Reading 'DAVID COPPERFIELD' by Charles Dickens, Part-II

Chapter XXIII. I corroborate Mr. Dick, and choose a Profession

David determines not to tell Steerforth about Little Em’ly’s outburst the night before because he loves Little Em’ly and believes that she did not mean to reveal to him so much about herself. David also tells Steerforth, as they are on their way home by coach, about a letter he has received from Miss Betsey suggesting that he become a proctor (a kind of attorney). Steerforth thinks that the profession of proctor would suit David well, and David agrees.

When David arrives in London, he meets up with Miss Betsey, who has traveled to London to see him. She is very concerned that Mr. Dick, whom she has left behind at home, will not be able to keep the donkeys off her yard. Miss Betsey and David eventually resolve that David will become a proctor, despite his protestations that it is expensive to do so. On their way to establish David at the Doctors’ Commons (the place where the proctors hold court and offices), a man who looks like a beggar approaches them, and Miss Betsey jumps into a cab with him. When she returns, David notices that she has given the man most of her money. David is very disturbed, but Miss Betsey makes him swear never to mention the event again. They go to the offices of Spenlow and Jorkins, where Mr. Spenlow agrees to engage David as a clerk. Afterward, they find lodgings for David with Mrs. Crupp, an old landlady who promises to take care of David as though he were her own son.

Chapter XXIV. My first Dissipation

Although David is thrilled with his new accommodations, he gets lonely at night, and Steerforth is away at Oxford with his friends. David goes to Steerforth’s home and visits Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle, who talk glowingly about Steerforth all day. Finally, Steerforth returns. He and David plan to have a dinner party in David’s rooms with two of Steerforth’s friends. David goes overboard in preparing for the party and then drinks himself into illness. While very drunk, he goes with Steerforth and company to the theater, where he runs into Agnes, who makes him go home. The next day he is hungover and humiliated.

Chapter XXV. Good and bad Angels

Agnes sends for David, and he goes to visit her where she is staying in London. She warns him that Steerforth is his “bad Angel,” that he should avoid Steerforth and be cautious of Steerforth’s influence. David disagrees, but the idea rankles him and disturbs his image of Steerforth. Agnes also delivers the bad news that Uriah Heep has insinuated himself into a partnership with her father, Mr. Wickfield. Both she and David are very distressed over this occurrence.

At a dinner party at the home where Agnes is staying, David runs into Tommy Traddles, his friend from Salem House, and Uriah Heep. Uriah attaches himself to David and accompanies him home. In an unpleasant conversation, Uriah reveals to David his intention to marry Agnes. Uriah insists on sleeping the night on the floor in front of David’s fire. David gets no sleep with Uriah’s evil presence in his apartment.

Chapter XXVI. I fall into Captivity

Mr. Spenlow, David’s supervisor at the Doctors’ Commons, invites David to his home for the weekend. There, David meets Dora, Mr. Spenlow’s daughter, and falls in love with her. David also runs into Miss Murdstone, whom Mr. Spenlow has retained as a companion for his daughter ever since her mother died. Miss Murdstone pulls David aside and suggests they forget their difficult past relationship with each other. David agrees. One morning, he meets Dora out in the garden, where she is walking with her little dog. They have a conversation that cements David’s romantic obsession with her. When David returns home, Mrs. Crupp immediately suspects that he has fallen in love. She tells him to cheer up and go out and think of other things.

Chapter XXVII. Tommy Traddles

David decides to visit Tommy Traddles, who, he discovers when he arrives, lives in the same building as the Micawbers. Traddles is studying for the bar. His apartment and furniture are extremely shabby, and he is struggling to earn enough money to marry his true love, who has sworn to wait for him to save the money. In the meantime, Traddles has collected two pieces of furniture, a flowerpot, and a small table.

Mr. Micawber, meanwhile, is in dire financial trouble again, although he still hopes to find work soon. Mrs. Micawber is pregnant again.

Chapter XXVIII. Mr. Micawber’s Gauntlet

Ride over all obstacles, and win the race!

Mr. and Mrs. Micawber and Traddles come to dinner at David’s apartment. Mrs. Crupp agrees, after a good deal of argument, to cook dinner for them. The dinner is terribly undercooked, but Mrs. Micawber directs them all in re-cooking the meat. They enjoy themselves as they cook and eat.

Steerforth’s servant, Littimer, arrives and asks David whether he has seen Steerforth. David replies that he has not. Littimer will not tell David why he thought Steerforth might be at his house, nor will he tell him where Steerforth has been. However, Littimer insists on serving the remainder of the meal, which makes everyone uncomfortable. After Littimer leaves, the guests continue to have a merry time. They discuss Mr. Micawber’s prospects in the brewing business and conclude that they are very good.

As his friends leave, David suggests to Traddles that he neither lend anything to Mr. Micawber nor allow Micawber to use Traddles’s name to take out more credit. Traddles says he has already lent Mr. Micawber his name and adds that Mr. Micawber says that the bill is taken care of. Skeptical, David reflects that he is very glad Mr. Micawber never asked him for any money.

Steerforth appears in David’s apartment immediately after the others leave, and David tells him Traddles has just left. Steerforth does not speak highly of Traddles, and David is slightly offended. Steerforth reveals that he has been seafaring at Yarmouth. David tells him that Littimer has just been at the apartment looking for him. Steerforth says that Mr. Barkis is quite ill and delivers a letter from Peggotty to David. Steerforth remarks that it is too bad that Mr. Barkis is dying, but says that above all, a man must “[r]ide over all obstacles, and win the race!”

David resolves to go visit Peggotty, but Steerforth persuades David to accompany him to his mother’s house before going to Yarmouth. As David undresses, he discovers a letter Mr. Micawber gave him as he left. It says that Mr. Micawber has not taken care of the debt he secured in Traddles’s name.

Chapter XXIX. I visit Steerforth at his Home, again

At Steerforth’s home, David spends the day with Miss Dartle and Mrs. Steerforth. Miss Dartle asks David why he has been keeping Steerforth away from his mother. David assures her that he has not been with Steerforth in the past several weeks. Miss Dartle seems very disturbed at this news. At dinner, Miss Dartle says that if Steerforth and his mother were ever to quarrel, their fight would be especially bitter because neither of them would want to give in to the other. However, Mrs. Steerforth assures Miss Dartle that she and her son are too conscious of their duty to each other ever to quarrel.

At the end of the day, Steerforth begs David to promise that if anything ever separates them, David will remember him at his best. David promises. As he leaves, he looks in on the sleeping Steerforth. In retrospect, the adult David muses that he wishes he could have kept Steerforth just as he was at that moment, so that none of what was to come ever would have happened.

Chapter XXX. A Loss

When David arrives at Yarmouth, he visits Mr. Omer, who tells him that Little Em’ly has not seemed herself recently. Mr. Omer also says that Martha, a friend of Little Em’ly’s, has been missing since David was last in Yarmouth.

David goes to Peggotty’s house, where Mr. Peggotty and Little Em’ly are sitting in the kitchen, helping Peggotty. David learns that Mr. Barkis is unconscious and expected to die very soon. Mr. Peggotty says that Mr. Barkis will die with the receding tide. Little Em’ly seems unusually upset and hardly raises her eyes to say hello to David. Mr. Barkis dies as the tide recedes.

Chapter XXXI. A greater Loss

After Mr. Barkis’s death, David stays in Yarmouth to help Peggotty arrange her affairs. He discovers that Mr. Barkis has left Peggotty a sizable inheritance and has also left money for Mr. Peggotty.

The adult David breaks his narration to say that he wishes he did not have to go on with his story. He concludes that whether he writes it or not, the outcome would still have been the same.

David goes to Mr. Peggotty’s, where Ham and Little Em’ly are expected soon. Ham arrives and tells David that Little Em’ly has run away. David is completely heartbroken, as is Mr. Peggotty. Little Em’ly has left a letter begging them all to forget her and saying that she will not come back unless the man she has run off with makes her a lady and brings her back. Ham reveals that the man she has run off with is Steerforth. They all cry together, and Mr. Peggotty vows that he will go off to find Little Em’ly.

Chapter XXXII. The Beginning of a long Journey

The next morning, Mr. Peggotty again vows to find Little Em’ly. He announces that he and David will begin their search in London the next day. Mrs. Gummidge comforts Mr. Peggotty, who asks her to stay behind and wait for Little Em’ly’s return.

When David returns to the inn, Miss Mowcher visits him and relates her part in the disaster that has struck the Peggotty family. Standing on the stove, she tells David that when she ran into him and Steerforth in Yarmouth, she believed that David, not Steerforth, was in love with Little Em’ly. Miss Mowcher agreed to give Little Em’ly a letter, which she assumed David had written. The letter put the whole affair into motion. Miss Mowcher apologizes for causing such a nightmare and cautions David not to judge her based on her size. She reminds him that it is not her fault that she was born a dwarf and that she must be sarcastic to get by in the high society she keeps. David agrees, and when Miss Mowcher leaves, he reflects that he has a very different opinion of her than before.

Mr. Peggotty and David arrive in London the next day. They visit Mrs. Steerforth, who blames Little Em’ly for her son’s downfall and Mr. Peggotty for having raised such a wretch. Mrs. Steerforth swears that her son will never marry Little Em’ly. As they leave, Miss Dartle angrily hisses at David for introducing Steerforth to Little Em’ly and for bringing Mr. Peggotty to the Steerforth house. Mr. Peggotty departs to search for Little Em’ly.

Chapter XXXIII. Blissful

David thinks of Dora constantly while walking in her neighborhood but does not dare approach her house. He takes Peggotty, who has come with him to London, to the Doctors’ Commons to settle her affairs. While they wait, Mr. Murdstone arrives at the Doctors’ Commons to get his new marriage license. Peggotty yells at him and blames him for the death of David’s mother.

Mr. Spenlow invites David to his house for Dora’s birthday. At the party, David makes a great show of not being jealous as another man pays attention to Dora. Dora’s friend Julia Mills forces David and Dora to reconcile. The two fall in love. Miss Mills arranges for them to meet at her house when Dora visits her next.

David and Dora become engaged. They continue to meet through Miss Mills but keep their betrothal a secret from everyone else. In retrospect, the adult David muses that he was happier then than he has ever been. Just the day before he wrote this section of the novel, David saw his daughter wearing a ring like the one he gave Dora—a sight that inspired a painful memory of Dora.

Chapter XXXIV. My Aunt astonishes me

Traddles visits David and tells him more about his fiancée, who is the fourth of ten children of a curate in Devonshire and who cares for her mother and her sisters. Traddles tells David that Mr. Micawber has come into severe financial difficulties and has been forced to move and change his name to Mortimer. The authorities have seized all of Mr. Micawber’s things, including his flower pot and table. Traddles asks Peggotty to go purchase these items from the pawnbroker for Mr. Micawber so that he will not be overcharged. Peggotty agrees. When they arrive home, Miss Betsey is there with all of her things and with the news that she has been ruined by faulty business decisions.

