The publication of "Dombey and Son" began in October, 1846,
and the story was completed in twenty monthly parts at one
shilling each, the last number being issued in April, 1848.
Its success was striking and immediate, the sale of its first
number exceeding that of "Martin Chuzzlewit" by more than
12,000 copies--a remarkable thing considering the immense
superiority of "Chuzzlewit." "Dombey and Son," indeed, is by
no means one of Dickens's best books; though little Paul will
always retain the sympathies of the reader, and the story of
his short life for ever move us with its pathos. The
popularity of "Dombey and Son" provoked an impudent
publication called "Dombey and Daughter," which was started in
January, 1847, and was issued monthly at a penny. Two stage
versions of "Dombey" appeared--in London in 1873, and in New
York in 1888, but in neither case was the adaptation
particularly successful. "What are the wild waves saying?" was
made the subject of a song--a duet--which at one time was
widely sung, but is now, happily forgotten.
_I.--Dombey and Son_
Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great armchair by
the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket-bedstead.
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 somewhat crushed and spotted in his
general effect, as yet.
"The house will once again, Mrs. Dombey," said Mr. Dombey, "be not only
in name, but in fact, Dombey and Son; Dombey and Son! He will be
christened Paul, Mrs. Dombey, of course!"
The sick lady feebly echoed, "Of course," and closed her eyes again.
"His father's name, Mrs. Dombey, and his grandfather's! I wish his
grandfather were alive this day." And again he said "Dombey and Son" in
exactly the same tone as before, and then went downstairs to learn what
that fashionable physician, Dr. Parker Peps, had to say, for Mrs. Dombey
lay very weak and still.
"Dombey and Son"--those three words conveyed the 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.
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. But
such idle talk never reached the ears of Mr. Dombey. Dombey and Son
often dealt in hides, never in hearts. 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 commonsense.
One drawback only could be admitted. Until the present day there had
been no issue--to speak of. There had been a girl some six years before,
a child who now crouched by her mother's bed, unobserved. But what was
that girl to Dombey and Son?
"Nature must be called upon to make a vigorous effort in this instance!"
said Doctor Parker Peps, referring to Mrs. Dombey.
Mrs. Chick, Mr. Dombey's married sister, emphasised this opinion.
"Now my dear Paul," said Mrs. Chick, "you may rest assured that there is
nothing wanting but an effort on Fanny's part."
They returned to the sick-room and its stillness. In vain Mrs. Chick
exhorted her sister-in-law to make an effort; no sound came in answer
but the loud ticking of Mr. Dombey's watch and Dr. Parker Pep's watch,
which seemed in the silence to be running a race.
"Fanny!" said Mrs. Chick, "Only look at me. Only open your eyes to show
me that you hear and understand me."
Still no answer. Mrs. Dombey lay motionless, clasping her little
daughter to her breast.
"Mamma!" cried the child, sobbing aloud. "Oh, dear mamma!"
Thus clinging fast to that slight spar within her arms, the mother
drifted out upon the dark and unknown sea that rolls round all the
world.
Mr. Dombey, in the days to come, could not forget that closing scene--
that he had had no part in it; that he had stood a mere spectator while
those two figures lay clasped in each other's arms. His previous
feelings of indifference towards his little daughter Florence changed
into an uneasiness of an extraordinary kind. He had never conceived an
aversion to her; it had not been worth his while or in his humour. But
now he was ill at ease about her. He read nothing in her glance, when he
saw her later in the solemn house, of the passionate desire to run
clinging to him, and the dread of a repulse; the pitiable need in which
she stood of some assurance and encouragement. He saw nothing of this.
_II.--Mrs. Pipchin's_
In spite of his early promise, all the vigilance and care bestowed upon
him could not make little Paul a thriving boy. There was something wan
and wistful in his look, and he had a strange, old-fashioned, thoughtful
way of sitting brooding in his miniature armchair.
The medical practitioner recommended sea-air, and Mrs. Pipchin, who
conducted an infantile boarding house of a very select description at
Brighton, and whose scale of charges was high, was entrusted with the
care of Paul's health when he was little more than five years old.
Mrs. Pipchin was a marvellous ill-favoured, ill-conditioned old lady,
with a mottled face like bad marble, a hook nose, and a hard grey eye.
