Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens, Sintesi del corso di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! Oliver Twist Oliver is born in a workhouse in a small town about 70 miles from London, England in the early part of the 19th century. His mother dies almost immediately after his birth. Nobody knows who she was, but the doctor notices that she wasn't wearing a wedding ring (scandalous!). Oliver is brought up at a "child farm" in the country until he is about eight years old. At this point, the parish officials running the child farm decide it’s time for him to start working, and they send him back to the workhouse. But Oliver commits the unpardonable offense of asking for more food when he is close to starving, so the parish officials offer five pounds (a pretty good amount of money) to anyone who’s willing to take Oliver on as an apprentice. The parish officials eventually send Oliver off with a coffin-maker. At the coffin-maker’s shop, Oliver isn’t treated much better than he was at the workhouse or the child farm. The coffin-maker, Mr. Sowerberry, isn’t so bad, but his wife, Mrs. Sowerberry, and the other apprentice, Noah Claypole, have it in for Oliver from the start. Oliver gets in trouble for knocking Noah down (he totally had it coming). After being abused some more, Oliver decides to set out for London on foot. When he’s almost there, he runs into an odd-looking young man named Jack Dawkins (better known as The Artful Dodger). The Dodger buys him lunch and offers to introduce him to a "gentleman" in London who will give him a place to stay. Once in London, it quickly becomes clear to the reader (but not to Oliver) that the Dodger and his friends are an unsavory bunch. The old "gentleman," Fagin, trains kids to be pickpockets, and then he sells off what they steal. But Oliver doesn’t realize what’s up until he’s actually out with the Dodger and another one of the boys, named Charley Bates. Oliver sees the pair steal the pocket handkerchief out of a nice-looking old man's pocket. When Oliver turns to run away, the nice-looking old man sees him run and yells, "stop, thief!" Oliver is tackled in the street, but by then the nice old man (his name is Mr. Brownlow) has taken a better look at him. He realized that Oliver looks too sweet and innocent (and terrified) to be a pickpocket. In fact, Oliver isn’t so much a pick-pocket as he is a very sick little boy. So Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver home and cares for him until he’s well. Unfortunately. Fagin, the Dodger, Nancy (a prostitute), and Bill Sikes (another criminal) are worried that Oliver will rat them out to the police, so they keep a watch on Brownlow’s house. One day, when Brownlow entrusts Oliver with some money and an errand to run in the city, Fagin and the criminals nab the poor kid once again. Nancy feels guilty and steps in to defend Oliver when Fagin tries to smack him around. Fagin keeps Oliver shut up in a dreary old house for weeks, all the while still trying to turn him into a criminal. How long can a nine-year-old hold out? Not long afterwards, Bill Sikes and another thief say they need a small boy to help them break into a house outside of London; Fagin volunteers Oliver. The plan goes awry when the servants of the house wake up and catch Oliver in the act of sneaking in. The servants don’t realize that Oliver is there against his will, and was actually about to wake up the household to warn them about the robbers. So poor Oliver takes a bullet and is left behind when the rest are all running away. Fortunately, Oliver is picked up by the people who shot him, a family that turns out to be as nice as Mr. Brownlow. They become Oliver’s caretakers. Meanwhile, Fagin is at his wits’ end wondering what happened to Oliver. He lets slip that a mysterious man named Monks offered to pay him hundreds of pounds to corrupt the young boy. Nancy pretends not to know what’s going on, but secretly resolves to help Oliver, and to figure out why Monks is so keen on having Oliver turn to crime. While Fagin and the criminals distress, Oliver learns to read and write with his new friends, the Maylies. He's also reunited with his first friend, Mr. Brownlow. Fagin and his gang are still trying to track Oliver down. Monks has managed to get hold of – and destroy – one of the few surviving tokens of Oliver’s parentage. Nancy