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Hello and welcome to Storytime for Grown Ups. I'm Faith Moore and this season we're reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Each episode I'll read a few chapters from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea, find a cozy chair and settle in. It's story time. Hi everyone. Welcome back. I'm so glad you're here. I just love this book. Don't you love this book? I just love this book and it's been such a joy getting to read this with you and it's been really fun to spend more time in a book than we usually do. So I'm in enjoying this. I hope that you are too. I want to remind you before we get started that today if you are listening in real time. So today, Thursday, June 25th at 8pm Eastern is Tea time over in our online community the Drawing Room. So if you are interested in joining us and it hasn't happened yet, you're still listening in real time, then please do come on over tonight at 8pm and join us in the drawing room for tea time, which is like a voice chat. I get to hear you, you get to hear me. You don't have to talk if you don't want to. You can just listen. But also I would love it would chat with us. We'll talk about the book. I'll answer any questions that you have. If you want about anything, it could be about the book, but also it could be about me or how the show gets made. Sometimes people like to talk about that or anything else that you want to discuss that is in any way related to this show. So please do join us. And if you haven't yet signed up for the drawing room and you're listening in real time, there's still time. So there's a link in the show notes, just click on it. And you have to be a member of the Landed gentry membership tier to participate in tea time. So if you'd like to join us, click that link and sign up and I hope to see you there. So I hope that I'll get to meet some new friends today. We did have a few new people signing up since the last time, so I hope to meet you guys and I also am really looking forward to seeing my old friends. So please do come to tea time tonight at 8pm Eastern. Other than that, I only have the usual reminders. Please subscribe. Please tap the five stars. If you're enjoying the show, please leave a positive review in your podcast player if you're enjoying the show. And please do spread spread the word about this show. Tell everyone that you know about Storytime for Grown Ups and let's get more people reading these great books and listening and talking together about these books, because that's just a wonderful, wonderful thing. And who doesn't want that? So please do spread the word about the show. Okay, enough of that. Let's get back to this wonderful book. Last time we read chapter 48, today we're reading chapter 49. We have kind of a lot to discuss. I have lots of questions actually, lots of comments to read and then some some discussion and then we'll get to the chapter. But first let's just remind ourselves of what we read last time. So here is the recap. Alright, so where we left off. David publishes his novel and it's very successful. So successful that he's now able to quit his job transcribing the parliamentary debates and write full time at home. He and Dora are still plagued by terrible servants. They've hired a page boy who fights with the cook and steals from them constantly and from other people, until eventually he's arrested and sent to a penal colony. This makes David feel that they really must do something, so he tries to talk to Dora about it, who doesn't want to listen and thinks he's blaming her for the page's behavior. So David decides he needs to try to form her mind and tries to teach her all sorts of things and pass on all this wisdom and quote Shakespeare to her and things like that, but it just makes her very unhappy and eventually he decides that he's being cruel, that Dora is herself and he loves her and he buys her a present and tells her that he'll stop being so serious. She's overjoyed and David feels glad that he's not upsetting her, but he also feels sad that she's not the wife he would wish her to be. But he doesn't really let himself think about that because he does truly love her. Eventually Dora gets pregnant, but she has a miscarriage and afterwards she becomes very weak. She's still her cheerful self, but for some reason she isn't able to walk anymore and she must be carried up and down stairs. Miss Betsy comes to care for her and Gyp stays at her side, though he's getting older and everyone makes the best of it. But David is clearly very worried for Dora. Okay, I'm going to read 5 comments today. The first one comes from Paula Fernandez. She says, I have a couple thoughts about this chapter. Dickens use of the spider and fly imagery reminds me of what David was experiencing with the torturous studies he had with the Murdstones. That memory may have helped David with the realization that he could not change Dora in the area of intellectual pursuits. Yet he still had a secret desire when she was pregnant that impending motherhood would help mature her. Dora is a truly tragic character because she is oblivious to what happens to every living being. I don't think it even crossed her mind that Jip is going to die at some point, even though she's experienced her father's death. I wasn't expecting Dora's physical helplessness at the end of the chapter. It doesn't even seem to faze her. Which makes me wonder, is it just physical or is there an emotional breakdown too? So many cliffhangers. I love it. This next one comes from Lisa. She says, this chapter really choked me up. Dickens really paints a picture of Dora, a gentle creature who hasn't the capacity for conflict. Her unawareness of her husband's pleading, of Jip's aging, and yet her awareness of her own lacking. The next one comes from Jacob Nalder. He writes, I'm starting to think David and Dora are not a bad match. She is silly and excitable, but he's romantic and has his head in the clouds. David chose her for a reason. The next one comes from our online community, the Drawing Room. This person goes by the handle Attty. She says throughout the chapters that featured her. Dora was 100% herself, through and through. I'm starting to appreciate that now. A year or so in his marriage and David is starting to have misgivings, which I find very sad. But it's also hard to sympathize with because David knew what he was getting into. I cringed while listening to how he was trying to improve Dora's mind with Shakespeare. He was stepping into Murdstone territory. No, Davey, No. And the last one also comes from our online community. And this person goes by the handle Onnie. She says, there are aspects of the relationship that seem so sweet. I guess it's the romantic in me. But despite Dora's ridiculous ineptitude and