‘Because it does you good,’ said the lady of the caravan4, ‘when you’re tired, to sleep as long as ever you can, and get the fatigue5 quite off; and that’s another blessing6 of your time of life — you can sleep so very sound.’
‘Have you had a bad night, ma’am?’ asked Nell.
‘I seldom have anything else, child,’ replied Mrs Jarley, with the air of a martyr7. ‘I sometimes wonder how I bear it.’
Remembering the snores which had proceeded from that cleft8 in the caravan in which the proprietress of the wax-work passed the night, Nell rather thought she must have been dreaming of lying awake. However, she expressed herself very sorry to hear such a dismal9 account of her state of health, and shortly afterwards sat down with her grandfather and Mrs Jarley to breakfast. The meal finished, Nell assisted to wash the cups and saucers, and put them in their proper places, and these household duties performed, Mrs Jarley arrayed herself in an exceedingly bright shawl for the purpose of making a progress through the streets of the town.
‘The wan10 will come on to bring the boxes,’ said Mrs Jarley, and you had better come in it, child. I am obliged to walk, very much against my will; but the people expect it of me, and public characters can’t be their own masters and mistresses in such matters as these. How do I look, child?’
Nell returned a satisfactory reply, and Mrs Jarley, after sticking a great many pins into various parts of her figure, and making several abortive11 attempts to obtain a full view of her own back, was at last satisfied with her appearance, and went forth12 majestically13.
The caravan followed at no great distance. As it went jolting14 through the streets, Nell peeped from the window, curious to see in what kind of place they were, and yet fearful of encountering at every turn the dreaded15 face of Quilp. It was a pretty large town, with an open square which they were crawling slowly across, and in the middle of which was the Town–Hall, with a clock-tower and a weather-cock. There were houses of stone, houses of red brick, houses of yellow brick, houses of lath and plaster; and houses of wood, many of them very old, with withered16 faces carved upon the beams, and staring down into the street. These had very little winking18 windows, and low-arched doors, and, in some of the narrower ways, quite overhung the pavement. The streets were very clean, very sunny, very empty, and very dull. A few idle men lounged about the two inns, and the empty market-place, and the tradesmen’s doors, and some old people were dozing19 in chairs outside an alms-house wall; but scarcely any passengers who seemed bent20 on going anywhere, or to have any object in view, went by; and if perchance some straggler did, his footsteps echoed on the hot bright pavement for minutes afterwards. Nothing seemed to be going on but the clocks, and they had such drowzy faces, such heavy lazy hands, and such cracked voices that they surely must have been too slow. The very dogs were all asleep, and the flies, drunk with moist sugar in the grocer’s shop, forgot their wings and briskness21, and baked to death in dusty corners of the window.
Rumbling22 along with most unwonted noise, the caravan stopped at last at the place of exhibition, where Nell dismounted amidst an admiring group of children, who evidently supposed her to be an important item of the curiosities, and were fully23 impressed with the belief that her grandfather was a cunning device in wax. The chests were taken out with all convenient despatch24, and taken in to be unlocked by Mrs Jarley, who, attended by George and another man in velveteen shorts and a drab hat ornamented25 with turnpike tickets, were waiting to dispose their contents (consisting of red festoons and other ornamental26 devices in upholstery work) to the best advantage in the decoration of the room.
They all got to work without loss of time, and very busy they were. As the stupendous collection were yet concealed27 by cloths, lest the envious28 dust should injure their complexions29, Nell bestirred herself to assist in the embellishment of the room, in which her grandfather also was of great service. The two men being well used to it, did a great deal in a short time; and Mrs Jarley served out the tin tacks31 from a linen32 pocket like a toll-collector’s which she wore for the purpose, and encouraged her assistants to renewed exertion33.
While they were thus employed, a tallish gentleman with a hook nose and black hair, dressed in a military surtout very short and tight in the sleeves, and which had once been frogged and braided all over, but was now sadly shorn of its garniture and quite threadbare — dressed too in ancient grey pantaloons fitting tight to the leg, and a pair of pumps in the winter of their existence — looked in at the door and smiled affably. Mrs Jarley’s back being then towards him, the military gentleman shook his forefinger34 as a sign that her myrmidons were not to apprise35 her of his presence, and stealing up close behind her, tapped her on the neck, and cried playfully ‘Boh!’
‘What, Mr Slum!’ cried the lady of the wax-work. ‘Lot! who’d have thought of seeing you here!’
‘‘Pon my soul and honour,’ said Mr Slum, ‘that’s a good remark. ‘Pon my soul and honour that’s a wise remark. Who would have thought it! George, my faithful feller, how are you?’
George received this advance with a surly indifference36, observing that he was well enough for the matter of that, and hammering lustily all the time.
