Our Mutual Friend - The Original Classic Edition. Dickens Charles

finger-marks are something whiter for the instant, but he walks on at her side.

       She bursts into tears, declaring herself the wretchedest, the most deceived, the worst-used, of women. Then she says that if she

       had the courage to kill herself, she would do it. Then she calls him vile impostor. Then she asks him, why, in the disappointment of his base speculation, he does not take her life with his own hand, under the present favourable circumstances. Then she cries again.

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       Then she is enraged again, and makes some mention of swindlers. Finally, she sits down crying on a block of stone, and is in all the known and unknown humours of her sex at once. Pending her changes, those aforesaid marks in his face have come and gone, now here now there, like white steps of a pipe on which the diabolical performer has played a tune. Also his livid lips are parted at last, as if he were breathless with running. Yet he is not.

       'Now, get up, Mrs Lammle, and let us speak reasonably.' She sits upon her stone, and takes no heed of him.

       'Get up, I tell you.'

       Raising her head, she looks contemptuously in his face, and repeats, 'You tell me! Tell me, forsooth!'

       She affects not to know that his eyes are fastened on her as she droops her head again; but her whole figure reveals that she knows it

       uneasily.

       'Enough of this. Come! Do you hear? Get up.'

       Yielding to his hand, she rises, and they walk again; but this time with their faces turned towards their place of residence.

       'Mrs Lammle, we have both been deceiving, and we have both been deceived. We have both been biting, and we have both been bit-ten. In a nut-shell, there's the state of the case.'

       'You sought me out--'

       'Tut! Let us have done with that. WE know very well how it was. Why should you and I talk about it, when you and I can't disguise it? To proceed. I am disappointed and cut a poor figure.'

       'Am I no one?'

       'Some one--and I was coming to you, if you had waited a moment. You, too, are disappointed and cut a poor figure.'

       'An injured figure!'

       'You are now cool enough, Sophronia, to see that you can't be injured without my being equally injured; and that therefore the mere word is not to the purpose. When I look back, I wonder how I can have been such a fool as to take you to so great an extent upon trust.'

       'And when I look back--' the bride cries, interrupting.

       'And when you look back, you wonder how you can have been--you'll excuse the word?'

       'Most certainly, with so much reason.

       '--Such a fool as to take ME to so great an extent upon trust. But the folly is committed on both sides. I cannot get rid of you; you

       cannot get rid of me. What follows?'

       'Shame and misery,' the bride bitterly replies.

       'I don't know. A mutual understanding follows, and I think it may carry us through. Here I split my discourse (give me your arm, Sophronia), into three heads, to make it shorter and plainer. Firstly, it's enough to have been done, without the mortification of being known to have been done. So we agree to keep the fact to ourselves. You agree?'

       'If it is possible, I do.'

       'Possible! We have pretended well enough to one another. Can't we, united, pretend to the world? Agreed. Secondly, we owe the Veneerings a grudge, and we owe all other people the grudge of wishing them to be taken in, as we ourselves have been taken in. Agreed?'

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       'Yes. Agreed.'

       'We come smoothly to thirdly. You have called me an adventurer, Sophronia. So I am. In plain uncomplimentary English, so I am. So are you, my dear. So are many people. We agree to keep our own secret, and to work together in furtherance of our own schemes.'

       'What schemes?'

       'Any scheme that will bring us money. By our own schemes, I mean our joint interest. Agreed?' She answers, after a little hesitation, 'I suppose so. Agreed.'

       'Carried at once, you see! Now, Sophronia, only half a dozen words more. We know one another perfectly. Don't be tempted into twitting me with the past knowledge that you have of me, because it is identical with the past knowledge that I have of you, and in twitting me, you twit yourself, and I don't want to hear you do it. With this good understanding established between us, it is better never done. To wind up all:--You have shown temper today, Sophronia. Don't be betrayed into doing so again, because I have a Devil of a temper myself.'

       So, the happy pair, with this hopeful marriage contract thus signed, sealed, and delivered, repair homeward. If, when those infernal finger-marks were on the white and breathless countenance of Alfred Lammle, Esquire, they denoted that he conceived the purpose of subduing his dear wife Mrs Alfred Lammle, by at once divesting her of any lingering reality or pretence of self-respect, the purpose would seem to have been presently executed. The mature young lady has mighty little need of powder, now, for her downcast face, as he escorts her in the light of the setting sun to their abode of bliss.

       Chapter 11

       PODSNAPPERY

       Mr Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr Podsnap's opinion. Beginning with a good inheritance, he had married a good inheritance, and had thriven exceedingly in the Marine Insurance way, and was quite satisfied. He never could make out why everybody was not quite satisfied, and he felt conscious that he set a brilliant social example in being particularly well satisfied with most things, and, above all other things, with himself.

       Thus happily acquainted with his own merit and importance, Mr Podsnap settled that whatever he put behind him he put out of existence. There was a dignified conclusiveness--not to add a grand convenience--in this way of getting rid of disagreeables which had done much towards establishing Mr Podsnap in his lofty place in Mr Podsnap's satisfaction. 'I don't want to know about it; I don't choose to discuss it; I don't admit it!' Mr Podsnap had even acquired a peculiar flourish of his right arm in often clearing the world of its most difficult problems, by sweeping them behind him (and consequently sheer away) with those words and a flushed face. For they affronted him.

       Mr Podsnap's world was not a very large world, morally; no, nor even geographically: seeing that although his business was sustained upon commerce with other countries, he considered other countries, with that important reservation, a mistake, and of their manners and customs would conclusively observe, 'Not English!' when, PRESTO! with a flourish of the arm, and a flush of the face, they were swept away. Elsewhere, the world got up at eight, shaved close at a quarter-past, breakfasted at nine, went to the City at

       ten, came home at half-past five, and dined at seven. Mr Podsnap's notions of the Arts in their integrity might have been stated thus. Literature; large print, respectfully descriptive of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five, and dining at seven. Painting and Sculpture; models and portraits representing Professors of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five,

       and dining at seven. Music; a respectable performance (without variations) on stringed and wind instruments, sedately expressive of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five, and dining at seven. Nothing else to be permitted to those same vagrants the Arts, on pain of excommunication. Nothing else To Be-- anywhere!

       As a so eminently respectable man, Mr Podsnap was sensible of its being required of him to take Providence under his protection.

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       Consequently he always knew exactly what Providence meant. Inferior and less respectable men might fall short of that mark, but Mr Podsnap was always up to it. And it was very remarkable (and must have been very comfortable) that what Providence meant, was invariably what Mr Podsnap meant.

       These may be said to have been the articles of a faith and school which the present chapter takes the liberty of