GREAT
EXPECTATIONS
Charles Dickens
Chapter 1
My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian
name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both
names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip.
So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.
I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the
authority of his tombstone and my sister - Mrs.
Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never
saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness
of either of them (for their days were long before
the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding
what they were like, were unreasonably derived from
their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my
father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square,
stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the
character and turn of the inscription, "Also
Georgiana Wife of the Above," I
drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled
and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each
about a foot and a half long, which were arranged
in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred
to the memory of five little brothers of mine -
who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly
early in that universal struggle - I am indebted
for a belief I religiously entertained that they
had all been born on their backs with their hands
in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them
out in this state of existence.
Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within,
as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My
first most vivid and broad impression of the identity
of things, seems to me to have been gained on a
memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such
a time I found out for certain, that this bleak
place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard;
and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and
also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and
buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham,
Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid,
were also dead and buried; and that the
dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected
with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered
cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that
the low leaden line beyond, was the river; and that
the distant savage lair from which the wind was
rushing, was the sea; and that the small bundle
of shivers growing afraid of it
all and beginning to cry, was Pip.
"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice,
as a man started up from among the graves at the
side of the church porch. "Keep still, you
little devil, or I'll cut your throat!" |
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