the fact that there's this incompatibility of mind and purpose, they do actually really love each other. Is Dora the best fit for what David wants and needs? No. But they are married, and he's determined to give her a happy life. She repays him by being playful, fun and light. Hearted. That's what she brings to the marriage. And I think it's valuable in its own way. I think that give and take became very clear to me as this chapter was ending and Dora's health is obviously failing. She remains her bubbly, positive, upbeat self, despite the fact that she must feel quite uncomfortable physically. She is not. Woe is me sad and depressed and doesn't allow others to be. That speaks to a depth of strength that I didn't realize she had. Okay, so I think that Dickens is just brilliant. I mean, obviously I think that, and there's lots of reasons why. But in this chapter, he puts that on full display. I mean, seriously, he gives us this character, right? Dora, whom the vast majority of us instantly disliked. He makes us feel frustrated with her and frustrated with David for choosing her. He makes us want to shake her and roll our eyes at her. Some of you even wrote in to say that hoped Dickens would kill her off. Okay, so he creates this character that we feel all these negative emotions about. And that's true. Not all of us. There has always been that other camp, but even that other camp didn't love her. They were just more indulgent of her, let's say. So he gives us this kind of annoying, superficial, frustrating character, makes us want her to go away, makes us hope against hope that David won't marry her. And then in really not that many chapters, he makes us terrified that she's going to die. Now, you know me. I don't do spoilers. I hate spoilers. One of my favorite parts of doing this show really, truly is getting to experience these books along with you and trying never to color your experience of the book by telling you things that are going to come up, even though I know them. So I have no comment at all about whether or not Dora actually is going to die. But I got so many letters this time from people saying either that they were afraid that she will die given this mysterious condition that she seems to now have, which I'll get to in a moment, woman. But either that you're afraid she's gonna die. And I even got a bunch of letters saying, like, oh, it's so sad that Dora dies. I mean, she's not dead, you guys. She's still with us and she might stay with us. So let's not get ahead of ourselves here. But she's certainly not doing well at the moment. We can say that. And what I love is that Dickens has successfully made us feel heartbreaking sympathy for someone who, not that long ago, we wanted David to get rid of by any means but possible. I mean, that is great writing. And I think the thing that's really so poignant about what's going on in chapter 48, and I think it's what we are all responding to, actually this time, it's the way in which David is growing up and Dora isn't. I think that we are all now finally allowing ourselves to do what David is also finally allowing himself to do, which is to say, see Dora the way that she is asking to be seen as a child wife, as someone who, for whatever reason, can't really move forward into adulthood the way that we would want her and expect her to. Part of it is what happens in David's last attempt to, as he calls it, shape her mind, right? He tried this once before, and it made Dora miserable, and that made David miserable. And then he decided, right, with Dora's help and with Ms. Betsy's help, he decided that he needed to just let her be who she is and not. Not who he wished that she was. But now, because they are again struggling with negligent servants, David makes another attempt to help Dora to grow up and to be more of the housewife that he wishes that she were. And we see how he does become almost Murdstone like. And how Dora acts pretty much exactly the way Clara acted when she was the one being forced to submit to Mr. Murdstone's way of viewing the world and Mr. Murdstone's ideas of what sort of person she ought to be. Here's what David says. When Dora was very childish and I would have infinitely preferred to humor her, I tried to be grave and disconcerted her and myself, too. I talked to her on the subjects which occupied my thoughts, and I read Shakespeare to her and fatigued her to the last degree. I accustomed myself to giving her, as it were, quite casually, little scraps of useful information or sound opinion. And she started from them when I let them off, as if they had been crackers, right? Crackers, meaning like Christmas crackers that pop when you snap them. Okay, so he is definitely playing the part of Mr. Murdstone here, and Dora is playing the part of Clara, David says. But it had no other effect upon Dora than to depress her spirits and make her always nervous with the dread that it would be her turn next. Which sounds a lot like what happened to Clara, right? And, I mean, obviously, even when David is doing this, he is much kinder and more loving than Mr. Murdstone ever was. So it's definitely not like a Perfect comparison. But in the same same way that Mr. Murdstone married a silly, childish, pretty, sweet girl because she was silly and childish and pretty, and then tried to change her into a more serious sort of person once they were married, David has married a silly, sweet, childish girl and is now concerned that she isn't serious enough to be a good housewife. But unlike Mr. Birdstone, David realizes pretty quickly that it's him that's in the wrong, that you can't ask someone to suddenly turn into something they're not, because you would prefer that they do that after you chose them specifically for being the sort of person that you are now asking them not to be. And in realizing once and for all that Dora isn't actually going to change, right, that she is who she is and she's always been that way, David simultaneously loses something and gains something. He loses the sort of companion he was hoping to have, but he gains the full benefit of the thing Dora is, which isn't nothing. In fact, it's something very important because Dora is a loving, sweet, kind, cheerful sort of person. And like I was saying a while ago, David does love her. He loves her intensely, and he loves her as she is, right? Sweet and cheerful and playful and childish, all of those things. So making her miserable won't fill the void he's increasingly realizing that he has in his life. And in making this realization and deciding once and for all to let Dora be Dora, the goal between them simultaneously narrows and widens. It narrows because now they are to each other what they are able to be, and they can love each other freely and as fully as it's possible for them to love each other. And there