Гордость и предубеждение / Pride and Prejudice. Большие надежды / Great Expectations

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Joe more than readily undertook the care of my sister on that Sunday afternoon, and Biddy and I went out together. It was summer-time, and lovely weather. When we had passed the village and the church and the churchyard, and were out on the marshes and began to see the sails of the ships as they sailed on, I resolved that it was a good time and place for the admission of Biddy into my inner confidence.

“Biddy,” said I, “I want to be a gentleman.”

“O, I wouldn’t, if I was you!” she returned.

“Biddy,” said I, with some severity, “I have particular reasons for wanting to be a gentleman.”

“You know best, Pip; but don’t you think you are happier as you are?”

“Biddy,” I exclaimed, impatiently, “I am not at all happy as I am. I am disgusted with my calling and with my life. Don’t be absurd.”

“Was I absurd?” said Biddy, quietly raising her eyebrows; “I am sorry for that; I didn’t mean to be.

“I could lead a very different sort of life from the life I lead now. See how I am going on. Dissatisfied and uncomfortable, coarse and common!”

Biddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and looked far more attentively at me than she had looked at the sailing ships.

“It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to say,” she remarked, directing her eyes to the ships again.

I answered, “The beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham’s, and she’s more beautiful than anybody ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want to be a gentleman on her account.[74 - on her account – из-за неё]”

“Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over?[75 - to spite her or to gain her over? – чтобы досадить ей или чтобы добиться её?]” Biddy quietly asked me, after a pause.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I admire her dreadfully.”

Biddy was the wisest of girls, and she tried to reason no more with me. She put her hand upon my hands, one after another, and gently took them out of my hair.

“I am glad of one thing,” said Biddy, “and that is your confidence, Pip. And I am glad of another thing, and that is, that of course you know you may depend upon my keeping it.