Great Expectations

The mournfulness of the place and time, and the great terror of

this illusion, though it was but momentary, caused me to feel an

indescribable awe as I came out between the open wooden gates where I

had once wrung my hair after Estella had wrung my heart. Passing on into

the front courtyard, I hesitated whether to call the woman to let me out

at the locked gate of which she had the key, or first to go up stairs

and assure myself that Miss Havisham was as safe and well as I had left

her. I took the latter course and went up.

I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in the

ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back towards

me. In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away,

I saw a great flaming light spring up. In the same moment I saw her

running at me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire blazing all about her,

and soaring at least as many feet above her head as she was high.

I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm another thick coat.

That I got them off, closed with her, threw her down, and got them over

her; that I dragged the great cloth from the table for the same purpose,

and with it dragged down the heap of rottenness in the midst, and

all the ugly things that sheltered there; that we were on the ground

struggling like desperate enemies, and that the closer I covered her,

the more wildly she shrieked and tried to free herself,--that this

occurred I knew through the result, but not through anything I felt, or

thought, or knew I did. I knew nothing until I knew that we were on the

floor by the great table, and that patches of tinder yet alight were

floating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had been her faded

bridal dress.

Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and spiders running

away over the floor, and the servants coming in with breathless cries

at the door. I still held her forcibly down with all my strength, like

a prisoner who might escape; and I doubt if I even knew who she was, or

why we had struggled, or that she had been in flames, or that the flames

were out, until I saw the patches of tinder that had been her garments

no longer alight but falling in a black shower around us.

She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved, or even

touched. Assistance was sent for, and I held her until it came, as if

I unreasonably fancied (I think I did) that, if I let her go, the fire

would break out again and consume her. When I got up, on the surgeon's

coming to her with other aid, I was astonished to see that both my hands

were burnt; for, I had no knowledge of it through the sense of feeling.