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A LAST RETROSPECT
And now my written story ends. I look back, once more - for
the last time - before I close these leaves.
I see myself, with Agnes at my side, journeying along the road
of life. I see our children and our friends around us; and I hear
the roar of many voices, not indifferent to me as I travel on.
What faces are the most distinct to me in the fleeting crowd?
Lo, these; all turning to me as I ask my thoughts the question!
Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of four-score
years and more, but upright yet, and a steady walker of six miles
at a stretch in winter weather.
Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old nurse, likewise
in spectacles, accustomed to do needle-work at night very close
to the lamp, but never sitting down to it without a bit of wax candle,
a yard-measure in a little house, and a work-box with a picture
of St. Paul's upon the lid.
The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish
days, when I wondered why the birds didn't peck her in preference
to apples, are shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken
their whole neighbourhood in her face, are fainter (though they
glitter still); but her rough forefinger, which I once associated
with a pocket nutmeg-grater, is just the same, and when I see my
least child catching at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I
think of our little parlour at home, when I could scarcely walk.
My aunt's old disappointment is set right, now. She is godmother
to a real living Betsey Trotwood; and Dora (the next in order) says
she spoils her.
There is something bulky in Peggotty's pocket. It is nothing
smaller than the Crocodile Book, which is in rather a dilapidated
condition by this time, with divers of the leaves torn and stitched
across, but which Peggotty exhibits to the children as a precious
relic. I find it very curious to see my own infant face, looking
up at me from the Crocodile stories; and to be reminded by it of
my old acquaintance Brooks of Sheffield.
Among my boys, this summer holiday time, I see an old man making
giant kites, and gazing at them in the air, with a delight for which
there are no words. He greets me rapturously, and whispers, with
many nods and winks, 'Trotwood, you will be glad to hear that I
shall finish the Memorial when I have nothing else to do, and that
your aunt's the most extraordinary woman in the world, sir!'
Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing
me a countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and
beauty, feebly contending with a querulous, imbecile, fretful wandering
of the mind? She is in a garden; and near her stands a sharp, dark,
withered woman, with a white scar on her lip. Let me hear what they
say.
'Rosa, I have forgotten this gentleman's name.'
Rosa bends over her, and calls to her, 'Mr. Copperfield.'
'I am glad to see you, sir. I am sorry to observe you are in
mourning. I hope Time will be good to you.'
Her impatient attendant scolds her, tells her I am not in mourning,
bids her look again, tries to rouse her.
'You have seen my son, sir,' says the elder lady. 'Are you reconciled?'
Looking fixedly at me, she puts her hand to her forehead, and
moans. Suddenly, she cries, in a terrible voice, 'Rosa, come to
me. He is dead!' Rosa kneeling at her feet, by turns caresses her,
and quarrels with her; now fiercely telling her, 'I loved him better
than you ever did!'- now soothing her to sleep on her breast, like
a sick child. Thus I leave them; thus I always find them; thus they
wear their time away, from year to year.
What ship comes sailing home from India, and what English lady
is this, married to a growling old Scotch Croesus with great flaps
of ears? Can this be Julia Mills?
Indeed it is Julia Mills, peevish and fine, with a black man
to carry cards and letters to her on a golden salver, and a copper-coloured
woman in linen, with a bright handkerchief round her head, to serve
her Tiffin in her dressing-room. But Julia keeps no diary in these
days; never sings Affection's Dirge; eternally quarrels with the
old Scotch Croesus, who is a sort of yellow bear with a tanned hide.
Julia is steeped in money to the throat, and talks and thinks of
nothing else. I liked her better in the Desert of Sahara.
Or perhaps this IS the Desert of Sahara! For, though Julia has
a stately house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every
day, I see no green growth near her; nothing that can ever come
to fruit or flower. What Julia calls 'society', I see; among it
Mr. Jack Maldon, from his Patent Place, sneering at the hand that
gave it him, and speaking to me of the Doctor as 'so charmingly
antique'. But when society is the name for such hollow gentlemen
and ladies, Julia, and when its breeding is professed indifference
to everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we
must have lost ourselves in that same Desert of Sahara, and had
better find the way out.
And lo, the Doctor, always our good friend, labouring at his
Dictionary (somewhere about the letter D), and happy in his home
and wife. Also the Old Soldier, on a considerably reduced footing,
and by no means so influential as in days of yore!
Working at his chambers in the Temple, with a busy aspect, and
his hair (where he is not bald) made more rebellious than ever by
the constant friction of his lawyer's-wig, I come, in a later time,
upon my dear old Traddles. His table is covered with thick piles
of papers; and I say, as I look around me:
'If Sophy were your clerk, now, Traddles, she would have enough
to do!'
'You may say that, my dear Copperfield! But those were capital
days, too, in Holborn Court! Were they not?'
'When she told you you would be a judge? But it was not the town
talk then!'
'At all events,' says Traddles, 'if I ever am one -' 'Why, you
know you will be.'
'Well, my dear Copperfield, WHEN I am one, I shall tell the story,
as I said I would.'
We walk away, arm in arm. I am going to have a family dinner
with Traddles. It is Sophy's birthday; and, on our road, Traddles
discourses to me of the good fortune he has enjoyed.
'I really have been able, my dear Copperfield, to do all that
I had most at heart. There's the Reverend Horace promoted to that
living at four hundred and fifty pounds a year; there are our two
boys receiving the very best education, and distinguishing themselves
as steady scholars and good fellows; there are three of the girls
married very comfortably; there are three more living with us; there
are three more keeping house for the Reverend Horace since Mrs.
Crewler's decease; and all of them happy.'
'Except -' I suggest.
'Except the Beauty,' says Traddles. 'Yes. It was very unfortunate
that she should marry such a vagabond. But there was a certain dash
and glare about him that caught her. However, now we have got her
safe at our house, and got rid of him, we must cheer her up again.'
Traddles's house is one of the very houses - or it easily may
have been - which he and Sophy used to parcel out, in their evening
walks. It is a large house; but Traddles keeps his papers in his
dressing-room and his boots with his papers; and he and Sophy squeeze
themselves into upper rooms, reserving the best bedrooms for the
Beauty and the girls. There is no room to spare in the house; for
more of 'the girls' are here, and always are here, by some accident
or other, than I know how to count. Here, when we go in, is a crowd
of them, running down to the door, and handing Traddles about to
be kissed, until he is out of breath. Here, established in perpetuity,
is the poor Beauty, a widow with a little girl; here, at dinner
on Sophy's birthday, are the three married girls with their three
husbands, and one of the husband's brothers, and another husband's
cousin, and another husband's sister, who appears to me to be engaged
to the cousin. Traddles, exactly the same simple, unaffected fellow
as he ever was, sits at the foot of the large table like a Patriarch;
and Sophy beams upon him, from the head, across a cheerful space
that is certainly not glittering with Britannia metal.
And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet,
these faces fade away. But one face, shining on me like a Heavenly
light by which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond
them all. And that remains.
I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside
me.
My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but
the dear presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company.
O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my
life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like
the shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing
upward!
End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of David Copperfield, by Charles
Dickens
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