finds out about it and gets in touch with Rose Maylie to warn her about Monks’s plot with Fagin. Unfortunately for Nancy, Bill Sikes (her lover) finds out about it and brutally murders her. Sikes tries to escape, but he’s haunted by what he’s done. Eventually, he's killed while trying to escape from the police: he falls off a rooftop while he’s trying to lower himself down, and inadvertently hangs himself. Meanwhile, Mr. Brownlow has managed to find Monks. Mr. Brownlow was an old friend of Monks’s father and knows all about him. As it turns out, Monks is actually the older half-brother of Oliver, and was trying to corrupt Oliver so that he’d secure the entire family inheritance himself. Monks chooses to admit to everything rather than face the police. Oliver ends up with what’s left of his inheritance, is legally adopted by Mr. Brownlow, and lives down the road from the Maylies. Everybody lives happily ever after. Except for Fagin, who is arrested and hanged, and Monks, who dies in prison. Oliver Twist Chapter 1 "Treats of the Place Where Oliver Twist Was Born, and of the Circumstances Attending his Birth" • It’s a short first chapter, and gets right to the point: the scene is a small town in England, and the novel opens in the early nineteenth century (it was published in 1839, but takes place a little bit before – probably in the late 1820s or so). • Oliver is born in a workhouse in a town called Mudfog (in other editions, that don’t use Dickens’s original text, the town isn’t named), and is described as a "new burden upon the parish" (1.1). (For more about what a "parish" is, check out the "What’s Up with the Title" section). • After kissing Oliver with "cold white lips," Oliver’s mother dies, leaving her son all alone and at the mercy of the parish authorities. doesn’t make Oliver all that enthusiastic about the funeral profession – especially since Mr. Sowerberry seems to take it all in stride. • The funeral itself is even more depressing: Oliver, the husband, and the mother are the only people there (Mr. Sowerberry hangs out with Mr. Bumble and the church’s clerk indoors, where it’s nice and toasty warm). The minister is over an hour late, and keeps them waiting in the rain in the graveyard. Once he arrives, he babbles out the funeral service in "four minutes," and then runs off again without trying to comfort the husband or offer to help his family. Cemetery space was at a premium in those days, so poor people had to share graves – the coffin was plopped into a grave that was already so full of other coffins that hers was only a couple of feet below the surface. • When Oliver admits to Mr. Sowerberry that he didn’t like the funeral at all, Mr. Sowerberry assures him that he’ll get used to it in time. Oliver isn’t so sure. Oliver Twist Chapter 6 "Oliver, Being Goaded by the Taunts of Noah, Rouses into Action, and Rather Astonishes him" • Business is good for Mr. Sowerberry. Of course, this means that a lot of people are dying, which isn’t really a good thing. But Oliver is getting a lot of experience attending funerals, because Mr. Sowerberry wants Oliver to "acquire that equanimity of demeanor […] so essential to a finished undertaker" (6.1). In other words, he wants Oliver to become as cold and business-like as he is, himself. • Oliver observes a lot of hypocrisy in his new role as an undertaker’s apprentice: he sees how people who have just lost a family member will act inconsolable in public, but will chat cheerfully with friends behind closed doors. Of course, Oliver never uses the word "hypocritical" – Dickens describes these scenes from Oliver’s point of view, and Oliver’s still too innocent to judge people. In fact, Dickens says that Oliver sees all of this "with great admiration." • Noah, in the last month, has become more jealous of Oliver than ever, and Charlotte treats him badly because Noah does. And because Oliver is a favorite of Mr. Sowerberry, Mrs. Sowerberry (who loves to contradict her husband) mistreats him, as well. • At this point, Dickens stops filling us in on how things are going in general, and gets down to a specific incident: Noah starts tormenting Oliver one day when they’re alone in the kitchen, and he chooses to make fun of Oliver’s (dead) mother. Big mistake. • When Noah calls Oliver’s mother "a right-down bad ’un," Oliver goes nuts on him, overturns a table, starts throttling