‘I came here,’ said the military gentleman turning to Mrs Jarley — ‘‘pon my soul and honour I hardly know what I came here for. It would puzzle me to tell you, it would by Gad37. I wanted a little inspiration, a little freshening up, a little change of ideas, and — ‘Pon my soul and honour,’ said the military gentleman, checking himself and looking round the room, ‘what a devilish classical thing this is! by Gad, it’s quite Minervian.’
‘It’ll look well enough when it comes to be finished,’ observed Mrs Jarley.
‘Well enough!’ said Mr Slum. ‘Will you believe me when I say it’s the delight of my life to have dabbled38 in poetry, when I think I’ve exercised my pen upon this charming theme? By the way — any orders? Is there any little thing I can do for you?’
‘It comes so very expensive, sir,’ replied Mrs Jarley, ‘and I really don’t think it does much good.’
‘Hush! No, no!’ returned Mr Slum, elevating his hand. ‘No fibs. I’ll not hear it. Don’t say it don’t do good. Don’t say it. I know better!’
‘I don’t think it does,’ said Mrs Jarley.
‘Ha, ha!’ cried Mr Slum, ‘you’re giving way, you’re coming down. Ask the perfumers, ask the blacking-makers, ask the hatters, ask the old lottery-office-keepers — ask any man among ’em what my poetry has done for him, and mark my words, he blesses the name of Slum. If he’s an honest man, he raises his eyes to heaven, and blesses the name of Slum — mark that! You are acquainted with Westminster Abbey, Mrs Jarley?’
‘Yes, surely.’
‘Then upon my soul and honour, ma’am, you’ll find in a certain angle of that dreary39 pile, called Poets’ Corner, a few smaller names than Slum,’ retorted that gentleman, tapping himself expressively40 on the forehead to imply that there was some slight quantity of brain behind it. ‘I’ve got a little trifle here, now,’ said Mr Slum, taking off his hat which was full of scraps41 of paper, ‘a little trifle here, thrown off in the heat of the moment, which I should say was exactly the thing you wanted to set this place on fire with. It’s an acrostic — the name at this moment is Warren, and the idea’s a convertible42 one, and a positive inspiration for Jarley. Have the acrostic.’
‘I suppose it’s very dear,’ said Mrs Jarley.
‘Five shillings,’ returned Mr Slum, using his pencil as a toothpick. ‘Cheaper than any prose.’
‘I couldn’t give more than three,’ said Mrs Jarley.
‘— And six,’ retorted Slum. ‘Come. Three-and-six.’
Mrs Jarley was not proof against the poet’s insinuating43 manner, and Mr Slum entered the order in a small note-book as a three-and-sixpenny one. Mr Slum then withdrew to alter the acrostic, after taking a most affectionate leave of his patroness, and promising44 to return, as soon as he possibly could, with a fair copy for the printer.
As his presence had not interfered45 with or interrupted the preparations, they were now far advanced, and were completed shortly after his departure. When the festoons were all put up as tastily as they might be, the stupendous collection was uncovered, and there were displayed, on a raised platform some two feet from the floor, running round the room and parted from the rude public by a crimson46 rope breast high, divers47 sprightly48 effigies49 of celebrated50 characters, singly and in groups, clad in glittering dresses of various climes and times, and standing51 more or less unsteadily upon their legs, with their eyes very wide open, and their nostrils52 very much inflated53, and the muscles of their legs and arms very strongly developed, and all their countenances54 expressing great surprise. All the gentlemen were very pigeon-breasted and very blue about the beards; and all the ladies were miraculous55 figures; and all the ladies and all the gentlemen were looking intensely nowhere, and staring with extraordinary earnestness at nothing.
When Nell had exhausted56 her first raptures57 at this glorious sight, Mrs Jarley ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and the child, and, sitting herself down in an arm-chair in the centre, formally invested Nell with a willow58 wand, long used by herself for pointing out the characters, and was at great pains to instruct her in her duty.
‘That,’ said Mrs Jarley in her exhibition tone, as Nell touched a figure at the beginning of the platform, ‘is an unfortunate Maid of Honour in the Time of Queen Elizabeth, who died from pricking59 her finger in consequence of working upon a Sunday. Observe the blood which is trickling60 from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle of the period, with which she is at work.’
All this, Nell repeated twice or thrice: pointing to the finger and the needle at the right times: and then passed on to the next.
‘That, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Mrs Jarley, ‘is jasper Packlemerton of atrocious memory, who courted and married fourteen wives, and destroyed them all, by tickling61 the soles of their feet when they were sleeping in the consciousness of innocence62 and virtue63. On being brought to the scaffold and asked if he was sorry for what he had done, he replied yes, he was sorry for having let ’em off so easy, and hoped all Christian64 husbands would pardon him the offence. Let this be a warning to all young ladies to be particular in the character of the gentlemen of their choice. Observe that his fingers are curled as if in the act of tickling, and that his face is represented with a wink17, as he appeared when committing his barbarous murders.’