Chapter XXXV. Depression

David becomes depressed at the idea that he is now poor. Although he realizes this emotion is selfish, he cannot escape it because he worries that Dora will be deprived of things she wants. David tells Miss Betsey that he loves Dora, but Miss Betsey chastises him for pursuing a pointless romance. David tries to cancel his apprenticeship with the law firm because it pays nothing, but Mr. Spenlow refuses to refund the money Miss Betsey has paid to apprentice him.

On his way home, David sees Agnes, who is on her way to visit Miss Betsey. Agnes has heard of Miss Betsey’s ruin and comforts David. However, Agnes also tells him that Uriah Heep is destroying her father: Uriah and his mother have moved in with the Wickfields, and nothing is the same about the house. David and Agnes visit Miss Betsey and discuss her financial situation with her. Agnes suggests that David take a job as secretary for Doctor Strong, who is looking for help. Mr. Wickfield and Uriah Heep arrive, and Miss Betsey castigates Uriah, who is as slimy as ever.

Chapter XXXVI. Enthusiasm

On his way to visit Doctor Strong, David concludes that his new financial difficulties will allow him to prove that he loves Dora. He determines that he will work through every difficulty to be with her and will raise himself and his aunt out of their present distress. Doctor Strong agrees that David should be his secretary and that the two of them will work together on the dictionary Doctor Strong is compiling. They begin immediately. While they are at breakfast, Jack Maldon asks Annie to go to the opera with him that night. Annie does not want to go, but Doctor Strong tries to force her.

David is suspicious of Jack Maldon’s intentions and of Annie’s fidelity to Doctor Strong. Later, however, he hears that Annie has managed to cancel the date and go see Agnes instead. David takes Mr. Dick, who is upset about Miss Betsey’s financial situation, to see Traddles with him. Together, they decide that Mr. Dick can work at copying legal manuscripts—a task that he must try to accomplish without inserting references to King Charles I. Mr. Dick succeeds in doing so and thus earns some money for the family.

David receives a letter from Mr. Micawber stating that Mr. Micawber intends to move and asking David to come say farewell. David and Traddles go and have dinner with the Micawbers and discover that Mr. Micawber has plans to go to Canterbury to work for Uriah Heep. David is very uncomfortable at this arrangement but does not learn the details of it.

Chapter XXXVII. A little Cold Water

David tells Dora about his financial woes the next time he sees her at Miss Mills’s house. Dora becomes hysterical at the idea that she might have to live in poverty and refuses to listen to David’s argument that she should learn how to manage a house. David calms Dora, but she becomes hysterical every time he mentions money. David begs Miss Mills to try to bring Dora around to an understanding. Miss Mills agrees to try, although she does not think it can be done.

Chapter XXXVIII. A Dissolution of Partnership

Mr. Spenlow calls David away from the office one morning and announces that he has uncovered David’s affair with Dora. Mr. Spenlow forbids David to continue seeing his daughter and threatens to disinherit her and send her abroad if David does not comply. David answers that he loves Dora and that Dora loves him. He says that he cannot possibly abandon her.

That night, Mr. Spenlow dies in a carriage accident. Dora refuses to see David. Every time Miss Mills broaches the subject, Dora repeats over and over that it would be wrong for her to think of anything but her father. David is heartbroken but holds out hope that Dora will change her mind.

Chapter XXXIX. Wickfield and Heep

To distract himself from his troubles with Dora, David goes to check on Miss Betsey’s cottage, which proves to be in excellent condition. He then goes to Canterbury to visit Agnes and Mr. Wickfield. At Mr. Wickfield’s, David finds that Uriah Heep and his mother have taken control. Mr. Micawber has become a tenant at Mr. Wickfield’s house. David sees Mr. Micawber and speaks with him but feels they have grown distant from each other. Agnes persuades David to write to Dora’s aunts to seek permission to visit Dora.

David longs to talk to Agnes in private, but the bothersome Mrs. Heep never leaves them alone. When David tells Uriah that he is engaged to someone other than Agnes, Uriah admits that he asked Mrs. Heep to follow David and Agnes around. Uriah also professes his love for Agnes and his intention to marry her. He reveals that his father taught him to be humble and ingratiating in order to succeed in the world. Uriah observes that, although he is humble, he does have some power.

Later, when Uriah, Mr. Wickfield, and David are alone together, Uriah gets Mr. Wickfield drunk, toasts Agnes, and announces his intention to marry her. Mr. Wickfield becomes hysterical at this suggestion and tells David how much control Uriah has managed to establish over him. Uriah warns Mr. Wickfield to keep quiet and not insult him because he knows Mr. Wickfield’s secret. Eventually, Agnes comes into the room and drags Mr. Wickfield away.

Before David leaves, he and Agnes have a tender parting. Uriah informs David that he has apologized to Mr. Wickfield and that they have made up. Uriah tells David that his sin was bringing up the subject of his marriage to Agnes too soon, but he assures David that it will happen.

Chapter XL. The Wanderer

Late one night, David runs into Mr. Peggotty, who says that he has been looking for Little Em’ly on the continent. Mr. Peggotty has come close to finding her a few times and has received a letter from her. In all, Little Em’ly has sent three letters containing money to the Peggottys. Mrs. Gummidge has replied to one of the letters, telling Little Em’ly that her uncle misses her terribly and will forgive her if she comes back. While Mr. Peggotty tells David this story, David sees Martha listening at the inn door. Martha disappears, and Mr. Peggotty goes off to a cheap inn where he can stay for the night before he sets off again on his journey.

Chapter XLI. Dora’s Aunts

Dora’s aunts answer David’s letter and tell him he is welcome to visit in order to discuss his courtship of Dora. Thrilled, David goes to see the aunts, bringing Traddles along to assist him in convincing them. On the way, David asks Traddles to comb his hair. Traddles says that no amount of combing will make his hair lay flat—a family trait that leads his beloved Sophy Crewler’s sisters to make fun of him incessantly.

David meets with sisters Lavinia and Clarissa, who obviously revel in the prospect of overseeing David and Dora’s courtship. They invite him to dinner once a week and tea as often as he likes. David and Dora spend all their weekends together, and she has begun to call him “Doady.” David loves Dora but fails to convince her to learn how to keep house. He objects slightly to the fact that his and Dora’s aunts treat Dora the same way that Dora treats her pet dog, Jip. David notices that even he sometimes treats Dora as a plaything.

Chapter XLII. Mischief

My meaning simply is that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well . . . I have always been thoroughly in earnest.

Mr. Wickfield and Agnes visit the Strongs. Agnes and Dora get along well. Dora is a bit amazed that David loves her considering he has been so close to Agnes for so long. When David takes Agnes home, Agnes assures him that she will never marry Uriah and that, lately, she is happier being alone.

David sees a light on in Doctor Strong’s study and goes in to say goodnight. In the study, David discovers Uriah and Mr. Wickfield with Doctor Strong, who is crying. Uriah has just told Doctor Strong that his friends all suspect the doctor’s wife of cheating on him with Jack Maldon. Uriah forces Mr. Wickfield and David to admit that they have suspected this to be the case. Doctor Strong refuses to doubt Annie. He blames himself for marrying so young and beautiful a woman, who must be unhappy with an old man. After Mr. Wickfield takes Doctor Strong to bed, David strikes Uriah across the face and tells him how much he hates him. Uriah calmly tells David that he forgives him for his outburst. This remark prompts David to feel, for the first time, morally inferior to Uriah.

Over the next several weeks, David observes a growing sadness in the Strong house. Only Mr. Dick, who befriends Annie and Doctor Strong, brings any peace into the house because both Annie and Doctor Strong love him so dearly and because he is such a good friend to them both. David receives a letter from Mrs. Micawber, who writes that Mr. Micawber has become a different man, sullen and greedy, a stranger to his children and short with her.

Chapter XLIII. Another Retrospect

David and Dora are married among all their friends in a beautiful ceremony.

Chapter XLIV. Our Housekeeping

Dora turns out to be a terrible housekeeper. The couple employs a number of servants, but each of them cheats David and Dora in one way or another. Nonetheless, David is happy because Dora is happy. David writes for a newspaper and several magazines. Dora is completely devoted to him and sits up at nights to watch him write. She asks him to think of her as his “child-wife” whenever he thinks she has done something wrong. He manages to keep the household as best he can. Though David wishes that Dora might be more of a counselor to him and improve him in some way, he loves her and dotes on her. His aunt takes to Dora too and makes every effort to keep her happy.

Chapter XLV. Mr. Dick fulfills my Aunt’s Prediction

There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.

Mr. Dick comes to David one night while he is working in his study and asks whether David thinks he is simple-minded. David says that he does in fact think so, and Mr. Dick is pleased. He asks David what the tension between Doctor and Mrs. Strong is, so David explains the Strongs’ marital problems. Mr. Dick has the idea that he should reconcile the couple because the more intelligent people they know are too polite to attempt to do so.

The next time David and Miss Betsey are at the Strongs’, Mr. Dick brings Annie to Doctor Strong. Annie professes how much she loves Doctor Strong and has always loved him, despite Jack Maldon’s treachery and her mother’s attempts to barter her for the benefit of her relations. Annie swears by Doctor Strong and by all his purposes, for, as she tells him, “There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.” She begs him to take her into his heart and never to throw her out because she loves him more dearly than ever before. David is both touched and troubled by Annie’s words.

Chapter XLVI. Intelligence

As David passes by the Steerforths’ house one evening, a servant summons him inside to speak to Miss Dartle. She is cruel to David. Miss Dartle summons Littimer, who informs David that Steerforth, having grown tired of Little Em’ly, has her in a villa in Naples. Littimer proposed to her, but she became furious and hysterical, so he locked her up to prevent her from killing herself. Little Em’ly fled the house nonetheless, and no one has heard from her since. Littimer has returned home to report to Mrs. Steerforth and seek new employment after Steerforth was unbearably rude to him. David warns Littimer that he will tell Mr. Peggotty about his part in Little Em’ly seduction and that Littimer should stay out of public places. Littimer is unfazed. David speaks to Mrs. Steerforth. They are polite to each other, and she wishes him well.

David goes to Mr. Peggotty, who is still in London looking for Little Em’ly. He relays the information Littimer has given him. David and Mr. Peggotty decide to ask Martha to try to find Little Em’ly, so they go off together in search of Martha. When they find Martha, they follow her until she gets to a less populated area where they feel it is appropriate to speak to her.

