Up first: The scenic present. Here is the textbook example. I hope to post an original piece in the scenic present tomorrow ...
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In
these days before the funeral, I saw but little of Peggotty, except that, in
passing up or down stairs, I always found her close to the room where my mother
and her baby lay, and except that she came to me every night, and sat by my
bed's head while I went to sleep. A day
or two before the burial—I think it was a day or two before, but I am conscious
of confusion in my mind about that heavy time, with nothing to mark its
progress—she took me into the room. I
only recollect that underneath some white covering on the bed, with a beautiful
cleanliness and freshness all around it, there seemed to me to lie embodied the
solemn stillness that was in the house; and that when she would have turned the
cover gently back, I cried: “Oh no! oh
no!” and held her hand.
If
the funeral had been yesterday, I could not recollect it better. The very air of the best parlour, when I went
in at the door, the bright condition of the fire, the shining of the wine in
the decanters, the patterns of the glasses and plates, the faint sweet smell of
cake, the odour of Miss Murdstone's dress, and our black clothes. Mr. Chillip is in the room, and comes to speak
to me.
“And
how is Master David?” he says, kindly.
I
cannot tell him very well. I give him my
hand, which he holds in his.
“Dear
me!” says Mr. Chillip, meekly smiling, with something shining in his eye. “Our little friends grow up around us. They grow out of our knowledge, ma'am?” This is to Miss Murdstone, who makes no reply.
“There
is a great improvement here, ma'am?” says Mr. Chillip.
Miss
Murdstone merely answers with a frown and a formal bend: Mr. Chillip, discomfited, goes into a corner,
keeping me with him, and opens his mouth no more.
I
remark this, because I remark everything that happens, not because I care about
myself, or have done since I came home. And now the bell begins to sound, and Mr. Omer
and another come to make us ready. As
Peggotty was wont to tell me, long ago, the followers of my father to the same
grave were made ready in the same room.
There
are Mr. Murdstone, our neighbour Mr. Grayper, Mr. Chillip, and I. When we go out to the door, the Bearers and
their load are in the garden; and they move before us down the path, and past
the elms, and through the gate, and into the churchyard, where I have so often
heard the birds sing on a summer morning.
We
stand around the grave. The day seems
different to me from every other day, and the light not of the same colour—of a
sadder colour. Now there is a solemn
hush, which we have brought from home with what is resting in the mould; and
while we stand bareheaded, I hear the voice of the clergyman, sounding remote
in the open air, and yet distinct and plain, saying: “I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the
Lord!” Then I hear sobs; and, standing
apart among the lookers-on, I see that good and faithful servant, whom of all
the people upon earth I love the best, and unto whom my childish heart is
certain that the Lord will one day say: “Well
done.”
There
are many faces that I know, among the little crowd; faces that I knew in
church, when mine was always wondering there; faces that first saw my mother,
when she came to the village in her youthful bloom. I do not mind them—I mind nothing but my grief—and
yet I see and know them all; and even in the background, far away, see Minnie
looking on, and her eye glancing on her sweetheart, who is near me.
It
is over, and the earth is filled in, and we turn to come away. Before us stands our house, so pretty and
unchanged, so linked in my mind with the young idea of what is gone, that all
my sorrow has been nothing to the sorrow it calls forth. But they take me on; and Mr. Chillip talks to
me; and when we get home, puts some water to my lips; and when I ask his leave
to go up to my room, dismisses me with the gentleness of a woman.
All this, I say, is yesterday's
event. Events of later date have floated
from me to the shore where all forgotten things will reappear, but this stands
like a high rock in the ocean.
I knew that Peggotty would come
to me in my room. The Sabbath stillness
of the time (the day was so like Sunday! I have forgotten that) was suited to
us both. She sat down by my side upon my
little bed; and holding my hand, and sometimes putting it to her lips, and
sometimes smoothing it with hers, as she might have comforted my little
brother, told me, in her way, all that she had to tell concerning what had
happened.
—from Chapter 9 (I Have A Memorable Birthday) of The Personal History and Experience of David
Copperfield by Charles Dickens
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