Dombey and Son
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Dombey and Son
by Charles Dickens
Contents
CHAPTER I. Dombey and Son
CHAPTER II. In which Timely Provision is made for an Emergency that will sometimes arise in the best-regulated Families
CHAPTER III. In which Mr Dombey, as a Man and a Father, is seen at the Head of the Home-Department
CHAPTER IV. In which some more First Appearances are made on the Stage of these Adventures
CHAPTER V. Paul’s Progress and Christening
CHAPTER VI. Paul’s Second Deprivation
CHAPTER VII. A Bird’s-eye Glimpse of Miss Tox’s Dwelling-place: also of the State of Miss Tox’s Affections
CHAPTER VIII. Paul’s Further Progress, Growth and Character
CHAPTER IX. In which the Wooden Midshipman gets into Trouble
CHAPTER X. Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman’s Disaster
CHAPTER XI. Paul’s Introduction to a New Scene
CHAPTER XII. Paul’s Education
CHAPTER XIII. Shipping Intelligence and Office Business
CHAPTER XIV. Paul grows more and more Old-fashioned, and goes Home for the Holidays
CHAPTER XV. Amazing Artfulness of Captain Cuttle, and a new Pursuit for Walter Gay
CHAPTER XVI. What the Waves were always saying
CHAPTER XVII. Captain Cuttle does a little Business for the Young People
CHAPTER XVIII. Father and Daughter
CHAPTER XIX. Walter goes away
CHAPTER XX. Mr Dombey goes upon a Journey
CHAPTER XXI. New Faces
CHAPTER XXII. A Trifle of Management by Mr Carker the Manager
CHAPTER XXIII. Florence solitary, and the Midshipman mysterious
CHAPTER XXIV. The Study of a Loving Heart
CHAPTER XXV. Strange News of Uncle Sol
CHAPTER XXVI. Shadows of the Past and Future
CHAPTER XXVII. Deeper Shadows
CHAPTER XXVIII. Alterations
CHAPTER XXIX. The Opening of the Eyes of Mrs Chick
CHAPTER XXX. The interval before the Marriage
CHAPTER XXXI. The Wedding
CHAPTER XXXII. The Wooden Midshipman goes to Pieces
CHAPTER XXXIII. Contrasts
CHAPTER XXXIV. Another Mother and Daughter
CHAPTER XXXV. The Happy Pair
CHAPTER XXXVI. Housewarming
CHAPTER XXXVII. More Warnings than One
CHAPTER XXXVIII. Miss Tox improves an Old Acquaintance
CHAPTER XXXIX. Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner
CHAPTER XL. Domestic Relations
CHAPTER XLI. New Voices in the Waves
CHAPTER XLII. Confidential and Accidental
CHAPTER XLIII. The Watches of the Night
CHAPTER XLIV. A Separation
CHAPTER XLV. The Trusty Agent
CHAPTER XLVI. Recognizant and Reflective
CHAPTER XLVII. The Thunderbolt
CHAPTER XLVIII. The Flight of Florence
CHAPTER XLIX. The Midshipman makes a Discovery
CHAPTER L. Mr Toots’s Complaint
CHAPTER LI. Mr Dombey and the World
CHAPTER LII. Secret Intelligence
CHAPTER LIII. More Intelligence
CHAPTER LIV. The Fugitives
CHAPTER LV. Rob the Grinder loses his Place
CHAPTER LVI. Several People delighted, and the Game Chicken disgusted
CHAPTER LVII. Another Wedding
CHAPTER LVIII. After a Lapse
CHAPTER LIX. Retribution
CHAPTER LX. Chiefly Matrimonial
CHAPTER LXI. Relenting
CHAPTER LXII. Final
PREFACE OF 1848
PREFACE OF 1867
CHAPTER I.
Dombey and Son
Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by
the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead,
carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and
close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin,
and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new.
Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about
eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and though
a handsome well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance, to be
prepossessing. Son was very bald, and very red, and though (of course)
an undeniably fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty in his general
effect, as yet. On the brow of Dombey, Time and his brother Care had
set some marks, as on a tree that was to come down in good
time—remorseless twins they are for striding through their human
forests, notching as they go—while the countenance of Son was crossed
with a thousand little creases, which the same deceitful Time would
take delight in smoothing out and wearing away with the flat part of
his scythe, as a preparation of the surface for his deeper operations.
Dombey, exulting in the long-looked-for event, jingled and jingled the
heavy gold watch-chain that depended from below his trim blue coat,
whereof the buttons sparkled phosphorescently in the feeble rays of the
distant fire. Son, with his little fists curled up and clenched,
seemed, in his feeble way, to be squaring at existence for having come
upon him so unexpectedly.
“The House will once again, Mrs Dombey,” said Mr Dombey, “be not only
in name but in fact Dombey and Son;” and he added, in a tone of
luxurious satisfaction, with his eyes half-closed as if he were reading
the name in a device of flowers, and inhaling their fragrance at the
same time; “Dom-bey and Son!”
The words had such a softening influence, that he appended a term of
endearment to Mrs Dombey’s name (though not without some hesitation, as
being a man but little used to that form of address): and said, “Mrs
Dombey, my—my dear.”
A transient flush of faint surprise overspread the sick lady’s face as
she raised her eyes towards him.
“He will be christened Paul, my—Mrs Dombey—of course.”
She feebly echoed, “Of course,” or rather expressed it by the motion of
her lips, and closed her eyes again.