Chapter XLVII. Martha

Mr. Peggotty and David follow Martha to the river, where they speak to her. She becomes hysterical but gladly agrees to help them find Little Em’ly. On his way home, David sees the door to his aunt’s house open. He goes in to speak to her and sees the man whom Mr. Dick has said has been bothering Miss Betsey standing with her in her garden. David stops and listens while his aunt tries to send the man away. When the man goes inside with Miss Betsey, she tells him that the man was her husband, who is not dead but continues to extort money from her.

Chapter XLVIII. Domestic

Dora’s housekeeping habits do not improve. For a while, David tries to form Dora’s mind into something to which he can offer his more intimate and intelligent thoughts. But Dora will not be reformed, and David eventually gives up. He is not exactly happy in his marriage to her, for he feels that somehow they are not suited for one another. David hopes that having a child might make Dora more mature, and Dora apparently does become pregnant, but the baby either miscarries or dies at birth. Soon, possibly as a consequence of this pregnancy, Dora falls ill and loses the use of her legs, so David has to carry her up and down the stairs.

Chapter XLIX. I am involved in Mystery

David receives a strange letter from Mr. Micawber, and Traddles receives a similar letter from Mrs. Micawber. The letters swear the men to secrecy, report that things in Micawber house are going poorly, and beg to see Traddles and David if they can spare the time. Traddles and David consult and agree to meet Mr. Micawber.

Mr. Micawber reveals that he is financially ruined because Uriah Heep has cheated him. Vowing revenge, Mr. Micawber begs David and Miss Betsey to meet him and Mrs. Micawber at an inn the following week.

Chapter L. Mr. Peggotty’s Dream comes true

Martha comes for David one night and encourages him to follow her. She has already tried to retrieve Mr. Peggotty, but he is not at home, so she has left him a note telling him where to find her. Martha and David rush through the city to the place where Little Em’ly is staying. They find Miss Dartle already there, spewing hateful invectives at Little Em’ly. David refuses to intervene for Little Em’ly because he feels that it is Mr. Peggotty’s duty to get her. Eventually, Mr. Peggotty arrives and carries Little Em’ly away, passed out in his arms.

Chapter LI. The Beginning of a longer Journey

Mr. Peggotty comes to David and Miss Betsey and relates the story Little Em’ly has told him. Little Em’ly escaped from Littimer onto the beach, where, in a delirium, she was rescued by a young woman whose husband was at sea. The woman nursed Little Em’ly back to health. Little Em’ly went to France and England and intended to go home. When she got close to home, however, she began to fear that her family would not accept her, so she turned back. Martha discovered Little Em’ly and took her in before going out to find Mr. Peggotty and David.

Mr. Peggotty has resolved that he and Little Em’ly will go to Australia because no one knows her there, which will enable her to start over. In the meantime, Mr. Peggotty needs to go to Yarmouth to say goodbye to Ham, and he asks David to accompany him. When David arrives in Yarmouth, he visits Mr. Omer, who reports that all is well with his family, although his own health is failing. He is pleased to hear that all is looking up for Little Em’ly, and he offers to help Martha if he can. David speaks to Ham, who asks him to convey to Little Em’ly that he will always love her and that he is sorry he forced his love on her. Mr. Peggotty closes up the old house, and it is decided that Mrs. Gummidge will go with Mr. Peggotty and Little Em’ly to Australia.

Chapter LII. I assist at an Explosion

Traddles, David, Miss Betsey, Agnes, and Mr. Micawber all confront Uriah Heep at his home. Mr. Micawber has prepared a list of the frauds that Uriah has committed and has collected much of the evidence necessary to prove that Uriah has committed those frauds. The moment he realizes he is caught, Uriah abandons his humility and becomes very violent toward David. Miss Betsey reveals that Uriah was the source of her ruin and demands her property back. Uriah continues to sling insults at everyone, especially David. Now that the air is cleared regarding Uriah, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber are reconciled. Miss Betsey is introduced to Mrs. Micawber. Miss Betsey suggests that perhaps the Micawbers would like to move to Australia, and she offers to loan them the money they need for the trip.

Chapter LIII. Another Retrospect

Dora becomes very ill and is confined to her bed. David misses her company terribly. Agnes comes to visit. As Dora realizes that she is dying, she confides to David that she was too young to be married when she was. David wonders whether it would have been better if they had loved each other as children and then forgotten about their affair. While Agnes is upstairs, the little dog, Jip, whines at the stairs to go up to his mistress. Jip comes to David, licks his hand, and dies in front of him. When Agnes comes down, she says that Dora has died too.

Chapter LIV. Mr. Micawber’s Transactions

Mr. Micawber, who thinks the move to Australia may be exactly what his family needs, wants to be sure that he arranges the finances between him and Miss Betsey professionally. Mrs. Micawber is very concerned that Mr. Micawber should repair her relationship with her family before they leave.

Agnes, Traddles, David, and Miss Betsey meet to discuss the Micawbers’ finances. Traddles has discovered that he can recover all of Miss Betsey’s money as well as Mr. Wickfield’s. Agnes says she will rent out the house and run a school in order to keep herself and her father financially secure.

David, meanwhile, decides he will go abroad. Traddles reports that Uriah has left town with his mother, and no one knows what has become of him. Arrangements are made to provide for the Micawbers’ debts and raise enough money to get them to Australia. Two days later, Miss Betsey takes David to a hospital and to a funeral. She tells him that her husband has died, and that he will not be a threat to her anymore.

Chapter LV. Tempest

David goes to Yarmouth to deliver a letter from Little Em’ly to Ham so that they may know of each other before Little Em’ly goes to Australia. As David travels, a terrific storm blows into Yarmouth, and the sea and wind rage. A ship from Spain is wrecked off the coast, and David and others go to the beach to watch its fate. The lifeboat has been tried and has failed, and there is no way to help. All the men on board have been killed except one, who is hanging onto a mast in his red cap and waving at the shore. Ham appears out of nowhere, back from a job he has been working on, and insists on going out into the water with a rope around his waist to try to save the last sailor. After a first failed attempt, Ham gets all the way out, but a gigantic wave sweeps the ship under and kills him. The next morning, David is fetched to the beach, where Steerforth’s body has rolled in with the morning tide.

Chapter LVI. The New Wound, and the Old

David goes to Mrs. Steerforth and informs her that her son is dead. She is an invalid now and is lying in Steerforth’s room. Miss Dartle is present when David relays the news. She lashes out at Mrs. Steerforth, challenging her right to mourn her son, whom she made the monster he was, when she, Miss Dartle, loved Steerforth so much. Mrs. Steerforth becomes completely rigid and does not recover from the shock of learning of the death of her son.

Chapter LVII. The Emigrants

The travelers bound for Australia meet with those staying behind. They drink and discuss Mr. Micawber’s prospects for success in Australia. David does not tell Mr. Peggotty or Little Em’ly of the tragedy in Yarmouth but instead says that all is well. As they are departing, David asks Mr. Peggotty what should be done about Martha. Mr. Peggotty shows David that Martha is sitting with him on the boat to go with them to Australia.

Chapter LVIII. Absence

David travels abroad and eventually settles in Switzerland. He mourns the deaths of Dora, Steerforth, and Ham and begins to feel the weight of his sorrows for the first time. David receives a letter from Agnes and reflects how much he loves her. He resolves not to make any decisions about love or marriage until a full year has passed since Dora’s death. He decides to try to make himself a better man in the meantime.

Chapter LIX. Return

David returns to London, where he visits Traddles, who has recently married. Traddles is still poor, but he and his wife are very happy. At the inn, David encounters Mr. Chillip, his old family physician. Mr. Chillip says he is now living next door to Mr. and Miss Murdstone, who have destroyed Mr. Murdstone’s second wife and are as cruel and nasty as ever.

Chapter LX. Agnes

David returns to Miss Betsey’s, where Mr. Dick and Peggotty now live. David and his aunt talk through the night. He inquires whether Agnes has any lovers. Miss Betsey tells him that Agnes has many admirers but only one love—but she does not reveal the identity of Agnes’s love. The next day, David goes to visit Agnes. He tells her how much he reveres her, no matter what new ties she should choose to make in her life. Agnes seems troubled by his declarations of affection.

Mr. Wickfield has completely recovered his old sense of calm, and the house is just as it was when David and Agnes were children. The school that Agnes runs is successful, and peace, prosperity, and happiness have returned to the house. Mr. Wickfield briefly recounts the story of his sickness, his obsession with Agnes’s mother after she died, and his obsession with Agnes later. Mr. Wickfield is grateful to Agnes for helping him to recover.

Chapter LXI. I am shown Two Interesting Penitents

David receives a letter from Mr. Creakle, who has heard of David’s fame. Now a magistrate, Mr. Creakle asks David to come to his prison to witness his new form of punishment, which he says is the perfect way to reform prisoners. At the prison, David and Traddles are told of two prisoners who prove just how well Mr. Creakle’s system works. The first of the prisoners is Uriah, who is serving a life term in prison for defrauding the Bank of England. Uriah tells David, Traddles, and the guards that he wishes everyone could go to jail to improve their lives. The second prisoner is Littimer, who attempted to rob someone but was apprehended by Miss Mowcher, who recognized him in the street and stopped his getaway.

Chapter LXII. A Light shines on my Way

Agnes and David remain friends. One day, when he can bear it no longer, David demands to know whom she loves more than anyone else. She sobs, and David realizes he is her true love. They are engaged and married within two weeks.

Chapter LXIII. A Visitor

One day, while David is at home with Agnes and their three children, Mr. Peggotty visits. He brings word that Mr. Micawber is now a magistrate and that Little Em’ly is doing well. Martha is married to a farmer, and Mrs. Gummidge is well. Mr. Peggotty stays for a month and then goes back to Australia. They never see him again.

Chapter LXIV. A Last Retrospect

David muses on the state of affairs at the time of his writing. He sees Miss Betsey, old but still upright, accompanied by Peggotty, who is also old but still bright and happy. Mr. Dick is still working on his autobiography. Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle argue as usual. Doctor Strong continues to work on his dictionary while he and Annie live in marital bliss. Traddles is a successful lawyer and happily married to Sophy, and Agnes is forever the light of David’s life.

