ON our arrival in Denmark, we found the king and queen of that
country elevated in two arm-chairs on a kitchen-table, holding a Court. The
whole of the Danish nobility were in attendance; consisting of a noble boy in
the wash-leather boots of a gigantic ancestor, a venerable Peer with a dirty
face who seemed to have risen from the people late in life, and the Danish
chivalry with a comb in its hair and a pair of white silk legs, and presenting
on the whole a feminine appearance. My gifted townsman stood gloomily apart,
with folded arms, and I could have wished that his curls and forehead had been
more probable.
Several curious little circumstances transpired as the action proceeded. The
late king of the country not only appeared to have been troubled with a cough at
the time of his decease, but to have taken it with him to the tomb, and to have
brought it back. The royal phantom also carried a ghostly manuscript round its
truncheon, to which it had the appearance of occasionally referring, and that,
too, with an air of anxiety and a tendency to lose the place of reference which
were suggestive of a state of mortality. It was this, I conceive, which led to
the Shade's being advised by the gallery to `turn over!' - a recommendation
which it took extremely ill. It was likewise to be noted of this majestic spirit
that whereas it always appeared with an air of having been out a long time and
walked an immense distance, it perceptibly came from a closely contiguous wall.
This occasioned its terrors to be received derisively. The Queen of Denmark, a
very buxom lady, though no doubt historically brazen, was considered by the
public to have too much brass about her; her chin being attached to her diadem
by a broad band of that metal (as if she had a gorgeous toothache), her waist
being encircled by another, and each of her arms by another, so that she was
openly mentioned as `the kettledrum.' The noble boy in the ancestral boots, was
inconsistent; representing himself, as it were in one breath, as an able seaman,
a strolling actor, a grave-digger, a clergyman, and a person of the utmost
importance at a Court fencing-match, on the authority of whose practised eye and
nice discrimination the finest strokes were judged. This gradually led to a want
of toleration for him, and even - on his being detected in holy orders, and
declining to perform the funeral service - to the general indignation taking the
form of nuts. Lastly, Ophelia was a prey to such slow musical madness, that
when, in course of time, she had taken off her white muslin scarf, folded it up,
and buried it, a sulky man who had been long cooling his impatient nose against
an iron bar in the front row of the gallery, growled, `Now the baby's put to bed
let's have supper!' Which, to say the least of it, was out of keeping.
Upon my unfortunate townsman all these incidents accumulated with playful
effect. Whenever that undecided Prince had to ask a question or state a doubt,
the public helped him out with it. As for example; on the question whether 'twas
nobler in the mind to suffer, some roared yes, and some no, and some inclining
to both opinions said `toss up for it;' and quite a Debating Society arose. When
he asked what should such fellows as he do crawling between earth and heaven, he
was encouraged with loud cries of `Hear, hear!' When he appeared with his
stocking disordered (its disorder expressed, according to usage, by one very
neat fold in the top, which I suppose to be always got up with a flat iron), a
conversation took place in the gallery respecting the paleness of his leg, and
whether it was occasioned by the turn the ghost had given him. On his taking the
recorders - very like a little black flute that had just been played in the
orchestra and handed out at the door - he was called upon unanimously for Rule
Britannia. When he recommended the player not to saw the air thus, the sulky man
said, `And don't you do it, neither; you're a deal worse than him!' And I grieve
to add that peals of laughter greeted Mr Wopsle on every one of these occasions.
But his greatest trials were in the churchyard: which had the appearance of a
primeval forest, with a kind of small ecclesiastical wash-house on one side, and
a turnpike gate on the other. Mr Wopsle in a comprehensive black cloak, being
descried entering at the turnpike, the gravedigger was admonished in a friendly
way, `Look out! Here's the undertaker a coming, to see how you're a getting on
with your work!' I believe it is well known in a constitutional country that Mr
Wopsle could not possibly have returned the skull, after moralizing over it,
without dusting his fingers on a white napkin taken from his breast; but even
that innocent and indispensable action did not pass without the comment
`Wai-ter!' The arrival of the body for interment (in an empty black box with the
lid tumbling open), was the signal for a general joy which was much enhanced by
the discovery, among the bearers, of an individual obnoxious to identification.
The joy attended Mr Wopsle through his struggle with Laertes on the brink of the
orchestra and the grave, and slackened no more until he had tumbled the king off
the kitchen-table, and had died by inches from the ankles upward.
We had made some pale efforts in the beginning to applaud Mr Wopsle; but they
were too hopeless to be persisted in. Therefore we had sat, feeling keenly for
him, but laughing, nevertheless, from ear to ear. I laughed in spite of myself
all the time, the whole thing was so droll; and yet I had a latent impression
that there was something decidedly fine in Mr Wopsle's elocution - not for old
associations' sake, I am afraid, but because it was very slow, very dreary, very
up-hill and down-hill, and very unlike any way in which any man in any natural
circumstances of life or death ever expressed himself about anything. When the
tragedy was over, and he had been called for and hooted, I said to Herbert, `Let
us go at once, or perhaps we shall meet him.'