is something really lovely and sweet in that. But it widens because David is going to keep growing up, and Dora, it seems, is not. And Dickens shows us all the ways that David is growing up. Which again, brings to light this contrast between David and Dora, because Dora essentially just keeps staying the same, right? But David has been growing. I mean, ever since the story started, he's been growing. I mean, we've been following him here since his birth and we've been rooting for him all this time. But until now, we have kind of been saying, like, yeah, but he's still very young. And that excused a lot of his teenage behavior, like his drunken night and his friendship with Steerforth and even his choice of Dora for a wife. But kind of without our noticing, David has turned into a full fledged adult. He has published a book, he's becoming well known as a writer. This seems to be his calling. So he's found his passion and his calling in life and he's pursuing it and he's doing it well. But also the qualities that we've always loved about him, right? His modesty and his open heartedness and his sense of wonder in the world, they are still intact, but in a new and kind of grown up way. I love this line. It says, it has always been in my observation of human nature that a man who has any good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the faces of other people in order that they may believe in him. For this reason I retained my modesty in very self respect. And the more praise I got, the more I tried to deserve. I mean, first of all, that's excellent advice and it's an excellent observation. But it's also so David, isn't it? So he's grown up in that way. And we also see that he's grown up when we see the way that he thinks about his servants. Again, he is still him. He's still being horribly taken advantage of by the servants. But now he sees this in a new light. Here's what he My dear Dora, unless we learn to do our duty to those whom we employ, they will never learn to do their duty to us. I am afraid we present opportunities to people to do wrong that never ought to be presented. Even if we were as lax as we are in all our arrangements by choice, which we are not, even if we liked it and found it agreeable to be so, which we don't, I am persuaded we should have no right to go on in this way. We are positively corrupting people. We are bound to think of that. I can't help thinking of it, Dora. It is a reflection I am unable to dismiss and it sometimes makes me very uneasy. Okay, so he's realizing that as adults the they have a responsibility toward these young boys and girls that they're hiring to teach them to be upstanding citizens and good employees. And they're not doing that. And it bothers David because now he's a grown up and he sees that he has a responsibility to other people and that it's not necessarily the fault of the servants that they keep taking advantage of him. It's partly his fault for letting them take advantage. But of course Dora can't see that at all. In fact, she can't even understand what he's saying. Saying. You know, when David tries to explain his new way of thinking to her, she is convinced that he's saying that she is just as bad as the servants who've been stealing from them. And it's really very funny what she says, but it's also just one more way that David is growing up and Dora isn't. Here's what she says. Oh, you cruel fellow. To compare your affectionate wife to a transported page. Why didn't you tell me your opinion of me before we were married? Why didn't you say, you hard hearted thing, that you were convinced I was worse than a transported page? Oh, what a dreadful opinion to have of me. Oh my goodness. Okay, so that is one way that Dickens kind of highlights this discrepancy between David and Dora. He shows us how David is growing and changing and truly becoming a man and how Dora isn't growing or changing and she's staying very much a child. And I think that allows us to finally see her as a child and give her the sympathy and the understanding that we might give to a child. Okay, so that's one thing. But the other thing that happens in this chapter is that Dora nearly enters into the next phase of life. She nearly becomes a mother, but she doesn't again, she can't quite make it out of childhood. She can't quite make it to the next phase of life. And for me, this is the most devastating part of the chapter and also just one of the most devastating little moments in the whole book. And there are two parts to it. First is this idea that I was just talking about, this notion that motherhood might have helped Dora to grow up, which I think it probably would have, though not necessarily, but it definitely does do that for some people. I mean, having someone else who's completely dependent on you does have a way of taking you out of your own concerns. It's hard to be a child when you have a child to care for. Here's what David I had hoped that lighter hands than mine would help to mold her character and that a baby smile upon her breast might change my child wife to a woman. I mean, gosh, that is so beautiful, isn't it? But the second part is even more beautiful, I think, and even more devastating. Here's what he says. It was not to be. The spirit fluttered for a moment on the threshold of its little prison and unconscious of captivity took wing. I mean, wow, that is a gorgeous and devastating description of miscarriage. It. It always makes me tear up when I read that. Some of you already know that I had a miscarriage before I had my first son. And for me at least, that is such a lovely and Poignant description, you know, that certain knowledge that there is someone there, a new life fluttering right, as David says. And the equally certain knowledge that it's gone, and the fervent hope that it has gone somewhere where it is safe and loved and where perhaps one day that you will see it again. I mean, I remember feeling all of that at the time. And really that feeling and that hope, it never goes away. And I love Dickens for describing that so beautifully and so respectfully. But what's also so amazing about this is that in like two or three lines at most, Dickens shows us that regardless of whether Dora lives or dies, at least at this point in the narrative, Dora isn't growing up. She tried. She tried to be the sort of wife that David wanted and she couldn't. She tried to become a mother and she didn't. And so for now, at least, that door is closed. David is growing into a man. He has grown into a man, and Dora is going to stay a child. And there's something really sad and moving about that, I think. But it also makes us feel for Dora. It makes us finally see her for who she truly is and to love her for who she is and to appreciate her for what she does provide to David, which is cheerfulness