Bleak house summary. Charles dickens - cold house

A girl named Esther Summerston has to grow up without parents, only her godmother, Miss Barbury, is a very cold and stern lady who is involved in her upbringing. To all questions about her mother, this woman answers Esther only that her birth became a real shame for everyone and the girl should forever forget about the one that gave her birth.

At the age of 14, Esther also loses her godmother, immediately after the burial of Miss Barbury, a certain Mr.Kenge appears and invites the young girl to go to an educational institution, where she will not know any lack of anything and properly prepare herself to become a real lady in the future. Esther willingly agrees to go to the boarding house, where she meets a truly kind and cordial teacher and friendly companions. In this institution, a growing up girl spends six unclouded years, subsequently she often recalls this period of life with warmth.

Upon completion of his education, Mr. John Jarndis, whom Esther considers her guardian, arranges the girl to play the role of a companion to her relative Ada Claire. She has to go to the Jarndis estate, known as Bleak House, and her companion on this journey is a handsome young man Richard Carston, who is related to her future employer.

Bleak House has a dark and sad story, but in recent years, Esther's guardian has managed to give it a more modern and decent look, and the girl willingly begins to manage the house, the guardian heartily approves of her diligence and agility. Soon she gets used to life on the estate, and gets to know many neighbors, including a noble family named Dedlock.

At the same time, young William Guppy, who recently started working in the law office of Mr. Kenge, who had previously taken part in the fate of Esther, meets this girl on the estate and is immediately fascinated by the attractive and at the same time very modest Miss Summerston. Looking a little later on the business of his company to the Dedlocks, Guppy notices that the arrogant aristocrat Lady Dedlock reminds him of someone.

Arriving at Bleak House, William confesses his feelings to Esther, but the girl flatly refuses to even listen to the young man. Then Guppy makes her a hint that she looks like Milady Dedlock, and promises to definitely find out the whole truth about this similarity.

The investigation of Esther's admirer leads to the fact that he discovers the letters of a certain person who died in the wretched room and was buried in a common grave intended for the poorest and most disadvantaged people. After reading the letters, William realizes that the late Captain Howden had a past love affair with Lady Dedlock, which resulted in the birth of a girl.

Guppy tries to talk about his discoveries with Esther's mother, but the aristocrat behaves extremely coldly and demonstrates that she does not understand what this person is talking about. But after William leaves her, Lady Dedlock admits to herself that her daughter did not actually die immediately after birth, the woman is no longer able to contain the emotions that gripped her.

For some time, the daughter of a deceased judge appears in the Bleak House, Esther takes care of the orphaned girl, takes care of her when the child is sick with smallpox, as a result of which she also becomes a victim of this serious illness. All the inhabitants of the estate try to prevent the girl from seeing her face, which is very spoiled by smallpox, and Lady Dedlock secretly meets with Esther and tells her that she is her own mother. When Captain Howden left her at a young age, the woman was convinced that her child was stillborn. But in reality, the girl was raised by her older sister. The wife of an aristocrat begs her daughter not to tell anyone the truth in order to maintain her usual way of life and a high position in society.

A young doctor Allen Woodcourt, who comes from a poor family, falls in love with Esther; it was very difficult for his mother to give him a medical education. This man is very attractive to the girl, but in the English capital he has no opportunities to earn decent money, and Dr. Woodcourt, at the first opportunity, goes to China as a ship doctor.

Richard Carston starts working in a law firm, but his affairs are not going well. Having invested all his savings in the investigation of one old case related to the Jarndis family, he is deprived not only of funds, but also of health. Carston enters into a secret marriage with his cousin Ada and almost immediately passes away without having time to see their child.

Meanwhile, a cunning and clever solicitor, Talkinghorn, a greedy and unprincipled person, begins to suspect Lady Dedlock of keeping unseemly secrets and begins his own investigation. He steals from William Guppy the letters of the late Captain Howden, from which everything becomes clear to him. Having told the whole story in the presence of the owners of the house, although it was allegedly about a completely different woman, the lawyer seeks to meet with my lady in private. The lawyer, pursuing his own interests, persuades Lady Dedlock to continue hiding the truth for the sake of her husband's peace of mind, although the lady is already ready to leave and leave the world forever.

Lawyer Talkinghorn changes his intentions, he threatens Lady Dedlock as soon as possible to tell her husband about everything. The next morning, the man's corpse is discovered, and Milady becomes the prime suspect. But in the end, the evidence points to a French maid serving in the house, and the girl is arrested.

Lady Dedlock's husband, Sir Lester, who is unable to bear the shame that has befallen the family, is broken by a powerful blow. His wife runs away from home, the police are trying to track down the woman, along with Esther and the doctor Woodcourt, who returned from the expedition. It is Dr. Allen who finds the already deceased Lady Dedlock near the cemetery.

Esther painfully experiences the death of her recently found mother, but then the girl gradually comes to her senses. Mr. Jarndis, having learned about the mutual love between Woodcourt and his ward, decides to act nobly and give way to the doctor. He also equips a small estate in Yorkshire for future newlyweds, where Allen will treat the poor. The widowed Ada then settled on the same estate with her little son, whom she gave the name Richard in honor of her late father. Sir John takes Ada and her son under his care, they move to Bleak House with him, but often visit the Woodcourt family. Mr. Jarndis will forever remain the closest friend to Dr. Allen and his wife Esther.

House-Museum of Charles Dickens in London (London, Great Britain) - expositions, opening hours, address, phone numbers, official website.

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In London, in a perfectly restored house at 48 Doughty Street, in the Holborn area, there is a piece of the Victorian era of England, a piece of its history, the life of old England. This is the House-Museum of the great English writer Charles Dickens, the author of such famous works as The Adventures of Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club and many others that brought him fame and recognition.

More recently, it was an ordinary old house on Doughty Street - few people knew anything about it. In 1923, it was even decided to demolish it, but through the efforts of the Dickens Society, the building was bought out, and the Charles Dickens Museum was created in it, which for a long time was exclusively interested in literary scholars and students of literary faculties of educational institutions. And so, on the eve of the bicentennial anniversary, the increased interest in the writer and his work bore fruit - the museum was renewed and restored. It was opened to the public on December 10, 2012, just a month after the start of work.

This is the only house that has survived to our time, where the writer Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine (1837-1839) once lived. The master restorers have used all their skills and efforts to recreate the authentic atmosphere of this unique home. The furnishings, the bulk of things, once belonged to Dickens and his family.

Here there is a feeling that the writer has gone out for a short while and will soon enter the door of his home. It was in this house that his novel The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club was finished and The Adventures of Oliver Twist was written, here his two daughters (10 children in total) were born, and his sister Mary died at the age of 17. It was here that he achieved fame and universal recognition as the greatest storyteller in the world.

The Charles Dickens House-Museum reproduces typical middle-class 19th century English family housing: a kitchen with all the utensils, a bedroom with a magnificent bed and a canopy, a very nice living room, a dining room with a dining table lined with Victorian plates depicting Dickens himself and his friends.

The second floor is the writer's creative studio with his wardrobe, desk and chair, shaving kit, manuscripts and first editions of his books. Here you can also get acquainted with the objects of painting, portraits of the writer, his personal belongings and letters. Walking through the halls of the museum, examining its exhibits and paintings from the life of old London, one can imagine the city as Dickens saw it: with stagecoaches and gas lanterns, the models of which are also in the museum.

In addition, the museum stores sets, interior items and models of costumes for films based on the works of this wonderful master of the pen.

How to get to the Charles Dickens House Museum

The museum, located at London, WC1N 2LX, 48 Doughty Street, can be reached by tube to Station Lane, or Holborn (Central Line), or Russell Square (Piccadilly Line), or Kings Cross St. Pancras ", or by buses 7, 17, 19, 38, 45, 46, 55, 243.

Working hours

The museum is open to the public from Monday to Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00, closed on public holidays. The ticket office is open until 16:00.

Ticket prices

Entrance: 9.50 GBP, children under 6 are free.

Prices on the page are for November 2019.

"Bleak House"

Bleak House is one of those rare cases when journalistically sensitive responsiveness to the news of the day perfectly matched the artistic intent of the novel, although, as is often the case with Dickens, the action has been pushed back several decades. The Chancellor's Court, the reform of which was much talked about in the early fifties (by the way, it was delayed for a long time by government corruption and routine, which, according to Dickens, were a direct consequence of the then bipartisan system), the Chancellor's Court became the organizing center of the novel, which shattered the vices of the social system as a whole ... Dickens became acquainted with the "charms" of the Chancery Court in his youth, when he worked in a law office, and at the Pickwick Club he fiercely criticized his monstrous red tape, telling the story of the "Chancellor's prisoner." Perhaps he became interested in him again under the influence of the newspaper hype.

Expanding an impressive picture of society, Dickens is likely to gain an even more brilliant victory when he will not let the reader forget for a minute that this very network is established vertically: the Lord Chancellor sits on top of a woolen pillow, and Sir Lester Dedlock is spending his days in his Lincolnshire estate. , the base of the bulky structure rests on suffering, it presses on the fragile and unwashed shoulders of street sweeper Joe, a sick and illiterate ragamuffin. Retribution is not long in coming, and the fetid breath of the Lonely Tom shelter, where the same outcasts vegetate with Joe, bursts into the cozy nests of the middle class, does not spare the very home virtue. Dickens' exemplary heroine Esther, for example, is infected with smallpox from Joe. In the first chapter of the book, London and the Chancellor's Court are shrouded in fog, the second chapter takes you to the rainy, cloudy Chesney World, to a stately country house, where the fate of the government cabinet is being decided. However, the indictment handed down to society is not without nuances. The Lord Chancellor, for example, is a benevolent gentleman - he is attentive to Miss Flyte, whom the court delays have driven to insanity, in a fatherly manner he talks with the "Chancellor's charges" Ada and Richard. Solid, persistent in his delusions, Sir Lester Dedlock 1 nevertheless belongs to the number of the most likable characters of Dickens: he generously cares for all who directly depend on him, remains chivalrous loyalty to his beautiful wife when her dishonor is revealed - there is something in this even romantic. And is it necessary, finally, to destroy the Chancellor's Court and correct the system, which Sir Lester considers to be due to England from God? Who will feed Mr. Voles' aged father and his three daughters if Voles loses the opportunity to let Richard Carston through the world with royalties and court fees? And what will become of the wretched wreck, the fragment of the Regency, Cousin Volumnia, with her necklace and baby talk, if her benefactor Sir Lester loses his right to determine the fate of the country?

Without expressing this directly, Dickens makes it clear that society, which allowed Joe to die of hunger and loneliness, is doubly disgusting, throwing a piece to others just as unhappy. Here, of course, Dickens' aversion to patronage and dependence, which determines relations between people, was expressed: he knew what it was from his own family, especially in the last fifteen years of his life. To say that the Chancellor's Court and Chesney Wold symbolize fog and dampness would be incorrect, because such vague, vague symbols as the sea in "Dombey and Son" or the river in "Our Mutual Friend" are immediately remembered. The great thing is that both the Chancellor's Court and the fog together symbolize England, but they also exist on their own. Composition, symbolism, narration in Bleak House - in short, everything, with the possible exception of the plot, is artistically convincing, since their complexity does not negate the simple and clear logic of the action. So, the found will puts an end to the litigation of the "Jarndis" and brings nothing to anyone - everything has been eaten up by legal costs; the shame and death of his wife cast to ashes the proud world of Sir Leicester; a pile of charred bones and a stain of thick yellow liquid will be left after the "spontaneous combustion" by the alcoholic Crook, the buyer of junk and scrap iron, his "Lord Chancellor" in the world of rags, hunger and plague. The society, rotten from top to bottom, makes a complete revolution in the pages of this amazing novel.

This is not the place to dwell in detail on the long and varied list of dramatis personae 2 of the novel, let's just say that, as a rule, selfish and therefore vulgar heroes are drawn to their own kind, close in small groups, neglecting the family and people dependent on them - but also behaved in relation to the people and the ruling classes of England. Mr. Tarvidrop, a fat man and a living memory of the time of the Prince Regent, thinks only of his manners; grandfather Smallwid and his grandchildren who did not know childhood think only about profit; the wandering preacher Mr. Chadbend thinks only of his own voice; Mrs. Pardigle, who encourages her children to use her pocket money only for good deeds, thinks of herself as an ascetic when she delivers church tracts to homes where they sit without bread; Mrs. Jellyby, completely abandoning her children, becomes disillusioned with missionary work in Africa and enters into a struggle for women's rights (in the face of blatant popular disaster and missionary work, and these rights drove Dickens mad). And finally, Mr. Skimpole, this charming little man, not a fool to live at someone else's expense and sharp on his tongue, does not get tired of guilelessly blurting out his own opinion of himself. All of them, like children, selflessly indulge in their trifles, and hunger and disease pass by, without attracting their attention.

As for Joe. the embodied symbol of the sacrifice, then this image, I think, deserves the highest praise. Neither the ponderous pathos, nor even the little dramatic reading of Our Father on his deathbed can weaken the impression that the fearful and stupid, like a beast, Joe left behind - an abandoned, downtrodden, hunted creature. The image of an abandoned and homeless child in Dickens' case in the case of Joe received its fullest expression. There is nothing sublime and romantic in the image of Joe, Dickens does not "play along" with him at all, except only hints that natural decency triumphs over evil and immorality. In a book that emphatically denies virtue to savage Africans, Joe (like Hugh's groom in Barneby Raj) is the only tribute to the traditional image of the noble savage. Dickens' compassion for the poor was most vividly expressed in the scene where Goose, the orphan-servant in the Snegsby house (that is, the last person in Victorian life), amazed and sympathetic, observes the scene of Joe's interrogation: she looked into life, even more hopeless; the poor always come to each other's aid, and the kind-hearted Goose gives Joe his supper:

“Here's something for you, poor little boy,” says Gusya.

“Thank you very much, madam,” says Joe.

- I suppose you want to eat?

- Still would! Joe answers.

- And where did your father and mother go, huh?

Joe stops chewing and stands in a pillar. After all, Goose, this orphan, the pet of a Christian saint, whose church is located in Tooting, stroked Joe on the shoulder - for the first time in his life he felt that the hand of a decent man touched him.

“I don’t know anything about them,” Joe says.

“I don’t know about mine either!” - exclaims Goose. "

"Poor little boy" sounds almost like a master in Geese's lips, and this alone convinces me that Dickens managed to convey a high pathos and deep feeling, keeping a mischievous smile on his face and not getting into sentimentality.

Most Bleak House readers today will probably disagree with my assessment of the novel, as it ignores what they think is the main miscalculation of the novel - the character of the heroine, Esther Summerson. Esther is an orphan, only from the middle of the book we learn that she is the illegitimate daughter of Milady Dedlock. Taken under the care of Mr. Jarndis, she lives with him with his other charges.

Dickens took the bold step of hiring Esther as a co-author - half of the book is written on her behalf. This decision seems to me very reasonable - after all, this is the only way the reader can enter the life of victims broken by society; on the other hand, in other chapters, where the author leads the story, he will see in the aggregate a system of bullying and persecution 3. Esther is a resolute and courageous heroine, which is especially convincing for her by the search for her mother, when the secret of my lady has already been revealed - by the way, these scenes belong to Dickens' best depictions of the dynamics of action; Esther has the courage to tell Mr Skimpole and Mr Voles how lousy people they are - for Dickens' timid and feminine heroine that means something. Unfortunately, Dickens fears that we ourselves will not be able to appreciate Esther's merits, which, of course, are the essence of thriftiness, thriftiness and sharpness, and therefore makes her, impossible to be embarrassed, repeat for us all the praises lavished on her. This flaw may be inherent in sensible girls, but in order to be consistent with Dickens's ideal of femininity, a girl should be modest in every word.

The inability and unwillingness to understand women's psychology turn out to be another shortcoming, and much more serious: according to the logic of the novel, the Dzharndis lawsuit ruins everyone who is involved in it, but the logic also turns out to be overturned, as soon as we learn that the shameful misconduct of my lady and her role as a plaintiff in the process are not at all connected with each other. This is all the more striking when the crazy petitioner Miss Flight tells how her sister went down a bad path: the family got involved in judicial red tape, became impoverished, and then completely disintegrated. But Miss Flyt's sister is not in the novel, and her fall from grace is muffled; the fault of my lady Dedlock forms the central intrigue of the novel - but my lady is beautiful; and Dickens demonstrates a complete deafness to the nature of a woman, resolutely refusing to analyze the annoying spot on my lady's past, or at least plainly explain how it all happened - no matter that the book is kept on this secret. But let's not be too picky: Esther is much prettier and more lively than the eternal troublesome Ruth Pinch; and my Lady Dedlock, who has lost the boring and unapproachable decorum, is a much more vital character than another proud and beautiful woman, Edith Dombey. Even Dickens's Achilles heel does not seem to be so vulnerable in this ruthless verdict novel.

However, what is the salvation, according to Dickens? By the end of the novel, several positive personalities and fellowships are selected. The great thing here is Mr. Rownswell and everything behind him. This is a self-made “ironworker” from Yorkshire who has made his way into life, where factories and forges are noisy and joyful hum about a prosperous world of labor and progress, singing waste through the decrepit world of Chesney-Wold with its paralyzed owner. Esther leaves for Yorkshire with her husband, Allen Woodcourt; he carries the hands and heart of a physician to people — a tangible help, not like the vague philanthropy in Dickens’s early novels.

And is it not ironic that the enterprising industrial North, the outpost of British capital in the Victorian era, took upon itself another crushing blow from Dickens? In 1854, the novel Hard Times was published.

After finishing the publication of Bleak House, Dickens, in the company of his young friends, Wilkie Collins and the artist Egg, left for Italy. It was pleasant to take a break from England, work, family, although the young companions sometimes irritated him, which was partly to blame for their modest means, which, of course, prevented them from keeping up with Dickens everywhere.

