The tale opens abruptly with an opium-bred vision of the tower of
Cloisterham Cathedral, beheld by Jasper as he awakens in the den of the
Princess Puffer, between a Chinaman, a Lascar, and the hag herself. This
Cathedral tower, thus early and emphatically introduced, is to play a
great but more or less mysterious part in the romance: that is certain.
Jasper, waking, makes experiments on the talk of the old woman, the
Lascar and Chinaman in their sleep. He pronounces it “unintelligible,”
which satisfies him that his own babble, when under opium, must be
unintelligible also. He is, presumably, acquainted with the languages of
the eastern coast of India, and with Chinese, otherwise, how could he
hope to understand the sleepers? He is being watched by the hag, who
hates him.
Jasper returns to Cloisterham, where we are introduced to the Dean, a
nonentity, and to Minor Canon Crisparkle, a muscular Christian in the
pink of training, a classical scholar, and a good honest fellow. Jasper
gives Edwin a dinner, and gushes over “his bright boy,” a lively lad,
full of chaff, but also full of confiding affection and tenderness of
heart. Edwin admits that his betrothal is a bore: Jasper admits that he
loathes his life; and that the church singing “often sounds to me quite
devilish,”—and no wonder. After this dinner, Jasper has a “weird
seizure;” “a strange film comes over Jasper’s eyes,” he “looks
frightfully ill,” becomes rigid, and admits that he “has been taking
opium for a pain, an agony that sometimes overcomes me.” This “agony,”
we learn, is the pain of hearing Edwin speak lightly of his love, whom
Jasper so furiously desires. “Take it as a warning,” Jasper says, but
Edwin, puzzled, and full of confiding tenderness, does not understand.
In the next scene we meet the school-girl, Rosa, who takes a walk and has
a tiff with Edwin. Sir Luke Fildes’s illustration shows Edwin as “a lad
with the bloom of a lass,” with a _classic profile_; _and a gracious head
of long_, _thick_, _fair hair_, long, though we learn it has just been
cut. He wears a soft slouched hat, and the pea-coat of the period.