and love and sweetness and pride in him and all kinds of things that he really does love. But the upshot of the fact that David is now a grown up and Dora is not is that David now has to act like the grown up for both of them. Here's what he says. I had endeavored to adapt Dora to myself and found it impracticable. It remained for me to adapt myself to Dora, to share with her what I could and be happy, to bear on my own shoulders what I must and be happy still. This was the discipline to which I tried to bring my heart when I began to think. It made my second year much happier than my first. And what was better still, made Dora's life all sunshine. So he doesn't try to make her into something that she can never be. Instead, he makes himself, himself into something that he can be, which is an adult, married to a woman who will always, in some ways, be a child. And he lives now with the constant knowledge, although it's mostly kind of subconscious knowledge, but the constant knowledge that his marriage is a good one, but it's not the deep connection that he had hoped to have and that in his secret heart of hearts, he still longs for. Here's what he says. The old, unhappy feeling pervaded my life it was deepened, if it were changed at all, but it was as undefined as ever and addressed me like a strain of sorrowful music faintly heard in the night. I loved my wife dearly, and I was happy. But the happiness I had vaguely anticipated once was not the happiness I enjoyed. And there was always something wanting, right? And when he thinks of that something wanting, he unconsciously thinks of Agnes. Here is what he says. When I thought of the airy dreams of youth that are incapable of realization, I thought of the better state preceding manhood that I had outgrown. And then the contented days with Agnes in the dear old house arose before me like specters of the dead that might have some renewal in another world, but nevermore could be reanimated here. Okay, so that deep connection, that meeting of equals that he can't have with Dora is something that he knows he felt when he was younger living with the Wickfields, something he felt with Agnes. But he sees it now as a sort of like, platonic ideal, a too perfect version of marriage that he can only have in heaven because it's not real on earth. And now, of course, the question is, if Dora can't grow up and David can, does that mean that they will just continue in this way, like loving each other but not really connecting on that deeper level that David now thinks might not even be possible in this life? Is that what's going to happen? Or. Or will Dora's inability to grow up extend even to not being able to live a grown up life? Meaning, will she be like an invalid now? Will she even die? There's certainly something wrong with her now, right? Something that seems to have been brought on by the miscarriage. Here's what David says. She looked very pretty and was very merry, but the little feet that used to be so nimble when they danced around Gyp were dull and motionless. I began to carry her downstairs every morning and upstairs every night. She would clasp me around the neck and laugh the while as if I did it for a wager, you know? And this is really. It's very touching because the things that make us love Dora are the things that she shows us now in this adversity. She isn't complaining or ordering people to do things for her and get things or whatever. She's still lighting up their lives with her laughter and her cheerfulness. And suddenly we love her and we don't want her to go. I mean, come on, like, isn't Dickens just the best? And David, like many of, is clearly afraid that she's not gonna make it, he says. But sometimes when I took her up and felt that she was lighter in my arms, a dead, blank feeling came upon me, as if I were approaching to some frozen region yet unseen that numbed my life meaning. He sees her like this and he's afraid that she will never get better. And you can see in this reaction that he really does love her, that his feelings about having perhaps not chosen his wife wisely, they don't mean that he doesn't want her around. And they certainly don't mean that he wants her to die. He would be devastated if he dies. He loves her. It's such a wonderfully nuanced portrayal of a marriage and a relationship and a life. I mean, it's beautiful. So basically, here we are, right? David is growing up. Dora is not. They are happier than they were before. David figured all of that out. But also something is wrong with Dora. So that's not good. And that's basically where things stand. So let's get back to it and see kind of which part of this whole story Dickens is going to give us next. But of course, don't forget to write to me. It's faithkmore.com and then click on Contact. Send me all your questions and thoughts. I would love to hear them. I would love to get your reactions. They make my day. So please do get in touch. And if you're listening in real time, please do join us this evening at 8pm Eastern for tea time over in the drawing room. I hope to see you there. All right, let's get started with chapter 49 of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It's story time. Chapter 49. I am involved in a mystery. I received one morning by the post the following letter, dated Canterbury and addressed to me at Doctors Commons, which I read with some surprise. My dear sir, circumstances beyond my individual control have for a considerable lapse of time, effected a severance of that intimacy which in the limited opportunities conceded to me in the midst of my professional duties of contemplating the scenes and events of the past, tinged by the prismatic hues of memory, has ever afforded me, as it ever must continue to afford, gratifying emotions of no common description. This fact, my dear sir, combined with the distinguished elevation to which your talents have raised you, deters me from presuming to aspire to the liberty of addressing the companion of my youth by the familiar appellation of Copperfield, it is sufficient to know that the name to which I do myself the honor to refer will ever be treasured among the muniments of our house, I allude to the archives connected with our former lodgers, preserved by Mrs. Micawber with sentiments of personal esteem amounting to affection. Okay, so all of this just means that the person writing the letter, whom we assume is Mr. Macawer, given his reference to Mrs. Micawber, is very fond of David, but hasn't spoken to him for a while and is therefore not sure if they are still on familiar terms. It is not for one situated through his original errors and a fortuitous combination of unpropitious events as is the foundered bark, if he may be allowed to assume so. Maritime, a denomination who now takes up the pen to address you. It is not, I