Back in England, he made his first contribution to the coming decade by hosting a real paid public reading in Birmingham; proceeds from the performances went to the Birmingham and Middle Counties Institute. All three readings, which were very successful, were attended by his wife and sister-in-law 4. However, for the time being, he ignores the flood of invitations. It is difficult to say how long the pause in work, promising depression, would have continued if the fallen demand for Home Reading had not forced Dickens to start a new novel, or rather, would not hasten him with a monthly tribute, since the idea of ​​a new work had already matured. Perhaps a recent trip to Birmingham awakened in his soul the horror of the blast furnaces of Midland, first expressed so forcefully in a nightmare vision of hellish furnaces and a distraught, deafly murmuring people in the Antiquities Shop. A journalist came to the artist's aid, agitated by a twenty-three-week strike and lockout at the cotton factories in Preston - in January 1854, Dickens went to Lancashire to witness the battle between factory owners and workers. Already in April, the first issue of the novel "Hard Times" comes out. The success of the novel brought Home Reading back to its brilliance and material prosperity.

Notes.

1... ... persistent in his delusions Sir Lester Dedlock- Deadlock ("dead-lock") means "stagnation", "dead end". As in most cases, the name of the Dickensian hero is at the same time a means of characterizing him.

2. Characters ( lat.).

3.... bullying and harassment- probably, the opinion of many critics-Dickens scholars is not without reason that he owed his new compositional technique (narration on behalf of different persons) to the technique of a detective novel, in the genre of which his young friend Wilkie Collins was so successful. In the novel of the XX century. changing plans is no longer a novelty (D. Joyce, W. Faulkner).

4. ... all three readings ... were attended by his wife and sister-in-law- The first public reading took place at the Birmingham City Hall on December 27, 1853; Dickens read A Christmas Carol.

Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich

CHARLES DICKKENS
1812-1870

COLD HOUSE (1852-1853).

Lectures on foreign literature / Per. from English
edited by V. A Kharitonov; preface to
Russian edition Bitov A.G. - M .: Publishing house Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 1998.
http://www.twirpx.com/file/57919/

We are now ready to tackle Dickens. We are now ready to accept Dickens. We are ready to enjoy Dickens. While reading Jane Austen, we had to make some effort to keep her heroines company in the living room. In dealing with Dickens, we stay at the table sipping port.

Jane Austen and her Mansfield Park had to be approached. I think that we found him and got some pleasure, contemplating her finely painted patterns, her collection of exquisite knick-knacks stored in cotton wool - a pleasure, however, forced. We had to be imbued with a certain mood, in a certain way to focus our eyes. Personally, I do not like porcelain or arts and crafts, but I often force myself to look at precious translucent porcelain through the eyes of a specialist and feel delighted at the same time. Let's not forget that there are people who have dedicated their whole life to Jane - their ivy-covered life. I'm sure some readers hear Miss Austen better than me. However, I tried to be completely objective. My objective method, my approach, was, in particular, that I peered through the prism of the culture that her young ladies and gentlemen drew from the cold spring of the 18th and early 19th centuries. We also delved into the cobweb-like composition of her novel: I want to remind the reader that the rehearsal of the play takes center stage in the yarn of Mainfield Park.

With Dickens, we go out into the open. In my opinion, Jane Austen's prose is a charming reworking of old values. Dickens has new values. Modern authors are still drunk with the wine of his harvest. Here it is not necessary, as in the case of Jane Austen, to establish approaches, courting, delaying. You just need to succumb to the voice of Dickens - that's all. If possible, I would devote the entire fifty minutes of each session to silent contemplation, concentration, and pure admiration for Dickens. But my responsibility is to guide and systematize these reflections, this is admiration. Reading "Bleak House", you should only relax and trust your own spine - although reading is a head process, the point of artistic pleasure is located between the shoulder blades. A slight tremor running down the back is that culmination of feelings that the human race can experience when it encounters pure art and pure science. Let's read the spine and its tremors. Let's be proud of being a vertebrate, because the brain is only an extension of the spinal cord: the wick runs along the entire length of the candle. If we are unable to enjoy this tremor, if we are unable to enjoy literature, let us leave our venture and plunge into comics, television, "books of the week."

I still think that Dickens will be stronger. In discussing Bleak House, we will soon notice that the romance plot of the novel is an illusion, it has little artistic value. There is something better in the book than Lady Dedlock's sad story. We'll need some information about English litigation, but otherwise it's just a game.

At first glance, Bleak House may seem like satire. Let's figure it out. When satire is of little aesthetic value, it fails to achieve its goal, no matter how deserving that goal may be. On the other hand, when a satire is imbued with artistic talent, its purpose is of little importance and fades over time, while sparkling satire remains a work of art. In this case, is it worth talking about satire at all?

The study of the social or political impact of literature should have been invented for those who, by nature or under the burden of education, are insensitive to the aesthetic currents of genuine literature — for those in whom reading does not echo with a shiver between the shoulder blades. (I repeat over and over again that there is no point in reading a book at all if you do not read it with your spine.) One can be quite content with the thought that Dickens was eager to condemn the lawlessness of the Chancellor's Court. Litigations like the Jarndis case occurred from time to time in the middle of the last century, although legal historians argue that most of the facts date back to the 1820s and 1830s, so many targets were shot by the time Bleak House was written. And if the target has ceased to exist, let's enjoy the carving of the smashing weapon. In addition, as an indictment against the aristocracy, the image of the Dedlocks and their entourage is devoid of interest and meaning, since the writer's knowledge and ideas about this circle are very meager and superficial, and in an artistic sense, the images of the Dedlocks, no matter how sorry it is to say, are completely lifeless. Therefore, let us rejoice in the web, ignoring the spider; Let us admire the architectonics of the atrocity theme, ignoring the weakness of satire and its theatricality.

After all, a sociologist, if he wants to, can write an entire book on the exploitation of children in what historians call the dark dawn of the industrial era - child labor and so on. But, frankly, the long-suffering children depicted in Bleak House do not belong so much to 1850 as to earlier times and their true depictions. From the point of view of the literary nomenclature, they are more likely associated with the children of previous novels - sentimental novels of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. If you reread those pages of Mansfield Park that deal with the Price family in Portsmouth, one cannot fail to notice the pronounced connection between the unfortunate children of Jane Austen and the unfortunate children of Bleak House. At the same time, of course, other literary sources will also be found. This is about the method. And from the point of view of emotional content, we are also unlikely to find ourselves in the 1850s - we find ourselves with Dickens in his own childhood, and again the historical tie breaks.

It’s clear that I’m more interested in the sorcerer than the storyteller or the teacher. With regard to Dickens, only such an approach, it seems to me, can keep him alive - despite his adherence to reforms, cheap writing, sentimental nonsense and theatrical nonsense. It shines forever at the top, the exact height of which, the outlines and structure, as well as the mountain paths along which one can climb there through the fog, are known to us. His greatness lies in the power of fiction.

There are a few things to watch out for when reading a book:

1. One of the most striking themes of the novel is children, their anxieties, insecurity, their humble joys - and the joy they bring, but mainly their adversity. “I didn't build this world. I wander in it, alien and sire, ”to quote Houseman 1. The relationship between parents and children is interesting, covering the topic of "orphanhood": a missing parent or child. A good mother nurses a dead child or dies herself. Children take care of other children. An inexpressible tenderness evokes in me the story of how Dickens, in the difficult years of his London youth, once walked behind a worker carrying a large-headed child. The man walked without turning around, the boy looked over his shoulder at Dickens, who ate cherries from a paper bag on the way and slowly fed the quietest child, and no one saw this.

2. Chancellor's court - fog - madness; this is another topic.

3. Each character has a characteristic feature, a certain color reflection that accompanies the appearance of the hero.

4. Participation of things - portraits, houses, carriages.

5. The sociological side, brilliantly revealed, for example, by Edmund Wilson in the collection of essays "The wound and the bow", is not interesting and irrelevant.

6. A detective plot (with a detective promising Holmes) in the second part of the book.

7. The dualism of the novel as a whole: evil, almost equal in strength to good, is embodied in the Chancellor's Court, a kind of underworld, with emissaries-demons - Talkinghorn and Voles - and many devils in identical clothes, black and shabby. On the good side - Jarndis, Esther, Woodcourt, Aza, Mrs. Begnet; between them - succumbed to temptation. Some, like Sir Lester, are saved by love, which rather artificially triumphs over vanity and prejudice. Richard is also saved, although he goes astray, he is essentially good. Lady Dedlock's redemption is paid for by suffering, and Dostoevsky gesticulates violently in the background. Skimpole and, of course, the Smallweeds and Crook are the incarnate accomplices of the devil. As well as philanthropists, Mrs. Jellyby, for example, sowing sorrow around, convincing themselves that they are doing good, but in fact indulging their selfish motives.

The point is that these people - Mrs. Jellyby, Mrs. Pardigle and others - spend their time and energy on all sorts of strange undertakings (parallel to the theme of the uselessness of the Chancellor's Court, convenient for lawyers and disastrous for its victims), while their own children are abandoned and unhappy. The hope of salvation exists for Buckett and Kovinsov (performing their duty without unnecessary cruelty), but not for false missionaries, Chadbands and others like them. The "good" often fall prey to the "bad", but this is the salvation of the former and the eternal torment of the latter. The clash of all these forces and people (often linked to the theme of the Chancellor's Court) symbolizes the struggle of higher, universal forces, up to the death of Crook (spontaneous combustion), which is quite befitting the devil. These collisions constitute the "backbone" of the book, but Dickens is too an artist to impose or chew on his thoughts. His characters are real people, not walking ideas or symbols.

Bleak House has three main themes.

1. The Chancery Tribunal theme revolves around the desperately boring Jarndies vs. Jarndies trial, symbolized by the London fog and Miss Flight's caged birds. She is represented by lawyers and insane litigants.

2. The topic of unhappy children and their relationship with those whom they help, and with their parents, mostly scammers and eccentrics. The most unfortunate of all is homeless Joe, who lives in the hideous shadow of the Chancellor's Court and, unknowingly, participates in a mysterious conspiracy.

3. The theme of mystery, a romantic interweaving of investigations, which are carried out in turn by three detectives - Guppy, Talkinghorn, Bucket and their assistants. The mystery theme leads to the unfortunate Lady Dedlock, the out-of-wedlock mother of Esther.

The trick that Dickens demonstrates is to keep these three balls in balance, to juggle them, to reveal their relationship, to prevent the strings from tangling.

I have tried to show with lines in a diagram the many ways in which these three themes and their performers are connected in the novel's intricate movement. Only a few heroes are noted here, although the list of them is huge: there are about thirty children in the novel alone. Perhaps Rachel, who knew the secret of Esther's birth, should have been paired with one of the crooks, the Reverend Chadband, whom Rachel had married. Houdon is the former lover of Lady Dedlock (also called Nemo in the novel), Esther's father. Talkinghorn, Sir Lester Dedlock's attorney, and Detective Buckett are detectives, and they unsuccessfully try to solve this mystery, which accidentally leads to the death of Lady Dedlock. The detectives find helpers such as Ortanz, Milady's French maid, and the scoundrel old Smallwid, brother-in-law of the strangest, most obscure hero in the entire book, Crook.

I'm going to trace these three themes, starting with the Chancery — the fog — the birds — the mad plaintiff; Among other objects and creatures, consider the obsessed old lady Miss Flight and the terrifying Crook as representatives of this theme. Then I will move on to the subject of children in full detail and show from the best side poor Joe, as well as the disgusting con man, supposedly a big child - Mr. Skimpole. The next will be the topic of mystery. Note: Dickens is both a sorcerer and an artist when he addresses the fog of the Chancellor's Court, and a public figure - again combined with an artist - on the topic of children, and a very intelligent storyteller on the topic of mystery that moves and guides the story. It is the artist that attracts us; therefore, having outlined the three main themes and characters of some of the characters, I will move on to an analysis of the form of the book, its composition, style, its artistic means, the magic of language. Esther and her fans, the incredibly good Woodcourt and the convincingly quixotic John Jarndys, as well as such eminent persons as Sir Lester Dedlock and others will be very interesting for us.

The initial situation of Bleak House in the Chancery Court theme is quite simple. The Jarndis vs. Jarndis lawsuit dragged on for years. Numerous litigants are awaiting an inheritance that they never get. One of the Jarndis, John Jarndis, is a kind-hearted man and expects nothing from a process that, he believes, is unlikely to end in his lifetime. He has a young ward, Esther Summerson, who is not directly related to the Chancery Court cases, but plays the role of a filtering mediator in the book. John Jarndis also takes care of the cousins ​​Ada and Richard, his opponents at the trial. Richard goes completely into the process and goes crazy. The other two litigants, the old lady Miss Fly and Mr. Gridley, are already insane.

The subject of Chancellor's Court opens the book, but before tackling it, let me pay attention to the peculiarity of Dickens's method. Here he describes the never-ending process and the Lord Chancellor: “It is difficult to answer the question: how many people, not even those who were not involved in the Jarndis versus Jarndis litigation, were spoiled and seduced from the true path by its destructive influence. She corrupted all the judges, starting with the clerk who keeps the piles of stiffened, dusty, ugly crumpled documents attached to the lawsuit, and ending with the last clerk-copyist in the "House of Six Clerks", who copied tens of thousands of sheets of the "Chancellor's folio" heading "Jarndis vs. Jarndis". Under whatever plausible pretexts extortion, deception, mockery, bribery and red tape are committed, they are pernicious, and can bring nothing but harm.<...>Thus, in the thick of mud and in the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord Supreme Chancellor in his Supreme Chancellor's Court ”2.

Now let's return to the first paragraph of the book: “London. The fall trial - "Michael's Day Session" - has recently begun, and the Lord Chancellor is seated at Lincoln's Inn Hall. Unbearable November weather. The streets are so muddy, as if the waters of a flood had just disappeared from the face of the earth.<...>The dogs are so smeared with mud that you can't see them. Horses are hardly better - they are splattered to the very eyecups. Pedestrians, polls infected with irritability, poke umbrellas at each other and lose their balance at intersections, where, since dawn (if only it was dawn on that day), tens of thousands of other pedestrians managed to stumble and slip, adding new contributions to the already accumulated - layer on layer - dirt, which in these places tenaciously adheres to the pavement, growing like compound interest. " And just as it grows like compound interest, the metaphor connects real mud and fog with the mud and confusion of the Chancellor's Court. Sitting in the very heart of the fog, in the thick of the mud, in the confusion, Mr. Tengle addresses: "M" lord! " (Mlud).

In the very heart of the fog, in the thick of mud, “Milord” itself turns into “Mud” (“mud”), if we slightly correct the inarticulate lawyer: My Lord, Mlud, Mud. We must note right away, at the very beginning of our research, that this is a characteristic Dickensian technique: a verbal game that makes inanimate words not only live, but also do tricks, revealing their immediate meaning.

On the very first pages we find another example of such a connection between words. In the opening paragraph of the book, creeping smoke from chimneys is compared to "a soft black drizzle", and right there, in the paragraph about the Chancery's Court and the Jarndis vs. Jarndis trial, one can find the symbolic names of the Chancellor's lawyers : “Chisle, Mizle - or what are their names there? "Used to making vague promises to themselves to sort out such and such a protracted affair and see if something could be done to help Drizle, who was so badly treated, but not before their office is done with the Jarndis affair." Chisle, Mizle, Drizle - sinister alliteration. And immediately further: "The seeds of cheating and greed have been scattered throughout this ill-fated affair ..." to the first paragraph, we will see that shirking and sharking is a pair alliteration, echoing slipping and sliding of pedestrians through the mud.

Let's follow the old Miss Flyte, the eccentric plaintiff who appears early in the day and disappears when the empty court closes. The young heroes of the book - Richard (whose fate will soon be strangely intertwined with the fate of the mad old woman), Dce (the cousin whom he marries) and Esther - this trinity meets Miss Flyt under the colonnade of the Chancery Court: “... a strange little old woman in a rumpled hat and with a reticule in her hands, "she went up to them and," smiling, made ... an unusually ceremonial curtsy.

- O! She said. - Wards of the Jarndis litigation! I'm very glad, of course, to have the honor to introduce myself! What a good omen it is for youth and hope and beauty if they find themselves here and do not know what will come of it.

- Loony! Richard whispered, not thinking she might hear.

- Quite right! Mad, young gentleman, ”she said so quickly that he was completely at a loss. - I myself was once a ward. Then I was not yet crazy, - she continued, making deep curtsies and smiling after each of her short phrases. - I was gifted with youth and hope. Perhaps even beauty. Now all this is irrelevant. Neither one nor the other nor the third supported me, did not save me. I have the honor to be present at the hearings on a regular basis. With their documents. I expect the court to make a decision. Soon. On the day of the Last Judgment ... Please accept my blessing.

Ada got a little scared, and I (Esther tells this. - Note trans.), Wanting to please the old woman, said that we owe her a lot.

- Yes! She said coyly. - I guess so. And here is the Eloquent Kenge. With your documents! How are you, your honor?

- Excellent, wonderful! Well, don't bother us, dear! - Mr. Kenge threw as he walked, taking us to his office.

“And I don’t think so,” objected the poor old woman, seeding next to me and Ada. “I’m not pestering at all. I will bequeath estates to both of them, and I hope that doesn't mean pestering? I expect the court to make a decision. Soon. On the day of the Last Judgment. This is a good omen for you. Please accept my blessing!

When she reached a wide, steep staircase, she stopped and went no farther; but when we, going upstairs, looked around, we saw that she was still standing below and babbling, crouching and smiling after each of her short phrases:

- Youth. And hope. And beauty. And the Chancellor's Court. And Eloquent Kenge! Ha! Please accept my blessing! "

The words - youth, hope, beauty - that she repeats are full of meaning, as we will see later. The next day, walking around London, the three and another young creature meet Miss Fly again. Now a new theme is indicated in her speech - the theme of birds - songs, wings, flight. Miss Flight has a keen interest in flying 3 and bird singing, sweet-voiced birds in Lincoln's Inn garden.

