Close to the end now

Herbert and Pip are devising a plan to get Magwitch out of London. Pip says he doesn't want the money (to Herbert), and Magwitch has told his life tale of how he ended up as he has, a wanted man. Pip goes to speak to Estella in London, she is at Havisham's. Pip goes there, has an encounter with Drummles, then when he sees Estella he finds out that she is going to marry Drummles, and never returned any of Pip's affection. Havisham begins to show signs of having a soul. Estella's only response to Pip is that he will have her out of his thoughts in a week, as if forgetting someone you loved constantly from the first day you met could be so easily done. Pip responds, "Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since - on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in  the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. ...to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. ...you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may."-Dickens, Charles Great Expectations, chapter 44.

Pip ends up leaving Havisham's and walking straight back to London. When he arrives at the gate, he receives a handwritten note from Wemmick warning him not to go home.

Oh, and during the Estella encounter, Pip attempts to arrange with Havisham that she favor Herbert, and begin to support him anonymously, since Pip is planning on denouncing all aid from Magwitch and will no longer be able to do it himself. Pip is also having more stirrings of conscience. (Oh, and we find out that it was the same scoundrel that betrayed both Havisham and Magwitch, leaving her broken at the altar and he a prisoner, now branded for death. He was the other prisoner captured on the marsh at the beginning of the novel.)

Pip finally meets his benefactor

A dark, dreary night, Herbert in France, Pip alone at home, attempting to read. A knock at the door, a stranger enters, eventually we find it is the convict that Pip helped to free when he was a child. Magwitch. A wanted man in England, made his fortune abroad, made it all with the thought of making Pip into a gentleman. His life is in danger being in London, but he wanted to see what became of his work.  Pip is repulsed. Pip is full of regret and self-loathing over thoughts of how Havisham really was using him for amusement, that there is no agreement for him and Estella, and most of all for his ruined relationships with Joe and Biddy because in his fullness of his own new stature (from his "expectations") he believed himself to be better than his old life, and that Joe and Biddy were people he could cast off in order to impress Estella. Now he knows he was wrong, but feels there is no chance to right the wrongs he has done. He goes outside to get a light and bumps into someone crouching on the stairs, but is unable to find out whom this might be. Magwitch is being followed, it seems.

Chickens come home to roost

With Wemmick's help, Pip secretly arranges a business partnership for Herbert.

Estella and Pip. Pip is often called upon to visit Estella. It is a familiarity without intimacy, she uses him to torment and attract other suitors, of which she has many. Again, he laments that he was never happy in her society, and yet imagines that he can only be happy with her "unto death" meaning marriage. She, to her credit, actually tries to warn Pip off of his devotion to her, but he refuses. In time, they go and visit Havisham. Estella and Havisham have their first disagreement. Estella remains unmoved throughout, Havisham almost goes to madness.  She has raised Estella since a very young child to be cold-hearted, Estella calmly states, to the passionately bitter Havisham, that everything she is and has is due to Miss Havisham. And there was never any love, and Estella does not have any love within her to offer.  She has become what Havisham has taught her to be. Pip leaves the room.  Later, he cannot sleep and walking outside encounters Miss Havisham wandering and muttering to herself. This is the only row between the two. Later, it is as if it never happened.

Estella then gets involved with Pip's enemy Drummles, whom he refers to as "the spider." Pip is tortured by this, and speaks to her of it. She asks him, "Do you want me then...to deceive and entrap you?" Which is what she is capable of offering, and is offering to Drummles.

And this reminds me of a conversation I had at the bus stop last night, with someone I used to share a house with.  He had moved away a couple times but had come back to Seattle.  I commented that Seattle was a hard city, that it was like falling over yourself to gain the affection of someone not able or willing to offer it, and yet you keep coming back for more. I have no desire to be anywhere else. And yet, while there is always enough: food, casual affection (not to be mistaken for love), money, talent, etc. to survive, it's not enough to thrive. And is that all that life is about? Are we only born to survive and reproduce, or should our lives be more? Don't just say "oh, you're lucky...it could be worse." When in truth, it could be so much better, and that would benefit everyone.