Bleak House by Charles Dickens (best ebook reader for laptop .txt) 📕
Description
Bleak House, completed by Dickens in 1853, tells several interlocking story-lines and features a host of colorful characters. Though very difficult to summarise, the novel centers around the decades-long legal case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, involving the fair distribution of assets of a valuable estate. The case is mired in the legal quagmire of the Court of Chancery, whose byzantine and sluggish workings Dickens spares no effort to expose and condemn. Dickens also exposes the miserable condition of the poor, living in squalid, pestilential circumstances.
The novel’s heroine is Esther Summerson, whose parentage is unclear and who has been brought up by a cold and strict godmother, who tells her only: “Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers.” On the death of her godmother, she is given an education through the unexpected intervention of a Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, whom she has never met. When she comes of age, she is appointed as a companion to Ada, one of two young people who are “wards of Chancery,” whose fates depend on the outcome of the legal struggle and who are taken into guardianship by Mr. Jarndyce. The other ward Richard, despite Mr. Jarndyce’s frequent warnings, eventually goes astray by pinning all his hopes on a successful outcome of Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
We are also introduced to Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, and to their cunning and suspicious lawyer, Mr. Tulkinghorn. He uncovers evidence that Lady Dedlock is not all she seems and determines to remorselessly pursue every lead to expose her secrets.
The novel has a curious construction in that the first-person narrative of Esther, written in the past tense, is interleaved with many chapters written from the omniscient viewpoint and in the present tense.
Several prominent critics such as G. K. Chesterton consider Bleak House to be Dickens’ finest novel, and it is often ranked among the best English-language novels of all time.
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- Author: Charles Dickens
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By the noisome ways through which they descended into that pit, they gradually emerge from it, the crowd flitting, and whistling, and skulking about them until they come to the verge, where restoration of the bull’s-eyes is made to Darby. Here the crowd, like a concourse of imprisoned demons, turns back, yelling, and is seen no more. Through the clearer and fresher streets, never so clear and fresh to Mr. Snagsby’s mind as now, they walk and ride until they come to Mr. Tulkinghorn’s gate.
As they ascend the dim stairs (Mr. Tulkinghorn’s chambers being on the first floor), Mr. Bucket mentions that he has the key of the outer door in his pocket and that there is no need to ring. For a man so expert in most things of that kind, Bucket takes time to open the door and makes some noise too. It may be that he sounds a note of preparation.
Howbeit, they come at last into the hall, where a lamp is burning, and so into Mr. Tulkinghorn’s usual room—the room where he drank his old wine tonight. He is not there, but his two old-fashioned candlesticks are, and the room is tolerably light.
Mr. Bucket, still having his professional hold of Jo and appearing to Mr. Snagsby to possess an unlimited number of eyes, makes a little way into this room, when Jo starts and stops.
“What’s the matter?” says Bucket in a whisper.
“There she is!” cries Jo.
“Who!”
“The lady!”
A female figure, closely veiled, stands in the middle of the room, where the light falls upon it. It is quite still and silent. The front of the figure is towards them, but it takes no notice of their entrance and remains like a statue.
“Now, tell me,” says Bucket aloud, “how you know that to be the lady.”
“I know the wale,” replies Jo, staring, “and the bonnet, and the gownd.”
“Be quite sure of what you say, Tough,” returns Bucket, narrowly observant of him. “Look again.”
“I am a-looking as hard as ever I can look,” says Jo with starting eyes, “and that there’s the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd.”
“What about those rings you told me of?” asks Bucket.
“A-sparkling all over here,” says Jo, rubbing the fingers of his left hand on the knuckles of his right without taking his eyes from the figure.
The figure removes the right-hand glove and shows the hand.
“Now, what do you say to that?” asks Bucket.
Jo shakes his head. “Not rings a bit like them. Not a hand like that.”
“What are you talking of?” says Bucket, evidently pleased though, and well pleased too.
“Hand was a deal whiter, a deal delicater, and a deal smaller,” returns Jo.
“Why, you’ll tell me I’m my own mother next,” says Mr. Bucket. “Do you recollect the lady’s voice?”
“I think I does,” says Jo.
The figure speaks. “Was it at all like this? I will speak as long as you like if you are not sure. Was it this voice, or at all like this voice?”
Jo looks aghast at Mr. Bucket. “Not a bit!”
“Then, what,” retorts that worthy, pointing to the figure, “did you say it was the lady for?”
“Cos,” says Jo with a perplexed stare but without being at all shaken in his certainty, “cos that there’s the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd. It is her and it an’t her. It an’t her hand, nor yet her rings, nor yet her woice. But that there’s the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd, and they’re wore the same way wot she wore ’em, and it’s her height wot she wos, and she giv me a sov’ring and hooked it.”
“Well!” says Mr. Bucket slightly, “we haven’t got much good out of you. But, however, here’s five shillings for you. Take care how you spend it, and don’t get yourself into trouble.” Bucket stealthily tells the coins from one hand into the other like counters—which is a way he has, his principal use of them being in these games of skill—and then puts them, in a little pile, into the boy’s hand and takes him out to the door, leaving Mr. Snagsby, not by any means comfortable under these mysterious circumstances, alone with the veiled figure. But on Mr. Tulkinghorn’s coming into the room, the veil is raised and a sufficiently good-looking Frenchwoman is revealed, though her expression is something of the intensest.
“Thank you, Mademoiselle Hortense,” says Mr. Tulkinghorn with his usual equanimity. “I will give you no further trouble about this little wager.”
“You will do me the kindness to remember, sir, that I am not at present placed?” says mademoiselle.
“Certainly, certainly!”
“And to confer upon me the favour of your distinguished recommendation?”
“By all means, Mademoiselle Hortense.”
“A word from Mr. Tulkinghorn is so powerful.”
“It shall not be wanting, mademoiselle.”
“Receive the assurance of my devoted gratitude, dear sir.”
“Good night.”
Mademoiselle goes out with an air of native gentility; and Mr. Bucket, to whom it is, on an emergency, as natural to be groom of the ceremonies as it is to be anything else, shows her downstairs, not without gallantry.
“Well, Bucket?” quoth Mr. Tulkinghorn on his return.
“It’s all squared, you see, as I squared it myself, sir. There an’t a doubt that it was the other one with this one’s dress on. The boy was exact respecting colours and everything. Mr. Snagsby, I promised you as a man that he should be sent away all right. Don’t say it wasn’t done!”
“You have kept your word, sir,” returns the stationer; “and if I can be of no further use, Mr. Tulkinghorn, I think, as my little woman will be getting anxious—”
“Thank you, Snagsby, no further use,” says Mr. Tulkinghorn. “I am quite indebted to you for the trouble you have taken already.”
“Not at all, sir. I wish you good night.”
“You see, Mr. Snagsby,” says Mr. Bucket,
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