We have to visit her dwelling above Crook's shop. There is another lodger there - Nemo, which will be discussed later, he is also one of the most important characters in the novel. Miss Flight will show about twenty bird cages. “I have brought these babies to my place with a special purpose, and the charges will immediately understand her,” she said. - With the intention of releasing the birds. As soon as my case is decided. Yes! However, they die in prison. Poor silly fools, their lives are so short in comparison with the Chancellor's proceedings that they all, bird after bird, die - my entire collections have become extinct one after another. And I, you know, am afraid that none of these birds, even though they are all young, will also not live to see liberation. Very regrettable, isn't it? " Miss Fly pulls the curtains open and the birds chirp for guests, but she does not name them. The words: "Another time I will tell you their names" are very significant: there is a touching secret. The old woman again repeats the words youth, hope, beauty. Now these words are associated with birds, and it seems that the shadow of the rods of their cells falls, like fetters, on the symbols of youth, beauty, and hope. To even better understand how subtly Miss Flight is connected with Esther, note for yourself that when Esther leaves home as a child, going to school, she only takes a bird in a cage with her. I urge you to remember here about the other bird in the cage, which I mentioned in connection with Mansfield Park, referring to the passage from Stern's Sentimental Journey, about the starling - and also about freedom and captivity. Here we again trace the same thematic line. Cages, birdcages, their rods, shadows of rods, crossing out, so to speak, happiness. Let us note in conclusion that Miss Flight's birds are larks, linnet, goldfinches, or, what is the same, youth, hope, beauty.

When Miss Flight's guests walk past the door of the strange tenant Nemo, she says to them several times: "Shhh!" Then this strange tenant calms down on his own, he dies "by his own hand", and Miss Flight is sent for a doctor, and then she, trembling, looks out from behind the door. The deceased tenant, as we learn later, is associated with Esther (this is her father) and with Lady Dedlock (this is her former lover). Miss Flight's theme line is exciting and instructive. A little later, we find mention of another poor, enslaved child, one of the many enslaved children in the novel - Caddy Jellyby meets his lover, the Prince, in Miss Fly's room. Still later, during the visit of young people, accompanied by Mr. Jarndis, we learn from Crook's lips the names of the birds: “Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Peace, Peace, Life, Ashes, Ashes, Waste, Need, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Parchment, Robbery, Precedent, Gibberish and Nonsense. " But old man Crook misses one name - Beauty: Esther will lose her when she is sick.

The thematic connection between Richard and Miss Fly, between her insanity and his insanity, is revealed when he is completely captured by a legal battle.

Here is a very important passage: “According to Richard, it turned out that he had solved all her secrets and he had no doubts that the will, according to which he and Ada were to receive, I don’t know how many thousand pounds, would finally be approved if the Chancery Court there is at least a drop of reason and a sense of justice ... and the matter is nearing a happy end. Richard proved this to himself with the help of all the hackneyed arguments that he read in the documents, and each of them plunged him deeper and deeper into the quagmire of delusion. He even began to visit the court every now and then. He told us that every time he saw Miss Flyte there, chatted with her, provided her with minor favors and, secretly laughing at the old woman, felt sorry for her with all his heart. But he did not even suspect - my poor, dear, cheerful Richard, who at that time was bestowed with so much happiness and such a bright future! - what a fatal connection arises between his fresh youth and her faded old age, between his free hopes and her birds locked in a cage, a wretched attic and not quite common sense.

Miss Flight makes acquaintance with another madman plaintiff, Mr. Gridley, who also appears at the very beginning of the novel: “Another bankrupt plaintiff who comes from time to time from Shropshire, every time trying with all his might to get a conversation with the Chancellor after the end of the sessions, and who is impossible to explain why the Chancellor, who has poisoned his life for a quarter of a century, now has the right to forget about him - another ruined plaintiff stands in a prominent place and watches the judge with his eyes, ready, as soon as he gets up, to call out in a loud and plaintive voice: "Milord!" Several lawyer clerks and others who know this applicant by sight, linger here in the hope of having fun on his account and thereby dispelling the boredom caused by the bad weather. " Later, this Mr. Gridley bursts into a long tirade about his position, addressing Mr. Jarndis. He is ruined by an inheritance litigation, legal costs have absorbed three times more than the inheritance itself, and the litigation is not yet over. The feeling of resentment develops into convictions from which he cannot give up: “I was in prison for insulting the court. I was in jail for threatening this attorney. I've had all sorts of troubles and will again. I'm a "man from Shropshire," and it's fun for them to take me into custody and bring me to court in custody and all that; but sometimes I not only amuse them, but sometimes it is worse. They tell me that, they say, if I had restrained myself, it would have been easier for me myself. And I say I'll be crazy if I hold back. Once upon a time I seem to have been a rather good-natured person. My fellow countrymen say that they remember me like that; but now I am so offended that I need to open an outlet, give vent to my indignation, or else I’ll go crazy.<...>But wait, ”he added in a sudden fit of rage,“ I’ll disgrace them someday. Until the end of my life I will go to this court to shame him. "

“He was,” notes Esther, “terrible in his fury. I would never have believed that one could get so angry if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. " But he dies in Mr. George's dash in the presence of the trooper himself, Bucket, Esther, Richard and Miss Fly. “Don't, Gridley! She screamed. when he fell heavily and slowly on his back, moving away from her. - How can it be without my blessing? After so many years!"

In a very weak passage, the author entrusts Miss Flyte to tell Esther about the noble behavior of Dr. Woodcourt during the shipwreck in the East Indian Seas. This is not a very successful, albeit daring, attempt by the author to connect the maddened old woman not only with the tragic illness of Richard, but also with the happiness awaiting Esther.

The connection between Miss Flight and Richard grows stronger, and finally, after Richard's death, Esther writes: "Late in the evening, when the noise of the day subsided, poor maddened Miss Flight came to me in tears and said that she had released her birds."

Another character connected with the Chancery Court theme appears when Esther, on her way with friends to Miss Flight, stops at Crook's shop, where the old woman lives, - "... by the shop, above the door of which was the inscription" Crook, warehouse of rags and bottles " and the other in long, thin letters: "Crook, second-hand ship accessories trade." In one corner of the window hung a picture of a red paper mill building, in front of which a wagonload of sacks of rags was being unloaded. Beside it was the inscription: "Buying Bones." Further - "Buying unusable kitchen utensils." Further - "Purchase of scrap iron". Further - "Purchase of waste paper". Further - "Purchase of ladies' and men's dresses". One might think that everyone is buying up here, but they are not selling anything. The window was full of dirty bottles: there were wax bottles, medicine bottles, ginger beer and soda bottles, pickle bottles, wine bottles, ink bottles. Having named the latter, I remembered that by a number of signs it was possible to guess about the close proximity of the shop to the legal world - it, so to speak, seemed something like a dirty friend and a poor relative of jurisprudence. There were a great many ink bottles in it. At the entrance to the shop stood a small, rickety bench with a pile of frayed old books and the inscription: “Legal books, ninepence for a Huck, a connection is established between Crook and the Chancellor's subject, with its legal symbols and shaky laws. Pay attention to the proximity of the inscriptions "Buying Bones" and "Buying Ladies' and Men's Dresses". After all, the litigant for the Chancery Court is nothing more than bones and tattered clothes, and the torn robes of the law are the tatters of laws - and Kruk buys waste paper too. This is exactly what Esther herself notes with some help from Richard Carston and Charles Dickens: “And the rags - and what was dumped on the only pan of wooden scales, the beam of which, having lost its counterweight, hung crookedly from the ceiling beam, and what was lying under the scales may have been once lawyer's bibs and gowns.

It only remained to imagine how Richard whispered to Ada and me, looking into the back of the shop, that the bones, folded in the corner and gnawed clean, are the bones of the clients of the court, and the picture could be considered complete. " Richard, who whispered these words, himself is destined to become a victim of the Chancellor's Court, because, due to his weakness of character, he abandons one profession after another, in which he tries himself, and as a result is drawn into insane confusion, perishes himself with the ghost of the inheritance received through the Chancellor's Court.

Crook himself appears, arising, so to speak, from the very heart of the fog (remember the joke of Crook, who calls the Lord Chancellor his brother - really a brother in rust and dust, madness and dirt): “He was small, deathly pale, wrinkled; his head sank deep into his shoulders and sat somehow obliquely, and his breath escaped from his mouth in clouds of steam - it seemed as if a fire was burning inside him. His neck, chin and eyebrows were so thickly overgrown with white, as frost, stubble and were so riddled with wrinkles and swollen veins that he looked like the root of an old Tree, covered with snow. " Twisted Crook. Its resemblance to the snow-covered root of an old tree should be added to a growing collection of Dickensian comparisons, which will be discussed later. Here another theme is cut through, which will later develop - this is the mention of fire: "as if a fire was burning inside him."

Like an ominous portent.

Later, Crook calls the names of the birds Miss Flight - symbols of the Chancellor's judgment and suffering, this passage has already been mentioned. Now a terrible cat appears, which tears the knot of rags with its tiger claws and hisses so that Esther becomes uncomfortable. And by the way, old Smallwid, one of the heroes of the mystery theme, green-eyed and with sharp claws, not only Crook's brother-in-law, but also a certain human version of his cat. The theme of birds and the theme of a cat are gradually converging - both Crook and his green-eyed tiger in gray skin are waiting for the birds to leave their cages. Here is a hidden hint that only death frees the one who linked fate with the Chancellor's Court. This is how Gridley dies and is freed. This is how Richard dies and is freed. Crook frightens his listeners with the suicide of a certain Tom Jarndis, also a Chancellor Complainant, quoting his words: “After all, this is ... like being hit by a millstone that hardly turns, but will grind you into powder; it's like roasting over low heat. " Note this "slow fire". Crook himself, in his own twisted way, is also a victim of the Chancery Court, and he, too, will have to burn. And we are definitely hinted at what his ruin is. A person is literally saturated with gin, which is characterized in dictionaries as a strong alcoholic drink, a product of the distillation of grain, mainly rye. Wherever Crook goes, there is always a kind of portable hell with him. The portable hell is not Dickensian, it is Nabokov's.

Guppy and Weave head to Weave's house (the same closet where Lady Dedlock's beloved Houdon committed suicide, in the house where Miss Flight and Crook live) to wait until midnight when Crook promised to give them letters. On the way, they meet Mr. Snegsby, the owner of a stationery shop. There is a strange odor in the heavy, turbid air.

“- Breathe fresh air before you go to bed? - asks the merchant.

“Well, there’s not much air here, and no matter how much it’s, it’s not very refreshing,” Weave replies, looking around the alley.

“Quite right, sir. Don't you notice, says Mr Snegsby, stopping to sniff the air and sniff, you don't notice, Mr Weave, bluntly saying that you smell fried here, sir?

- Perhaps; I noticed myself that it smells strange in here today, ”agrees Mr. Weave. - It must be from the "Sun Emblem" - the chops are fried.

- Chops are fried, you say? Yes ... chops, then? Snegsby sniffs again and sniffs. “I suppose it is, sir. But, I dare say, it would not be bad to pull up the cook of the "Solar Coat of Arms". They are burnt on her, sir! And I think - Mr. Snegsby sniffs and sniffs again, then spits and wipes his mouth - I think, to put it bluntly, they weren't the first time they were put on the grill.

The friends go up to Weave's room, discuss the mysterious Crook and the fears that Weevle has in this room, in this house. Weevl complains about the depressing furnishings of his room. She notices how "a thin candle with a huge soot burns dimly and is all swollen." If you remain deaf to this detail, it is better not to tackle Dickens.

Guppy casually glances down at his sleeve.

“Listen, Tony, what's going on in this house tonight? Or is it soot in the chimney that caught fire?

- Soot caught fire?

- Well, yes! - replies Mr. Guppy. - Look how much soot has accumulated. Look, here it is on my sleeve! And on the table too! Damn it, this muck - it is impossible to brush away ... it is smeared like some kind of black fat! "

Weave comes down the stairs, but there is peace and quiet everywhere, and when he returns, he repeats what he had just said to Mr Snegsby about the chops burnt in the Sunshine Crest.

“So ...” begins Mr. Guppy, still looking with noticeable disgust at his sleeve, when the two friends resume the conversation, sitting opposite each other at the table by the fireplace and stretching their necks so that they almost collide their foreheads, “so he then- did he tell you that he found a bundle of letters in his tenant's suitcase? "

The conversation continues for a while, but when Weevl starts stirring the coals in the fireplace, Guppy suddenly jumps up.

“- Ugh! This disgusting soot has poured even more, - he says. - Let's open the window for a minute and take a breath of fresh air. It's unbearably stuffy here. "

They continue the conversation, lying on the windowsill and half leaning out. Guppy pats the windowsill and suddenly quickly pulls back his hand.

“What the hell is it? He exclaims. - Look at my fingers!

They are stained with some kind of thick yellow liquid, disgusting to the touch and in appearance, and even more disgusting smelling of some kind of rotten nauseating fat, which excites such disgust that it distorts friends.

- What were you doing here? What did you pour out of the window?

- What did you pour out? I didn't pour anything out, I swear to you! I've never poured anything since I live here, exclaims Mr. Crook's tenant. And yet look here ... and here! Mr. Weave brings a candle, and now you can see how the liquid, slowly dripping from the corner of the window sill, flows down, over the bricks, and in another place stagnates in a thick fetid puddle.

“Awful house,” says Mr. Guppy, jerking down the window frame. - Give me some water, or I'll cut off my hand.

Mr. Guppy washed, rubbed, scraped, smelled and washed his soiled hand for so long that he did not have time to refresh himself with a glass of brandy and silently stand in front of the fireplace, like a bell at St. Paul began to strike at twelve o'clock; and now all the other bells also begin to ring twelve on their bell towers, low and high, and the many-voiced ringing resounds in the night air. "

Wevel, as agreed, goes downstairs to receive the promised sheaf of Nemo's papers - and returns in horror.

“- I could not get through to him, quietly opened the door and looked into the shop. And there it smells of burning ... everywhere there is soot and this fat ... but the old man is gone!

And Tony lets out a groan.

Mr. Guppy takes the candle. Neither dead nor alive friends descend the stairs, clinging to each other, and open the door of the room at the shop. The cat has moved to the door itself and hisses - not at the aliens, but at some object lying on the floor in front of the fireplace.

The fire behind the bars is almost extinguished, but something is smoldering in the room, it is full of suffocating smoke, and the walls and ceiling are covered with a greasy layer of soot. " An old man's jacket and hat are hanging on the armchair. On the floor there is a red tape, which was used to tied the letters, but the letters themselves are not there, but there is something black.

“- What is it with the cat? Says Mr Guppy. - See?

“She must be pissed off. And no wonder - in such a terrible place.

Looking around, the buddies move slowly. The cat stands where they found her, still hissing at what lies in front of the fireplace between two chairs.

What is it? Above the candle!

Here's a burnt spot on the floor; here is a small sheaf of paper that has already been burnt, but has not yet turned to ash; however, it is not as light as burnt paper usually is, but ... here is a firebrand - a charred and broken log, strewn with ash; maybe it's a pile of coal? Oh, horror, this is it! and that's all that's left of him; and they run headlong into the street with an extinguished candle, bumping into one another.

Help, help, help! Run here, to this house, for heaven's sake!

Many will come running, but no one can help.

The "Lord Chancellor" of this "Court", true to his title up to his last act, died the death that all Lord Chancellors die in all courts and all those in power in all those places - whatever they are called - where hypocrisy reigns and injustice is done. Call, your lordship, this death by whatever name you wish to give it, explain it with whatever you want, say as much as you like that it could have been prevented - all the same it is always the same death - predetermined, inherent in all living things, caused by the putrid juices themselves a vicious body, and only by them, and this is Spontaneous Combustion, and not some other death from all those deaths which one can die. "

Thus, the metaphor becomes a real fact, the evil in a person has destroyed a person. Old man Crook vanished into the fog from which he arose - fog to fog, mud to mud, madness to madness, black drizzle and greasy witchcraft ointments. We physically sense it, and it doesn't matter in the least whether it is scientifically possible to burn out by being soaked in gin. Both in the preface and in the text of the novel, Dickens fools our heads by listing the alleged cases of involuntary spontaneous combustion, when gin and sin flare up and burn a person to the ground.

There is something more important here than the question, is this possible or not. Namely, we have to juxtapose the two styles of this passage: the jaunty, colloquial, jerky style of Guppy and Weevle, and the multi-speaking apostrophic alarm of the closing phrases.

The definition of "apostrophic" is derived from the term "apostrophe", which in rhetoric means "an imaginary appeal to one of the listeners, or to an inanimate object, or to a fictional person."

Answer: Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), and above all his History of the French Revolution, published in 1837.

What a pleasure it is to immerse yourself in this magnificent work and find there an apostrophic sound, a rumble and alarm on the theme of fate, vanity and retribution! Two examples are enough: “Most Serene Monarchs, you who keep minutes, issue manifestos and comfort humanity! What would happen if, once in a thousand years, your parchments, forms and government prudence were tossed by all the winds?<...>... And humanity itself would say what exactly is needed for its consolation (Chapter 4, Book VI of the Marseillaise) ”.

“Unhappy France, unhappy in its king, queen and constitution; it is not even known what is more unfortunate! What was the task of our glorious French Revolution if not that, when deception and delusion, which had been killing the soul for a long time, began to kill the body<...>the great nation has finally risen ", etc. (Chapter 9, Book IV" Varennes ") 4.

It's time to summarize the topic of the Chancery Court. It begins with a description of the spiritual and natural fog that accompanies the actions of the judgment. In the opening pages of the novel, the word "My Lord" takes on the form of "mud", and we see the Chancellor's Court mired in lies. We found symbolic meaning, symbolic connections, symbolic names. The obsessed Miss Flyte is linked to two other plaintiffs in the Chancery Court, both of whom die in the course of the story. Then we moved on to Crook, the symbol of the slow fog and slow fire of the Chancellor's Court, filth and madness, whose astounding fate leaves a sticky sense of terror. But what is the fate of the trial itself, the case of the Jarndis versus the Jarndis, which has been dragging on for many years, giving rise to demons and destroying angels? Well, just as Crook's end turns out to be quite logical in Dickens's wizarding world, so the trial comes to a logical end, following the grotesque logic of this grotesque world.

One day, on the day when the trial was to be resumed, Esther and her friends were late for the beginning of the meeting and, “going up to Westminster Hall, they learned that the meeting had already begun. Worse, there were so many people in the Chancellor's Court today that the hall was jam-packed - you can't go through the door, and we could neither see nor hear what was going on inside. Obviously, something funny was happening - from time to time there was laughter, followed by an exclamation: "Hush!" Obviously, something interesting was going on - everyone was trying to squeeze closer. Obviously, something very much amused the gentlemen-lawyers - several young lawyers in wigs and sideburns stood in a group away from the crowd, and when one of them said something to the others, they put their hands in their pockets and burst out laughing so hard that even bent over to death with laughter and began stamping their feet on the stone floor.