him, and finishes by punching him in the face. • Unsurprisingly, Noah’s too big a wimp to stand up to Oliver (even though Oliver’s a lot smaller than he is), and starts whimpering for Charlotte and Mrs. Sowerberry to come to his rescue. • Charlotte arrives and starts beating on Oliver from one side, while Mrs. Sowerberry holds his other arm and scratches at his face. Now that reinforcements have arrived, Noah plucks up the courage to start punching Oliver in the back. This scene is another one of the illustrations by Cruikshank – check it out. • Once his assailants have worn themselves out, they lock Oliver in the cellar, and Mrs. Sowerberry goes into hysterics. • Since Mr. Sowerberry isn’t at home, Mrs. Sowerberry sends Noah off to fetch Mr. Bumble. Oliver Twist Chapter 7 "Oliver Continues Refractory" • Noah arrives at the workhouse and dramatically complains to Mr. Bumble that Oliver has almost murdered him. • When he sees the gentleman in the white waistcoat walk by, he starts wailing even louder. (Kind of like certain professional athletes who collapse writhing in front of referees, trying to get a foul called.) • Noah gets the foul called: the gentleman in the white waistcoat repeats his prophecy that Oliver will grow up to be hanged, and sends Mr. Bumble to the Sowerberrys’ house to beat Oliver into submission. • When Mr. Bumble arrives, Oliver’s still so angry that he’s not even afraid of Mr. Bumble. • Mr. Bumble tells Mrs. Sowerberry that she’s overfed Oliver, and that’s why he’s plucked up the courage to stand up to Noah and is unafraid of Mr. Bumble. His solution is to starve Oliver for a few days so that he won’t have the energy to fight back when they let him out of the cellar. • When Mr. Sowerberry gets back, his wife’s exaggerations of Oliver’s crimes force him to punish the boy, even though he probably wouldn’t have wanted to without his wife’s pushing. • Oliver spends the rest of the day shut up in the back kitchen, and finally is ordered up to bed. • After crying for a while, Oliver stands up and leaves the house. He’s not sure where he’s going to go, but his first stop is Mrs. Mann’s baby farm. • Oliver stops in front of the gate and sees one of his former playmates and fellow-sufferer, Dick. • Since Dick is the only one up, Oliver risks staying for a few minutes to say goodbye before leaving "to seek my fortune some long way off." • Oliver tries to assure Dick that they’ll meet again sometime, but Dick says no – they’ll only meet again after he’s dead. What an optimistic guy. Apparently the doctor thinks that poor little Dick won’t be long for this world, and Dick hugs Oliver, blesses him, and sends him on his way. Oliver Twist Chapter 8 "Oliver Walks to London, and Encounters on the Road a Strange Sort of Young Gentleman" • Oliver is at the very edge of town, and it is now eight in the morning. He’s so afraid of being caught by the parish authorities or the Sowerberrys that he runs, dodging between hedges, until noon. • Oliver stops to rest by a milestone (like a Victorian road sign) that says that he is 70 miles from London. • Oliver remembers having heard about London from the old men at the workhouse, and decides it’s "the very place for a homeless boy, who must die in the streets unless some one helped him" (8.2). • Oliver walks five miles before stopping to take stock of his supplies: he only has a crust of bread, an extra shirt, two spare pairs of stockings (socks, basically), and a penny, and he now has 65 miles more to go. He walks twenty miles that day, and only eats the crust of bread he has with him, and spends the night under a hay-rick in a meadow. • He wakes up so hungry that he has to spend his only penny on a loaf of bread, and he’s so tired from the events of the last few days that he’s only able to walk twelve miles that day. • He tries to beg from some people on the outside of a stagecoach (this was before the railway, so the only way to get from city to city was by stagecoach). But they ignore him. • Some folks threaten to set their dogs on him for begging, some assume he’s planning to steal from them, and some towns have signs up saying that anyone begging within the city limits will be sent to jail. • The only two people who have any compassion on poor Oliver are two poor people who can't really afford to – a turnpike-man (think of him as a Victorian tollbooth worker), and an old