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DOMBEY AND SON
DOMBEY AND SON CHARLES DICKENS CONTENTS
1. Dombey and Son
2. In which Timely Provision is made for an Emergency that
will sometimes arise in the best-regulated Families
3. In which Mr Dombey as a Man and a Father is seen at the
Head of the Home-Department
4. In which some more First Appearances are made on the
Stage of these Adventures
5. Paul's Progress and Christening
6. Paul's Second Deprivation
7. A Bird's-eye Glimpse of Miss Tox's Dwelling-place; also
of the State of Miss Tox's Affections
8. Paul's further Progress Growth and Character
9. In which the Wooden Midshipman gets into Trouble
10. Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman's Disaster
11. Paul's Introduction to a New Scene
12. Paul's Education
13. Shipping Intelligence and Office Business
14. Paul grows more and more Old-fashioned and goes Home
for the holidays
15. Amazing Artfulness of Captain Cuttle and a new Pursuit
for Walter Gay
16. What the Waves were always saying
17. Captain Cuttle does a little Business for the Young people
18. Father and Daughter
19. Walter goes away
20. Mr Dombey goes upon a journey
21. New Faces
22. A Trifle of Management by Mr Carker the Manager
23. Florence solitary and the Midshipman mysterious
24. The Study of a Loving Heart
25. Strange News of Uncle Sol
26. Shadows of the Past and Future
27. Deeper shadows
28. Alterations
29. The Opening of the Eyes of Mrs Chick
30. The Interval before the Marriage
31. The Wedding
32. The Wooden Midshipman goes to Pieces
33. Contrasts
34. Another Mother and Daughter
35. The Happy Pair
36. Housewarming
37. More Warnings than One
38. Miss Tox improves an Old Acquaintance
39. Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle Mariner
40. Domestic Relations
41. New Voices in the Waves
42. Confidential and Accidental
43. The Watches of the Night
44. A Separation
45. The Trusty Agent
46. Recognizant and Reflective
47. The Thunderbolt
48. The Flight of Florence
49. The Midshipman makes a Discovery
50. Mr Toots's Complaint
51. Mr Dombey and the World
52. Secret Intelligence
53. More Intelligence
54. The Fugitives
55. Rob the Grinder loses his Place
56. Several People delighted and the Game Chicken disgusted
57. Another Wedding
58. After a Lapse
59. Retribution
60. Chiefly Matrimonial
61. Relenting
62. Final
CHAPTER 1.
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.
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