We asked the gentleman who was standing next to us if he knew what kind of litigation was being dealt with now. He replied that "Jarndis versus Jarndis." We asked if he knew what stage she was in. He replied that, to tell the truth, he did not know, and no one had ever known, but as far as he understood, the trial was over. Is it over for today, that is, postponed until the next meeting? We asked. No, he replied, it's over.

Having heard this unexpected answer, we were taken aback and looked at each other. Is it possible that the found will finally clarified the matter and Richard and Ada will get rich? 5 No, that would be too good - it could not have happened. Alas, this did not happen!

We didn't have to wait long for an explanation; soon the crowd began to move, people rushed to the exit, red and hot, and with them the stale air poured out. However, everyone was very cheerful and more like spectators who had just watched a farce or a magician's performance than people who were present at the court session. We were standing on the sidelines, looking out for someone we knew, when suddenly huge piles of papers began to be taken out of the hall - bales in bags and bales of such size that they did not fit into the bags, in a word - overwhelming piles of papers in bundles of various formats and completely shapeless, under the weight of which the clerks who dragged them staggered and, throwing them for the time being on the stone floor of the hall, ran after other papers. Even these clerks laughed. Looking into the papers, we saw on each heading "Jarndies vs. Jarndies" and asked a man (presumably a judge) standing among these mountains of paper whether the litigation was over.

“Yes,” he said, “it's finally over! - and also burst out laughing. "

Court fees swallowed up the entire litigation, all the disputed inheritance. The fantastic fog of the Chancellor's Court dissipates - and only the dead are not laughing.

Before moving on to real children in Dickens's meaningful children's theme, we should take a look at the con artist Harold Skimpole. Skimpola, this fake diamond, introduces Jarndis to us in the sixth chapter as follows: "... you will not find another like this in the whole world - this is the most wonderful creature ... a child." This definition of the child is important for understanding the novel, in the innermost, essential part of which we are talking about the calamity of children, about the suffering experienced in childhood - and here Dickens is always at his best. Therefore, the definition found by a good and kind person, John Jarndis, is quite correct: a child, from the point of view of Dickens, is a wonderful creature. But it is interesting that the definition of "child" cannot in any way be attributed to Skimpole. Skimpole misleads everyone, misleads Mr. Jarndis into thinking that he, Skimpole, is innocent, naive and carefree like a child. In fact, this is not at all the case, but this fake childishness of his sets off the dignity of the real children - the heroes of the novel.

Jarndis explains to Richard that Skimpole, of course, is an adult, his age at least, "but in terms of freshness of feelings, innocence, enthusiasm, a charming, ingenuous inability to engage in everyday affairs, he is a real child."

“He is a musician - true, only an amateur, although he could have become a professional. In addition, he is an amateur artist, although he could also make painting his profession. A very gifted, charming person. He is unlucky in business, unlucky in the profession, unlucky in the family, but this does not bother him ... a mere baby!

- You said that he is a family man, so he has children, sir? Richard asked.

- Yes, Rick! Half a dozen, said Mr Jarndis. - More! Perhaps a dozen will be typed. But he never cared about them. And where is he? He needs someone to take care of him. A real baby, I assure you! "

For the first time we see Mr. Skimpole through the eyes of Esther: “A small, cheerful man with a rather large head, but delicate features and a gentle voice, he seemed unusually charming. He spoke about everything in the world so easily and naturally, with such an infectious gaiety that it was a pleasure to listen to him. His figure was slimmer than Mr. Jarndis's, his complexion was fresher and his hair less gray, and he looked younger than his friend. In general, he looked more like a prematurely aged young man than a well-preserved old man. Some kind of carefree negligence was visible in his manners and even his suit tied his tie fluttering like the artists in the self-portraits I know), and this involuntarily inspired me with the idea that he looked like a romantic young man who had grown decrepit in a strange way. It immediately seemed to me that his manners and appearance were not at all the same as those of a person who, like all elderly people, has gone through a long path of cares and life experience. " For some time he was a family doctor at the German prince, who then parted with him, since "he was always a real child" in terms of weights and measures ", he did not understand anything about them (except that they were repugnant to him)." When they sent for him to help the prince or someone from his entourage, “he usually lay supine in bed and read the newspapers or drew fantastic sketches with a pencil, and therefore could not go to the patient. In the end the prince got angry - "quite reasonably", Mr. Skimpole admitted frankly, "and refused his services, and since for Mr. Skimpole" there was nothing left in life but love "(he explained with charming gaiety), he "I fell in love, got married and surrounded myself with ruddy cheeks." His good friend Jarndis and some other good friends from time to time looked for him certain occupations, but nothing worthwhile came of it, since, I must admit, he suffers from two of the most ancient human weaknesses: firstly, he does not know what it is. "time", secondly, understands nothing about money. Therefore, he never appeared anywhere on time, never could handle any business, and never knew how much one or the other was worth. Well!<...>All he asks of the society is not to interfere with his life. Not that much. His needs are insignificant. Give him the opportunity to read newspapers, talk, listen to music, admire the beautiful landscapes, give him lamb, coffee, fresh fruit, a few sheets of Bristol cardboard, a little red wine, and he doesn't need anything else. In life, he is a real baby, but he does not cry like children, demanding the moon from the sky. He tells people: "Go in peace, each your own way! If you want - wear the red uniform of an army officer, if you want - the blue uniform of a sailor, if you want - the vestments of a bishop, if you want - an apron of an artisan, but no, put your pen behind your ear, as clerks do; strive for glory, for holiness, for trade, for industry, for anything, just ... do not interfere with Harold Skimpole's life! "

All these thoughts and many others he expounded to us with extraordinary brilliance and pleasure, and he spoke of himself with a kind of lively impartiality, as if he had nothing to do with himself, as if Skimpole was some kind of outsider, as if he knew that Skimpol, of course, has its own oddities, but it also has its own requirements, which society is obliged to take up and does not dare to neglect. He simply charmed his listeners, ”although Esther never ceases to be confused as to why this person is free from both responsibility and moral duty.

The next morning, at breakfast, Skimpole has a fascinating conversation about bees and drones and frankly admits that he considers drones to be the embodiment of a nicer and wiser idea than bees. But Skimpole himself is not at all a harmless, stingless drone, and this is his innermost secret: he has a sting, only for a long time it is hidden. The childish impudence of his statements pleased Mr. Jarndis, who suddenly found a straightforward man in a two-faced world. Straightforward Skimpole simply used the kindest Jarndis for his own purposes.

Later, already in London, something cruel and evil will emerge more and more clearly behind Skimpole's childish mischief. The agent of the Bailiff Kovins, a certain Necket, who once came to arrest Skimpole for debts, dies, and Skimpole, striking Esther, reports it like this: “Kovinsov himself was arrested by the great Bailiff - death,” said Mr. Skimpole. "He will no longer offend the sunlight with his presence." Turning over the keys of the piano, Skimpole jokes about the deceased, who left children orphans. “And he told me,” Mr. Skimpole began, interrupting his words with soft chords where I put the dots (the narrator says - VN). - That the Covins left. Three children. Round orphans. And since his profession. Not popular. Growing up "Covins". They live very badly. "

Note the stylistic trick here: a cheerful con man punctuates his jokes with light chords.

Then Dickens is very smart. He decides to take us to the orphaned children and show us how they live; in the light of their lives, the falsity of Skimpole's "real baby" will be revealed. Esther says: “I knocked on the door, and a ringing voice was heard from the room:

- We're locked up. Mrs. Blinder has the key. I put the key in the keyhole and opened the door.

In a wretched room with a sloping ceiling and a very meager environment stood a tiny boy of five or six years old, who nursed and rocked a heavy one and a half year old child (I like this word "heavy", thanks to him the phrase settles in the right place. - V.N.) ... The weather was cold, and the room was not heated; however, the children were wrapped in some kind of shawls and shawls. But these clothes, apparently, did not warm well - the children shrank from the cold, and their noses turned red and pointed, although the boy walked up and down without rest, rocking and cradling the baby, who bent her head on his shoulder.

Who locked you here alone? - naturally, we asked.

“Charlie,” the boy replied, stopping and looking at us.

- Charlie is your brother?

- No. Sister - Charlot. Dad called her Charlie.<...>

“Where’s Charlie?”

- She left to wash, - answered the boy.<...>

We looked first at the children, then at each other, but then a very small girl ran into the room with a very childish figure, but an intelligent, already childish face - a pretty face, barely visible from under a wide-brimmed mother's hat, too big for such crumbs, and in a wide apron, also a mother's, on which she wiped her bare hands. They were covered in soapy foam, from which steam was still coming off, and the girl shook it off her fingers, wrinkled and whitened by the hot water. If not for those fingers, she could be mistaken for an intelligent, observant child who plays the wash, imitating a poor woman worker. "

Skimpole is thus a vile parody of a child, while this little one is touchingly imitating a grown woman. “The baby, whom he (the boy. - VN) nursed, reached out to Charlie and shouted, asking for her" hands ". The girl took her in a completely motherly way - this movement matched her hat and apron - and looked at us over her load, and the baby gently pressed herself to her sister.

- Really, - whispered (Mr. Jarndis. - VN) ... does this baby support the others with her labor? Look at them! Look at them, for God's sake!

Indeed, they were worth seeing. All three guys hugged each other tightly, and two of them depended on the third for everything, and the third was so small, but what an adult and positive look she had, how strange he did not fit in with her child's figure! "

Please note the pitiful tone and almost awe in Mr. Jarndis's speech.

“- Ah, Charlie! Charlie! - began my guardian. - How old are you?

“It's fourteen, sir,” the girl replied.

- Wow, what a respectable age! - said the guardian. - What a respectable age, Charlie! I cannot express how tenderly he spoke to her - half in jest, but so compassionately and sadly.

- And you live here alone with these kids, Charlie? The guardian asked.

“Yes, sir,” the girl replied, gazing trustingly into his face, “since Daddy died.

- What do you all live by, Charlie? - asked the guardian, turning away for a moment. - Eh, Charlie, what do you live by?

I would not like to be accused of sentimentality based on this characteristic of Bleak House. I undertake to argue that detractors of the sentimental, "sensitive", as a rule, have no idea about feelings. No doubt, the story of a student who became a shepherd for the sake of a girl is a sentimental, stupid and vulgar story. But let's ask ourselves a question: is there not a difference in the approaches of Dickens and writers of the past? How, for example, is Dickens's world different from the world of Homer or Cervantes? Does Homer's hero feel the divine thrill of pity? Horror - yes, it does, and also a kind of vague compassion, but a piercing, special feeling of pity, as we understand it now - did his past know in hexameters? Let's not be mistaken: no matter how degraded our contemporary is, on the whole he is better than Homeric man, homo homericus, or the man of the Middle Ages.

In the imaginary combat americus versus homericus 6, the first will receive the prize for humanity. Of course, I realize that an obscure emotional impulse can be found in the Odyssey, that Odysseus and his old father, having met after a long separation and exchanging insignificant remarks, suddenly throw back their heads and howl, dully murmuring at fate, as if they not quite conscious of their own grief. Precisely so: their compassion is not fully self-conscious; this, I repeat, is a kind of common experience in that ancient world with pools of blood and filthy marble - in a world whose only justification is the handful of magnificent poems left over from it, the horizon of verse always extending forward. And it is enough to frighten you with the horrors of that world. Don Quixote tries to stop the spanking of the child, but Don Quixote is insane. Cervantes calmly accepts the cruel world, and at the slightest manifestation of pity, animal laughter is always heard.

In the passage about the children of Necket, Dickens's high art cannot be reduced to a lisp: here is real, here shrill, directed sympathy, with overflowing flowing nuances, with immense pity of spoken words, with a selection of epithets that you see, hear and feel.

Now Skimpole's theme must intersect with one of the most tragic themes in the book - that of poor Joe. This orphan, completely ill, Esther and Charlie, who became her maid 7, bring to Jarndis's house to warm up on a cold rainy night.

Joe huddled in the corner of the window niche in Jarndis's anteroom, staring blankly in front of him, which could hardly be explained by the shock of the luxury and tranquility in which he had fallen. Esther tells again.

“This is rubbish,” said the guardian, after he asked the boy two or three questions, felt his forehead and looked into his eyes. - What is your opinion, Harold?

“The best way is to get him out,” said Mr Skimpole.

- That is, how is it - out? The guardian asked in an almost stern tone.

"Dear Jarndis," replied Mr. Skimpole, "you know what I am — I am a child." Be strict with me if I deserve it. But I naturally cannot stand such patients. And I never tolerated it, even when I was a doctor. He can infect others. His fever is very dangerous.

All this Mr. Skimpole recounted in his usual light tone, returning with us from the hall to the drawing-room and seated himself on a stool in front of the piano.

“You’ll say it’s childish,” Mr. Skimpole continued, looking at us cheerfully. “Well, I admit, it’s probably childish. But I really am a child and never pretended to be considered an adult. If you drive him away, he will go his own way again; then you will send him back to where he was before - that's all. Understand that he will be no worse than it was. Well, let him be even better, if you really want to. Give him sixpence, or five shillings, or five pounds and a half — you know how to count, but I can't — and out of hand!

- And what will he do? The guardian asked.

“I swear on my life I have no idea what exactly he will do,” Mr. Skimpole replied, shrugging his shoulders and smiling charmingly. "But let him do something, I have no doubt about that."

It's clear what poor Joe will do: die in a ditch. In the meantime, they put him in a clean, bright room. Much later, the reader learns that the detective looking for Joe easily bribes Skimpole, he indicates the room where the tramp is, and Joe disappears for a long time.

Then Skimpole's theme merges with Richard's. Skimpole starts living off Richard and looks for him a new lawyer (from whom he receives five pounds), ready to continue the useless litigation. Mr. Jarndis, still believing in Harold Skimpole's naivety, goes with Esther to ask him to be more careful with Richard.

“The room was rather dark and by no means tidy, but furnished with a kind of ridiculous, shabby luxury: a large bench for feet, a sofa heaped with pillows, an easy chair full of pillows, a piano, books, drawing supplies, sheet music, newspapers, several drawings and paintings. The window panes here were dull with dirt, and one of them, broken, was replaced with paper glued with wafers; but on the table was a plate of greenhouse peaches, another with grapes, a third with biscuit cakes, and a bottle of light wine. Mr. Skimpole himself was reclining on the sofa, dressed in a robe, and, sipping fragrant coffee from an antique china cup - although it was already about noon - he contemplated the whole collection of pots of yellow violets that stood on the balcony.

Not in the least embarrassed by our appearance, he got up and received us with his usual ease.

- This is how I live! - he said when we sat down (not without difficulty, for almost all the chairs were broken). - Here I am in front of you! Here's my meager breakfast. Some require roast beef or leg of lamb for breakfast, but I don't. Give me peaches, a cup of coffee, red wine, and I'm done. I do not need all these delicacies on their own, but only because they remind me of the sun. There is nothing sunny in cow and ram legs. Animal satisfaction is all they give!

- This room serves our friend as a doctor's office (that is, it would serve if he was engaged in medicine); this is his sanctuary, his studio, - the guardian explained to us. (A parody reference to the theme of Dr. Woodcourt. - V.N.)

“Yes,” said Mr. Skimpole, turning his beaming face to us all in turn, “and it can also be called a birdcage. This is where the bird lives and sings. From time to time, feathers are plucked and her wings are trimmed; but she sings, sings!

He offered us grapes, repeating with a radiant look:

- She sings! Not a single note of ambition, but still sings.<...>“We will all remember this day here forever,” Mr. Skimpole said cheerfully, pouring himself some red wine into a glass, “we’ll call it Saint Claire and Saint Summerson day.” You need to meet my daughters. I have three of them: a blue-eyed daughter - Beauty (Aretuza. - V. N.), the second daughter is the Dreamer (Laura. - V. N.), the third is the Mock (Kitty. - V. N.). You need to see them all. They will be delighted. "

Something significant is happening here from a thematic point of view. Just as in a musical fugue, one theme can parody another, so here we see a parody of the theme of the caged birds of the mad old lady Miss Fly. Skimpole isn't actually in a cage at all. He is a painted bird with a mechanical winding. His cage is pretense, as is his childishness. And the nicknames of the Skimpole daughters - they also parody the names of Miss Fly's birds. The Child Skimpole turns out to be a rogue Skimpole, and Dickens reveals Skimpole's true nature exclusively through artistic means. If you understand the course of my reasoning, then we have taken a certain step towards comprehending the secrets of verbal art, since it must have already become clear to you that my course, among other things, is a kind of detective investigation of the mystery of literary architectonics. But do not forget that what we manage to discuss with you is by no means exhaustive. A lot - themes, their variations - you will have to discover for yourself. The book looks like a travel chest packed with things. At customs, the hand of an official casually shakes its contents, but the one who is looking for treasures goes through everything to the thread.

Towards the end of the book, Esther, worried that Skimpole is robbing Richard, comes to him with a request to end this acquaintance, to which he cheerfully agrees upon learning that Richard was left without money. During the conversation, it turns out that it was he who contributed to the removal of Joe from the house of Jarndis - the disappearance of the boy remained a mystery to everyone. Skimpole defends in his usual manner:

“Consider this case, dear Miss Summerson. Here is a boy who was brought into the house and put on the bed in a state that I really do not like. When this boy is already on the bed, a man comes ... just like in the nursery rhyme "The House That Jack Built". Here is a man who asks about a boy brought into the house and laid to bed in a state that I really dislike.<...>Here is a Skimpole accepting a note suggested by a man who asks about a boy brought into a house and laid on a bed in a state that I hate very much. Here are the facts. Perfectly. Should the aforementioned Skimpole refuse the banknote? Why did he have to give up the banknote? Skimpole resists, he asks Bucket: "Why do you need this? I don't understand anything about this; I don't need it; take it back." Bucket still asks Skimpole to accept the banknotes. Are there any reasons why Skimpole, not perverted by prejudice, can take banknotes? There are. Skimpole is aware of them. What are these reasons? "

The reasons boil down to the fact that the police officer, who is on guard of the law, is full of faith in money, which Skimpole can loosen by refusing the proposed banknote, and thereby make the police officer unfit for detective work. Moreover, if it is reprehensible from Skimpole's side to accept banknotes, then it is much more reprehensible from Bakket's side to offer it. “But Skimpole strives to respect Bucket; Skimpole, although he is a small man, considers it necessary to respect Bakket in order to maintain the social order. The state urges him to trust Buckett. And he trusts. That's all!"