We made all the haste we could down-stairs, but we were not quick enough
either. Standing at the door was a Jewish man with an unnatural heavy smear of
eyebrow, who caught my eyes as we advanced, and said, when we came up with him:
`Mr Pip and friend?'
Identity of Mr Pip and friend confessed.
`Mr Waldengarver?,' said the man, `would be glad to have the honour.'
`Waldengarver?' I repeated - when Herbert murmured in my ear, `Probably
Wopsle.'
`Oh!' said I. `Yes. Shall we follow you?'
`A few steps, please.' When we were in a side alley, he turned and asked,
`How did you think he looked? - I dressed him.'
I don't know what he had looked like, except a funeral; with the addition of
a large Danish sun or star hanging round his neck by a blue ribbon, that had
given him the appearance of being insured in some extraordinary Fire Office. But
I said he had looked very nice.
`When he come to the grave,' said our conductor, `he showed his cloak
beautiful. But, judging from the wing, it looked to me that when he see the
ghost in the queen's apartment, he might have made more of his stockings.'
I modestly assented, and we all fell through a little dirty swing door, into
a sort of hot packing-case immediately behind it. Here Mr Wopsle was divesting
himself of his Danish garments, and here there was just room for us to look at
him over one another's shoulders, by keeping the packing-case door, or lid, wide
open.
`Gentlemen,' said Mr Wopsle, `I am proud to see you. I hope, Mr Pip, you will
excuse my sending round. I had the happiness to know you in former times, and
the Drama has ever had a claim which has ever been acknowledged, on the noble
and the affluent.'
Meanwhile, Mr Waldengarver, in a frightful perspiration, was trying to get
himself out of his princely sables.
`Skin the stockings off, Mr Waldengarver,' said the owner of that property,
`or you'll bust 'em. Bust 'em, and you'll bust five-and-thirty shillings.
Shakspeare never was complimented with a finer pair. Keep quiet in your chair
now, and leave 'em to me.'
With that, he went upon his knees, and began to flay his victim; who, on the
first stocking coming off, would certainly have fallen over backward with his
chair, but for there being no room to fall anyhow.
I had been afraid until then to say a word about the play. But then, Mr
Waldengarver looked up at us complacently, and said:
`Gentlemen, how did it seem to you, to go, in front?'
Herbert said from behind (at the same time poking me), `capitally.' So I said
`capitally.'
`How did you like my reading of the character, gentlemen?' said Mr
Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, with patronage.
Herbert said from behind (again poking me), `massive and concrete.' So I said
boldly, as if I had originated it, and must beg to insist upon it, `massive and
concrete.'
`I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen,' said Mr Waldengarver, with
an air of dignity, in spite of his being ground against the wall at the time,
and holding on by the seat of the chair.
`But I'll tell you one thing, Mr Waldengarver,' said the man who was on his
knees, `in which you're out in your reading. Now mind! I don't care who says
contrairy; I tell you so. You're out in your reading of Hamlet when you get your
legs in profile. The last Hamlet as I dressed, made the same mistakes in his
reading at rehearsal, till I got him to put a large red wafer on each of his
shins, and then at that rehearsal (which was the last) I went in front, sir, to
the back of the pit, and whenever his reading brought him into profile, I called
out "I don't see no wafers!" And at night his reading was lovely.'
Mr Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as to say `a faithful dependent - I
overlook his folly;' and then said aloud, `My view is a little classic and
thoughtful for them here; but they will improve, they will improve.'
Herbert and I said together, Oh, no doubt they would improve.
`Did you observe, gentlemen,' said Mr Waldengarver, `that there was a man in
the gallery who endeavoured to cast derision on the service - I mean, the
representation?'
We basely replied that we rather thought we had noticed such a man. I added,
`He was drunk, no doubt.'
`Oh dear no, sir,' said Mr Wopsle, `not drunk. His employer would see to
that, sir. His employer would not allow him to be drunk.'
`You know his employer?' said I.
Mr Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened them again; performing both ceremonies
very slowly. `You must have observed, gentlemen,' said he, `an ignorant and a
blatant ass, with a rasping throat and a countenance expressive of low
malignity, who went through - I will not say sustained - the r?le (if I may use
a French expression) of Claudius King of Denmark. That is his employer,
gentlemen. Such is the profession!'
Without distinctly knowing whether I should have been more sorry for Mr
Wopsle if he had been in despair, I was so sorry for him as it was, that I took
the opportunity of his turning round to have his braces put on - which jostled
us out at the doorway - to ask Herbert what he thought of having him home to
supper? Herbert said he thought it would be kind to do so; therefore I invited
him, and he went to Barnard's with us, wrapped up to the eyes, and we did our
best for him, and he sat until two o'clock in the morning, reviewing his success
and developing his plans. I forget in detail what they were, but I have a
general recollection that he was to begin with reviving the Drama, and to end
with crushing it; inasmuch as his decease would leave it utterly bereft and
without a chance or hope.
Miserably I went to bed after all, and miserably thought of Estella, and
miserably dreamed that my expectations were all cancelled, and that I had to
give my hand in marriage to Herbert's Clara, or play Hamlet to Miss Havisham's
Ghost, before twenty thousand people, without knowing twenty words of it.
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