lady who is reminded of her own lost grandson when she sees Oliver. • After a week of walking from his hometown, Oliver arrives at the town of Barnet (a small village ten miles north of London). • He arrives at sunrise, but "the light only seemed to show the boy his own lonesomeness and desolation as he sat with bleeding feet and covered with dust upon a cold door-step" (8.9). • As the town wakes up, passersby seem suspicious of him, but don’t offer him any help. • A boy notices Oliver sitting there, and after looking at him for a while, comes over and says, "Hullo! My covey, what’s the row?" • Before translating this odd speech for his readers, Dickens backs up to describe the boy: he’s about Oliver’s age, but swaggers around like a full-grown man, and wears grown-up clothes with the sleeves and legs turned up. • He asks Oliver some more questions that Oliver doesn’t understand ("Beak’s order, eh?") and his explanations aren’t much more clear than the original. • We will now interrupt this program for another Historical Context Lesson: The reason we don’t understand this boy’s speech is because it’s in cant, or criminals’ slang, so neither Oliver nor the reader is likely to understand it. So don’t worry – it’s not just you. Oliver doesn’t understand criminal cant, either, and Dickens doesn’t expect us to. Check out the "Overview" section for more on crime novels (a.k.a. "Newgate novels"). For now, suffice to say that all the novelists who were writing about crime liked to work some criminal slang into their novels to spice things up a bit, and make it seem like they really knew how criminals communicated. Did criminals really talk like that in the nineteenth century? Hard to say – you’ll hear different answers from different people. In any case, the mix of Oliver’s innocence and the Dodger’s slang is pretty hilarious. • Back to the story. After some more misunderstandings, the young man (who still hasn’t introduced himself) offers to buy Oliver some food, which Oliver obviously accepts. • As he eats, he tells the boy that he’s going to London. The boy asks if he knows where he’s going to stay, or if he has any money. When Oliver answers "no" to both, the boy says that he knows of a "genelman" in London who will give Oliver a place to stay "for nothink," so long as Oliver is introduced by this boy. • Of course Oliver can’t say no to an offer like this – he’s been sleeping outside for a week, and it’s the middle of winter. • The boy introduces himself as "Jack Dawkins," but he’s more often known as "the artful Dodger" (which is how we’ll be referring to him from now on). • Oliver decides that the Dodger is probably not a very moral person, and decides that he’ll avoid spending much time with him in the future if that turns out to be true. • They arrive in London after eleven o’clock at night, and pass through a dirty neighborhood to a tiny alley called Field- Lane (well known to contemporary readers to be a hideout for pickpockets). • After an exchange of secret passwords with someone in an upstairs window, the Dodger leads Oliver upstairs to a dirty room, where he introduces Oliver to "a very old shrivelled Jew." Yikes. We recommend that you go straight over to "Character Analysis" before going on to work through the anti-Semitism here. • Okay, back to the story. Besides Fagin, the room is full of various other young boys. There are a whole lot of pocket handkerchiefs spread out around the room, which Fagin tells Oliver are being sorted for the laundry. All the boys seem to find this hilarious. • After giving him a dinner of sausage, they give him a tumbler of gin and water. Even watered down, you can imagine the effect of that much liquor on a small boy: he drops right off to sleep. Oliver Twist Chapter 9 "Containing Further Particulars Concerning the Pleasant Old Gentleman, and his Hopeful Pupils." • Oliver wakes up the next morning to find that he’s alone in the room with Fagin. Fagin’s making coffee for breakfast, and seems to be nervous about something – he’s continually looking around to make sure that he’s alone, besides the (apparently still sleeping) Oliver. • Oliver’s only half awake, so Fagin thinks he’s still sleeping. After checking, Fagin opens a trap door in the floor of the room and pulls out a box. • He pulls various jewels and fancy watches out of the box to admire and then put back, talking to himself