Reading 'DAVID COPPERFIELD' by Charles Dickens, Part-I

INTRODUCTION:

   Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, and spent the first ten years of his life in Kent, a marshy region by the sea in the east of England. Dickens was the second of eight children. His father, John Dickens, was a kind and likable man, but his financial irresponsibility placed him in enormous debt and caused tremendous strain on his family. When Charles was ten, his family moved to London. Two years later, his father was arrested and thrown in debtors’ prison. Dickens’s mother moved into the prison with seven of her children. Only Charles lived outside the prison in order to earn money for the struggling family. He worked with other children for three months pasting labels on bottles in a blacking warehouse, where the substance people used to make boots black was manufactured. His experiences at this warehouse inspired passages in David Copperfield.
   After an inheritance gave John Dickens enough money to free himself from his debt and from prison, Charles attended school for two years at Wellington House Academy. He became a law clerk, then a newspaper reporter, and finally a novelist. His first novel, The Pickwick Papers (1837), met with huge popular success. Dickens was a literary celebrity throughout England for the rest of his life.
   In 1849, Dickens began to write David Copperfield, a novel based on his early life experiences. Like Dickens, David works as a child, pasting labels onto bottles. David also becomes first a law clerk, then a reporter, and finally a successful novelist. Mr. Micawber is a satirical version of Dickens’s father, a likable man who can never scrape together the money he needs. Many of the secondary characters spring from Dickens’s experiences as a young man in financial distress in London.
   In later years, Dickens called David Copperfield his “favourite child,” and many critics consider the novel to be one of his best depictions of childhood. Dickens’s other works include Oliver Twist (1837–1839), Nicholas Nickelby (1838–1839), A Christmas Carol (1843), Bleak House (1852-53), Hard Times (1854), and A Tale of Two Cities (1859). Perhaps his best known novel, Great Expectations (1860–1861) shares many thematic similarities with David Copperfield. Dickens died in Kent on June 9, 1870, at the age of fifty-eight.
   David Copperfield is set in early Victorian England against a backdrop of great social change. The Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had transformed the social landscape and enabled capitalists and manufacturers to amass huge fortunes. Although the Industrial Revolution increased social mobility, the gap between rich and poor remained wide. London, a teeming mass of humanity lit by gas lamps at night and darkened by sooty clouds from smokestacks during the day, rose in dark contrast to Britain’s sparsely populated rural areas. More and more people moved from the country to the city in search of the opportunities that technological innovation promised. But this migration overpopulated the already crowded cities, and poverty, disease, hazardous factory conditions, and ramshackle housing became widespread. Dickens acutely observed these phenomena of the Industrial Revolution and used them as the canvas on which he painted David Copperfield and his other urban novels.


LIST OF CHARACTERS:

David Copperfield - The protagonist and narrator of the novel. David is innocent, trusting, and naive even though he suffers abuse as a child. He is idealistic and impulsive and remains honest and loving. Though David’s troubled childhood renders him sympathetic, he is not perfect. He often exhibits chauvinistic attitudes toward the lower classes. In some instances, foolhardy decisions mar David’s good intentions. Projected partially after Dickens himself.
Clara Copperfield - David’s mother. The kind, generous, and goodhearted Clara embodies maternal caring until her death, which occurs early in the novel. David remembers his mother as an angel whose independent spirit was destroyed by Mr. Murdstone’s cruelty.
Mr. Edward Murdstone and Miss Jane Murdstone - The cruel second husband of David’s mother, and Murdstone’s sister. The Murdstones are strict and brutal not only toward David, but to his mother as well. Together, they crush David’s mother’s spirit.
Clara Peggotty - David’s nanny and caretaker. Peggotty is gentle and selfless, opening herself and her family to David whenever he is in need. She is faithful to David and his family all her life, never abandoning David, his mother, or Miss Betsey. In her kind motherliness, Peggotty contrasts with the cruel and unloving Miss Murdstone.
Miss Betsey Trotwood - David’s eccentric, kind-hearted aunt. Although Miss Betsey’s intentions are mysterious at the beginning of the novel, her generosity toward David soon becomes clear, and she acts as David’s second mother.
Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins Micawber - An unlucky couple crippled by constantly precarious finances. Although Mr. Micawber never succeeds at supporting his own family, he is generous and industrious in serving others. He exposes Uriah Heep’s villainy. Projected after the extravagant father of Dickens. Mrs. Micawber stands by her husband despite his flaws and regardless of the hardships they suffer.
Dora Spenlow -  David’s first wife and first real love. Dora is foolish and giddy, more interested in playing with her dog, Jip, than in keeping house with David. Because David cannot bear to displease Dora, he permits her to retain the pouty habits of a spoiled child.
Agnes Wickfield -  David’s true love and second wife, the daughter of Mr. Wickfield. The calm and gentle Agnes admires her father and David. She suffers patiently through David’s other romances, and although she loves David, she is not overcome by jealousy. Agnes always comforts David with kind words or advice when he needs support.
James Steerforth - A condescending, self-centered villain. From his boyhood, Steerforth possesses a restless energy that he can neither satisfy nor divert. He charms both women and men for the feeling of power it gives him. He also abuses David, although David is too enraptured with him and too grateful for his patronage to notice.
Little Em’ly - Peggotty’s unfaithful niece, an orphan adopted by Mr. Peggoty, who is sweet but also coy and vain. Little Em’ly’s desire to be a lady causes her to disgrace herself by running away from her family. She breaks faith with Ham and elopes with Steerforth; eventually dies in a shipwreck.
Uriah Heep - A clerk in the office of Mr. Wickfield who, by means of fraud, manages to become a partner of Mr. Wickfield. He is a two-faced, conniving villain who puts on a false show of humility and meekness to disguise his evil intentions. Uriah is motivated by his belief that the world owes him something for all the humiliations he suffered as a young man. He dreams of marrying Agnes. Ultimately, Uriah’s veneer of humility proves as empty as his morals.
Tommy Traddles - Young David’s simple, goodhearted schoolmate. Traddles works hard but faces great obstacles because of his lack of money and connections. He eventually succeeds in making a name and a career for himself.
Mrs. Steerforth and Rosa Dartle - Steerforth’s mother and her ward, the orphan child of her husband’s cousin. Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle are cruel and bitter toward the world and also haughty and proud, as evidenced by their overwhelming fondness for Steerforth and their disdain of David.
Mr. Peggotty, Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge - The simple relatives of David’s nurse, Clara Peggotty. Mr. Peggotty, Ham, and Mrs. Gummidge represent the virtues of simple people. Mr. Peggotty and Ham are sailors, Mrs. Gummidge a sailor’s widow. They are devoted and loving to each other and David.
Mr. Creakle – A ferocious teacher of Salem House where David was sent by his step-father. He used to punish pupils heavily following the theory ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’.
Doctor Strong and Annie Strong - A man and woman who exemplify the best of married life. Doctor Strong and Annie are faithful and selfless, each concerned more about the other than about himself or herself. Their deep love for each other enables them to survive Uriah’s attempts to disrupt their bliss.
Mrs. Crupp – David’s housekeeper in Buckingham Street, London; a comic character.
Mrs. Steerforth – Mother of James Steerforth; unhappy at the news of his son’s running away with Emily, does everything to stop their marriage.
Miss Rosa Sartle – Lives with Mrs. Steerforth as her companion; secretly loves James Steerforth.
Julia Mills – Dora’s intimate friend who actively helps Davis’s meeting with Dora.
Littimer – Steerforth’s personal servant.
Mr. Spenlow – Senior partner in a solicitor’s firm, and Dora’s father who opposed Dora’s marrying David. He dies suddenly.
Miss Lavinia Spenlow and Mrs. Clarissa Spenlow – Sisters of Mr. Spenlow; treated Dora affectionately and approved her marriage with David.
Mrs. Markleham – Dr. Strong’s talkative mother-in-law, nick-named ‘old soldier’ by Dr. Strong’s students
Jack Maldon – An unemployed cousin of Annie ; Ureah Heep and some others suspect his intimate relation with Mrs. Strong
Mr. Jorkins – A partner of Spenlow; as close-fisted as Spenlow
Barkis – A cart driver who transports David to Yarmouth when David goes to school near London. Wishes to marry Clara Peggoty, and finally does so; a comic character.
Mr. Dick – A harmless lunatic whom Betsy Trotwood regards as a man of great mental power; a comic character.
Mr. Mell – An under-master at Mr. Creakle’s school; dismissed from service by the tyrannical Mr. Creakle.


SUMMARY OF  THE NOVEL:

Preface
In the preface written to accompany the first single-volume publication ofDavid Copperfield, Dickens tells us that the completion of the novel is, for him, both a regret and a pleasure. He rejoices in the completion of the novel because the novel was a long time in coming, and he is satisfied that it is finished after two years of hard work. He mourns its completion, however, because it marks the end of his association with a cast of characters to whom he has become intensely attached. Dickens remarks that David Copperfield is his favorite of all his novels and that, of all the characters he has invented over the years, David Copperfield is dearest to him.
Chapter I. I am born
An older David Copperfield narrates the story of his life. He begins by saying that only the writing that follows can tell who the hero of his story is. He tells of his simple birth, which occurred at the stroke of midnight on a Friday night. An old woman in the neighborhood has told him that the time of his birth indicates he will be unlucky and will be able to see ghosts and spirits.
David’s father is already dead when David is born. David’s aunt, Miss Betsey Trotwood, appears on the day of David’s birth and speaks with David’s mother, Clara. Miss Betsey informs Clara that she intends to take custody of the girl Clara is about to bear. Miss Betsey wishes to raise the girl so that men never take advantage of her the way Miss Betsey has been taken advantage of in her own life.
When David is born and Mr. Chillip, the doctor, informs Miss Betsey that Clara has had a boy, Miss Betsey storms out of the house and never returns.
Chapter II. I Observe
David’s earliest memories are of his mother’s hair and his nurse, Clara Peggotty, who has very dark eyes. He remembers the kitchen and the backyard, with the roosters that frightened him and the churchyard behind the house, where his father is buried. Both David and his mother submit themselves to Peggotty’s kind direction. In particular, David recalls one occasion when he sits up late reading a book about crocodiles to Peggotty while waiting for his mother to return home from an evening out. David’s beautiful mother returns with Mr. Murdstone, a large man with black whiskers and a deep voice. David and Peggotty both dislike Mr. Murdstone, and Peggotty warns David’s mother not to marry someone her dead husband would not have liked.
Mr. Murdstone returns later and takes David on a short trip to meet two business acquaintances, one of whom is named Mr. Quinion. Mr. Murdstone and Mr. Quinion joke about David’s dislike of Mr. Murdstone and Mr. Murdstone’s intention to marry David’s mother. When they get home, Peggotty proposes that she and David go to visit her brother and his family in Yarmouth.
Chapter III. I have a Change
Peggotty takes David to Yarmouth, where her family lives in a boat they have converted into a home. Peggotty’s brother, Mr. Daniel Peggotty, adopted his nephew, Ham, and his niece, Little Em’ly, who are not siblings, when their fathers drowned. Mrs. Gummidge, the widowed wife of Mr. Peggotty’s brother, lives with them too.
Mr. Peggotty and Ham fish during the day, while David and Little Em’ly roam the beaches, collect shells, and fall in love. In retrospect, David muses that he has at times wished that the sea had closed over Little Em’ly then so that she would not have suffered all that she has suffered since.
When David returns home, he observes that he has hardly thought of his mother or his home since he left. When he arrives, Peggotty tells him that his mother married Mr. Murdstone while they were away. David is reunited with his mother. Mr. Murdstone orders David’s mother to control herself in her behavior toward her son. David sees Mr. Murdstone again, for the first time as his mother’s husband. David thinks that Mr. Murdsone, with his great black beard, looks like an enormous and threatening dog.
Chapter IV. I fall into Disgrace
Having returned home, David finds his house much changed. The change upsets him so much that he cries himself to sleep in his new room. His mother comes up to comfort him, but Mr. Murdstone finds them there and reprimands David’s mother for not being firm with her son. Mr. Murdstone dismisses David’s mother into another part of the house and warns David that he will receive a beating if he disobeys or upsets his mother again. That night, dinner is silent and formal, and David finds it very different from the old dinners he used to enjoy by the fire with Peggotty and his mother.
After dinner, Miss Jane Murdstone, Mr. Murdstone’s cruel sister, arrives to stay. She is dark and masculine, with eyebrows that nearly meet over the bridge of her nose. David observes that she is a metallic lady, with metal boxes and a metal purse. Miss Murdstone takes over the household organization, and when David’s mother protests that she can run her own house, Mr. Murdstone threatens her into submission. Whenever David’s mother voices her concern or anger about anything done in the house or to David, Mr. and Miss Murdstone tell her that her “firmness” is failing. They often refer to David’s mother, who is much younger than they, as a naïve, inexperienced, and artless girl who needs their training. David’s mother accepts the Murdstones’ molding of her, apparently because she is afraid of them.
David’s mother continues to conduct his lessons. However, because Mr. and Miss Murdstone snipe at David continuously throughout his recitations, his memory fails him during every lesson. His only comfort is his father’s small collection of adventure books, which David reads over and over in order to bring some friends and pleasure into his life. After one particularly poor lesson, Mr. Murdstone beats David savagely, and David, in self-defense, bites Mr. Murdstone’s hand. As punishment, David is locked in his room alone for five days. At the end of the five days, Peggotty comes to his door and whispers through the keyhole that he is to be sent away.
Chapter V. I am sent away from Home
David rides away with a carrier, Mr. Barkis, who travels between towns carrying people and packages in his cart. As David leaves, Peggotty bursts out of the bushes and gives him a little money, a note from his mother, and several cakes. David is nearly hysterical at being sent away. He shares the cakes with Mr. Barkis, who, on finding out that Peggotty baked them, asks David to tell her that “Barkis is willin’.”
At the inn where David switches to the London coach, dinner is waiting for him under the name “Murdstone.” The waiter tricks David into giving him all his dinner and some of his money as a tip. Because it is a large dinner, David gains a reputation at the inn for having eaten a tremendous amount. The coachman and the other passengers tease David so badly that he does not eat even when they stop later to do so. As a result, David arrives in London very hungry.
In London, David waits for several hours until Mr. Mell, who says he is one of the masters at Salem House, arrives to pick him up. On the way to the school, they stop at a charity home and visit an old woman who calls Mr. Mell “my Charley” and cooks David breakfast. They proceed to the school, where all the boys are on holiday. David is forced to wear a sign that identifies him as one who bites—his punishment for having bitten Mr. Murdstone.
Chapter VI. I enlarge my Circle of Acquaintance
Mr. Creakle, the headmaster, returns to the school and summons David. The bald, reddish Mr. Creakle, who never raises his voice above a whisper, warns David that he will beat him for any misbehavior. David is terrified of Mr. Creakle. The headmaster’s wife and daughter, however, are quiet and thin women, and David supposes that they sympathize with the boys Mr. Creakle terrorizes.
Tommy Traddles, the first boy to return from holiday, befriends David, which helps David befriend the other boys as they return. James Steerforth, the most respected of the schoolboys because of his wealth, intelligence, and good looks, takes David’s money on the pretense of holding it for him. Steerforth convinces David to spend the money on a tremendous banquet, which he splits evenly among the boys in the dorm that night. David considers Steerforth to be his protector and friend but not his equal. David is submissive to Steerforth and refers to him as “sir.”
Chapter VII. My “first half” at Salem House
School begins, and Mr. Creakle warns the boys that he will punish them severely if they fail in their lessons. He beats David with a cane on the first day. David notices that Traddles gets beaten more than the other boys because he is fat. To cheer himself up, Traddles lays his head on his desk and draws little skeletons on his slate.
Steerforth and David become close when Steerforth, who suffers from insomnia, persuades David to stay up with him at night and tell him the stories David remembers from his father’s books. One day when Mr. Creakle is ill, Steerforth and Mr. Mell get into a fight, and Steerforth reveals that David has told him about visiting an old woman with Mr. Mell at the charity house. Steerforth figures out that the old woman is Mr. Mell’s mother. When Mr. Creakle comes to see what the commotion is, Steerforth tells him about Mr. Mell’s poverty. Mr. Creakle commends Steerforth and fires Mr. Mell, who, as he leaves, shows particular favor to David. Another day, Ham and Mr. Peggotty come to visit David at school. They meet Steerforth and are amused by him.
Chapter VIII. My Holidays. Especially one happy Afternoon
On the day that David arrives home for the holidays, Mr. and Miss Murdstone are away. David, his mother, and Peggotty have supper and pass an evening the way they used to do before his mother remarried. David’s mother has a new child, and David loves the child dearly. The three laugh about Mr. Barkis’s proposal to Peggotty, and Peggotty vows never to leave David’s mother. Peggotty and David’s mother quarrel briefly over David’s mother’s marriage to Mr. Murdstone. David’s mother argues that Mr. Murdstone is just trying to improve her character. She feels that she should be grateful to him. David observes that Peggotty only provokes his mother so that she might feel better by providing these justifications.
The next morning, David apologizes to Mr. Murdstone for biting his hand. Later, he picks up the baby. Miss Murdstone flies into a rage, telling David never to touch the child again. To David’s surprise, his mother sides with Miss Murdstone. David’s mother observes that her two children have the same eyes. Miss Murdstone shrieks that such a comparison between the wretched David and her knightly brother’s child is utterly foolish. Mr. Murdstone forces David to remain in the company of the adults, even though they never speak to him. Mr. Murdstone says that David’s habit of reading in his room is evidence of his sullenness.
When David’s holiday is over, Mr. Barkis picks him up. As they drive away, David turns around and sees his mother standing in the road and holding up her child to him.
Chapter IX. I have a memorable Birthday
In the middle of the next term, David’s mother dies. The school sends David home, and Mr. Omer, a funeral director and general services provider, picks him up at the coach. Mr. Omer takes David to his shop, where he meets Mr. Omer’s daughter, Minnie, and her sweetheart, Mr. Joram. Mr. Joram builds David’s mother’s coffin behind the shop, and David sits through the day listening to the sounds of the hammer. Mr. Omer tells David that David’s little brother died a few days after his mother. The Omer family is quite jovial, but David sits in the shop with his head down.
When David arrives home, Peggotty greets him and comforts him. Miss Murdstone only asks him if he has remembered his clothes. In retrospect, David admits that he cannot recall the order of all the events around this time, but he describes going to his mother’s funeral with the few people who attend. Afterward, Peggotty comes to him and tells him about his mother’s last moments. She says that his mother died with her head on Peggotty’s arm.
Chapter X. I become Neglected, and am provided for
Mr. and Miss Murdstone take no interest in David after his mother’s death. They make it clear that they want him around as little as possible. Miss Murdstone fires Peggotty, who goes home to her family. Peggotty proposes to take David with her for a visit. On the ride there, Mr. Barkis flirts with Peggotty, who asks David what he would think if she married Mr. Barkis after all. David says he thinks it is a wonderful idea.
At Mr. Peggotty’s house, David finds Little Em’ly older and more beautiful than before, though she has become a bit spoiled and coy. Mr. Peggotty and Ham praise Steerforth, whom they have met at Salem House. Mr. Barkis and Peggotty get married in a private ceremony at a church one afternoon while Little Em’ly and David are out riding around. When David returns home, Mr. and Miss Murdstone completely ignore him. David falls into a state of neglect until Mr. Quinion, Mr. Murdstone’s business partner, appears. When Mr. Quinion arrives, the Murdstones arrange for David to go to London to work in the wine-bottling industry.
Chapter XI. I begin Life on my own Account, and don’t like it
I wonder what they thought of me!
David’s companions at Mr. Murdstone’s business dismay David. They are coarse, uneducated boys whose fathers work in blue-collar professions. David meets Mr. Micawber, a poor but genteel man who speaks in tremendous phrases and makes a great show of nobility despite his shabby appearance. Through an agreement with Mr. Murdstone, David goes to live with Mr. Micawber, his wife, and four children. The Micawbers befriend David and openly tell him of their financial troubles, each time becoming overwhelmingly upset and then recovering fully over good food and wine.
David gets very little pay at his factory job and lives primarily on bread. In retrospect, David wonders what the waiters and shopkeepers must have thought of him, so independent at so young an age. At the factory, David is known as “the little gent” and gets along fine because he never complains. Eventually, Mr. Micawber’s debts overwhelm him. He is thrown into debtors’ prison, where he becomes a political figure among the inmates, lobbying to eliminate that establishment.
Chapter XII. Liking Life on my own Account no better, I form a great Resolution
Mr. Micawber is released from jail and his debts are resolved. The family decides to move to look for work. David decides he will not stay in London without the Micawbers and resolves to run away to his aunt Betsey. He borrows some money from Peggotty and hires a young man to help him move his box to the coach station. Along the way, the young man steals David’s money and possessions.
Chapter XIII. The Sequel of my Resolution
David sells some of the clothes he is wearing in order to buy food. The shopkeepers who buy the clothes take advantage of him, and travelers abuse him on the road. David arrives at the home of his aunt, Miss Betsey Trotwood, who initially tries to send him away.
When he tells her that he is her nephew, she consults with Mr. Dick, the man who lives upstairs in her home. Mr. Dick suggests that before she do anything, she give David a bath. Miss Betsey repeatedly compares David to the sister he never had and concludes that his sister would not have done the stupid things David has done.
Miss Betsey is a tough, sharp woman obsessed with keeping donkeys off the grass in front of her house. She bathes and feeds David and speaks to Mr. Dick at length about David’s mother, whom she pitied very much. David is nervous about whether his aunt will keep him or will send him away.
Chapter XIV. My Aunt makes up her Mind about me
The next morning, Miss Betsey reveals to David that she has written Mr. Murdstone to tell him where David is. She has invited Mr. Murdstone there to discuss David’s fate.
Miss Betsey sends David up to check on Mr. Dick’s progress on his Memorial, an autobiography he is trying to write. But Mr. Dick continually starts his project over from scratch because, each time, he begins to muse in the text about King Charles I, whose demons he believes possess him. Mr. Dick has an enormous kite that he promises to fly with David someday. David returns to Miss Betsey and tells her that Mr. Dick sends his compliments to her. Miss Betsey reveals that she took in Mr. Dick when his brother tried to have him placed in an asylum.
Mr. and Miss Murdstone arrive on donkeys, and Miss Betsey rushes out to chase the donkeys off her lawn. The Murdstones are rude to David during their visit, and Miss Betsey scolds them and forces them to leave. Mr. Murdstone warns her that if David does not come with him immediately, he will never be able to come back again. Miss Betsey asks David what he wants to do, and he says he wants to stay with her. It is resolved that he will do so, and Miss Betsey renames him Trotwood Copperfield.
Chapter XV. I make another Beginning
Miss Betsey proposes that David, whom she has nicknamed “Trot,” be sent to school at Canterbury. They go to Canterbury and visit Mr. Wickfield, a lawyer and a friend of Miss Betsey’s. At Mr. Wickfield’s, they meet Uriah Heep, an unattractive young redhead dressed entirely in black and skeleton-like in appearance. Uriah takes them to Mr. Wickfield, who recommends a school for David but warns that the dorms are full and that David will have to stay elsewhere. The adults agree that David can go to the school and stay with Mr. Wickfield until they find a more suitable arrangement. David meets Agnes, Mr. Wickfield’s lovely and charming daughter, who dotes on her father and is his one joy since his wife died. The three dine and have tea together. David rises in the middle of the night and encounters Uriah Heep, whose sliminess so strikes David that he feels the need to rub off Uriah’s touch after shaking his hand.
Chapter XVI. I am a New Boy in more senses than one
At school the next day, David meets the headmaster, Doctor Strong, and his young wife, Annie. Mr. Wickfield and Doctor Strong discuss arrangements Mr. Wickfield is trying to make for Annie’s cousin, Jack Maldon. Mr. Wickfield wants to know whether there is any particular reason that Doctor Strong wants Jack Maldon’s new job to be one that sends him out of the country. Doctor Strong assures him there is not.
David is behind in his studies but quickly catches up. He makes friends with the boys at the school. At home, David speaks with Agnes, whom he finds more and more charming in her devotion to her father. One evening, at dinner, Jack Maldon interrupts the family to say that he hopes he can go abroad as soon as possible. Mr. Wickfield treats him politely but distantly and assures him that there will be no delay in getting him sent abroad. After dinner, Mr. Wickfield drinks heavily, and Agnes and David chat with him and play dominos. Mr. Wickfield offers to let David stay permanently at the house, and David gladly accepts. On his way to bed, David runs into Uriah Heep. Uriah asks him whether he is impressed with Agnes. David notes that whenever he says something that pleases Uriah, Uriah writhes like a snake.
David quickly rises to the top of his class and settles in happily. One evening, he, Mr. Wickfield, and Agnes visit Doctor Strong’s home for a farewell party for Jack Maldon. Annie’s mother is there, and she encourages Doctor Strong to continue to bestow favors on her family members, who are poor and lower-class. Doctor Strong acquiesces to all her demands. When Jack Maldon leaves to depart for India, Annie becomes very emotional. As the coach pulls away, David sees one of her ribbons in Jack Maldon’s hand.
Chapter XVII. Somebody turns up
Peggotty writes to David and tells him that the furniture at his old house has been sold, the Murdstones have moved, and the house is for sale. David tells Miss Betsey of all the news in Peggotty’s letters when she visits him at school, as she does frequently. Mr. Dick visits even more frequently and becomes a favorite of Doctor Strong and the other school boys. Mr. Dick tells David that Miss Betsey recently had a strange nighttime encounter with a man who frightened her so badly that she fainted. Neither Mr. Dick nor David understands the encounter. Mr. Dick reports that the man appeared again the previous night, and that Miss Betsey gave him money.
David goes to tea at Uriah Heep’s house, where Uriah and his mother intimidate David into telling them secrets about Agnes, especially about her father’s health and financial situation. David is very uncomfortable with the Heeps and feels that they are manipulating him. Uriah and his mother both frequently repeat that they are so humble as to be grateful for any attention from David. In the middle of tea, Mr. Micawber walks by the door. On seeing David, he enters. The two of them leave together and visit Mrs. Micawber, who is very glad to see David. The Micawbers are in terrible financial straits again, but they are quite merry over dinner nonetheless.
Chapter XVIII. A Retrospect
In retrospect, the adult David recounts several years in Doctor Strong’s school and his two love interests during his time there—a young girl named Miss Shepherd and an older woman named Miss Larkins. David also recalls a fistfight he had with a young arrogant butcher. Eventually, to his surprise, David rose to be the top boy at the school. When he was seventeen, he graduated.
Chapter XIX. I look about me, and make a Discovery
David sets off on a monthlong journey to Yarmouth, to the home of Peggotty and her family, to decide what profession to pursue. He takes his leave of Agnes and Mr. Wickfield, and Doctor Strong throws a going-away party in David’s honor. At the party, Annie’s mother reveals that Jack Maldon has sent Doctor Strong a letter in which he claims that he is ill and likely to return soon on sick leave. But Annie has received another letter from Jack Maldon indicating that he wants to return because he misses her.
The next morning, David leaves on the London coach and tries to appear as manly as possible. Nonetheless, the coachman asks him to resign his seat of honor to an older man. David spends the evening at an inn, where the waiter pokes fun at his youthfulness and the chambermaid gives him a pitiful room. David attends a play, returns to the inn, and discovers Steerforth in a sitting room. Steerforth is now attending Oxford but is bored by his studies and is on his way home to see his mother. David and Steerforth are happily reunited, and the inn staff immediately treat David with respect.
Chapter XX. Steerforth’s Home.
Steerforth persuades David to stay a few days with him at his mother’s house before going to Yarmouth. Steerforth nicknames David “Daisy,” and the two of them spend the day sightseeing before going to Steerforth’s home. There, David meets Mrs. Steerforth, Steerforth’s widowed mother, and Rosa Dartle, his orphaned distant cousin whom Mrs. Steerforth took in when Miss Dartle’s mother died. Mrs. Steerforth is an imposing, older, more feminine version of Steerforth, and she dotes on her son ceaselessly. Miss Dartle has a scar above her lip from a time when Steerforth, as a child, threw a hammer at her in anger. Miss Dartle views Steerforth’s and David’s words and actions with sarcasm, but both young men are drawn to her.
Chapter XXI. Little Em’ly.
If anyone had told me, then, that all this was a brilliant game, played for the excitement of the moment . . . in the thoughtless love of superiority . . . I wonder in what manner of receiving it my indignation would have found a vent!
At Steerforth’s, David meets Littimer, Steerforth’s servant, who frightens David because he is so haughty and respectable. David persuades Steerforth to accompany him to Yarmouth to see Ham and Mr. Peggotty again and to meet Peggotty and Little Em’ly. On his way to Peggotty’s, David stops at Mr. Omer’s shop and sees Mr. Omer and his daughter, who is now married to her sweetheart. Mr.
Omer tells David that Little Em’ly now works in his shop. She is a good and diligent worker, but some of the girls in town say she has earned a reputation for putting on airs and wanting to be a lady. David decides not to see Little Em’ly until later, so he continues on to Barkis’s house to find Peggotty.
Peggotty does not recognize David at first, but when she does, she sobs over him for a long time. Mr. Barkis, ill but glad to see David, opens his cherished money box and gives Peggotty some money to prepare dinner for David. Steerforth arrives and entertains Peggotty and David. In retrospect, the adult David muses that if anyone had told him that night that Steerforth’s joviality and manners were all part of a game to him, born from his sense of superiority, David would have dismissed such an idea as a lie. When Steerforth and David arrive at Mr. Peggotty’s house, they find everyone, including Mrs. Gummidge, in a state of high excitement because Little Em’ly has just announced that she intends to marry Ham. After they leave, David delights in the good news, but Steerforth becomes momentarily and inexplicably sullen.
Chapter XXII. Some old Scenes, and Some new People
While in Yarmouth, David visits his old home and feels both pleasure and sorrow at seeing the old places. When he returns late from one such visit, he finds Steerforth alone and in a bad mood, angry that he has not had a father all these years and that he is unable to guide himself better. Steerforth tells David that he would rather even be the wretched Ham than be himself, richer and wiser. After they leave, Steerforth reveals to David that he has bought a boat to be manned by Mr. Peggotty in his absence, and he has named it “The Little Em’ly.”
At the inn, David and Steerforth meet Miss Mowcher, a loud and brash dwarf who cuts Steerforth’s hair as they gossip and talk of Mr. Peggotty, Ham, and Little Em’ly. When David arrives at Peggotty’s, where he is to stay for the night, he discovers Little Em’ly and Ham with Martha, a woman who used to work at Mr. Omer’s with Little Em’ly but fell into disgrace and came back to beg help from Little Em’ly. After Martha leaves, Little Em’ly becomes very upset and cries that she is not nearly as good a girl as she ought to be.