Ultimately Esther characterizes Skimpole rather accurately: “The guardian and he grew cold towards each other mainly because of the incident with Joe, but also because Mr. Skimpole (as we later learned from Ada) heartlessly neglected the guardian's requests not to extort money from Richard ... His large debt to his guardian did not affect their breakup. Mr. Skimpole died five years later, leaving behind a diary, letters and various autobiographical materials; all this was published and portrayed him as a victim of an insidious intrigue that mankind conspired against an innocent baby. They say that the book turned out to be entertaining, but when I opened it once, I read only one phrase from it, which accidentally caught my eye, and did not read any further. Here is the phrase: "Jarndis, like almost everyone I knew, is Self-love incarnate." In fact, Jarndis is the most excellent, kindest person, which in all literature is in abundance.

And finally, there is an almost undeveloped contrast between the real doctor, Woodcourt, who uses his knowledge to help people, and Skimpole, who refuses to practice medicine, and the only time he consulted, correctly defines Joe's fever as dangerous, but advises to kick him out of the house, undoubtedly dooming to death.

The most touching pages of the book are devoted to the topic of children. You will note the restrained account of Esther's childhood, of her godmother (actually aunt) Miss Barbury, who constantly instilled in the girl a sense of guilt. We see the abandoned children of the philanthropist Mrs. Jellyby, the orphaned children of Neckett, the little apprentices — the "unkempt lame girl in the see-through dress," and the boy “waltzing alone in the empty kitchen," taking lessons at Tarvidrop's dance school. Together with the soulless philanthropist Mrs. Pardigle, we visit the bricklayer's family and see a dead child. But among all these unfortunate children, dead, living and half-dead, the most miserable, of course, is Joe, unknown to himself closely associated with the topic of mystery.

At the inquest with the coroner on the occasion of Nemo's death, it is revealed that the deceased was talking to a boy who was sweeping an intersection on Kantslerskaya Street. The boy is brought in.

"A! here comes the boy, gentlemen! Here he is, very dirty, very hoarse, very ragged. Well, boy! .. But no, wait. Be careful. The boy needs to ask some preliminary questions.

Name is Joe. That is the name, but nothing else. That everyone has a first and last name, he does not know. Never heard of it. Doesn't know that "Joe" is a diminutive of some long name. With him, and the short is enough. And why is it bad? Spell it how it is spelled? No. He can't spell it. There is no father, no mother, no friends. Didn't go to school. Residence? And what is it? Here is a broom, it is a broom, and lying is not good, he knows that. Doesn't remember who told him about the broomstick and the lies, but that's the way it is. He cannot say exactly what will be done to him after his death, if he now lies to these gentlemen - they must be very severely punished, and they deserve it ... - so that he will tell the truth. "

Following an investigation, in which Joe is not allowed to testify, Mr. Talkinghorn, a lawyer, privately listens to his testimony. Joe only remembers, “that one time, on a cold winter evening, when he, Joe, was shivering from the cold at some entrance, not far from his intersection, the man looked around, turned back, asked him there is not a single friend in the world, said: "I do not have either. Not a single one!" - and gave him money for dinner and lodging. He remembers that since then the person often talked to him and asked if he slept soundly at night, and how he endured hunger and cold, and whether he wanted to die, and asked all sorts of other equally strange questions.

“He really felt sorry for me,” the boy says, wiping his eyes with a torn sleeve. - I just saw how he was lying stretched out - like this - and I think: what would he hear me tell him about this. He really felt sorry for me, very much! "

Then Dickens writes in the style of Carlyle, with memorial repetitions. The parish overseer "with his company of beggars" takes away the body of the tenant, "the body of our newly deceased beloved brother, to a cemetery squeezed into a nook, stinking and disgusting, a source of malignant ailments that infect the bodies of our beloved brothers and sisters who have not yet passed away ... , which the Turks would reject as a terrifying abomination, at the sight of which a kaffir would shudder, beggars bring our newly departed beloved brother to bury him according to the Christian rite.

Here, in the cemetery, which is surrounded on all sides by houses and to the iron gates of which a narrow, fetid, covered passage leads, - in the cemetery, where all the filth of life does its job, in contact with death, and all the poisons of death do their job, in contact with life, - they bury our beloved brother at a depth of one or two feet; here they sow it in decay, so that it would rise up in decay - as a ghost of retribution at the bed of many sick people, as a shameful testimony to future centuries about the time when civilization and barbarism jointly led our boastful island on the lead.

Joe's vague silhouette is thickened in the night fog. “Along with the night some awkward creature comes and sneaks along the courtyard passage to the iron gate. Clutching the bars of the lattice, looks inside; he stands for two or three minutes and looks.

Then he quietly sweeps the step in front of the gate with an old broom and clears the entire passage under the arches. Sweeps very diligently and carefully, again looks at the cemetery for two or three minutes, then leaves.

Joe, is that you? (Again Carlyle's eloquence. - VN) Well, well! Even though you are a rejected witness, unable to "say exactly" what hands more powerful than human will do to you, you are not completely mired in darkness. Something like a distant ray of light is obviously penetrating into your vague consciousness, for you mutter: "He really felt sorry for me, very much!"

The police tell Joe "not to linger," and he gets out of London, he gets smallpox, he is given shelter by Esther and Charlie, he infects them and then mysteriously disappears. Nothing is known about him until he reappears in London, broken by illness and deprivation. He lies dying in Mr. George's gallery-dash. Dickens compares his heart to a heavy wagon. “For the wagon, which is so difficult to drag, is nearing the end of its journey and is dragging along the stony ground. Day and night she crawls up the steep slopes, loosened, broken. A day or two will pass, and when the sun rises, it will no longer see this cart on its thorny path.<...>

Mr. Jarndis often comes here, and Allen Woodcourt sits here almost all day, and both of them think a lot about how bizarre Fate (with the ingenious help of Charles Dickens - V.I.) has woven this pathetic renegade into the web of so many paths of life.<...>

Today Joe sleeps all day or lies in oblivion, and Allen Woodcourt, who has just arrived, stands beside him and looks at his exhausted face. A little later, he quietly sits down on the bed, facing the boy ... taps his chest and listens to his heart. The "cart" almost stopped, but still it hardly drags along.<...>

- Well, Joe! What's the matter? Do not be afraid.

- It seemed to me, - says Joe, shuddering and looking around, - it seemed to me that I was back in Lonely Tom (the disgusting slum in which he lived. - V. K). Is there no one here but you, Mr. Woodcote? (note the significant distortion of the doctor's surname: Woodcot is a wooden house, that is, a coffin. - V. K).

- Nobody.

"And I wasn't taken back to the Lonely Tom?" No sir? -

Joe closes his eyes and mutters:

- Thank you very much.

Allen looks at him intently for a few moments, then, bringing his lips to his ear, quietly but distinctly says:

- Joe, do you know a single prayer?

“I never knew anything, sir.

- Not a single short prayer?

- No, sir. Not at all.<...>We never knew anything.<...>

Having fallen asleep for a short time or forgotten, Joe suddenly tries to jump out of bed.

- Stop, Joe! Where are you going?

“It's time for the cemetery, sir,” the boy replies, staring madly at Allen.

- Lie down and explain to me. Which cemetery, Joe?

- Where he was buried, the fact that he was so kind, very kind, he felt sorry for me. I’ll go to that cemetery, sir, it’s time to go, but I’ll ask that they put me next to him. I need to go there - let them bury it.<...>

“You’ll make it, Joe. You will have time.<...>

- Thank you, sir. Thank you. We'll have to get the key from the gate to get me there, otherwise the gate is locked day and night. And there is also a step - I swept it with my broom ... Now it is completely dark, sir. Will it be light?

- It will be light soon, Joe. Soon. The "cart" is falling apart, and very soon the end of its difficult journey will come.

- Joe, my poor boy!

- Even though it is dark, but I can hear you, sir ... only I go groping ... groping ... give me your hand.

- Joe, can you repeat what I say?

“Whatever you say, sir, I know it's good.

- Our Father...

- Our Father! ... Yes, that's a very good word, sir. (Father is a word that he never had a chance to utter. - V.N.)

- Like you are in heaven ...

- Already in heaven ... it will soon be light, sir?

- Very soon. Hallowed be thy name ...

- Hallowed ... yours ... "

Now listen to the bell rumbling of Carlyle's rhetoric: “Light shone on a dark dark path. Died! Died, your majesty. Died, my lords and gentlemen. He died, you reverend and unliken servants of all cults. Died, you people; and you were given compassion by heaven. And so they die around us every day. "

This is a lesson in style, not empathy. The mystery-crime theme provides the main action of the novel, represents its frame, holds it together. In the structure of the novel, the themes of the Chancellor's Court and fate are inferior to her.

One of the lines of the Jarndis family is represented by two sisters. The older sister was engaged to Boythorn, an eccentric friend of John Jarndis. Another had an affair with Captain Houdon and gave birth to an illegitimate daughter. The older sister deceives the young mother by assuring her that the child died in childbirth. Then, having broken up with her fiancé, Boythorn, with family and friends, the older sister leaves with the little girl in a small town and brings her up in modesty and severity, believing that a child born in sin deserves only this. The young mother subsequently marries Sir Lester Dedlock. After many years that she lived in the late marital prison, Dedlok's family lawyer Talkinghorn shows Lady Dedlock several new, not very important documents on the Jarndis case. She is unusually interested in the handwriting in which one paper is whitewashed. She tries to explain her questions about the scribe by simple curiosity, but almost immediately faints. That's enough for Mr. Talkinghorn to start his own investigation. He goes on the trail of a scribe, a certain Nemo (which in Latin means "Nobody"), but does not find him alive: Nemo had just died in a shabby closet in Crook's house from too much opium, which at that time was more accessible than now. Not a scrap of paper was found in the room, but Kruk managed to drag off a bunch of the most important letters even before he brought Talkinghorn into the room of the tenant. During the investigation into the death of Nemo, it turns out that no one knows anything about him. The only witness with whom Nemo exchanged a friendly word - the little street sweeper Joe, was rejected by the authorities.Then Mr.Tulkinghorn interrogates him privately.

From a newspaper note Lady Dedlock learns about Joe and comes to him, dressed in the dress of her French maid. She gives Joe money when he shows her places connected with Nemo (she recognized Captain Houdon by handwriting); and most importantly, Joe takes her to the cemetery with the iron gates, where Nemo is buried.

Joe's story reaches Tulkinghorn, who arranges for him a confrontation with the maid Ortanz, wearing a dress that Lady Dedlock used when secretly visiting Joe. Joe recognizes the clothes, but he is quite sure that this voice, hand and rings do not belong to the first woman. This confirms Tulkinghorn's conjecture that Lady Dedlock was Joe's mysterious visitor. Talkinghorn continues to investigate, making sure that the police tell Joe not to linger because he doesn't want others to untie his tongue as well. (That is why Joe ends up in Hertfordshire, where he falls ill, and Buckett, with the help of Skimpole, takes him out of Jarndis's house.) Talkinghorn gradually identifies Nemo with Captain Houdon, which is facilitated by the removal of the letter written by the captain from the cavalryman George.

When all ends meet, Talkinghorn tells the story in the presence of Lady Dedlock, as if about some other people. Realizing that the secret has been solved and that it is in the hands of Talkinghorn, Lady Dedlock comes to the room reserved for the lawyer at the Dedlocks' country estate, Chesney Walde, to inquire about his intentions. She is ready to leave home, her husband and disappear. But Tulkinghorn tells her to stay and continue to play the role of a society woman and Sir Lester's wife until he, Tulkinghorn, at the right moment makes a decision. When later he tells my lady that he is going to reveal her past to her husband, she does not return from a walk for a long time, and on the same night Tulkinghorn is killed in her own house. Did she kill him?

Sir Lester hires Detective Buckett to find his attorney's killer. At first Bucket suspects the cavalryman George, who threatened Talkinghorn in front of witnesses, and arrests him. Then a lot of evidence seems to point to Lady Dedlock, but they all turn out to be false. The true killer is Ortanz, a French maid, she willingly helped Talkinghorn find out the secret of her former mistress, Lady Dedlock, and then hated him when he did not pay her enough for services and, moreover, insulted her, threatening to jail and literally putting her out of his house ...

A certain Mr. Guppy, a law clerk, is also investigating. For personal reasons (he is in love with Esther), Guppy tries to get letters from Crook, which, as he suspects, fell into the hands of the old man after the death of Captain Howden. He almost gets his way, but Crook dies an unexpected and terrible death. Thus, the letters, and with them the secret of the captain's love affair with Lady Dedlock and the secret of Esther's birth, are in the hands of blackmailers led by old man Smalloid. Although Tulkinghorn bought letters from them, after his death they strive to extort money from Sir Lester. Detective Buckett, the third investigator, an experienced police officer, wants to settle the case in favor of the Dedlocks, but is forced to reveal to Sir Lester the secret of his wife. Sir Lester loves his wife and cannot help but forgive her. But Lady Dedlock, whom Guppy warned about the fate of the letters, sees this as the avenging hand of Fate and leaves her house forever, not knowing how her husband reacted to her "secret".

Sir Lester is hot on the trail of Bucket. Buckett takes Esther with him, he knows that she is Milady's daughter. In a blizzard, they trace Lady Dedlock's path to the brick house in Hertfordshire, not far from Bleak House, where Lady Dedlock came to see Esther, not knowing that she had been in London all this time. Bucket finds out that shortly before him two women left the brick-maker's house, one to the north and the other to the south, towards London. Bucket and Esther set off in pursuit of the one that went north, and chase her for a long time into a blizzard, until the shrewd Bucket suddenly decides to turn back and find traces of another woman. The one who went north was wearing Lady Dedlock's dress, but Bucket dawns that the women could switch clothes. He's right, but he and Esther show up too late. Lady Dedlock in a poor dress made her way to London and came to Captain Houdon's grave. Clinging to the iron bars of the lattice, she dies, exhausted and exposed, having walked a hundred miles without rest through a terrible blizzard.

From this simple retelling, it is clear that the detective plot of the book is inferior to her poetry.

Gustave Flaubert vividly expressed his ideal of a writer, noting that, like the Almighty, a writer in his book should be nowhere and everywhere, invisible and omnipresent. There are several important works of fiction in which the presence of the author is unobtrusive to the extent that Flaubert wanted it, although he himself did not manage to achieve his ideal in Madame Bovary. But even in works where the author is ideally unobtrusive, he is nevertheless scattered throughout the book and his absence turns into a kind of radiant presence. As the French say, "il brille par son absence" - "shines with its absence." In Bleak House we are dealing with one of those authors who, as they say, are not the supreme gods, poured in the air and impenetrable, but idle, friendly, sympathetic demigods, they visit their books under various disguises or send many intermediaries, representatives, henchmen, spies and figureheads.

There are three types of such representatives. Let's take a look at them.

First, the narrator himself, if he leads the story in the first person, is the “I” -hero, the support and mover of the story. The narrator can appear in different forms: it can be the author himself or the hero on whose behalf the story is being told; or the writer imagines the author he quotes as how Cervantes imagined the Arab historian; or a tertiary character will temporarily become a storyteller, after which the writer again takes the floor. The main thing here is that there is a certain “I” on whose behalf the story is being told.

Secondly, a certain representative of the author - I call him a filtering intermediary. Such a filtering mediator may or may not be the same as the narrator. The most typical filter intermediaries I know of are Fanny Price in Mansfield Park and Emma Bovary in the ball scene. These are not first-person storytellers, but the heroes that are spoken of in the third person. They may or may not express the author's thoughts, but their distinctive feature is that everything that happens in the book, any event, any image, any landscape and any hero is seen and felt by the protagonist or heroine, a mediator who filters the story through his own emotions and representation.

The third type is the so-called "perry" - perhaps from the "periscope", ignoring the double "r", and perhaps from "parry", "defend", somehow related to the fencing rapier. But this is not the point, since I invented the term myself many years ago. It denotes the author's henchman of the lowest rank - a hero or heroes who, throughout the book or in some parts of it, are, or something, in the line of duty; whose only purpose, whose raison d'être is that they visit the places that the author wants to show the reader, and meet those with whom the author wants to acquaint the reader; in chapters like this, Perry hardly has a personality of his own. He has no will, no soul, no heart - nothing, he is only a wandering Perry, although, of course, in another part of the book he can restore himself as a person. Perry visits a family just because the author needs to describe the household. Perry is quite helpful. Without Perry, it is sometimes difficult to direct and set in motion the narrative, but it is better to put the pen down right away than let Perry pull the thread of the story like a limp insect drags along a dusty web.

In Bleak House, Esther plays all three roles: she is partly the storyteller, as a nanny replacing the author - I'll talk about that later. She is also, at least in some chapters, a filtering mediator who sees events in her own way, although the author's voice often suppresses her, even when the story is in the first person; and, thirdly, the author uses it, alas, as a perry, moving it from place to place when it is required to describe a particular hero or event.

There are eight structural features in Bleak House.

I. THE STORY OF ESTHER

In the third chapter, Esther, who is raised by her godmother (Lady Dedlock's sister), first appears as a storyteller, and here Dickens makes a mistake, for which he will later have to pay. He begins Esther's story with ostensibly childish language ("my sweet doll" is a simple device), but the author will soon see that this is an unsuitable medium for a difficult story, and we will very soon see how his own powerful and colorful style breaks through the pseudo-childish speech. like here, for example: “Sweet old doll! I was a very shy girl - I did not often dare to open my mouth to utter a word, and did not open my heart to anyone but her. You want to cry when you remember how joyful it was, after returning home from school, running upstairs to your room, shouting: "Sweetheart, faithful doll, I knew you were waiting for me!", Sit on the floor and leaning against the arm of a huge chair, tell her everything I've seen since we parted. Since childhood, I was quite observant - but I did not immediately understand everything, no! - I just silently watched what was happening around, and I wanted to understand it as best as possible. I can't think fast. But when I love someone very dearly, I seem to see everything more clearly. However, it is possible that it only seems to me because I am vain. "

Note that in these opening pages of Esther's story, there are no rhetorical figures, no living comparisons. But the childish language is beginning to lose ground, and in the scene where Esther and the godmother are sitting by the fireplace, Dickensian alliterations 8 introduce inconsistency into Esther's school style of storytelling.