“His father’s name, Mrs Dombey, and his grandfather’s! I wish his
grandfather were alive this day! There is some inconvenience in the
necessity of writing Junior,” said Mr Dombey, making a fictitious
autograph on his knee; “but it is merely of a private and personal
complexion. It doesn’t enter into the correspondence of the House. Its
signature remains the same.” And again he said “Dombey and Son,” in
exactly the same tone as before.
Those three words conveyed the one idea of Mr Dombey’s life. The earth
was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and moon were made
to give them light. Rivers and seas were formed to float their ships;
rainbows gave them promise of fair weather; winds blew for or against
their enterprises; stars and planets circled in their orbits, to
preserve inviolate a system of which they were the centre. Common
abbreviations took new meanings in his eyes, and had sole reference to
them. A. D. had no concern with Anno Domini, but stood for anno
Dombei—and Son.
He had risen, as his father had before him, in the course of life and
death, from Son to Dombey, and for nearly twenty years had been the
sole representative of the Firm. Of those years he had been married,
ten—married, as some said, to a lady with no heart to give him; whose
happiness was in the past, and who was content to bind her broken
spirit to the dutiful and meek endurance of the present. Such idle talk
was little likely to reach the ears of Mr Dombey, whom it nearly
concerned; and probably no one in the world would have received it with
such utter incredulity as he, if it had reached him. Dombey and Son had
often dealt in hides, but never in hearts. They left that fancy ware to
boys and girls, and boarding-schools and books. Mr Dombey would have
reasoned: That a matrimonial alliance with himself _must_, in the
nature of things, be gratifying and honourable to any woman of common
sense. That the hope of giving birth to a new partner in such a House,
could not fail to awaken a glorious and stirring ambition in the breast
of the least ambitious of her sex. That Mrs Dombey had entered on that
social contract of matrimony: almost necessarily part of a genteel and
wealthy station, even without reference to the perpetuation of family
Firms: with her eyes fully open to these advantages. That Mrs Dombey
had had daily practical knowledge of his position in society. That Mrs
Dombey had always sat at the head of his table, and done the honours of
his house in a remarkably lady-like and becoming manner. That Mrs
Dombey must have been happy. That she couldn’t help it.
Or, at all events, with one drawback. Yes. That he would have allowed.
With only one; but that one certainly involving much. With the drawback
of hope deferred. That hope deferred, which, (as the Scripture very
correctly tells us, Mr Dombey would have added in a patronising way;
for his highest distinct idea even of Scripture, if examined, would
have been found to be; that as forming part of a general whole, of
which Dombey and Son formed another part, it was therefore to be
commended and upheld) maketh the heart sick. They had been married ten
years, and until this present day on which Mr Dombey sat jingling and
jingling his heavy gold watch-chain in the great arm-chair by the side
of the bed, had had no issue.
—To speak of; none worth mentioning. There had been a girl some six
years before, and the child, who had stolen into the chamber
unobserved, was now crouching timidly, in a corner whence she could see
her mother’s face. But what was a girl to Dombey and Son! In the
capital of the House’s name and dignity, such a child was merely a
piece of base coin that couldn’t be invested—a bad Boy—nothing more.
Mr Dombey’s cup of satisfaction was so full at this moment, however,
that he felt he could afford a drop or two of its contents, even to
sprinkle on the dust in the by-path of his little daughter.
So he said, “Florence, you may go and look at your pretty brother, if
you like, I daresay. Don’t touch him!”
The child glanced keenly at the blue coat and stiff white cravat,
which, with a pair of creaking boots and a very loud ticking watch,
embodied her idea of a father; but her eyes returned to her mother’s
face immediately, and she neither moved nor answered.
“Her insensibility is as proof against a brother as against every thing
else,” said Mr Dombey to himself He seemed so confirmed in a previous
opinion by the discovery, as to be quite glad of it.”
Next moment, the lady had opened her eyes and seen the child; and the
child had run towards her; and, standing on tiptoe, the better to hide
her face in her embrace, had clung about her with a desperate affection
very much at variance with her years.
“Oh Lord bless me!” said Mr Dombey, rising testily. “A very ill-advised
and feverish proceeding this, I am sure. Please to ring there for Miss
Florence’s nurse. Really the person should be more care-”
“Wait! I—had better ask Doctor Peps if he’ll have the goodness to step
upstairs again perhaps. I’ll go down. I’ll go down. I needn’t beg you,”
he added, pausing for a moment at the settee before the fire, “to take
particular care of this young gentleman, Mrs ——”
“Blockitt, Sir?” suggested the nurse, a simpering piece of faded
gentility, who did not presume to state her name as a fact, but merely
offered it as a mild suggestion.
“Of this young gentleman, Mrs Blockitt.”
“No, Sir, indeed. I remember when Miss Florence was born—”
“Ay, ay, ay,” said Mr Dombey, bending over the basket bedstead, and
slightly bending his brows at the same time. “Miss Florence was all
very well, but this is another matter. This young gentleman has to
accomplish a destiny. A destiny, little fellow!” As he thus
apostrophised the infant he raised one of his hands to his lips, and
kissed it; then, seeming to fear that the action involved some
compromise of his dignity, went, awkwardly enough, away.
Doctor Parker Peps, one of the Court Physicians, and a man of immense
reputation for assisting at the increase of great families, was walking
up and down the drawing-room with his hands behind him, to the
unspeakable admiration of the family Surgeon, who had regularly puffed
the case for the last six weeks, among all his patients, friends, and
acquaintances, as one to which he was in hourly expectation day and