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| 1 | And now my written story ends. I look back, once more - for the
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| 2 | last time - before I close these leaves.
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| 3 | I see myself, with Agnes at my side, journeying along the road of
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| 4 | life. I see our children and our friends around us; and I hear the
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| 5 | roar of many voices, not indifferent to me as I travel on.
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| 6 | What faces are the most distinct to me in the fleeting crowd? Lo,
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| 7 | these; all turning to me as I ask my thoughts the question!
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| 8 | Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of four-score
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| 9 | years and more, but upright yet, and a steady walker of six miles
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| 10 | at a stretch in winter weather.
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| 11 | Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old nurse, likewise
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| 12 | in spectacles, accustomed to do needle-work at night very close to
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| 13 | the lamp, but never sitting down to it without a bit of wax candle,
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| 14 | a yard-measure in a little house, and a work-box with a picture of
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| 15 | St. Paul's upon the lid.
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| 16 | The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish
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| 17 | days, when I wondered why the birds didn't peck her in preference
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| 18 | to apples, are shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken
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| 19 | their whole neighbourhood in her face, are fainter (though they
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| 20 | glitter still); but her rough forefinger, which I once associated
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| 21 | with a pocket nutmeg-grater, is just the same, and when I see my
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| 22 | least child catching at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I
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| 23 | think of our little parlour at home, when I could scarcely walk.
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| 24 | My aunt's old disappointment is set right, now. She is godmother
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| 25 | to a real living Betsey Trotwood; and Dora (the next in order) says
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| 26 | she spoils her.
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| 27 | There is something bulky in Peggotty's pocket. It is nothing
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| 28 | smaller than the Crocodile Book, which is in rather a dilapidated
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| 29 | condition by this time, with divers of the leaves torn and stitched
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| 30 | across, but which Peggotty exhibits to the children as a precious
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| 31 | relic. I find it very curious to see my own infant face, looking
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| 32 | up at me from the Crocodile stories; and to be reminded by it of my
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| 33 | old acquaintance Brooks of Sheffield.
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| 34 | Among my boys, this summer holiday time, I see an old man making
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| 35 | giant kites, and gazing at them in the air, with a delight for
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| 36 | which there are no words. He greets me rapturously, and whispers,
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| 37 | with many nods and winks, 'Trotwood, you will be glad to hear that
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| 38 | I shall finish the Memorial when I have nothing else to do, and
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| 39 | that your aunt's the most extraordinary woman in the world, sir!'
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| 40 | Who is this bent lady, supporting herself by a stick, and showing
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| 41 | me a countenance in which there are some traces of old pride and
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| 42 | beauty, feebly contending with a querulous, imbecile, fretful
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| 43 | wandering of the mind? She is in a garden; and near her stands a
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| 44 | sharp, dark, withered woman, with a white scar on her lip. Let me
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| 45 | hear what they say.
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| 46 | 'Rosa, I have forgotten this gentleman's name.'
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| 47 | Rosa bends over her, and calls to her, 'Mr. Copperfield.'
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| 48 | 'I am glad to see you, sir. I am sorry to observe you are in
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| 49 | mourning. I hope Time will be good to you.'
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| 50 | Her impatient attendant scolds her, tells her I am not in mourning,
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| 51 | bids her look again, tries to rouse her.
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| 52 | 'You have seen my son, sir,' says the elder lady. 'Are you
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| 53 | reconciled?'
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| 54 | Looking fixedly at me, she puts her hand to her forehead, and
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| 55 | moans. Suddenly, she cries, in a terrible voice, 'Rosa, come to
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| 56 | me. He is dead!' Rosa kneeling at her feet, by turns caresses her,
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| 57 | and quarrels with her; now fiercely telling her, 'I loved him
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| 58 | better than you ever did!'- now soothing her to sleep on her
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| 59 | breast, like a sick child. Thus I leave them; thus I always find
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| 60 | them; thus they wear their time away, from year to year.
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| 61 | What ship comes sailing home from India, and what English lady is
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| 62 | this, married to a growling old Scotch Croesus with great flaps of
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| 63 | ears? Can this be Julia Mills?
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| 64 | Indeed it is Julia Mills, peevish and fine, with a black man to
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| 65 | carry cards and letters to her on a golden salver, and a
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| 66 | copper-coloured woman in linen, with a bright handkerchief round
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| 67 | her head, to serve her Tiffin in her dressing-room. But Julia
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| 68 | keeps no diary in these days; never sings Affection's Dirge;
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| 69 | eternally quarrels with the old Scotch Croesus, who is a sort of
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| 70 | yellow bear with a tanned hide. Julia is steeped in money to the
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| 71 | throat, and talks and thinks of nothing else. I liked her better
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| 72 | in the Desert of Sahara.