repeat, for one so circumstanced to adopt the language of compliment or of congratulation that he leaves to abler and to purer hands. If your more important avocations should permit of your ever tracing these imperfect characters thus far which may be or may not be, as circumstances arise, you will naturally inquire, by what object am I influenced then in inditing the present missive? Meaning, if you've made it this far in the letter, you're probably wondering why I'm writing to you. Allow me to say that I fully defer to the reasonable character of that inquiry and proceed to develop it, premising that it is not an object of a pecuniar nature. I mean, he's going to get to the point now and he's letting David know that he's not asking for money without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly exist on my part of wielding the thunderbolt or directing the devouring and avenging flame. In any quarter I may be permitted to observe in passing that my brightest visions are forever dispelled, that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment destroyed that my heart is no longer in the right place and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker is in the flower, the cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at his work and will soon dispose of his victim, the sooner the better. But I will not digress. Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness beyond the assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's influence, though exercised in the tripartite character of woman, wife and mother. It is my intention to fly from myself for a short period and devote a respite of 8 and 40 hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoyment among other havens of domestic tranquility and peace of mind. My Feet will naturally tend towards the King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be DV on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process the day after tomorrow at seven in the evening precisely my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished. Okay. He's saying that something bad has happened and it's very much upsetting him. And he's saying that he'll be outside of the wall of the prison on a certain day and time. I do not feel warranted in soliciting my former friend, Mr. Copperfield. Or my former friend Mr. Thomas Traddles of the Inner Temple, if that gentleman is still existent and forthcoming, to condescend to meet me and renew so far as may be our past relations of the olden time. I confine myself to throwing out the observation that at the hour and place I have indicated may be found such ruined vestiges as yet remain of a fallen tower. Wilkins Micawber. Okay. So he's asking David and Traddles to meet him at that place on that day that he mentioned. P.S. it may be advisable to super. Add to the above the statement that Mrs. Macawer is not in confidential possession of my intentions. Meaning Mrs. McCawber doesn't know anything about this. I read the letter over several times, making due allowance for Mr. Macawer's lofty style of composition and for the extraordinary relish with which he sat down and wrote long letters on all possible and impossible occasions. I still believed that something important. Important lay hidden at the bottom of this roundabout communication. I put it down to think about it and took it up again to read it once more. And was still perusing it when Traddles found me in the height of my perplexity. My dear fellow, said I, I never was better pleased to see you. You come to give me the benefit of your sober judgment. At a most opportune time. I have received a very singular letter. Traddles, from Mr. Macabre. No. Cried Traddles. You don't say so. And I have received one from Mrs. Micawber. With that Traddles, who was flushed with walking and whose hair, under the combined effects of exercise and excitement, stood on end as if he saw a cheerful ghost, produced his letter and made an exchange with me. I watched him into the heart of Mr. Micawber's letter and returned the elevation of eyebrows with which he said, Wielding the thunderbolt or directing the devouring and avenging flame. Bless me, Copperfield. And then entered on the perusal of Mrs. Micawber's epistle. It ran my best regards to Mr. Thomas Traddles, and if he should still remember one who formerly had the happiness of being well acquainted with him, may I beg a few moments of his leisure time? I assure Mr. T. T that I would not intrude upon his kindness were I in any other position than on the confines of distinction distraction. Though harrowing to myself to mention the alienation of Mr. Macawer, formerly so domesticated from his wife and family, is the cause of my addressing my unhappy appeal to Mr. Treadles and soliciting his best indulgence. Mr. T. Can form no adequate idea of the change in Mr. Macabre's conduct, of his wildness, of his violence. It has gradually augmented until it assumes the appearance of aberration of intellect. Scarcely a day passes, I assure Mr. Traddles on which some paroxysm does not take place. Mr. T will not require me to depict my feelings when I inform him that I have become accustomed to hear Mr. Micawber assert that he has sold himself to the d, meaning to the devil. Mystery and secrecy have long been his principal characteristic, have long replaced least unlimited confidence. The slightest provocation, even being asked if there is anything he would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish for a separation. Last night, on being childishly solicited for tuppence to buy lemon stunners, a local sweetmeat, he presented an oyster knife at the twins. I entreat Mr. Traddles to bear with me in entering into these details. Without them, Mr. T would indeed find it difficult to form the faintest conception of my heartrending situation. May I now venture to confide to Mr. T the purport of my letter? Will he now allow me to throw myself on his friendly consideration? Oh, yes, for I know his heart. The quick eye of affection is not easily blinded when, of the female sex, Mr. Micawber is going to London, though he studiously conceals his hand this morning before breakfast in writing the direction card which he attached to the little brown valise of happier days. The eagle glance of matrimonial anxiety detected, don distinctly traced. The west end destination of the coach is the Golden Cross. Dare I fervently implore Mr. T to see my misguided husband and to reason with him? Dare I ask Mr. T to endeavour to step in between Mr. Micawber and his agonized family? Oh, no, for that would be too much if Mr. Copperfield should yet remember one unknown to fame. Will Mr. T take charge of my unalterable regards and similar entreaties. In any case, he will have the benevolence to consider this communication strictly private, and on