When her godmother, Miss Barbury (actually her aunt), dies and Kenge's lawyer gets down to business, Esther's style of story is absorbed into that of Dickens. “—Not heard of the Jarndis versus Jarndis litigation? - said Mr. Kenge, looking at me over his glasses and carefully turning their case with some caressing movements.

It is clear what is happening: Dickens begins to paint the delightful Kenge, the smooth, energetic Kenge, the Eloquent Kenge (this is his nickname) and completely forgets that all this is supposedly written by a naive girl. And already in the next few pages we meet Dickensian figures of speech that crept into her story, abundant comparisons and the like. “She (Mrs. Rachel - VN) touched my forehead with a cold farewell kiss that fell on me like a drop of melted snow from a stone porch, - that day there was a severe frost, - and I felt such pain ...” or “ I ... began to look at the trees covered with frost, which reminded me of beautiful crystals; on the fields, completely flat and white under the veil of snow that had fallen the day before; in the sun, so red, but radiating so little heat; on the ice, shimmering with a dark metallic sheen where skaters and people, sliding on the rink without skates, swept the snow off it. Or Esther's description of Mrs. Jellyby's unkempt attire: "We could not help but notice that her dress was not buttoned on the back and that the corset lacing was visible - neither let nor take the lattice wall of the garden pavilion." The tone and irony in the case of Pip Jellyby's head stuck between the rods clearly belongs to Dickens: “I ... went up to the poor boy, who turned out to be one of the most pathetic scruffs I have ever seen; stuck between two iron bars, he, all red, yelled in a voice that was not his own, frightened and angry, while the milk salesman and the parish warden, driven by the best intentions, tried to pull him up by the legs, obviously believing that this would help his skull shrink. Looking closely at the boy (but first calming him down), I noticed that his head, like all babies, is big, which means that the torso will probably crawl through where she climbed, and said that the best way to rescue the child is to shove him head first. The milk clerk and parish warden began to carry out my offer with such zeal that the poor thing would have immediately crashed down if I had not held him by the apron, and Richard and Mr. Guppy had not rushed to the courtyard through the kitchen to pick up the boy when he was pushed through. "

Dickens's bewitching eloquence especially makes itself felt in such passages as Esther's story about meeting Lady Dedlock, her mother: I understood my words, although every word uttered by my mother, whose voice sounded so unfamiliar and sad to me, was indelibly imprinted in my memory, because as a child I did not learn to love and recognize this voice, and it never lulled me, never blessed me , never gave me hope, - I repeat, I explained to her, or tried to explain that Mr. Jarndis, who was always the best father for me, could give her something to advise and support her. But my mother replied: no, it is impossible; no one can help her. Before her lies a desert, and in this desert she must walk alone. "

By the middle of the book, Dickens, speaking on behalf of Esther, writes more relaxed, more flexible, in a more traditional manner than in his own name. This, as well as the lack of structured descriptions at the beginning of the chapters, is their only stylistic difference. Esther and the author gradually develop different points of view, reflected in their manner of writing: on the one hand, here is Dickens with his musical, humorous, metaphorical, oratorical, booming stylistic effects; and here is Esther, who begins the chapters smoothly and consistently. But in the description of Westminster Hall at the end of the Jarndis litigation (I quoted him), when it turns out that the entire fortune has gone to legal costs, Dickens almost completely merges with Esther.

Stylistically, the entire book is a gradual, imperceptible advance towards their complete fusion. And when they paint a verbal portrait or convey a conversation, there is no difference between them.

Seven years after the incident, as it becomes known from chapter sixty-four, Esther writes her story, in which thirty-three chapters, that is, half of the entire novel, consisting of sixty-seven chapters. Amazing memory! I must say that despite the novel's magnificent construction, the main miscalculation was that Esther was allowed to tell part of the story. I wouldn't let her get close!

II. APPEARANCE ESTHER

Esther is so reminiscent of her mother that Mr. Guppy is struck by the inexplicable resemblance when, on a trip out of town, he visits Chesney World and sees a portrait of Lady Dedlock. Mr. George also pays attention to Esther's appearance, not realizing that he sees a resemblance to his deceased friend Captain Houdon, her father. And Joe, who is told "not to linger," and he wearily wanders through the bad weather to find shelter in Bleak House, - a frightened Joe can hardly be convinced that Esther is not the lady to whom he showed Nemo's house and his grave. Esther subsequently writes in chapter thirty-one that she had a bad feeling on the day Joe fell ill, an omen that has come true, since Charlie is infected with Joe's smallpox, and when Esther nurses her (the girl's appearance is not affected), she gets sick herself and when she finally recovers, her face is pitted with ugly pockmarks, which completely changed her appearance.

Having recovered, Esther notices that all the mirrors have been removed from her room, and understands why. And when she arrives at Mr. Boythorn's estate in Lincolnshire, near Chesney Wald, she finally decides to take a look at herself. “After all, I have never seen myself in a mirror and have not even asked to have my mirror returned to me. I knew it was cowardice that needed to be overcome, but I always told myself that I would “start a new life” when I got to where I was now. That's why I wanted to be alone and that's why, now alone in my room, I said: "Esther, if you want to be happy, if you want to get the right to pray to keep your spiritual purity, you, dear, need to keep your word." ... And I was determined to hold him back; but at first I sat down for a while to remember all the blessings given to me. Then she prayed and thought a little more.

My hair was not cut; and yet they have been threatened more than once by this danger. They were long and thick. I dismissed them, combed them from the back of my head to my forehead, covering my face with them, and went to the mirror on the dressing table. It was covered with thin muslin. I threw it back and looked at myself for a minute through the curtain of my own hair, so that I saw only them. Then she brushed back her hair and, looking at her reflection, calmed down - it looked at me so serenely. I have changed a lot, oh, very, very! At first my face seemed so alien to me that I would probably have jumped back, fencing myself off from it with my hands, if it had not been for the expression that calmed me, which I have already spoken about. But soon I got used to my new look a little and understood better how great the change was. She was not what I expected, but after all, I did not imagine anything definite, which means that any change should have amazed me.

I have never been and did not consider myself a beauty, and yet I was completely different before. All this is now gone. But Providence showed me great mercy - if I cried, then not for long and not very bitter tears, and when I braided my braid for the night, I was already completely reconciled with my fate. "

She admits to herself that she could love Allen Woodcourt and be devoted to him, but now this must be done with. She is worried about the flowers that he once gave her, and she dried them. “In the end, I realized that I have the right to keep the flowers if I cherish them only in memory of what has irrevocably passed and ended, which I should never again remember with other feelings. Hopefully no one calls it silly pettiness. All this was very important for me. " This prepares the reader to accept Jarndis' proposal later. She was determined to give up all dreams of Woodcourt.

Dickens deliberately does not finish this scene, since there must be some ambiguity about Esther's changed face, so that the reader is not discouraged at the end of the book when Esther becomes Woodcourt's fiancée and when doubt creeps in on the very last pages, charmingly expressed, whether Esther has changed at all. externally. Esther sees her face in the mirror, but the reader does not see her, and no details are given later. When the inevitable meeting of a mother with her daughter and Lady Dedlock presses her to her chest, kisses, cries, etc., the most important thing about the similarity is stated in Esther's curious reasoning: “I ... thought in an outburst of gratitude to providence: I have changed so much, which means that I will never be able to disgrace her with a shadow of similarity to her ... how good it is that now, looking at us, no one will think that there can be a blood relationship between us. " All this is so unlikely (within the framework of the novel) that one begins to wonder whether it was necessary to disfigure the poor girl for a rather abstract purpose; besides, can smallpox destroy family resemblance? Ada presses the “pockmarked face” of her friend “to her lovely cheek” - and this is the most that the reader can see in the changed Esther.

It may seem that the writer is somewhat bored with this topic, because Esther soon says (for him) that she will not mention her appearance anymore. And when she meets her friends, there is no mention of her appearance, other than a few remarks about how she makes an impression on people - from the surprise of a country child to Richard's brooding line: "Still the same sweet girl!" When she raises a veil that was first worn in public. Subsequently, this theme plays a defining role in the relationship with Mr. Guppy, who refuses his love after seeing Esther, which means that she must still be amazingly disfigured. But perhaps her appearance will change for the better? Perhaps the pock marks will disappear? We keep on guessing about it. Even later, she and Ada visit Richard, he notices that "her compassionate sweet face, everything is the same as in the old days," she, smiling, shakes her head, and he repeats: "Exactly the same as in the old days," and we begin to wonder if the beauty of her soul overshadows the ugly traces of illness. It is here, I think, that her appearance somehow begins to straighten out - at least in the imagination of the reader. Towards the end of this scene, Esther speaks of "her old, ugly face"; but “ugly” does not mean “disfigured”. Moreover, I believe that at the very end of the novel, when seven years have passed and Esther is already twenty-eight, the pock marks have gradually disappeared. Esther is busy preparing for the arrival of Ada with baby Richard and Mr. Jarndis, then she sits quietly on the porch. When Allen returns and asks what she's doing there, she replies, “I'm almost ashamed to talk about it, but I'll tell you anyway. I thought about my old face ... about how it once was.

- And what did you think of him, my diligent bee? Allen asked.

- I thought that you still could not love me more than now, even if you stayed the way it was.

- What was it once? Allen said with a laugh.

- Well, yes, of course - as it once was.

- My dear Prosper, - Allen said and took my arm, - do you ever look in the mirror?

- You know what I look; I saw it myself.

“And don’t you see that you’ve never been as beautiful as you are now?”

I didn’t see that; yes, perhaps I don’t see it now. But I see that my daughters are very pretty, that my beloved friend is very beautiful, that my husband is very handsome, and my guardian has the brightest, kindest face in the world, so they do not need my beauty at all ... even if we admit ... "

III. APPEARING IN THE RIGHT PLACE ALLEN WOODCORT

In the eleventh chapter, the "swarthy young man", the surgeon, first appears at the deathbed of Nemo (Captain Houdon, Esther's father). Two chapters later, a very tender and important scene occurs in which Richard and Ada fall in love. Immediately, in order to tie everything together, Woodcourt, a dark-skinned young surgeon, appears as a guest for dinner, and Esther finds him, not without sadness, "very clever and pleasant." Later, just as a hint was given that Jarndis, the gray-haired Jarndis, is secretly in love with Esther, Woodcourt reappears before leaving for China. He is leaving for a very long time. He leaves flowers for Esther. Miss Flight will then show Esther a newspaper article about Woodcourt's heroism during the shipwreck. When smallpox disfigures Esther's face, she gives up her love for Woodcourt. Then Esther and Charlie go to the port of Deal to offer Richard her small inheritance on behalf of Ada, and Esther meets Woodcourt. The meeting is preceded by a delightful description of the sea, and the artistic power of this description will perhaps reconcile the reader with such an extreme coincidence. The indefinitely changed Esther notes: “He was so sorry for me that he could hardly speak,” and at the end of the chapter: “In that last look, I read his deep compassion for me. And I was glad of it. I now looked at myself the way the dead look at the living, if they ever visit the earth again. I was glad to be remembered with fondness, affectionately regretted and not completely forgotten ”- a charming lyrical tone, Fanny Price comes to mind.

Another surprising coincidence: Woodcourt in Lonely Tom meets the wife of a bricklayer and - another coincidence - there he meets Joe, along with this woman, also concerned about his fate. Woodcourt brings sick Joe to George's gallery-shooting gallery. Joe's beautifully written death scene once again makes us forget about the stretch that arranged our meeting with Joe with the help of Woodcourt-perry. In chapter fifty-one, Woodcourt visits the lawyer Woods, then Richard. A curious thing happens here: Esther writes the chapter, but she was not present at the conversations of Woodcourt with Hawles or Woodcourt with Richard, which are painted in the most detailed way. The question is, how did she know what happened in both cases. An astute reader must inevitably come to the conclusion that she learned these details from Woodcourt when she became his wife: she could not have known about what happened in such detail if Woodcourt was not close enough to her. In other words, a good reader should guess that she will still marry Woodcourt and learn all these details from him.

IV. JARNDIS'S STRANGE CARE

When Esther travels in a carriage to London after the death of Miss Barbury, an unknown gentleman tries to console her. He seems to know about Mrs. Rachel, Esther's nanny who was hired by Miss Barbury and who parted with Esther so indifferently, and this gentleman does not seem to approve of her. When he offers Esther a piece of cake with a thick sugar crust and excellent goose liver pate, and she refuses, saying that all this is too fat for her, he mutters: "I'm in a puddle again!" - and throws both packages out the window with the same ease with which he subsequently retreats from his own happiness. Later we learn that it was the sweetest, kindest and fabulously rich John Jarndis, who attracts people like a magnet - and unfortunate children, and swindlers, and deceivers, and fools, and false philanthropic ladies, and madmen. If Don Quixote had come to Dickens's London, I believe that his generosity and kind heart would have attracted people in the same way.

Already in the seventeenth chapter, a hint appears for the first time that Jarndis, the gray-haired Jarndis, is in love with Esther, who is twenty-one, and keeps quiet about it. The theme of Don Quixote is announced by Lady Dedlock when she meets a group of guests from her neighbor, Mr. Boythorn, and young people are introduced to her. "You are reputed to be an unselfish Don Quixote, but beware lest you lose your reputation if you only patronize beauties like this," Lady Dedlock said, addressing Mr. Jarndyce again over her shoulder. Her remark refers to the fact that, at the request of Jarndis, the Lord Chancellor appointed him guardian of Richard and Ada, although the essence of the litigation is how exactly to divide the fortune between them. Therefore, Lady Dedlock speaks of Jarndis' quixotism, meaning that he provides refuge and support to those who are legally his opponents. Esther's custody is his own decision, made after receiving a letter from Miss Barbury, Lady Dedlock's sister and Esther's own aunt.

Some time after Esther's illness, John Jarndis comes to the decision to write her a letter with a proposal. But - and this is the whole point - it seems that he, a man older than Esther by at least thirty years, offers her marriage, wanting to protect her from the cruel world, that he will not change in relation to her, remaining her friend and not becoming beloved. Jarndis' quixoticism is not only in this, if my impression is correct, but also in the whole plan of Esther's preparation for receiving a letter, the content of which she may well guess, and which should be sent to Charlie after weeks of reflection:

“Since that winter day, when you and I were traveling in the post carriage, you made me change, my dear. But, most importantly, you have done infinitely much good to me since then.

- Ah, guardian, and you? What have you not done for me since then!

“Well,” he said, “there’s nothing to remember about that now.

- But how can you forget it? “Yes, Esther,” he said softly, but seriously, “now we must forget ... forget for a while. You only need to remember that now nothing can change me - I will forever remain the way you know me. Can you be sure of that, dear?

- Can; firmly sure, ”I said.

“That's a lot,” he said. - It's all. But I mustn't take you at your word. I will not write what I think about until you are convinced that nothing can change me as you know me. If you have the slightest doubt, I will not write anything. If you, on mature reflection, confirm this confidence, send Charlie to me "for a letter" in exactly one week. But do not send it if you are not quite sure. Remember, in this case, as in all others, I rely on your veracity. If you're unsure, don't send Charlie!

“Guardian,” I said, “but I'm sure already. I just cannot change my belief, just as you cannot change to me. I'll send Charlie for a letter.

He shook my hand and didn't say another word. "

For an older person who has a deep feeling for a young woman, proposing on these terms is truly an act of self-denial and tragic temptation. Esther, for her part, accepts him quite innocently: “His generosity is higher than the change that disfigured me and the shame I inherited”; Dickens will gradually wipe out the change that disfigured Esther in the last chapters. In fact, - and this does not seem to occur to any of the parties concerned - not Esther Summerson, not John Jarndis, not Charles Dickens - the marriage may not be as good for Esther as it seems, since this unequal marriage will deprive Esther of normal motherhood and, on the other hand, will make her love for another man illegal and immoral. Perhaps we hear the echo of the “bird in the cage” theme, when Esther, shedding happy and grateful tears, addresses her reflection in the mirror: “When you become the mistress of the Bleak House, you will have to be as cheerful as a bird. However, you have to be cheerful all the time; so let's start now. "

The relationship between Jarndis and Woodcourt becomes apparent when Caddy falls ill:

"You know what," the guardian said quickly, "Woodcourt should be invited."

I like the roundabout he uses - what is this, a vague apprehension? At this point, Woodcourt is about to leave for America, where rejected lovers often leave in French and English novels. After about ten chapters, we learn that Mrs. Woodcourt, the mother of a young doctor, who earlier, guessing about her son's affection for Esther, tried to ruin their relationship, has changed for the better, she is no longer so grotesque and talks less about her ancestry. Dickens prepares an acceptable mother-in-law for his readers. Note the nobility of Jarndis, who invites Mrs. Woodcourt to live with Esther - Allen will be able to visit both of them. We also learn that Woodcourt does not end up going to America, he becomes a country doctor in England and heals the poor.

Esther then learns from Woodcourt that he loves her, that her "pockmarked face" has not changed a bit for him. Too late! She gave word to Jarndis and thinks that the marriage is being delayed only because of her mourning for her mother. But Dickens and Jarndis already have a great surprise ready. The scene as a whole cannot be called successful, but it can please the sentimental reader.

True, it is not entirely clear whether at this moment Woodcourt knew about Esther's engagement, because if he did, he would hardly have begun to talk about his love, even in such an elegant form. However, Dickens and Esther (as the narrator of what has already happened) are cheating - they know that Jarndis will nobly disappear. So Esther and Dickens are going to have some fun at the expense of the reader. She tells Jarndis that she is ready to become Bleak House mistress. “Well, let's say, next month,” Jarndis replies. He travels to Yorkshire to help Woodcourt find a home. He then asks Esther to come and see what he has chosen. The bomb explodes. The name of the house is the same - Bleak House, and Esther will be its mistress, as the noble Jarndis cedes her to Woodcourt. It's nicely prepared, and the reward follows: Mrs Woodcourt, who knew everything, now approves of the union. Finally, we learn that Woodcourt opened his heart with the consent of Jarndis. After Richard's death, there was a faint hope that John Jarndis could still find a young wife - Ada, Richard's widow. But, one way or another, Jarndis is the symbolic guardian of all the unfortunates in the novel.