When Nell knew all about Mr Packlemerton, and could say it without faltering65, Mrs Jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the thin man, the tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of dancing at a hundred and thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the woman who poisoned fourteen families with pickled walnuts66, and other historical characters and interesting but misguided individuals. And so well did Nell profit by her instructions, and so apt was she to remember them, that by the time they had been shut up together for a couple of hours, she was in full possession of the history of the whole establishment, and perfectly67 competent to the enlightenment of visitors.
Mrs Jarley was not slow to express her admiration68 at this happy result, and carried her young friend and pupil to inspect the remaining arrangements within doors, by virtue of which the passage had been already converted into a grove69 of green-baize hung with the inscription70 she had already seen (Mr Slum’s productions), and a highly ornamented table placed at the upper end for Mrs Jarley herself, at which she was to preside and take the money, in company with his Majesty71 King George the Third, Mr Grimaldi as clown, Mary Queen of Scots, an anonymous72 gentleman of the Quaker persuasion73, and Mr Pitt holding in his hand a correct model of the bill for the imposition of the window duty. The preparations without doors had not been neglected either; a nun74 of great personal attractions was telling her beads75 on the little portico76 over the door; and a brigand77 with the blackest possible head of hair, and the clearest possible complexion30, was at that moment going round the town in a cart, consulting the miniature of a lady.
It now only remained that Mr Slum’s compositions should be judiciously78 distributed; that the pathetic effusions should find their way to all private houses and tradespeople; and that the parody79 commencing ‘If I know’d a donkey,’ should be confined to the taverns80, and circulated only among the lawyers’ clerks and choice spirits of the place. When this had been done, and Mrs Jarley had waited upon the boarding-schools in person, with a handbill composed expressly for them, in which it was distinctly proved that wax-work refined the mind, cultivated the taste, and enlarged the sphere of the human understanding, that indefatigable81 lady sat down to dinner, and drank out of the suspicious bottle to a flourishing campaign.
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1
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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caravan
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| n.大蓬车；活动房屋 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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6
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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abortive
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| adj.不成功的，发育不全的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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majestically
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| 雄伟地； 庄重地； 威严地； 崇高地 | |
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jolting
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| adj.令人震惊的 | |
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dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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16
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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17
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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18
winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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19
dozing
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| v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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briskness
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| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
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rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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23
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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24
despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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25
ornamented
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| adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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26
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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27
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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envious
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| adj.嫉妒的，羡慕的 | |
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complexions
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| 肤色( complexion的名词复数 )； 面色； 局面； 性质 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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31
tacks
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| 大头钉( tack的名词复数 )； 平头钉； 航向； 方法 | |
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32
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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33
exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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35
apprise
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| vt.通知，告知 | |
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36
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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gad
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| n.闲逛；v.闲逛 | |
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38
dabbled
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| v.涉猎( dabble的过去式和过去分词 )；涉足；浅尝；少量投资 | |
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39
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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40
expressively
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| ad.表示(某事物)地；表达地 | |
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41
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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42
convertible
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| adj.可改变的，可交换，同意义的；n.有活动摺篷的汽车 | |
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43
insinuating
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| adj.曲意巴结的，暗示的v.暗示( insinuate的现在分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
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44
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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45
interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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46
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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47
divers
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| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
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48
sprightly
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| adj.愉快的，活泼的 | |
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49
effigies
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| n.（人的）雕像，模拟像，肖像( effigy的名词复数 ) | |
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50
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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51
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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52
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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53
inflated
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| adj.（价格）飞涨的；（通货）膨胀的；言过其实的；充了气的v.使充气（于轮胎、气球等）( inflate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）膨胀；（使）通货膨胀；物价上涨 | |
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54
countenances
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| n.面容( countenance的名词复数 )；表情；镇静；道义支持 | |
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55
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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56
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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57
raptures
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| 极度欢喜( rapture的名词复数 ) | |
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58
willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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59
pricking
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| 刺，刺痕，刺痛感 | |
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60
trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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61
tickling
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| 反馈，回授，自旋挠痒法 | |
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62
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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63
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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64
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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66
walnuts
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| 胡桃（树）( walnut的名词复数 )； 胡桃木 | |
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67
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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68
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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69
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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70
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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71
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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72
anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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73
persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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74
nun
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| n.修女，尼姑 | |
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75
beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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76
portico
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| n.柱廊，门廊 | |
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77
brigand
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| n.土匪，强盗 | |
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judiciously
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| adv.明断地，明智而审慎地 | |
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79
parody
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| n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文 | |
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80
taverns
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| n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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81
indefatigable
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| adj.不知疲倦的，不屈不挠的 | |
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