                                                                                  [to be continued]

'The Swimmer' (Short Story) by John Cheever

The Swimmer

It was one of those midsummer Sundays when everyone sits around saying, "I dranktoo much last night." You might have heard it whispered by the parishioners leaving church, heard it from the lips of the priest himself, struggling with his cassock in thevestiarium, heard it from the golf links and the tennis courts, heard it from the wildlife preserve where the leader of the Audubon group was suffering from a terrible hangover. "I drank too much," said Donald Westerhazy. "We all drank too much," said Lucinda Merrill. "It must have been the wine," said Helen Westerhazy. "I drank too much of that claret."

This was at the edge of the Westerhazys' pool. The pool, fed by an artesian well with a high iron content, was a pale shade of green. It was a fine day. In the west there was a massive stand of cumulus cloud so like a city seen from a distance—from the bow of an approaching ship—that it might have had a name. Lisbon. Hackensack. The sun was hot. Neddy Merrill sat by the green water, one hand in it, one around a glass of gin. He was a slender man—he seemed to have the especial slenderness of youth—and while he was far from young he had slid down his banister that morning and given the bronze backside of Aphrodite on the hall table a smack, as he jogged toward the smell of coffee in his dining room. He might have been compared to a summer's day, particularly the last hours of one, and while he lacked a tennis racket or a sail bag the impression was definitely one of youth, sport, and clement weather. He had been swimming and now he was breathing deeply, stertorously as if he could gulp into his lungs the components of that moment, the heat of the sun, the intenseness of his pleasure. It all seemed to flow into his chest. His own house stood in Bullet Park, eight miles to the south, where his four beautiful daughters would have had their lunch and might be playing tennis. Then it occurred to him that by taking a dogleg to the southwest he could reach his home by water.

