Quotation from: Great Expectations

Written by: Charles Dickens


I lay in that separate building across the court-yard. It was the
first time I had ever lain down to rest in Satis House, and sleep
refused to come near me. A thousand Miss Havishams haunted me. She
was on this side of my pillow, on that, at the head of the bed, at
the foot, behind the half-opened door of the dressing-room, in the
dressing-room, in the room overhead, in the room beneath -
everywhere. At last, when the night was slow to creep on towards
two o'clock, I felt that I absolutely could no longer bear the
place as a place to lie down in, and that I must get up. I
therefore got up and put on my clothes, and went out across the
yard into the long stone passage, designing to gain the outer
court-yard and walk there for the relief of my mind. But, I was no
sooner in the passage than I extinguished my candle; for, I saw
Miss Havisham going along it in a ghostly manner, making a low cry.
I followed her at a distance, and saw her go up the staircase. She
carried a bare candle in her hand, which she had probably taken
from one of the sconces in her own room, and was a most unearthly
object by its light. Standing at the bottom of the staircase, I
felt the mildewed air of the feast-chamber, without seeing her open
the door, and I heard her walking there, and so across into her own
room, and so across again into that, never ceasing the low cry.
After a time, I tried in the dark both to get out, and to go back,
but I could do neither until some streaks of day strayed in and
showed me where to lay my hands. During the whole interval,
whenever I went to the bottom of the staircase, I heard her
footstep, saw her light pass above, and heard her ceaseless low
cry.

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