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| 73 | Or perhaps this IS the Desert of Sahara! For, though Julia has a
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| 74 | stately house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day,
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| 75 | I see no green growth near her; nothing that can ever come to fruit
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| 76 | or flower. What Julia calls 'society', I see; among it Mr. Jack
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| 77 | Maldon, from his Patent Place, sneering at the hand that gave it
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| 78 | him, and speaking to me of the Doctor as 'so charmingly antique'.
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| 79 | But when society is the name for such hollow gentlemen and ladies,
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| 80 | Julia, and when its breeding is professed indifference to
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| 81 | everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we must
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| 82 | have lost ourselves in that same Desert of Sahara, and had better
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| 83 | find the way out.
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| 84 | And lo, the Doctor, always our good friend, labouring at his
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| 85 | Dictionary (somewhere about the letter D), and happy in his home
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| 86 | and wife. Also the Old Soldier, on a considerably reduced footing,
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| 87 | and by no means so influential as in days of yore!
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| 88 | Working at his chambers in the Temple, with a busy aspect, and his
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| 89 | hair (where he is not bald) made more rebellious than ever by the
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| 90 | constant friction of his lawyer's-wig, I come, in a later time,
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| 91 | upon my dear old Traddles. His table is covered with thick piles
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| 92 | of papers; and I say, as I look around me:
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| 93 | 'If Sophy were your clerk, now, Traddles, she would have enough to
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| 94 | do!'
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| 95 | 'You may say that, my dear Copperfield! But those were capital
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| 96 | days, too, in Holborn Court! Were they not?'
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| 97 | 'When she told you you would be a judge? But it was not the town
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| 98 | talk then!'
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| 99 | 'At all events,' says Traddles, 'if I ever am one -'
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| 100 | 'Why, you know you will be.'
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| 101 | 'Well, my dear Copperfield, WHEN I am one, I shall tell the story,
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| 102 | as I said I would.'
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| 103 | We walk away, arm in arm. I am going to have a family dinner with
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| 104 | Traddles. It is Sophy's birthday; and, on our road, Traddles
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| 105 | discourses to me of the good fortune he has enjoyed.
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| 106 | 'I really have been able, my dear Copperfield, to do all that I had
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| 107 | most at heart. There's the Reverend Horace promoted to that living
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| 108 | at four hundred and fifty pounds a year; there are our two boys
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| 109 | receiving the very best education, and distinguishing themselves as
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| 110 | steady scholars and good fellows; there are three of the girls
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| 111 | married very comfortably; there are three more living with us;
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| 112 | there are three more keeping house for the Reverend Horace since
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| 113 | Mrs. Crewler's decease; and all of them happy.'
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| 114 | 'Except -' I suggest.
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| 115 | 'Except the Beauty,' says Traddles. 'Yes. It was very unfortunate
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| 116 | that she should marry such a vagabond. But there was a certain
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| 117 | dash and glare about him that caught her. However, now we have got
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| 118 | her safe at our house, and got rid of him, we must cheer her up
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| 119 | again.'
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| 120 | Traddles's house is one of the very houses - or it easily may have
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| 121 | been - which he and Sophy used to parcel out, in their evening
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| 122 | walks. It is a large house; but Traddles keeps his papers in his
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| 123 | dressing-room and his boots with his papers; and he and Sophy
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| 124 | squeeze themselves into upper rooms, reserving the best bedrooms
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| 125 | for the Beauty and the girls. There is no room to spare in the
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| 126 | house; for more of 'the girls' are here, and always are here, by
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| 127 | some accident or other, than I know how to count. Here, when we go
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| 128 | in, is a crowd of them, running down to the door, and handing
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| 129 | Traddles about to be kissed, until he is out of breath. Here,
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| 130 | established in perpetuity, is the poor Beauty, a widow with a
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| 131 | little girl; here, at dinner on Sophy's birthday, are the three
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| 132 | married girls with their three husbands, and one of the husband's
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| 133 | brothers, and another husband's cousin, and another husband's
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| 134 | sister, who appears to me to be engaged to the cousin. Traddles,
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| 135 | exactly the same simple, unaffected fellow as he ever was, sits at
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| 136 | the foot of the large table like a Patriarch; and Sophy beams upon
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| 137 | him, from the head, across a cheerful space that is certainly not
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| 138 | glittering with Britannia metal.
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| 139 | And now, as I close my task, subduing my desire to linger yet,
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| 140 | these faces fade away. But one face, shining on me like a Heavenly
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| 141 | light by which I see all other objects, is above them and beyond
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| 142 | them all. And that remains.
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| 143 | I turn my head, and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me.
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| 144 | My lamp burns low, and I have written far into the night; but the
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| 145 | dear presence, without which I were nothing, bears me company.
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| 146 | O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life
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| 147 | indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the
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| 148 | shadows which I now dismiss, still find thee near me, pointing
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| 149 | upward!
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