His life was not confining and the delight he took in this observation could not be explained by its suggestion of escape. He seemed to see, with a cartographer's eye, that string of swimming pools, that quasi-subterranean stream that curved across the county. He had made a discovery, a contribution to modern geography; he would name the stream Lucinda after his wife. He was not a practical joker nor was he a fool but he was determinedly original and had a vague and modest idea of himself as a legendary figure. The day was beautiful and it seemed to him that a long swim might enlarge and celebrate its beauty.

He took off a sweater that was hung over his shoulders and dove in. He had an inexplicable contempt for men who did not hurl themselves into pools. He swam a choppy crawl, breathing either with every stroke or every fourth stroke and counting somewhere well in the back of his mind the one-two one-two of a flutter kick. It was not a serviceable stroke for long distances but the domestication of swimming had saddled the sport with some customs and in his part of the world a crawl was customary. To be embraced and sustained by the light green water was less a pleasure, it seemed, than the resumption of a natural condition, and he would have liked to swim without trunks, but this was not possible, considering his project. He hoisted himself up on the far curb—he never used the ladder—and started across the lawn. When Lucinda asked where he was going he said he was going to swim home.

The only maps and charts he had to go by were remembered or imaginary but these were clear enough. First there were the Grahams, the Hammers, the Lears, the Howlands, and the Crosscups. He would cross Ditmar Street to the Bunkers and come, after a short portage, to the Levys, the Welchers, and the public pool in Lancaster. Then there were the Hallorans, the Sachses, the Biswangers, Shirley Adams, the Gilmartins, and the Clydes. The day was lovely, and that he lived in a world so generously supplied with water seemed like a clemency, a beneficence. His heart was high and he ran across the grass. Making his way home by an uncommon route gave him the feeling that he was a pilgrim, an explorer, a man with a destiny, and he knew that he would find friends all along the way; friends would line the banks of the Lucinda River.

He went through a hedge that separated the Westerhazys' land from the Grahams', walked under some flowering apple trees, passed the shed that housed their pump and filter, and came out at the Grahams' pool. "Why, Neddy," Mrs. Graham said, "what a marvelous surprise. I've been trying to get you on the phone all morning. Here, let me get you a drink." He saw then, like any explorer, that the hospitable customs and traditions of the natives would have to be handled with diplomacy if he was ever going to reach his destination. He did not want to mystify or seem rude to the Grahams nor did he have the time to linger there. He swam the length of their pool and joined them in the sun and was rescued, a few minutes later, by the arrival of two carloads of friends from Connecticut. During the uproarious reunions he was able to slip away. He went down by the front of the Grahams' house, stepped over a thorny hedge, and crossed a vacant lot to the Hammers'. Mrs. Hammer, looking up from her roses, saw him swim by although she wasn't quite sure who it was. The Lears heard him splashing past the open windows of their living room. The Howlands and the Crosscups were away. After leaving the Howlands' he crossed Ditmar Street and started for the Bunkers', where he could hear, even at that distance, the noise of a party.

The water refracted the sound of voices and laughter and seemed to suspend it in midair. The Bunkers' pool was on a rise and he climbed some stairs to a terrace where twenty-five or thirty men and women were drinking. The only person in the water was Rusty Towers, who floated there on a rubber raft. Oh, how bonny and lush were the banks of the Lucinda River! Prosperous men and women gathered by the sapphire-colored waters while caterer's men in white coats passed them cold gin. Overhead a red de Haviland trainer was circling around and around and around in the sky with something like the glee of a child in a swing. Ned felt a passing affection for the scene, a tenderness for the gathering, as if it was something he might touch. In the distance he heard thunder. As soon as Enid Bunker saw him she began to scream: "Oh, look who's here! What a marvelous surprise! When Lucinda said that you couldn't come I thought I'd die." She made her way to him through the crowd, and when they had finished kissing she led him to the bar, a progress that was slowed by the fact that he stopped to kiss eight or ten other women and shake the hands of as many men. A smiling bartender he had seen at a hundred parties gave him a gin and tonic and he stood by the bar for a moment, anxious not to get stuck in any conversation that would delay his voyage. When he seemed about to be surrounded he dove in and swam close to the side to avoid colliding with Rusty's raft. At the far end of the pool he bypassed the Tomlinsons with a broad smile and jogged up the garden path. The gravel cut his feet but this was the only unpleasantness. The party was confined to the pool, and as he went toward the house he heard the brilliant, watery sound of voices fade, heard the noise of a radio from the Bunkers' kitchen, where someone was listening to a ball game. Sunday afternoon. He made his way through the parked cars and down the grassy border of their driveway to Alewives Lane. He did not want to be seen on the road in his bathing trunks but there was no traffic and he made the short distance to the Levys' driveway, marked with a PRIVATE PROPERTY sign and a green tube for The New York Times. All the doors and windows of the big house were open but there were no signs of life; not even a dog barked. He went around the side of the house to the pool and saw that the Levys had only recently left. Glasses and bottles and dishes of nuts were on a table at the deep end, where there was a bathhouse or gazebo, hung with Japanese lanterns. After swimming the pool he got himself a glass and poured a drink. It was his fourth or fifth drink and he had swum nearly half the length of the Lucinda River. He felt tired, clean, and pleased at that moment to be alone; pleased with everything.

It would storm. The stand of cumulus cloud—that city—had risen and darkened, and while he sat there he heard the percussiveness of thunder again. The de Haviland trainer was still circling overhead and it seemed to Ned that he could almost hear the pilot laugh with pleasure in the afternoon; but when there was another peal of thunder he took off for home. A train whistle blew and he wondered what time it had gotten to be. Four? Five? He thought of the provincial station at that hour, where a waiter, his tuxedo concealed by a raincoat, a dwarf with some flowers wrapped in newspaper, and a woman who had been crying would be waiting for the local. It was suddenly growing dark; it was that moment when the pin-headed birds seem to organize their song into some acute and knowledgeable recognition of the storm's approach. Then there was a fine noise of rushing water from the crown of an oak at his back, as if a spigot there had been turned. Then the noise of fountains came from the crowns of all the tall trees. Why did he love storms, what was the meaning of his excitement when the door sprang open and the rain wind fled rudely up the stairs, why had the simple task, of shutting the windows of an old house seemed fitting and urgent, why did the first watery notes of a storm wind have for him the unmistakable sound of good news, cheer, glad tidings? Then there was an explosion, a smell of cordite, and rain lashed the Japanese lanterns that Mrs. Levy had bought in Kyoto the year before last, or was it the year before that?

He stayed in the Levys' gazebo until the storm had passed. The rain had cooled the air and he shivered. The force of the wind had stripped a maple of its red and yellow leaves and scattered them over the grass and the water. Since it was midsummer the tree must be blighted, and yet he felt a peculiar sadness at this sign of autumn. He braced his shoulders, emptied his glass, and started for the Welchers' pool. This meant crossing the Lindleys' riding ring and he was surprised to find it overgrown with grass and all the jumps dismantled. He wondered if the Lindleys had sold their horses or gone away for the summer and put them out to board. He seemed to remember having heard something about the Lindleys and their horses but the memory was unclear. On he went, barefoot through the wet grass, to the Welchers', where he found their pool was dry.

This breach in his chain of water disappointed him absurdly, and he felt like some explorer who seeks a torrential headwater and finds a dead stream. He was disappointed and mystified. It was common enough to go away for the summer but no one ever drained his pool. The Welchers had definitely gone away. The pool furniture was folded, stacked, and covered with a tarpaulin. The bathhouse was locked. All the windows of the house were shut, and when he went around to the driveway in front he saw a FOR SALE sign nailed to a tree. When had he last heard from the Welchers—when, that is, had he and Lucinda last regretted an invitation to dine with them? It seemed only a week or so ago. Was his memory failing or had he so disciplined it in the repression of unpleasant facts that he had damaged his sense of the truth? Then in the distance he heard the sound of a tennis game. This cheered him, cleared away all his apprehensions and let him regard the overcast sky and the cold air with indifference. This was the day that Neddy Merrill swam across the county. That was the day! He started off then for his most difficult portage.

  

Had you gone for a Sunday afternoon ride that day you might have seen him, close to naked, standing on the shoulders of Route 424, waiting for a chance to cross. You might have wondered if he was the victim of foul play, had his car broken down, or was he merely a fool. Standing barefoot in the deposits of the highway—beer cans, rags, and blowout patches—exposed to all kinds of ridicule, he seemed pitiful. He had known when he started that this was a part of his journey—it had been on his maps—but confronted with the lines of traffic, worming through the summery light, he found himself unprepared. He was laughed at, jeered at, a beer can was thrown at him, and he had no dignity or humor to bring to the situation. He could have gone back, back to the Westerhazys', where Lucinda would still be sitting in the sun. He had signed nothing, vowed nothing, pledged nothing, not even to himself. Why, believing as he did, that all human obduracy was susceptible to common sense, was he unable to turn back? Why was he determined to complete his journey even if it meant putting his life in danger? At what point had this prank, this joke, this piece of horseplay become serious? He could not go back, he could not even recall with any clearness the green water at the Westerhazys', the sense of inhaling the day's components, the friendly and relaxed voices saying that they had drunk too much. In the space of an hour, more or less, be had covered a distance that made his return impossible.

An old man, tooling down the highway at fifteen miles an hour, let him get to the middle of the road, where there was a grass divider. Here he was exposed to the ridicule of the northbound traffic, but after ten or fifteen minutes he was able to cross. From here he had only a short walk to the Recreation Center at the edge of the village of Lancaster, where there were some handball courts and a public pool.

The effect of the water on voices, the illusion of brilliance and suspense, was the same here as it had been at the Bunkers' but the sounds here were louder, harsher, and more shrill, and as soon as he entered the crowded enclosure he was confronted with regimentation. "ALL SWIMMERS MUST TAKE A SHOWER BEFORE USING THE POOL. ALL SWIMMERS MUST USE THE FOOTBATH, ALL SWIMMERS MUST WEAR THEIR IDENTIFICATION DISKS." He took a shower, washed his feet in a cloudy and bitter solution, and made his way to the edge of the water. It stank of chlorine and looked to him like a sink. A pair of lifeguards in a pair of towers blew police whistles at what seemed to be regular intervals and abused the swimmers through a public address system. Neddy remembered the sapphire water at the Bunkers' with longing and thought that he might contaminate himself—damage his own prosperousness and charm—by swimming in this murk, but he reminded himself that be was an explorer, a pilgrim, and that this was merely a stagnant bend in the Lucinda River. He dove, scowling with distaste, into the chlorine and had to swim with his head above water to avoid collisions, but even so he was bumped into, splashed, and jostled. When he got to the shallow end both lifeguards were shouting at him: "Hey, you, you without the identification disk, get outa the water." He did, but they had no way of pursuing him and he went through the reek of suntan oil, and chlorine out through the hurricane fence and passed the handball courts. By crossing the road he entered the wooded part of the Halloran estate. The woods were not cleared and the footing was treacherous and difficult until he reached the lawn and the clipped beech hedge that encircled their pool.