all the while (remember Scrooge in A Christmas Carol? Dickens was fond of having misers in his books, apparently). • When he realizes that Oliver’s awake and has seen him, he flies into a rage, asking Oliver what he’s seen. When Oliver answers innocently that he’s only seen the pretty things in the box, Fagin pretends that his rage was all a joke, and puts down the bread knife he’s been threatening Oliver with. • Just then the Dodger comes back with one of the other boys, who is introduced as Charley Bates. The four of them sit down to a breakfast of hot rolls and coffee. • Fagin asks the Dodger and "Master Bates" (yes, we’re sure the pun was intended – ha, ha, ha) if they’d been working that morning, and the Dodger produces a couple of wallets, and Charley comes up with four handkerchiefs. • Oliver assumes that the boys have made the things they show to Fagin, and Charley laughs and calls him "green." • After breakfast, Fagin (ironically called "the merry old gentleman"), Charley, and the Dodger play a "game" – or so Dickens calls it, because that’s what it looks like to Oliver. The boys are practicing picking Fagin’s pockets (9.43). • Two young ladies arrive, named Bet and Nancy. They’re described from Oliver’s point of view as "free and agreeable in their manners," and "stout and hearty," so Oliver assumes that they are "very nice girls indeed" (9.44). • After drinking some liquor (what is it now, maybe 10 or 11 in the morning?), Fagin gives the girls some money, and they go out, accompanied by the Dodger and Charley. • Fagin tells Oliver to "make ’em your models," and then plays the pickpocket game with Oliver. • The chapter ends with Oliver learning how to "take the marks out of the handkerchiefs" – in other words, he’s learning how to pull the embroidered initials out of handkerchiefs so that they can be resold at a pawnshop (fancy handkerchiefs were expensive, and relatively easy to steal). Oliver Twist Chapter 10 "Oliver Becomes Better Acquainted with the Characters of his New Associates, and Purchases Experience at a High Price. Being a Short but Very Important Chapter in this History" • Oliver spends the next eight or ten days shut up in Fagin’s room – picking the marks out of the handkerchiefs that the other boys bring back, and sometimes joining the "game" of practicing picking pockets (wow, try saying that ten times fast). • Oliver is getting cabin fever – he wants to go outside with the others. Of course, he doesn’t know what they’re up to. All he knows is that Fagin seems to value hard work: whenever one of the boys comes back empty-handed, Fagin totally loses it, and Oliver still doesn’t realize that the boys aren’t making the stuff they bring back, they’re stealing it. His innocence would be kind of funny if it weren’t so sad – after all, he’s only eight or nine years old at this point (depending on the edition you’re reading – Dickens changed his age slightly when he edited later versions. It’s not that we forgot how old Oliver is). • Finally Fagin allows Oliver to go out with the Dodger and "Master Bates." (Yes, Dickens still thinks it’s funny and, honestly? So do we.) • Oliver still thinks they’re going to be teaching him how to make things: he wonders "what branch of manufacture he would be instructed in first" (10.4). • Oliver notices that the Dodger has a bad habit of pulling little kids’ hats over their eyes and pushing them over, and that Charley (we’re going to have to call him that from now on, so that we can all stop giggling) keeps stealing apples from fruit vendors. He’s about to say something about their bad behavior when they stop and point at an "old cove" by a book- seller. • The "old cove" is a "respectable-looking" "old gentleman" who is totally absorbed in the book he’s reading at the bookseller’s stand. He’s totally oblivious to anything going on around him. • Oliver stares at Charley and the Dodger in shocked silence, basically with his mouth hanging open, while the Dodger and Charley sidle up to him and slip his handkerchief out of his pocket, and then slip around the corner. This is another one of the totally awesome illustrations by Cruikshank. Check it out if you haven’t already. • Everything strikes Oliver at once, and suddenly he realizes where all the handkerchiefs (and everything else, including Fagin’s watches) have been coming from. His automatic response is to run away, and