It was generally said that Mrs. Pipchin was a woman of system with
children, and no doubt she was. Certainly the wild ones went home tame
enough, after sojourning for a few months beneath her hospitable roof.
At this exemplary old lady Paul would sit staring in his little armchair
by the fire for any length of time. He was not fond of her, he was not
afraid of her.
Once she asked him, when they were alone, what he was thinking about.
"You," said Paul, without the least reserve. "I'm thinking how old you
must be."
"You mustn't say such things as that, young gentleman," returned the
dame.
"Why not?" asked Paul.
"Because it's not polite!" said Mrs. Pipchin, snappishly.
"Not polite?" said Paul.
"No! And remember the story of the little boy that was gored to death by
a mad bull for asking questions!"
"If the bull was mad," said Paul, "how did _he_ know that the boy had
asked questions? Nobody can go and whisper secrets to a mad bull. I
don't believe that story."
"You don't believe it, sir?"
"No," said Paul.
"Not if it should happen to have been a tame bull, you little infidel?"
said Mrs. Pipchin.
As Paul had not considered the subject in that light, he allowed himself
to be put down for the present.
Mr. Dombey came down to Brighton every Sunday, and Florence was her
brother's constant companion.
At first, Paul got no stronger, and a little carriage was procured for
him, in which he could lie at his ease and be wheeled down to the
sea-side; there he would sit or lie for hours together; never so
distressed as by the company of children--Florence alone excepted,
always.
"Go away, if you please," he would say to any child who came up to him.
"Thank you, but I don't want you. I think you had better go and play, if
you please."
His favourite spot was quite a lonely one, far away from most loungers;
and, with Florence sitting by his side, and the wind blowing on his
face, and the water near the wheels of his bed, he wanted nothing more.
"I want to know what it says," he said once, looking steadily in her
face. "The sea, Floy, what is it that it keeps on saying?"
She told him that it was only the noise of the rolling waves.
"Yes, yes," he said. "But I know that they are always saying something.
Always the same thing. What place is over there?" He rose up, looking
eagerly at the horizon.
She told him that there was another country opposite, but he said he
didn't mean that; he meant farther away--farther away!
Very often afterwards, in the midst of their talk, he would break off,
to try to understand what it was that the waves were always saying, and
would rise up on his couch to look at that invisible region far away.
At the end of twelve months at Mrs. Pipchin's, Paul had grown strong
enough to dispense with his little carriage, though he still looked thin
and delicate.
Mr. Dombey therefore decided to remove him, not from Brighton, but to
Doctor Blimber's educational establishment. "I fear," said Mr. Dombey,
addressing Mrs. Pipchin, "that my son in his studies is behind many
children of his age. Now instead of being behind his peers, my son ought
to be before them--far before them. There is an eminence ready for him
to mount upon. The education of my son must not be delayed. It must not
be left imperfect."
Doctor Blimber only undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, and his
establishment was a great hot-house, in which there was a forcing
apparatus incessantly at work.
Florence would remain at Mrs. Pipchin's, and for the first six months
Paul would return there for the Sunday.
"Now, Paul," said Mr. Dombey exultingly, when they stood on the doctor's
doorsteps, "This is the way, indeed, to be Dombey and Son, and have
money. You are almost a man already."
"Almost," returned the child.
_III.--Doctor Blimber's Academy_
The Doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit of black, with strings at
his knees, and stockings below them. He had a bald head, highly
polished, a deep voice, and a chin so very double that it was a wonder
how he ever managed to shave into the creases.
Mrs. Blimber was not learned herself, but she pretended to be, and that
did quite as well.
As to Miss Blimber, there was no light nonsense about her. She was dry
and sandy with working in the graves of dead languages.
Mr. Feeder, B.A., Dr. Blimber's assistant, was a kind of human barrel-
organ, with a list of tunes at which he was continually working, over
and over again, without any variation.
Under the forcing system at Dr. Blimber's a young gentleman usually took
leave of his spirits in three weeks; he had all the cares of the world
on his head in three months, and he conceived bitter sentiments against
his parents or guardians in four.
The doctor was sitting in his study when Mr. Dombey and Paul arrived.
"And how do you do, sir?" he said to Mr. Dombey. "And how is my little
friend?" It seemed to Paul as if the great clock in the hall took this
up, and went on saying, "how, is, my, lit-tle friend? how, is, my,
lit-tle friend?" over and over again.