The Hallorans were friends, an elderly couple of enormous wealth who seemed to bask in the suspicion that they might be Communists. They were zealous reformers but they were not Communists, and yet when they were accused, as they sometimes were, of subversion, it seemed to gratify and excite them. Their beech hedge was yellow and he guessed this had been blighted like the Levys' maple. He called hullo, hullo, to warn the Hallorans of his approach, to palliate his invasion of their privacy. The Hallorans, for reasons that had never been explained to him, did not wear bathing suits. No explanations were in order, really. Their nakedness was a detail in their uncompromising zeal for reform and he stepped politely out of his trunks before he went through the opening in the hedge.

Mrs. Halloran, a stout woman with white hair and a serene face, was reading theTimes. Mr. Halloran was taking beech leaves out of the water with a scoop. They seemed not surprised or displeased to see him. Their pool was perhaps the oldest in the country, a fieldstone rectangle, fed by a brook. It had no filter or pump and its waters were the opaque gold of the stream.

"I'm swimming across the county," Ned said.

"Why, I didn't know one could," exclaimed Mrs. Halloran.

"Well, I've made it from the Westerhazys'," Ned said. "That must be about four miles."

He left his trunks at the deep end, walked to the shallow end, and swam this stretch. As he was pulling himself out of the water he heard Mrs. Halloran say, "We've beenterribly sorry to bear about all your misfortunes, Neddy."

"My misfortunes?" Ned asked. "I don't know what you mean."

"Why, we heard that you'd sold the house and that your poor children . . . "

"I don't recall having sold the house," Ned said, "and the girls are at home."

"Yes," Mrs. Halloran sighed. "Yes . . . " Her voice filled the air with an unseasonable melancholy and Ned spoke briskly. "Thank you for the swim."

"Well, have a nice trip," said Mrs. Halloran.

Beyond the hedge he pulled on his trunks and fastened them. They were loose and he wondered if, during the space of an afternoon, he could have lost some weight. He was cold and he was tired and the naked Hallorans and their dark water had depressed him. The swim was too much for his strength but how could he have guessed this, sliding down the banister that morning and sitting in the Westerhazys' sun? His arms were lame. His legs felt rubbery and ached at the joints. The worst of it was the cold in his bones and the feeling that he might never be warm again. Leaves were falling down around him and he smelled wood smoke on the wind. Who would be burning wood at this time of year?

He needed a drink. Whiskey would warm him, pick him up, carry him through the last of his journey, refresh his feeling that it was original and valorous to swim across the county. Channel swimmers took brandy. He needed a stimulant. He crossed the lawn in front of the Hallorans' house and went down a little path to where they had built a house, for their only daughter, Helen, and her husband, Eric Sachs. The Sachses' pool was small and he found Helen and her husband there.

"Oh, Neddy, " Helen said. "Did you lunch at Mother's?"

"Not really, " Ned said. "I did stop to see your parents." This seemed to be explanation enough. "I'm terribly sorry to break in on you like this but I've taken a chill and I wonder if you'd give me a drink."

"Why, I'd love to," Helen said, "but there hasn't been anything in this house to drink since Eric's operation. That was three years ago."

Was he losing his memory, had his gift for concealing painful facts let him forget that he had sold his house, that his children were in trouble, and that his friend had been ill? His eyes slipped from Eric's face to his abdomen, where be saw three pale, sutured scars, two of them at least a foot long. Gone was his navel, and what, Neddy thought, would the roving hand, bed-checking one's gifts at 3 a.m., make of a belly with no navel, no link to birth, this breach in the succession?

"I'm sure you can get a drink at the Biswangers'," Helen said. "They're having an enormous do. You can hear it from here. Listen!"

She raised her head and from across the road, the lawns, the gardens, the woods, the fields, he heard again the brilliant noise of voices over water. "Well, I'll get wet," he said, still feeling that he had no freedom of choice about his means of travel. He dove into the Sachses' cold water and, gasping, close to drowning, made his way from one end of the pool to the other. "Lucinda and I want terribly to see you," he said over his shoulder, his face set toward the Biswangers'. "We're sorry it's been so long and we'll call you very soon."

He crossed some fields to the Biswangers' and the sounds of revelry there. They would be honored to give him a drink, they would be happy to give him a drink. The Biswangers invited him and Lucinda for dinner four times a year, six weeks in advance. They were always rebuffed and yet they continued to send out their invitations, unwilling to comprehend the rigid and undemocratic realities of their society. They were the sort of people who discussed the price of things at cocktails, exchanged market tips during dinner, and after dinner told dirty stories to mixed company. They did not belong to Neddy's set—they were not even on Lucinda's Christmas-card list. He went toward their pool with feelings of indifference, charity, and some unease, since it seemed to be getting dark and these were the longest days of the year. The party when he joined it was noisy and large. Grace Biswanger was the kind of hostess who asked the optometrist, the veterinarian, the real-estate dealer, and the dentist. No one was swimming and the twilight, reflected on the water of the pool, had a wintry gleam. There was a bar and he started for this. When Grace Biswanger saw him she came toward him, not affectionately as he had every right to expect, but bellicosely.

"Why, this party has everything," she said loudly, "including a gate crasher."

She could not deal him a social blow—there was no question about this and he did not flinch. "As a gate crasher," he asked politely, "do I rate a drink?"

"Suit yourself," she said. "You don't seem to pay much attention to invitations."

She turned her back on him and joined some guests, and he went to the bar and ordered a whiskey. The bartender served him but be served him rudely. His was a world in which the caterer's men kept the social score, and to be rebuffed by a part-time barkeep meant that be had suffered some loss of social esteem. Or perhaps the man was new and uninformed. Then he heard Grace at his back say: "They went for broke overnight—nothing but income—and he showed up drunk one Sunday and asked us to loan him five thousand dollars. . . ." She was always talking about money. It was worse than eating your peas off a knife. He dove into the pool, swam its length and went away.

The next pool on his list, the last but two, belonged to his old mistress, Shirley Adams. If he had suffered any injuries at the Biswangers' they would be cured here. Love—sexual roughhouse in fact—was the supreme elixir, the pain killer, the brightly colored pill that would put the spring back into his step, the joy of life in his heart. They had had an affair last week, last month, last year. He couldn't remember, It was he who had broken it off, his was the upper hand, and he stepped through the gate of the wall that surrounded her pool with nothing so considered as self-confidence. It seemed in a way to be his pool, as the lover, particularly the illicit lover, enjoys the possessions of his mistress with an authority unknown to holy matrimony. She was there, her hair the color of brass, but her figure, at the edge of the lighted, cerulean water, excited in him no profound memories. It had been, he thought, a lighthearted affair, although she had wept when he broke it off. She seemed confused to see him and he wondered if she was still wounded. Would she, God forbid, weep again?

"What do you want?" she asked.

"I'm swimming across the county."

"Good Christ. Will you ever grow up?"

"What's the matter?"

"If you've come here for money," she said, "I won't give you another cent."

"You could give me a drink."

"I could but I won't. I'm not alone."

"Well, I'm on my way."

He dove in and swam the pool, but when be tried to haul himself up onto the curb he found that the strength in his arms and shoulders had gone, and he paddled to the ladder and climbed out. Looking over his shoulder be saw, in the lighted bathhouse, a young man. Going out onto the dark lawn he smelled chrysanthemums or marigolds—some stub- born autumnal fragrance—on the night air, strong as gas. Looking overhead he saw that the stars had come out, but why should he seem to see Andromeda, Cepheus, and Cassiopeia? What had become of the constellations of midsummer? He began to cry.

It was probably the first time in his adult life that he had ever cried, certainly the first time in his life that he had ever felt so miserable, cold, tired, and bewildered. He could not understand the rudeness of the caterer's barkeep or the rudeness of a mistress who had come to him on her knees and showered his trousers with tears. He had swum too long, he had been immersed too long, and his nose and his throat were sore from the water. What he needed then was a drink, some company, and some clean, dry clothes, and while he could have cut directly across the road to his home he went on to the Gilmartins' pool. Here, for the first time in his life, he did not dive but went down the steps into the icy water and swam a bobbled sidestroke that he might have learned as a youth. He staggered with fatigue on his way to the Clydes' and paddled the length of their pool, stopping again and again with his hand on the curb to rest. He climbed up the ladder and wondered if he had the strength to get home. He had done what he wanted, he had swum the county, but he was so stupefied with exhaustion that his triumph seemed vague. Stooped, holding on to the gateposts for support, he turned up the driveway of his own house.

The place was dark. Was it so late that they had all gone to bed? Had Lucinda stayed at the Westerhazys' for supper? Had the girls joined her there or gone someplace else? Hadn't they agreed, as they usually did on Sunday, to regret all their invitations and stay at home? He tried the garage doors to see what cars were in but the doors were locked and rust came off the handles onto his hands. Going toward the house, he saw that the force of the thunderstorm had knocked one of the rain gutters loose. It hung down over the front door like an umbrella rib, but it could be fixed in the morning. The house was locked, and he thought that the stupid cook or the stupid maid must have locked the place up until he remembered that it had been some time since they had employed a maid or a cook. He shouted, pounded on the door, tried to force it with his shoulder, and then, looking in at the windows, saw that the place was empty.

What I Feel

   This is Cheever's most frequently anthologized short story. In a surrealistic manner, it brings out the misfortunes of a suburban man in South America. The man plans to swim across all the pools of the locality in a bright summer day. He begins in an energetic manner and he is greeted with warmth by the hosts at the beginning. But as time passes, he becomes more and more weak and desolate. He is reminded that he sold his house by one and that he wanted loan from another. The former warm greetings turns into indifference and then, humiliation. He is  severely treated by his former mistress who was once mad for him. The nature changes with the changing mood of the swimmer. The evening turns into an autumnal evening with its somber  and gloomy atmosphere. He cries in despair and returns to his home only to find that the house is abandoned. The story ends in a terrifying note warning the middle-class men about the dangers of economic and sexual indulgence.