Great Expectations

Chapter I.My father's family name being Pirrip, and my christian name Philip, myinfant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit thanPip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstoneand my sister – Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never sawmy father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (fortheir days were long before the days of photographs), my first fanciesregarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from theirtombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd ideathat he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From thecharacter and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,"I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. Tofive little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which werearranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory offive little brothers of mine – who gave up trying to get a living exceedinglyearly in that universal struggle – I am indebted for a belief I religiouslyentertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands intheir trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state ofexistence.Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within as the river wound,twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of theidentity of things, seems to me to have been gained on a memorable rawafternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain, thatthis bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that PhilipPirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, weredead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, andRoger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; andthat the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykesand mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes;and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distantsavage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea; and that thesmall bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, wasPip."Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from amongthe graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil,or I'll cut your throat!"A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man withno hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. Aman who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed bystones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; wholimped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered inhis head as he seized me by the chin."Oh! Don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in terror. "Pray don't do it,sir.""Tell us your name!" said the man. "Quick!""Pip, sir.""Once more," said the man, staring at me. "Give it mouth!"