V. FACES AND FACES

To make sure that the lady who questioned Joe about Nemo was Lady Dedlock, Talkinghorn shows Joe the veiled maid of Milady, Ortanz, and he recognizes the clothes. But the hand, studded with rings, is not the same and the wrong voice. Subsequently, it will be rather difficult for Dickens to make plausible the murder of Tulkinghorn by the maid, but in any case, the connection between them has been established. Now the detectives know that it was Lady Dedlock who tried to find out something about Nemo from Joe. Another masquerade: Miss Fly, visiting Esther, recovering from smallpox in Bleak House, reports that her health was inquired by a lady in a veil (Lady Dedlock) in a brick-maker's house. (Lady Dedlock, we know, now we know that Esther is her daughter - knowledge gives rise to responsiveness.) The lady under the veil took as a souvenir the handkerchief with which Esther once covered the dead baby - this is a symbolic act. This is not the first time Dickens has used Miss Flight to kill two birds with one stone: firstly, to amuse the reader and, secondly, to provide him with intelligible information, not at all in the spirit of this heroine.

Detective Buckett has several disguises, and far from the worst of them - playing the fool under the guise of friendliness at the Runnet, while he does not take his eyes off George, so that later, after going out with him, take him to jail. A great master at the part of the masquerade, Buckett is able to unravel someone else's masquerade. When Bucket and Esther find Lady Dedlock dead at the cemetery gates, Bucket tells in the best Sherlock Holmes manner how he guessed that Lady Dedlock had exchanged clothes with Jenny, the bricklayer's wife, and decided to turn to London. Esther does not understand anything until she lifts the "heavy head" of the deceased. "And I saw my mother, cold, dead!" Melodramatic, but superbly well delivered.

Vi. FALSE AND TRUE WAYS TO ANSWERING

With the condensation of the fog theme in previous chapters, Bleak House, the home of John Jarndis, might seem to embody a bleak gloom. But no - with the help of a masterful plot move, we are transported to bright sunlight and the fog recedes for a while. Bleak home is a beautiful, joyful home. A good reader will recall that the key to this was given earlier, in the Chancellor's Court: “The Jarndis in question,” the Lord Chancellor began, continuing to turn the file, “is this the Jarndis who owns Bleak House?

“Yes, my lord, the one who owns Bleak House,” Mr. Kenge confirmed.

“An uncomfortable name,” said the Lord Chancellor.

"But it's a cozy home now, my lord," said Mr. Kenge.

As the charges await a trip to Bleak House in London, Richard informs Ada that he vaguely remembers Jarndis: "I remember he was such a rude, good-natured, red-cheeked man." Nevertheless, the warmth and abundance of the sun in the house is a great surprise.

The threads leading to the killer of Talkinghorn are masterfully entangled. It is wonderful that Dickens makes Mr. George drop the remark that a French woman is attending his gallery-shooting gallery. (Orthanz comes in handy for shooting, although most readers overlook the connection.) But what about Lady Dedlock? "Oh, if only it were!" - Mentally responds Lady Dedlock to the remark of her cousin Volumnia, pouring out feelings about the neglect of Talkinghorn to her: "I was even ready to think if he died?" It is this thought of Lady Dedlock that will alert the reader at the news of the murder of Tulkinghorn. The reader may be deceived into thinking that Lady Dedlock killed the lawyer, but the reader of detective stories likes to be deceived.

After talking with Lady Dedlock, Talkinghorn goes to bed, while she rushes about her chambers in confusion. It is hinted that he may soon die ("And when the stars go out and the pale dawn, looking into the turret, sees his face, as old as it never is during the day, it truly seems as if the gravedigger has already been summoned with a spade and will soon begin to dig a grave." ), and his death for the deceived reader will now be firmly associated with Lady Dedlock; while about Ortanz, the real killer, for the time being, not a word was heard.

Ortanz comes to Talkinghorn and announces his displeasure. She is not satisfied with the payment for showing herself in Milady's dress in front of Joe; she hates Lady Dedlock; she wants to get a good place in a rich house. All of this is not very convincing, and Dickens's attempts to get her to speak English in French are simply ridiculous. Meanwhile, this is a tigress, despite the fact that her reaction to the threats of Talkinghorn to put her under lock and key, in prison, if she continues to bother him, is still unknown.

Having warned Lady Dedlock that the dismissal of Rose's maid violates their agreement to maintain the status quo and that he must now reveal her secret to Sir Lester, Tulkinghorn goes home to his death, Dickens hints. Lady Dedlock leaves the house to wander the moonlit streets - it turns out that after Tulkinghorn. The reader is smart: this is a stretch. The author is misleading me; the real killer is someone else. Maybe Mr. George? He may be a good man, but his temper is violent. Moreover, on a very boring birthday at the Begnet's, Mr. George appears pale and upset. (Here! - the reader notes.) George explains his pallor by the fact that Joe died, but the reader is full of doubts. Then George is arrested, Esther and Jarndis, along with the Begnets, visit him in prison. Here the story throws out an unexpected lap: George describes a woman he met on the stairs in the Tulkinghorn house on the night of the crime. She looked like ... Esther in posture and height. She wore a wide, fringed black robe. The dumb reader immediately decides that George is too good to commit a crime. Of course, Lady Dedlock, who is extremely similar to her daughter, did it. But the discerning reader will object: after all, we already know another woman who quite successfully portrayed Lady Dedlock.

Here one of the secondary secrets is revealed.

Mrs. Begnet knows who George's mother is and goes to Chesney World for her. (Both mothers are in the same place - similarities between Esther and George.)

The funeral of Tulkinghorn is a magnificent chapter, it rises like a wave over the previous ones, which are rather flat. At the funeral of Tulkinghorn, Detective Bucket from a closed carriage watches his wife and his lodger (who is his lodger? Ortanz!). Bucket's role in the plot is increasing. He holds attention to the very end of the mystery theme. Sir Lester is still a pompous fool, though a blow will change him. Buckett's amusing Sherlock Holmes conversation with a tall footman takes place, during which it is revealed that on the night of the crime Lady Dedlock was absent from the house for several hours, dressed in the same way as, judging by George's description, the lady he met on the stairs at the Tulkinghorn house around that time when the crime was committed. (Since Bucket knows that Tulkinghorn was killed by Ortanz and not Lady Dedlock, this scene is a deliberate deception of the reader.) Whether or not the reader believes at this point that Lady Dedlock is the killer is up to him. Generally speaking, the author of a detective novel is not supposed to name the real killer in anonymous letters (as it turns out, they are sent by Ortanz with the accusation of Lady Dedlock). Finally, Ortanz is caught in the nets set up by Bucket. Buckett's wife, whom he entrusted to oversee the lodging, finds in her room a description of the Dedlocks' house in Chesney Wold, the article does not contain the scrap from which the wad was made for the pistol, and the pistol itself will be caught in the pond where Ortanz and Mrs. Buckett went on Sunday walk. In yet another scene, the reader is deliberately deceived. Having got rid of the blackmailers, the Smallwid family, Bucket, in a conversation with Sir Lester, melodramatically declares: "The person who will have to be arrested is now here in the house ... and I am going to take her into custody in your presence." The only woman in the house, as the reader suggests, is Lady Dedlock, but Bucket is referring to Ortanz, who, the reader is unaware of, came with him, hoping to receive the award. Lady Dedlock does not know that the crime has been solved, and flees, pursued by Esther and Bucket, and then she will be found dead in London, at the gates of the cemetery where Captain Houdon is buried.

Vii. UNEXPECTED LINKS

A curious feature that recurs repeatedly throughout the story and is characteristic of many mystery novels are "unexpected connections." So:

1. Miss Barbury, who is raising Esther, turns out to be Lady Dedlock's sister, and later the woman Boythorn loved.

2. Esther turns out to be Lady Dedlock's daughter.

3. Nemo (Captain Houdon) turns out to be Esther's father.

4. Mr. George turns out to be the son of Mrs. Rounswell, housekeeper of the Dedlocks. It is also revealed that George was a friend of Captain Houdon.

5. Mrs. Chadbend turns out to be Mrs. Rachel, Esther's former servant at her aunt's house.

6. Ortanz turns out to be the mysterious dweller of Bucket.

7. Crook turns out to be Mrs. Smallwid's brother.

VIII. BAD AND NOT VERY GOOD HEROES BECOME BETTER

One of the turning points of the novel is Esther's request to Guppy to stop caring about her interests. She says: "I know my background and I can assure you that you will not be able to improve my lot with any investigation." I think the author intended to exclude the Guppy line (already half of its meaning due to the disappearance of the letters) so that it does not get confused with the topic of Talkinghorn. "His face has become a little ashamed" - this does not correspond to the character of Guppy. Dickens here makes this con man better than he is. It's funny that although his shock at the sight of Esther's disfigured face and his apostasy show that he did not really love her (loss of one point), his unwillingness to marry an ugly girl, even if she turned out to be a wealthy aristocrat, is a point in his favor. However, this is a weak piece.

Sir Lester learns a terrible truth from Bucket. Covering his face with his hands, Sir Lester with a groan asks Mr. Buckett to be quiet for a moment. But soon he removes his hands from his face, so well maintaining a dignified appearance and outward calmness - although his face is as white as his hair - that Mr. Buckett becomes even a little scared. " This is a turning point for Sir Lester when he - for better or worse in an artistic sense - ceases to be a mannequin and becomes a suffering human being. This transformation cost him a blow. Having recovered, Sir Lester forgives Lady Dedlock, showing himself a loving person capable of noble deeds, and he is deeply moved by the scene with George, as well as the expectation of his wife's return. Sir Lester's "declaration", when he says that his attitude towards his wife has not changed, now "makes a deep, moving impression." A little more - and we have a double of John Jarndis. Now an aristocrat is as good as a good commoner!

What do we mean when we talk about the form of the story? First of all, it is its structure, that is, the development of a certain history, its vicissitudes; the choice of characters and how the author uses them; their relationship, various themes, thematic lines and their intersections; different plot perturbations in order to produce one or another direct or indirect action; preparation of results and consequences. In short, we mean a calculated outline of a work of art. This is structure.

The other side of the form is style, in other words, how this structure works: this is the author's manner, even his mannerism, all sorts of cunning; and if it is a bright style, then what kind of imagery it uses - and how successfully; if the author resorts to comparisons, then how he uses and diversifies metaphors and similarities - separately or together. The effectiveness of style is the key to literature, the magic key to Dickens, Gogol, Flaubert, Tolstoy, to all the great masters.

Form (structure and style) = content; why and how = what. The first thing we note in Dickens's style is his extremely emotional imagery, his art of evoking an emotional response.

1. BRIGHT IMPLEMENTATION (WITH AND WITHOUT Rhetoric)

Dazzling flashes of imagery happen from time to time - they cannot be extended - and now wonderful pictorial details are accumulating again. When Dickens needs to convey information to the reader through conversation or reflection, the imagery is usually not striking. But there are wonderful fragments, for example, the apotheosis of the fog theme in the description of the Supreme Chancellor's Court: “The day turned out to match the Lord Chancellor, - on such, and only on such a day, it befits him to sit here, - and the Lord Chancellor sits today with a hazy halo around heads, in a soft fence of crimson cloths and draperies, listening to a portly lawyer with lush sideburns and a thin voice who turns to him, reading an endless summary of a court case, and contemplating the window of the overhead light, behind which he sees fog and only fog. "

"The little plaintiff or defendant, who was promised to be given a new toy horse, as soon as the Jarndis case was resolved, managed to grow up, get a real horse and ride off to the next world." The court decides that two wards will live with their uncle. This is a poured fruit, the result of a magnificent accumulation of natural and human fog in the first chapter. Thus, the main characters (two wards and Jarndis) are presented to the reader, not yet named by their names, in an abstract way. It seems that they arise from the fog, the author pulls them out of there until they dissolve in it again, and the chapter ends.

The first description of Chesney-Wold and his mistress, Lady Dedlock, is truly ingenious: “There is a real flood in Lincolnshire. The bridge in the park collapsed - one of its arch was washed away and carried away by the flood. The lowland around it has become a dammed river half a mile wide, and dull trees stick out like islands, and the water is all in bubbles - after all, the rain pours and pours day-and-day. In the "estate" of Milady Dedlock, the boredom was unbearable. The weather was so damp, for many days and nights it rained so hard that the trees must have become damp through and through, and when the forester cut them down and chopped them off, no knocking or crackling was heard - it seemed as if an ax was striking a soft one. The deer are probably soaked to the bone, and where they pass there are puddles in their tracks. A shot is muffled in this humid air, and the smoke from the gun is a lazy cloud stretching towards a green hill with a grove at the top, against which a net of rain stands out clearly. The view from the windows in Milady Dedlock's chambers resembles either a painting painted with lead paint, or a drawing made with Chinese ink. The vases on the stone terrace in front of the house are filled with rainwater all day, and all night long you can hear it overflow and fall in heavy drops - drip-drip-drip - on the wide flagstone flooring, from the old days nicknamed the "Ghost Walk". On Sunday, you go to the church that stands in the middle of the park, you see - all of it inside is moldy, cold sweat has come out on the oak pulpit, and you feel such a smell, such a taste in your mouth, as if you were entering the crypt of Dedlokov's ancestors. Once, my lady Dedlock (a childless woman), looking at the gatekeeper's gatehouse from her boudoir in the early twilight, saw a reflection of a fireplace flame on the glass latticed windows, and smoke rising from the chimney, and a woman chasing a child who ran out in the rain to the gate towards to a man in an oilcloth cloak, shiny with moisture, she saw and lost her peace of mind. And my lady Dedlock now says that she is "sick to death of all this." The rain in Chesney Wold is the rustic counterpart of the London fog; and the gatekeeper's child is a harbinger of a child's theme.

When Mr. Boythorn meets Esther and her friends, a delightful description of the sleepy, sun-drenched town follows: “Evening was approaching when we entered the city where we were to get out of the passenger carriage - a nondescript town with a spire on a church bell tower, a market square, a stone chapel on this square, the only street brightly lit by the sun, a pond into which an old nag wandered in looking for coolness, and very few inhabitants who, having nothing to do, lay down or stood with their arms folded in the chill, finding somewhere a little shade. After the rustle of leaves that accompanied us all the way, after the agitated breads that surrounded it, this town seemed to us the most stuffy and sleepy of all the provincial towns of England. "

Having fallen ill with smallpox, Esther experiences excruciating sensations: “Do I dare to tell about those even more difficult days, when in a huge dark space I dreamed of some kind of flaming circle - either a necklace, or a ring, or a closed chain of stars, one of links of which I was! Those were the days when I only prayed to break out of the circle - it was so inexplicably scary and painful to feel like a part of this terrible vision! "

When Esther sends Charlie for a letter to Mr. Jarndis, the description of the house gives a bottom line; the house works: “When the evening appointed by him came, I, as soon as I was left alone, said Charlie:

“Charlie, go knock on Mr. Jarndis’s house and tell him you’re coming from me" for the letter. "

Charlie went down the stairs, up the stairs, walked along the corridors, and I listened to her steps, and that evening the winding passages and passages in this old house seemed prohibitively long to me; then she went back down the corridors, down the stairs, up the stairs, and finally brought a letter.

“Put it on the table, Charlie,” I said. Charlie put the letter on the table and went to bed, and I sat looking at the envelope, but without touching it, and thought about many things. "

When Esther goes to the seaport of Deal to see Richard, the description of the harbor follows: “But then the fog began to rise like a curtain, and we saw many ships, the proximity of which had never been known before. I don’t remember how many there were, although the servant told us the number of ships that were in the roadstead. There were also large ships - especially one that had just arrived home from India; and when the sun shone, peering out from behind the clouds, and threw light reflections on the dark sea, which seemed like silvery lakes, the changeable play of light and shadow on ships, the bustle of small boats scurrying between them and the shore, life and movement on ships and in everything, what surrounded them - it all became extraordinarily beautiful ”9.

It may seem to others that such descriptions are a trifle that does not deserve attention, but literature is all made up of such trifles. Indeed, literature does not consist of great ideas, but every time of revelations, not philosophical schools form it, but talented individuals. Literature is not about something - it is something itself, it is in itself its essence. There is no literature outside of a masterpiece. The description of the harbor in Deal is given at the moment when Esther goes to this city to see Richard, whose capriciousness, so inappropriate in his nature, and the evil fate hanging over him worries Esther and prompts her to help him. Over her shoulder, Dickens shows us the harbor. There are ships, many boats that appear as if by magic when the fog rises. Among them, as already mentioned, is a huge merchant ship that arrived from India: "... and when the sun shone, peering out from behind the clouds, and threw light reflections on the dark sea, which seemed like silvery lakes ...". Let's stop here: can we imagine this? Of course, we can, and we imagine with the thrill of recognition, because in comparison with the usual literary sea, Dickens first grasped these silvery lakes on dark blue with a naive, sensual look of a real artist, saw, and immediately put it into words. More precisely: without words this picture would not exist; if you listen to the soft, rustling, flowing sound of the consonants in this description, it becomes clear that the image needed a voice to sound. Dickens goes on to show “the shifting play of light and shadow on ships” - and I think it’s impossible to pick and place words better than he does to portray subtle shadows and silvery light in this delightful seascape. And to those who consider that all this magic is just a game, a lovely game that can be erased without prejudice to the narrative, I would like to point out to them that this is the story: the ship from India in these unique decorations is returning - it has already returned! “Dr. Woodcourt's Esther, they're about to meet. And this landscape with silvery shadows, with quivering lakes of light and the turmoil of sparkling boats in hindsight will be filled with wonderful excitement, the delight of the meeting, the roar of applause. This was the kind of reception Dickens expected for his book.

2. PIECE LIST OF FIGURATIVE PARTS

This is how the novel begins with the already quoted passage: “London. The autumn trial session - "Session of Mikhailov's Day" - has recently begun ... Unbearable November weather.<...>The dogs are so smeared with mud that you can't see them. Horses are hardly better - they are splattered to the very eyecups.<...>Fog is everywhere. "

When Nemo is found dead: “The parish warden goes around all the local shops and apartments to interrogate the residents ... Someone saw the policeman smile at the inn servant.<...>With shrill, childish voices, she [the public] accuses the parish overseer ... In the end, the policeman finds it necessary to defend the honor of the deanery ... ”(Carlyle also uses this kind of dry list.)