no account whatever to allude to, however distantly, in the presence of Mr. Micawber. If Mr. T should ever reply to it, which I cannot but feel to be most improbable, a letter addressed to me post office Canterbury, will be fraught with less painful consequences than any addressed immediately to one who subscribes herself in extreme distress. Mr. Thomas Traddles's respectful friend and suppliant, Emma Micawber. What do you think of that letter? Said Traddles, casting his eyes upon me when I had read it twice. What do you think of the other? Said I, for he was still reading it with knitted brows. I think that the two together, Copperfield, replied Traddles, mean more than Mr. And Mrs. Micawber usually mean in their correspondence, but I don't know what they are. Both written in good faith, I have no doubt, and without any collusion. Poor thing. He was now alluding to Mrs. Micawber's letter, and we were standing side by side, comparing the two. It will be a charity to write to her at all events, and tell her that we will not fail to see Mr. Micawber. I acceded to this the more readily because I now reproached myself with having treated her former letter rather lightly. Remember, Mrs. Micawber wrote to David a while ago, telling him that Mr. Micawber had become very secretive. It had set me thinking a good deal at the time, as I have mentioned in its place, but my absorption in my own affairs, my experience of the family and my hearing, nothing more, had gradually ended in my dismissing the subject. I had often thought of the Micawbers, but chiefly to wonder what pecuniary liabilities they were establishing in Canterbury, and to recall how shy Mr. Micawber was of me when he became clerk to Uriah Heap. However, I now wrote a comforting letter to Mrs. Micawber in our joint names, and we both signed it. As we walked into town to post it, Traddles and I held a long conference and launched into a number of speculations which I need not repeat. We took my aunt into our council in the afternoon, but our only decided conclusion was that we would be very punctual in keeping Mr. Micawber's appointment. Although we appeared at the stipulated place a quarter of an hour before the time, we found Mr. Micawber already there. He was standing with his arms folded over against the wall, looking at the spikes on the top with a sentimental expression, as if they were the interlacing boughs of trees that had shaded him in his youth. When we accosted him, his manner was something more confused and something less genteel than of yore. He had relinquished his legal suit of black for the purposes of this excursion, and wore the old surtout and tights, but not quite with the old air. He gradually picked up more and more of it as we conversed with him, but his very eyeglass seemed to hang less easily, and his shirt collar, though still of the old formidable dimensions, rather drooped. Gentlemen, said Mr. Micawber after the first salutations, you are friends in need, and friends indeed. Allow me to offer my inquiries with reference to the physical welfare of Mrs. Copperfield in essay and Mrs. Traddles in posse, meaning Mrs. Copperfield, that is, and Mrs. Traddles, that will be, presuming, that is to say, that my friend Mr. Traddles is not yet united to the object of his affections for weal and for woe. We acknowledged his politeness and made suitable replies. He then directed our attention to the wall, and was beginning, I assure you gentlemen, when I ventured to object to that ceremonious form of address, and to beg that he would speak to us in the old way. My dear Copperfield, he returned, pressing my hand, your cordiality overpowers me. This reception of a shattered fragment of the temple once called man, if I may be permitted so to express myself, bespeaks a heart that is an honour to our common nature. I was about to observe that I again behold the serene spot where some of the happiest hours of my existence fleeted by meaning the debtors prison, made so, I AM sure, by Mrs. Micawber, said I, I hope she is well. Thank you, returned Mr. Micawber, whose face clouded at this reference. She is but so so. And this, said Mr. Micawber, nodding his head sorrowfully, is the bench where for the first time in many revolving years the the overwhelming pressure of pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed from day to day by importune voices declining to vacate the passage, where there was no knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to, where personal service of process was not required and detainees were merely lodged at the gate. Gentlemen, said Mr. Micawber, when the shadow of that iron work on the summit of the brick structure has been reflected on the gravel of the parade, I have seen my children thread the mazes of the intricate pattern, avoiding the dark Marks. I have been familiar with every stone in the place. If I betray weakness, you will know how to excuse me. We have all got on in life since then, Mr. Micawber, said I. Mr. Copperfield, returned Mr. Micawber bitterly. When I was an inmate of that retreat, I could look my fellow man in the face and punch his head if he offended me. My fellow man and myself are no longer on those glorious terms. Turning from the building in a downcast manner, Mr. Micawber accepted my proffered arm on one side and the proffered arm of Traddles on the other hand, and walked away. Between us there are some landmarks, observed Mr. Micawber, looking fondly back over his shoulder on the road to the tomb which, for the impiety of the aspiration, a man would wish never to have passed. Such is the bench in my checkered career. Oh, you are in low spirits, Mr. Micawber, said Traddles. I am, sir, interposed Mr. Micawber. I hope, said Traddles, it is not because you have conceived a dislike to the law, for I am a lawyer myself, you know, Mr. Micawber answered. Not a word. How is our friend heep, Mr. Micawber? Said I. After a silence. My dear Copperfield, returned Mr. Micawber, bursting into a state of much excitement and turning pale. If you ask after my employer as your friend, I am sorry for it. If you ask after him as my friend, I sardonically smile at it. In whatever capacity you ask after my employer, I beg without offense to you, to limit my reply to this, that whatever his state of health may be, his appearance is foxy, not to say diabolical. You will allow me, as a private individual, to decline pursuing a subject which has lashed me to the utmost verge of desperation. In my professional capacity, I expressed my regret for having innocently touched upon a theme that roused him so much. May I ask, said I, without any hazard of repeating the mistake, how my old friends Mr. And Ms. Wickfield are Ms. Wickfield, said Mr. Micawber, now turning red is, as she always is, a pattern and a bright example. My dear