
Speaker 1: three occasions in my presence that his desperate reputation was
Speaker 1: alluded to by one or other of the people in
Speaker 1: attendance on him. A smile crossed his face then, and
Speaker 1: he turned his eyes on me with a trustful look,
Speaker 1: as if he were confident that I had seen some
Speaker 1: small redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as
Speaker 1: when I was a little child. As to all the rest,
Speaker 1: he was humble in contrite, and I never knew him complain.
Speaker 1: When the sessions came round, mister Jaggers caused an application
Speaker 1: to be made for the postponement of his trial until
Speaker 1: the following sessions. It was obviously made with the assurance
Speaker 1: that he could not live so long, and was refused.
Speaker 1: The trial came on at once, and when he was
Speaker 1: put to the bar, he was seated in a chair.
Speaker 1: No objection was made to my getting close to the
Speaker 1: dock on the outside of it, and holding the hand
Speaker 1: that he stretched forth to me. The trial was very
Speaker 1: short and very clear. Such things as could be said
Speaker 1: for him were said, how he had taken to industrious habits,
Speaker 1: and had thriven lawfully and reputably. But nothing could unsay
Speaker 1: the fact that he had returned and was there in
Speaker 1: the presence of the judge and jury. It was impossible
Speaker 1: to try him for that and do otherwise than find
Speaker 1: him guilty. At that time it was the custom, as
Speaker 1: I learned from my terrible experience of that sessions, to
Speaker 1: devote a concluding day to the passing of sentences, and
Speaker 1: to make a finishing effect with the sentence of death.
Speaker 1: But for the indelible picture that my remembrance now holds
Speaker 1: before me, I could scarcely believe, even as our write
Speaker 1: these words, that I saw two and thirty men and
Speaker 1: women put before the judge to receive that sentence together.
Speaker 1: Foremost among the two and thirty was he seated that
Speaker 1: he might get breath enough to keep life in him.
Speaker 1: The whole scene starts out again in the vivid colors
Speaker 1: of the moment, down to the drops of april rain
Speaker 1: on the windows of the court, glittering in the rays
Speaker 1: of april sun penned in the dock, as I again
Speaker 1: stood outside it at the corner with his hand in mine,
Speaker 1: were the two and thirty men and women, some defiant,
Speaker 1: some stricken with terror, some sobbing and weeping, some covering
Speaker 1: their faces, some staring gloomily about. There had been shrieks
Speaker 1: from among the women convicts, but they had been stilled,
Speaker 1: and a hush had succeeded. The sheriffs with their great
Speaker 1: chains and nosegays, other civic gougaws, and monsters, criers, ushers.
Speaker 1: A great gallery foo full of people. A large theatrical
Speaker 1: audience looked on as the two and thirty and the
Speaker 1: judge were solemnly confronted. Then the judge addressed them. Among
Speaker 1: the wretched creatures before him, whom he must single out
Speaker 1: for special address was one who, almost from his infancy,
Speaker 1: had been an offender against the laws, who after repeated
Speaker 1: imprisonments and punishments, had been at length sentenced to exile
Speaker 1: for a term of years, and who, under circumstances of
Speaker 1: great violence and daring, had made his escape and been
Speaker 1: re sentenced to exile for life. That miserable man would
Speaker 1: seem for a time to have become convinced of his errors,
Speaker 1: when far removed from the scenes of his old offenses,
Speaker 1: and to have lived a peaceable and honest life. But
Speaker 1: in a fatal moment, yielding to those propensities and passions,
Speaker 1: the indulgence of which had so long rendered him a
Speaker 1: scourge to society, he had quitted his haven of rest
Speaker 1: and repentance, and had come back to the country where
Speaker 1: he was proscribed. Being here presently denounced, he had for
Speaker 1: a time succeeded in evading the officers of justice, but
Speaker 1: being at length seized, while in the act of flight
Speaker 1: he had resisted them, and had he best knew, whether
Speaker 1: by express design or in the blindness of his hardihood,
Speaker 1: caused the death of his denouncer, to whom his whole
Speaker 1: career was known. The appointed punishment for his return to
Speaker 1: the land that had cast him out being death, and
Speaker 1: his case being this aggravated case, he must prepare himself
Speaker 1: to die. The sun was striking in at the great
Speaker 1: windows of the court, through the glittering drops of rain
Speaker 1: upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of
Speaker 1: light between the two and thirty and the judge, linking
Speaker 1: both together, and perhaps reminding some among the audience, how
Speaker 1: both were passing on with absolute equality to the greater
Speaker 1: judgment than no all things, and cannot err. Rising for
Speaker 1: a moment a distinct speck of face in this way
Speaker 1: of light, the prisoner said, my Lord, I have received
Speaker 1: my sentence of death from the Almighty, But I bow
Speaker 1: to yours and sat down again. There was some hushing,
Speaker 1: and the judge went on with what he had to
Speaker 1: say to the rest. Then they were all formally doomed,
Speaker 1: and some of them were supported out, and some of
Speaker 1: them sauntered out with a haggard look of bravery, and
Speaker 1: a few nodded to the gallery, and two or three
Speaker 1: shook hands, and others went out, chewing the fragments of
Speaker 1: herb they had taken from the sweet herbs lying about.
Speaker 1: He went last of all, because of having to be
Speaker 1: helped from his chair, and to go very slowly, And
Speaker 1: he held my hand while all the others were removed,
Speaker 1: and while the audience got up, putting their dresses right
Speaker 1: as they might at church or elsewhere, and pointed down
Speaker 1: at this criminal or at that, and most of all
Speaker 1: at him and me. I earnestly hoped and prayed that
Speaker 1: he might die before the recorder's report was made. But
Speaker 1: in the dread of his lingering on, I began that
Speaker 1: night to write out a petition to the Home Secretary
Speaker 1: of State, setting forth my knowledge of him, and how
Speaker 1: it was that he had come back for my sake.
