Great Expectations

He drank again, and became more ferocious. I saw by his tilting of

the bottle that there was no great quantity left in it. I distinctly

understood that he was working himself up with its contents to make an

end of me. I knew that every drop it held was a drop of my life. I knew

that when I was changed into a part of the vapor that had crept towards

me but a little while before, like my own warning ghost, he would do

as he had done in my sister's case,--make all haste to the town, and

be seen slouching about there drinking at the alehouses. My rapid mind

pursued him to the town, made a picture of the street with him in it,

and contrasted its lights and life with the lonely marsh and the white

vapor creeping over it, into which I should have dissolved.

It was not only that I could have summed up years and years and years

while he said a dozen words, but that what he did say presented pictures

to me, and not mere words. In the excited and exalted state of my brain,

I could not think of a place without seeing it, or of persons without

seeing them. It is impossible to overstate the vividness of these

images, and yet I was so intent, all the time, upon him himself,--who

would not be intent on the tiger crouching to spring!--that I knew of

the slightest action of his fingers.

When he had drunk this second time, he rose from the bench on which

he sat, and pushed the table aside. Then, he took up the candle, and,

shading it with his murderous hand so as to throw its light on me, stood

before me, looking at me and enjoying the sight.

"Wolf, I'll tell you something more. It was Old Orlick as you tumbled

over on your stairs that night."

I saw the staircase with its extinguished lamps. I saw the shadows of

the heavy stair-rails, thrown by the watchman's lantern on the wall.

I saw the rooms that I was never to see again; here, a door half open;

there, a door closed; all the articles of furniture around.

"And why was Old Orlick there? I'll tell you something more, wolf.

You and her have pretty well hunted me out of this country, so far as

getting a easy living in it goes, and I've took up with new companions,

and new masters. Some of 'em writes my letters when I wants 'em

wrote,--do you mind?--writes my letters, wolf! They writes fifty hands;

they're not like sneaking you, as writes but one. I've had a firm mind

and a firm will to have your life, since you was down here at your

sister's burying. I han't seen a way to get you safe, and I've looked

arter you to know your ins and outs. For, says Old Orlick to himself,

'Somehow or another I'll have him!' What! When I looks for you, I finds

your uncle Provis, eh?"