Copperfield, she is the only starry spot in a miserable existence. My respect for that young lady, my admiration of her character, my devotion to her for her love and truth and goodness. Take me, said Mr. Micawber, down a turning, for upon my soul, in my present state of mind I am not equal to this. We wheeled him off into a narrow street, where he took out his pocket handkerchief and stood with his back to a wall. If I looked as gravely at him as Traddles did. He must have found our company by no means in the conspiring. It is my fate, said Mr. Micawber, unfeignedly, sobbing, but doing even that with a shadow of the old expression of doing something genteel. It is my fate, gentlemen, that the finer feelings of our nature have become reproaches to me. My homage to Miss Wickfield is a flight of arrows in my bosom. You had better leave me, if you please, to walk the earth as a vagabond. The worm will settle my business in double quick time, meaning he will die soon. Without attending to this invocation, we stood by until he put up his pocket handkerchief, pulled up his shirt collar, and, to delude any person in the neighbourhood who might have been observing him, hummed a tune with his hat very much on one side. I then mentioned, not knowing what might be lost if we lost sight of him, yet that it would give me great pleasure to introduce him to my aunt if he would ride out to Highgate where a bed was at his service. You shall make us a glass of Your own punch, Mr. Micawber, said I, and forget whatever you have on your mind in pleasanter reminisces or if confiding anything to friends will be more likely to relieve you, you shall impart it to us, Mr. Micawber, said Traddles prudently. Gentlemen, returned Mr. Micawber, do with me as you will. I am a straw upon the surface of the deep and am tossed in all directions by the elephants. I beg your pardon. I should have said the elements. We walked on arm in arm, again, found the coach in the act of starting, and arrived at Highgate without encountering any difficulties, by the way. I was very uneasy and very uncertain in my mind what to say or do for the best. So was traddles. Evidently Mr. Micawber was, for the most part plunged into deep gloom. He occasionally made an attempt to smarten himself and hum the fag end of a tune. But his relapses into profound melancholy were only made the more impressive by the mockery of a hat exceedingly on one side and a shirt collar pulled up to his eyes. We went to my aunt's house rather than to mine, because of Dora's not being well. My aunt presented herself on being sent for and welcomed Mr. Micawber with gracious cordiality. Mr. Micawber kissed her hand, retired to the window, and, pulling out his pocket handkerchief, had a mental wrestle with himself. Mr. Dick was at home. He was by nature so exceedingly compassionate of any one who seemed to be ill at ease, and was so quick to find any such person out that he shook hands with Mr. Micawber at least half a dozen times in five minutes. Minutes. To Mr. Micawber in his trouble, this warmth on the part of a stranger was so extremely touching that he could only say on the occasion of each successive shake, my dear sir, you overpower me. Which gratified Mr. Dick so much that he went at it again with greater vigour than before. The friendliness of this gentleman, said Mr. Micawber to my aunt, if you will allow me, maam, to cull a figure of speech from the vocabulary of our coarser national sports, floors me to a man who is struggling with a complicated burden of perplexity and disquiet. Such a reception is trying, I assure you, my friend, Mr. Dick, replied my aunt proudly, is not a common man. That I am convinced of, said Mr. Micawber, my dear sir, for Mr. Dick was shaking hands with him again. I am deeply sensible of your cordiality. How do you find yourself? Said Mr. Dick, with an anxious look. Indifferent, my dear sir, returned Mr. Micawber, sighing. You must keep up your spirits, said Mr. Dick, and make yourself as comfortable as possible. Mr. Micawber was quite overcome by these friendly words and by finding Mr. Dick's hand again within his own. It has been my lot, he observed, to meet in the diversified panorama of human existence, with an occasional oasis, but never with one so green, so gushing as the present. At another time I should have been amused by this, but I felt that we were all constrained and uneasy, And I watched Mr. Micawber so anxiously in his vacillations between an evident disposition to reveal something something and a counter disposition to reveal nothing, that I was in a perfect fever. Traddles, sitting on the edge of his chair with his eyes wide open and his hair more emphatically erect than ever, stared by turns at the ground and at Mr. Micawber, without so much as attempting to put in a word. My aunt, though I saw that her shrewdest observation was concentrated on her new guest, had more useful possession of her wits than either of us, for she held him in conversation and made it necessary for him to talk, whether he liked it or not. You are a very old friend of my nephew's, Mr. Micawber, said my aunt. I wish I had had the pleasure of seeing you before, madam, returned Mr. Micawber. I wish I had had the honour of knowing you at an earlier period. I was not always the wreck you at present behold. I hope Mrs. Micawber and your family are well, sir, said my aunt. Mr. Micawber inclined his head. They are as well, ma', am, he desperately observed after a pause, as aliens and outcasts can ever hope to be. Lord bless you, sir. Exclaimed my aunt in her abrupt way. What are you talking about? The subsistence of my family, ma', am, returned Mr. Micawber trembles in the balance. My employer here, Mr. Micawber, provokingly left off and began to peel the lemons that had been under my directions set before him, together with all the other appliances he used in making punch. Your employer, you know, said Mr. Dick, jogging his arm as a gentle reminder. My good sir, returned Mr. Micawber, you recall me. I am obliged to you. They shook hands again. My employer, ma', am, Mr. Heep once did me the favour to observe to me that if I were not in the receipt of the stipendiary emoluments appertaining to my engagement with him, I should probably be a month back about the country, swallowing a sword blade and eating the devouring element. Meaning, Uriah told him that if it wasn't for him, for Uriah, Mr. Micawber would be nothing for anything that I can perceive to the contrary, it is still probable that my children may be reduced to seek a livelihood by personal contortion, while Mrs. Micawber abets their unnatural feats by playing the barrel organ. Mr. Micawber, with a random but expressive flourish of his knife, signified that these performances might be expected to take place after he was no more, then resumed