Speaker 1: I wrote it as fervently and pathetically as I could,
Speaker 1: And when I had finished it and sent it in,
Speaker 1: I wrote out other petitions to such men in authority,
Speaker 1: as I hoped, were the most merciful and drew up
Speaker 1: one to the crown itself. For several days and nights
Speaker 1: after he was sentenced, I took no rest except when
Speaker 1: I fell asleep in my chair, and was wholly absorbed
Speaker 1: in those appeals. And after I had sent them in,
Speaker 1: I could not keep away from the places where they were,
Speaker 1: but felt as if they were more hopeful and less
Speaker 1: desperate when I was near them. In this unreasonable restlessness
Speaker 1: and pain of mind, I would roam the streets of
Speaker 1: an evening, wandering by those offices and houses where I
Speaker 1: had left the petitions. To the present hour, the weary
Speaker 1: western streets of London on a cold, dusty spring night,
Speaker 1: with their ranges of stern, shut up mansions and their
Speaker 1: long rows of lamps, are melancholy to me. From this association.
Speaker 1: The daily visits I could make him were shortened now,
Speaker 1: and he was more strictly kept, seeing or fancying that
Speaker 1: I was suspected of an intention of carrying poison to him.
Speaker 1: I asked to be searched before I sat down at
Speaker 1: his bedside, and told the officer who was always there,
Speaker 1: that I was willing to do anything that would assure
Speaker 1: him of the singleness of my designs. Nobody was hard
Speaker 1: with him or with me. There was duty to be done,
Speaker 1: and it was done, but not harshly. The officer always
Speaker 1: gave me the assurance that he was worse. And some
Speaker 1: other sick prisoners in room, and some other prisoners who
Speaker 1: attended on them as sick nurses, malefactors but not incapable
Speaker 1: of kindness. God be thanked, always joined in the same report.
Speaker 1: As the days went on, I noticed more and more
Speaker 1: that he would lie placidly, looking at the white ceiling,
Speaker 1: with an absence of light in his face, until some
Speaker 1: word of mine brightened it for an instant, and then
Speaker 1: it would subside again. Sometimes he was almost or quite
Speaker 1: unable to speak, and then he would answer me with
Speaker 1: slight pressures on my hand, and I grew to understand
Speaker 1: his meaning very well. The number of the days had
Speaker 1: risen to ten when I saw a greater change in
Speaker 1: him than I had seen yet. His eyes were turned
Speaker 1: towards the door and lighted up as I entered. Dear boy,
Speaker 1: he said, as I sat down by his bed, I
Speaker 1: thought you was late, but I knowed you couldn't be that.
Speaker 1: It is just the time, said I. I waited for
Speaker 1: it at the gate. You always wait, said the gate,
Speaker 1: don't you, dear boy, Yes, not to lose a moment
Speaker 1: of the time. Thank ye, dear boy, thankee, God bless you.
Speaker 1: You've never deserted me, dear boy. I pressed his hand
Speaker 1: in silence, for I could not forget that I had
Speaker 1: once meant to desert him. And what's the best of all?
Speaker 1: He said, You've been more comfortable alonger me since I
Speaker 1: was under a dark cloud than when the sun shone.
Speaker 1: That's best of all. He lay on his back, breathing
Speaker 1: with great difficulty, do what he would, and love me
Speaker 1: though he did, the light left his face ever and again,
Speaker 1: and a film came over the placid. Look at the
Speaker 1: white ceiling. Are you in much pain to day? I
Speaker 1: don't complain of none, dear boy, You never do complain.
Speaker 1: He had spoken his last words. He smiled, and I
Speaker 1: understood his touch to me that he wished to lift
Speaker 1: my hand and lay it on his breast. I laid
Speaker 1: it there, and he smiled again, and put both his
Speaker 1: hands upon it. The allotted time ran out while we
Speaker 1: were thus, but looking round, I found the governor of
Speaker 1: the prison standing near me, and he whispered, you needn't
Speaker 1: go yet. I thanked him gratefully and asked, might I
Speaker 1: speak to him if he could hear me. The governor
Speaker 1: stepped aside and beckoned the officer away. The change, though
Speaker 1: it was made without noise, drew back the film from
Speaker 1: the placid look at the white ceiling, and he looked
Speaker 1: most affectionately at me, dear magwitch, I must tell you now,
Speaker 1: at last you understand what I say. A gentle pressure
Speaker 1: on my hand. You had a child once whom you
Speaker 1: loved and lost, a stronger pressure on my hand. She
Speaker 1: lived and found powerful friends. She is living now. She
Speaker 1: is a lady and very beautiful, and I love her
Speaker 1: with a last faint effort which would have been powerless
Speaker 1: but for my yielding to it and assisting it. He
Speaker 1: raised my hand to his lips. Then he gently let
Speaker 1: it sink upon his breast, again, with his own hands
Speaker 1: lying on it. The placid look at the white ceiling
Speaker 1: came back and passed away, and his head dropped quietly
Speaker 1: on his breast. Mindful then of what we had read together,
Speaker 1: I thought of the two men who went up into
Speaker 1: the temple to pray, and I knew there were no
Speaker 1: better words that I could say, beside his bed, than
Speaker 1: oh Lord, be merciful to him a sinner. End of
Speaker 1: chapter