“Mr. Snegsby comes in, greasy, steamed, smelling of 'Chinese grass' and chewing on something. He tries to swallow a piece of bread and butter as soon as possible. Is talking:

- What a surprise, sir! Yes, it's Mr. Talkinghorn! " (Here the chopped, energetic style is combined with bright epithets - just like Carlyle's.)

3. RHEETORICAL FIGURES: COMPARISONS AND METAPHORS

Comparisons are direct comparisons when the words "like" or "as if it seem like" are used. “Eighteen scholarly brothers of Mr. Tengle (lawyer. —V. I.), each armed with a summary of the case on eighteen hundred sheets, jumped like eighteen hammers in a piano, and after weighed eighteen bows, descend to their eighteen seats, darkness. "

The carriage with the young heroes of the novel, who are to spend the night at Mrs. Jellyby's, arrives at "a narrow street with tall houses, like a long cistern, filled to the brim with fog."

Before Caddy's wedding, Mrs. Jellyby's unkempt hair "matted like the mane of a scavenger's nag." At dawn, the lamplighter "begins his detour and, like the executioner of a despot king, cuts off the small heads of fire that tried to dispel the darkness at least a little."

"Mr. Walls, calm and unperturbed, as befits such a respectable man, pulls off his narrow black gloves, as if ripping off his skin, pulls the tight top hat off his head, as if removing a scalp from his own skull, and sits down at his desk."

The metaphor animates a thing, evoking in the representation another, without the connecting "like"; sometimes Dickens combines metaphor and comparison.

Talkinghorn's attorney suit is very personable and highly suited to the employee. "He clothe, so to speak, the keeper of legal secrets, the butler in charge of the legal cellar of the Dedlocks."

At Jellyby's house, "the children staggered about everywhere, continually falling and leaving traces of their experiences on their feet, which turned into some kind of brief chronicle of childish calamities."

"... A dark-winged loneliness hangs over Chesney-Wald."

After visiting with Mr. Jarndis the house where the plaintiff Tom Jarndis shot himself in the forehead, Esther writes:

“This is a street of dying blind houses, whose eyes are gouged with stones, - a street where the windows are without a single glass, without a single window frame ...” 10

4. REPEATS

Dickens adores peculiar spells, verbal formulas, repeated with increasing expressiveness; this is an oratorical device. “The day looked like the Lord Chancellor - on such a day, and only on such a day should he sit here ... The day looked like the members of the Bar at the Supreme Chancellor's Court, in the fog, and they, among about twenty people, are wandering here today, sorting out one of ten thousand points of some extremely prolonged litigation, substituting their feet for each other on slippery precedents, bogging down knee-deep in technical difficulties, pounding their heads in protective wigs made of goat hair and horsehair on the walls of idle talk and acting seriously pretending to administer justice. The day has grown to match all the attorneys involved in the litigation ... on such and such a day it is fitting for them to sit here, in a long, carpeted "well" (although it is senseless to look for the Truth at its bottom); and everyone is sitting here in a row between the receptionist's table covered with red cloth and lawyers in silk robes, piling in front of them ... a whole mountain of nonsense, which was very expensive.

But how can this court not sink in the darkness, which the candles burning here and there are powerless to dispel; how could the fog not hang in him in such a thick veil, as if he was stuck here forever; how the colored glass does not fade so much that daylight no longer penetrates the windows; how to uninitiated passers-by, looking inside through glass doors, dare to enter here, not being afraid of this ominous sight and languid words, which are deafly echoed from the ceiling, sounded from the platform, where the Lord Supreme Chancellor sits, contemplating the upper window, which does not let in the light, and where everything is his approximate hair-bearers got lost in the fog! " Note the effect of the three times repetition of the beginning “the day grew to match” and the moaning four times “how is it,” note the frequent sound repetitions that give assonance.

Anticipating the arrival of Sir Lester and his relatives in Chesney World on the occasion of the parliamentary elections, the chorus is repeated “and they”: “The old house seems sad and solemn, where it is very convenient to live, but there are no inhabitants, except for the portraits on the walls. "And they came and went," some living Dedlock could say in thought, passing by these portraits; and they saw this gallery as deserted and silent as I see it now; and they imagined, as I imagine, that this estate will become empty when they leave; and it was hard for them to believe how difficult it was for me that it could do without them; and they now disappeared for me, as I disappeared for them, closing the door behind me, which slammed shut with a noise , loudly rolled through the house; and they are devoted to indifferent oblivion; and they died. "

5. RHEETORICAL QUESTION AND ANSWER

This technique is often combined with repetition. “So who, on this gloomy day, is present in the court of the Lord Chancellor, except the Lord Chancellor himself, the lawyer who speaks in the case that is being examined, two or three lawyers who never speak on any case, and the aforementioned attorneys in the“ well ” ? Here, in a wig and robe, is the secretary seated below the judge; here, dressed in a judicial uniform, there are two or three guardians of either order or legality or interests of the king. "

While Buckett waits for Jarndis to convince Esther to go with him in search of the escaped Lady Dedlock, Dickens gets into Buckett's thoughts: Where is she? Dead or alive, where is she? If that handkerchief, which he folds and carefully hides, magically showed him the room where she found him, showed him the wasteland shrouded in the darkness of night around the brick house, where the little dead man was covered with this handkerchief, would Buckett have been able to track her down there? In the wasteland, where pale blue lights glow in the kilns ... a lonely shadow looms, lost in this mournful world, covered with snow, driven by the wind and as if cut off from all mankind. This is a woman; but she is dressed like a beggar, and in such rags no one crossed the vestibule of the Dedlocks and, having opened the huge door, did not leave their house. "

In answering these questions, Dickens hints that Lady Dedlock swapped clothes with Jenny, and this will confuse Buckett for a while until he guesses the truth.

6 APOSTROPHIC CARLEIL'S MANNER

The apostrophe can be addressed to the shocked listeners, to the sculpturally frozen group of great sinners, to some natural elements, to the victim of injustice. As Joe sneaks into the cemetery to visit Nemo's grave, Dickens bursts out with an apostrophe: “Hear, night, heed, darkness: the sooner you come, the longer you stay in a place like this! Listen, rare lights in the windows of ugly houses, and you, who do lawlessness in them, do it, even if you are fenced off from this formidable sight! Listen, the flame of gas, burning so gloomily over the iron gates, in the poisoned air, that it covered them with witchcraft ointment, slimy to the touch! " It should also be noted the already quoted apostrophe on the occasion of Joe's death, and even earlier - the apostrophe in the passage where Guppy and Weevl cry for help after discovering the amazing demise of Crook.

7. Epithets

Dickens cultivates a splendid adjective, or verb, or noun as an epithet, as the basic premise of a vivid poetry; it is a full-bodied grain from which a blossoming and spreading metaphor will rise. At the beginning of the novel, we see how, leaning over the railing of the bridge, people look down - "into the foggy underworld." Pupils clerks are accustomed to "hone ... their legal wit" in an amusing litigation. In Ada's expression, Mrs. Pardigle's bulging eyes were "over her forehead." Guppy convinces Wevel not to leave his abode at Crook's house by "biting his thumbnail restlessly." Sir Lester awaits the return of Lady Dedlock. Late at night, this quarter is quiet, "unless some boozer gets drunk to such an extent that, obsessed with wanderlust," wanders in here, bawling songs.

For all great writers with a sharp, keen eye, the hackneyed epithet sometimes takes on new life and freshness thanks to the background on which it appears. "Soon, the desired light illuminates the walls, - this is Kruk (who went downstairs for a lighted candle. - V. N.) slowly climbs the stairs along with his green-eyed cat, which follows him." All cats have green eyes - but notice what green these eyes are filled with from the candle moving slowly up the stairs. Often, the place of the epithet and the reflection of neighboring words give it an extraordinary charm.

8. SPEAKING NAMES

In addition to Crook (crook), the novel has jewelers Blaze and Sparkle (blaze - sparkle), Mr. Bloers and Mr. Tengle (blower - bouncer, tangle - confusion) are lawyers; Buddha, Koodle, Doodle, etc. (boodle is a bribe, doodle is a scammer) - politicians. This is an old comedy trick.

9. ALLITERATION AND ASSOCIATION

This technique has already been noted in connection with repetitions. But let us not deny ourselves the pleasure of hearing Mr. Smallwid's address to his wife: "You dancing, prancing, shambling, scrambling, poll-parrott" and here is an alliteration: the arch of the bridge turned out to be "sapped and sopped" - in Lincolnshire estate, where Lady Dedlock lives in a "deadened" (mortified) world. Jarndys and Jarndys is, in a sense, a complete alliteration, carried to the point of absurdity.

10. RECEPTION "I-I-I"

This technique conveys the emotion of Esther's manner when she describes her friendship in Bleak House with Ada and Richard: “I sat, walked, talked with him and Ada and noticed how day by day they fell more and more in love with each other, without saying a word about it and everyone shyly thinking to himself that his love is the greatest secret ... "And one more example, when Esther accepts Jarndis's offer:" I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him, and he asked if I think I myself am the mistress of Bleak House, and I said: "Yes"; but so far everything has remained the same, and we all went for a drive together, and I didn’t even say anything to my dear girl (Ade. - VN) ”.

11. HUMORISTIC, WISDOM, ALPHATORY, FANCY INTERPRETATION

"His family is as ancient as the mountains, but infinitely more respectable"; or: "a turkey in a poultry house, always upset by some of its hereditary resentment (must be the fact that turkeys are slaughtered for Christmas)"; or: “the crowing of a cheerful rooster, which for some reason is interesting to know why? - always has a presentiment of dawn, although he lives in the cellar of a small dairy on Carsitor Street "; or: "a short, sly niece, pulled, perhaps, too tight, and with a sharp nose, reminiscent of the harsh cold of an autumn evening, which is colder the closer it is to the end."

12. PLAY OF WORDS

"Il fo cuffs (distorted French il faut manger - you need to eat), you know, - explains Mr. Jobling, and pronounces the last word as if he were talking about one of the accessories of a man's suit." It's still a long way from Joyce's Finnegans Wake, this jumble of puns, but the direction is right.

13. INDIRECT SPEECH TRANSMISSION

This is a further development of the style of Samuel Johnson and Jane Austen, with even more speech impregnations. In the investigation into Nemo's death, Mrs. Piper's testimony is given indirectly: “Well, Mrs. Piper has a lot to say — mostly in parentheses and without punctuation — but she has little to say. Mrs. Piper lives in this alley (where her husband works as a carpenter), and all the neighbors were sure for a long time (can be counted from the day that was two days before the baptism of Alexander James Piper, and he was baptized when he was one and a half years old and four days, because they did not hope that he would survive, the child suffered from the teeth, gentlemen), the neighbors had long been convinced that the victim, as Mrs. Piper calls the deceased, is rumored to have sold his soul. She thinks that rumors spread because the victim looked strange. She constantly met the victim and found that he looked ferocious and should not be allowed near the kids, because some of the kids are very shy (and if they doubt it, she hopes that it is possible to interrogate Mrs. Perkins, who is present here and can vouch for Mrs. Piper, for her husband and for her entire family). I saw how the victim was harassed and teased by children (children are children - what can you take from them?) - and you can't expect, especially if they are playful, that they behave like some kind of Mafuzils, which you yourself were not in childhood. "

Less eccentric characters are often honored with indirect presentation of speech - in order to speed up the story or thicken the mood; sometimes it is accompanied, as in this case, by lyrical repetitions. Esther persuades the secretly married Ada to go with her to visit Richard: “My dear,” I began, “haven't you quarreled with Richard during the time that I was so rarely at home?

“No, Esther.

- Maybe he hasn't written to you for a long time? I asked.

“No, I did,” Ada replied.

And my eyes are full of such bitter tears and my face breathes with such love! I could not understand my dear friend. Should I go alone to Richard? I said. No, Ada thinks I'd better not go alone. Maybe she will come with me? Yes, Ada finds we better go together. Shouldn't we go now? Yes, let's go now. No, I could not understand what was happening to my little girl, why her face was shining with love, and there were tears in her eyes ”.

A writer can be a good storyteller or a good moralist, but if he is not a magician, not an artist, he is not a writer, much less a great writer. Dickens is a good moralist, a good storyteller and an excellent sorcerer, but as a storyteller he is a little lower than anything else. In other words, he excellently portrays the characters and their environment in any given situation, but when trying to establish connections between characters in a general scheme of action, he is often unconvincing.

What is the cumulative impression that a great work of art makes on us? (By "us" I mean the good reader.) The Accuracy of Poetry and the Delight of Science. This is the impact of Bleak House at its best. Here Dickens the sorcerer, Dickens the artist comes out on top. The moralist-teacher is not the best in Bleak House. And the storyteller, who stumbles here and there, does not shine at all in Bleak House, although the general construction of the novel is still magnificent.

Despite some flaws in the narrative, Dickens remains a great writer. Disposing of a huge constellation of heroes and themes, keeping people and events connected and being able to identify missing heroes in dialogue - in other words, mastering the art of not only creating people, but also keeping them alive in the reader's imagination over the course of a long novel is, of course, a sign of greatness. ... When Smallwid's grandfather appears in a chair in the gallery-dash of George, from whom he seeks to obtain a sample of Captain Houdon's handwriting, he is carried by the coachman of the carriage and another person. “And this fellow,” he points to another porter, “we hired on the street for a pint of beer. It costs two pence. Judy (he turns to his daughter - V.K), pay this fellow two pence.<...>It takes a lot for such a trifle.

The mentioned "fellow", one of those outlandish specimens of human mold that suddenly grows - in shabby red jackets - on the western streets of London and willingly undertakes to hold horses or run for a carriage - the mentioned fellow, without much enthusiasm, receives his two pence, throws coins into air, catches them and leaves. " This gesture, this single gesture, with the epithet “over-handed” (movement from top to bottom, “in pursuit” of falling coins, in translation this is not. - Note. Per.) - a trifle, but in the imagination of the reader this person will forever remain alive.

The world of the great writer is a magical democracy, where even the most minor, most random heroes, like that fellow who throws two pennies in the air, have the right to live and multiply.

Notes.

1. The poem "The Laws of God and People .." by AE Houseman (1859-1936) translated by Y. Taubin from the edition: English Poetry in Russian Translations is quoted. XX century - M., 1984.

2. Quotes from the novel are translated by M. Klyagina-Kondratyeva according to the publication: Dickens Ch. Sobr. cit .: In 30 T. - M .: Art. lit., 1960.

3. In English, the words "years", "flight" (flight) and the heroine's surname are homonyms. - Note. per.

4. Carlyle Thomas. The French Revolution: History / Per. from English Yu Dubrovin and E. Melnikova. - M, 1991. - S. 347, 294. - Note. per.

5. Shortly before, under pressure from Bucket, old Smallwid returns the will of Jarndis, which he found in Crook's pile of scrap paper. This will is later than those contested in court, according to which the bulk of the property went to Ada and Richard. This already promised an early end to the litigation. - Fr. B.

6. American versus Homeric (lat.).

7. Among VN's papers there is a note: “Charlie, who becomes Esther's maid, is her" light shadow ", in contrast to the dark shadow, Ortanz, who offered Esther her services after Lady Dedlock fired her, and did not succeed in that". - Fr. B

8. VN gives an example: “the clock ticked, the fire clicked”. In the Russian translation ("the clock was ticking, the firewood crackled"), alliteration is not conveyed - Note. ed. Russian text.

9. On the attached sheet, VN compares - not in favor of Jane Austen - her description of the sea in Portsmouth harbor when visiting her family's Fanny Price: “And the day was amazingly good. It's only March, but in the soft gentle breeze, in the bright sun, which only occasionally for a moment was hidden behind a cloud, it seems like April, and under the spring sky there is such beauty around Spithead and on the island behind them, and the sea changes every minute at this hour of high tide, and, rejoicing, it throws itself on the rampart with such a glorious noise, "etc. The volatility of the sea is not conveyed, the" jubilation "is borrowed from second-rate verses, description generally standard and sluggish. " - Fr. B.

10. In Esther's story, these words belong to Mr. Jarndis. - Note. per.

The novel begins as a series of episodes, pictures of mores, psychological sketches, which almost do not add up to the plot. Only at the end of the novel does it become clear how many details turn out to be important for the plot and how different characters are related to each other (for example,

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Smallweed turns out to be Crook's brother-in-law.

Only on the last two hundred pages does the plot become gripping and makes you feverishly turn pages in the hope that

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that Lady Dedlock will be able to catch up and tell her that her husband loves and waits for her

There are also moves that deceive readers' expectations -

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the will was found only after the disappearance of the money.

The satire of the novel is directed at the convoluted system of English legal proceedings and the fake charity of people who thus solve their psychological problems. Mrs. Jellyby spends all her time and energy on charity and does not care about her family at all, and her charity does not really benefit the poor. However, Mrs. Jellyby is still a good option, I read about benefactors who beat children so that they don't get confused. I wonder how Dickens himself felt about the idea of ​​women parliamentarians? In this matter, I cannot but sympathize with Mrs. Jellyby.

Esther is an abandoned child, and like many abandoned children, she loves her distant mother touchingly. Unlike many abandoned children, she did not become embittered by the whole world, but, on the contrary, touchingly tries to earn the love of those around her. What her low self-esteem. How touchingly grateful she is for any kind word. How grateful she is for the care of the innkeeper, it does not occur to her that her companion could simply pay generously to the innkeeper for the care.

Godmother Esther is a monster. How can you say to a child: "It would have been better if you hadn't been born at all" ?!

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How can you voluntarily break your life and take revenge on your child ?!

I'm glad that Esther

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did not marry Jarndis after all, with their relationship in such a marriage there would be a lot ... incestuous.

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If Lady Dedlock would have confessed everything to her groom at once, many years ago, he might have left her at once, or maybe he would have forgiven her, but she would not have had to live in eternal fear, she would not have had to run away from home in winter ...

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who does not know whether to reveal their secrets to loved ones.

Here is a trial that has been dragging on for decades, serves to enrich dozens of lawyers and ends only then,

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when the money that was the subject of the litigation turned out to be completely spent on legal costs.

P.S. For historians of science, note: the first page mentions megalosaurs, which were then a scientific sensation.