his peeling with a desperate air. My aunt leaned her elbow on the little round table that she usually kept beside her, and eyed him attentively. Notwithstanding the aversion with which I regarded the idea of entrapping him into any disclosure he was not prepared to make voluntarily. I should have taken him up at this point, but for the strange proceedings in which I saw him engaged whereof his putting the lemon peel into the kettle, the sugar into the snuffer tray, the spirit into the empty jug, and confidently attempting to pour boiling water out of a candlestick, were among the most remarkable. I saw that a crisis was at hand, and it came he clattered all his means and implements together, rose from his chair, pulled out his pocket handkerchief, and burst into tears. My dear Copperfield, said Mr. Micawber behind his handkerchief, this is an occupation of all others, requiring an untroubled mind and self respect. I cannot perform is out of the question Mr. Micawber, said I. What is the matter? Pray speak out. You are among friends. Among friends, sir, repeated Mr. Micawber, and all he had reserved came breaking out of him. Good heavens. It is principally because I am among friends that my state of mind is what it is. What is the matter, gentlemen? What is not the matter? Villainy is the matter, baseness is the matter, deception, fraud, conspiracy are the matter. And the name of the whole atrocious mass is heap. My aunt clapped her hands and we all started up as if we were possessed. The struggle is over, said Mr. Micawber, violently, gesticulating with his pocket handkerchief and fairly striking out from time to time with both arms as if he were swimming under superhuman difficulties. Difficulties. I will lead this life no longer. I am a wretched being, cut off from everything that makes life tolerable. I have been under a taboo in that infernal scoundrel service. Give me back my wife, give me back my family. Substitute Micawber for the petty wretch who walks about in the boots at present on my feet, and call upon me to swallow a sword tomorrow, and I'll do it with an appetite. I never saw a man so hot in my life. I tried to calm him that we might come to something rational, but he got hotter and hotter and wouldn't hear a word. I'll put my hand in no man's hand, said Mr. Micawber, gasping, puffing and sobbing to that degree that he was like a man fighting with cold water. Until I have blown to fragments the detestable serpent heap, I'll partake of no one's hospitality until I have moved Mount Vesuvius to eruption on the abandoned rascal heap. Refreshment underneath this roof particularly punch would choke me, unless I had previously choked the eyes out of the head of interminable cheat and liar Heep. I ha. I'll know nobody and say nothing and live nowhere until I have crushed two undiscoverable atoms. The transcendent and immortal hypocrite and perjurer Heap. I really had some fear of Mr. Micawber's dying on the spot. The manner in which he struggled through these inarticulate sentences and whenever he found himself getting near the name of Heep, fought his way on to it, dashed at it in a fainting state, and brought it out with a vehemence little less than marvellous, was frightful. But now, when he sank into a chair, steaming, and looked at us with every possible colour in his face that had no business there, and an Endless procession of lumps following one another in hot haste up his throat, whence they seemed to shoot into his forehead. He had the appearance of being in the last extremity. I would have gone to his assistance, but he waved me off and wouldn't hear a word. No Copperfield, no communication, ha. Until Ms. Wickfield, ha. Redress from wrongs inflicted by consummate scoundrel Heep. I am quite convinced he could not have uttered three words but for the amazing energy with which this word inspired inspired him when he felt it coming. Meaning the word heap inviolable secret, huh? From the whole world, huh? No exceptions this day week, huh? At breakfast time, ah. Everybody present, including aunt, huh? And extremely friendly gentleman to be at the hotel at Canterbury, huh? Where Mrs. Macabre and myself auld lang syne in chorus and huh. Will expose intolerable ruffian heap. No more to say, huh? Or listen to persuasion. Go immediately not capable bear society upon the track of devoted and doomed traitor Heep. Okay, so he seems to be saying that in a week everyone should come to the hotel in Canterbury where David and the Macabre's dined together long ago, and he will somehow expose Uriah Heep. With this last repetition of the magic word that had kept him going at all and in which he surpassed all his previous efforts, Mr. Macawer rushed out of the house, leaving us in a state of excitement, hope and wonder that reduced us to a condition little better than his own. But even then his passion for writing letters was too strong to be resisted. For while we were yet in the height of our excitement, hope and wonder. The following pastoral note was brought to me from a neighboring tavern at which he had called to write it most secret and confidential. My dear sir, I beg to be allowed to convey through you my apologies to your excellent aunt for my late excitement. An explosion of a smouldering volcano long suppressed, was the result of an internal contest more easily conceived than described. I trust I rendered tolerably intelligible my appointment for the morning of this day week at the house of public entertainment at Canterbury, where Mrs. Micawber and myself had once the honour of uniting our voices to yours in the well known strain of the immortal exciseman nurtured beyond the tweed, the duty done and act of reparation performed, which can alone enable me to contemplate my fellow mortal, I shall be known no more. I shall simply require to be deposited in that place of universal resort where each in his narrow cell forever laid the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep with the plain inscription Wilkins Macabre. Thank you so much for listening. I'd love to know what you thought of the chapters. Is there anything you'd like me to clarify? Did something particularly interest you? Please go to my website, faithkmoore.com click on contact and send me your questions and thoughts. Or you can click on the link in the Show Notes to contact me. I'll feature one or two of your entries at the start of the next episode. Speaking of links, don't forget to take a look at the other links in the Show Notes. You can learn more about me, check out our Merch store, or become a member of the Storytime for Grown Ups online community. Before I go, I'd like to ask a quick favorite. This is an independent podcast. It's produced, recorded, and marketed by me, so I need your help. 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