Great Expectations

"Look at me," said Miss Havisham. "You are not afraid of a woman who has

never seen the sun since you were born?"

I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie

comprehended in the answer "No."

"Do you know what I touch here?" she said, laying her hands, one upon

the other, on her left side.

"Yes, ma'am." (It made me think of the young man.) "What do I touch?"

"Your heart."

"Broken!"

She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong emphasis, and

with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it. Afterwards she kept

her hands there for a little while, and slowly took them away as if they

were heavy.

"I am tired," said Miss Havisham. "I want diversion, and I have done

with men and women. Play."

I think it will be conceded by my most disputatious reader, that she

could hardly have directed an unfortunate boy to do anything in the wide

world more difficult to be done under the circumstances.

"I sometimes have sick fancies," she went on, "and I have a sick fancy

that I want to see some play. There, there!" with an impatient movement

of the fingers of her right hand; "play, play, play!"

For a moment, with the fear of my sister's working me before my eyes, I

had a desperate idea of starting round the room in the assumed character

of Mr. Pumblechook's chaise-cart. But I felt myself so unequal to the

performance that I gave it up, and stood looking at Miss Havisham in

what I suppose she took for a dogged manner, inasmuch as she said, when

we had taken a good look at each other,-"Are you sullen and obstinate?"

"No, ma'am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can't play just

now. If you complain of me I shall get into trouble with my sister, so

I would do it if I could; but it's so new here, and so strange, and so

fine,--and melancholy--." I stopped, fearing I might say too much, or

had already said it, and we took another look at each other.

Before she spoke again, she turned her eyes from me, and looked at the

dress she wore, and at the dressing-table, and finally at herself in the

looking-glass.

"So new to him," she muttered, "so old to me; so strange to him, so

familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us! Call Estella."