he hightails it down the street. • But Oliver runs away more noisily than the other boys, and it snaps the old guy out of his book. He immediately notices that his handkerchief is gone (don’t ask how he noticed so fast; apparently a pocket handkerchief was like an extra appendage for any respectable person in the nineteenth century). • We’re back with Oliver at Mr. Brownlow’s house, now. Oliver has recovered from his fainting-fit, and wakes to see that Mr. Brownlow has taken the portrait out of his room entirely. Mrs. Bedwin explains that it’s because seeing the portrait got him over-excited, and Oliver doesn’t argue. • To avoid talking about the portrait, Mrs. Bedwin launches into a looooong description of her children, and their children, and how dutiful they all are. Then she teaches him how to play cribbage (it’s a board game – you move little pegs around the board. People still play it, believe it or not, and it’s actually kind of fun). • Now that Oliver’s better, Mr. Brownlow thinks it’s time for Oliver to have a new suit of clothes. Oliver takes his old clothes and sells them to a used-clothing salesman (like taking them to Goodwill, or selling them to a resale shop), and gives the money to a servant who’s been nice to him. • Mr. Brownlow asks to see Oliver in his study, and after Mrs. Bedwin has fussed over his collar for a few minutes, Oliver goes. • Mr. Brownlow sees how curious Oliver is about all of the books in his study, so they have a brief conversation about whether Oliver might want to read them all (Mr. Brownlow says some of them aren’t worth the effort), or whether Oliver would want to write a book himself one day. Oliver says he’d much rather be a book-seller than an author. • Mr. Brownlow then turns more serious, and basically tells Oliver that he’s been disappointed in people many, many times, but that he trusts Oliver. He hopes that telling Oliver how many times he’s been crushed by disappointment will keep Oliver from hurting him again. No pressure, Oliver! • Just as Oliver has finished crying (Mr. Brownlow’s speech was, after all, a tearjerker), and is just starting to tell his story to Mr. Brownlow, they are interrupted by a servant, who announces that Mr. Grimwig has arrived. • Mr. Grimwig comes into the room and is clearly in a bad mood – he says it’s because he tripped on some orange peel in the stairway, and says that orange peel will be the death of him, or he’ll "eat his own head." That seems to be a favorite expression of his. • Mr. Brownlow calms Mr. Grimwig down on the subject of orange peels, and introduces him to Oliver. • Mr. Grimwig might have been inclined to like Oliver, but the orange peel has put him out and he refuses to acknowledge anything good about Oliver until Oliver has proven himself. • An opportunity for Oliver to prove himself presents itself almost immediately: a pile of books is delivered from the bookseller we met in chapter ten, but not all of them were paid for, and some need to be returned. • Mr. Brownlow is just as eager for Oliver to prove himself to Mr. Grimwig as Oliver is, so he sends Oliver out on the errand, with a stack of books to return, and a five pound note (quite a lot of money) and instructions to bring back the change. • Mr. Grimwig bets that Oliver won’t come back, but will make off with the books and the money and go back to the thieves, and Mr. Brownlow insists that he’ll be back within twenty minutes. • They set the watch on the table and watch the minutes tick by, but Oliver doesn’t come back. Oliver Twist Chapter 15 "Shewing How Very Fond of Oliver Twist, the Merry Old Jew and Miss Nancy Were" • The chapter opens with a lengthy digression – Dickens starts out by describing (in detail) how he’s NOT going to talk about the kinds of people who don’t help the poor, and the reasons they make up to defend themselves, and he spends so much time telling us exactly WHAT he’s not going to tell us about, that by the end, he has. • And then we’re back in a public house with Bill Sikes and his dog. • Sikes is clearly preoccupied about something, and decides to take it out on the dog, so he kicks it and swears at it. • The dog grabs hold of his boot with its teeth, and so Sikes goes after it with the poker in one hand, and a pocketknife in the other. • Fagin arrives just in time for the dog to make its escape out the front door. • Sikes is angry that Fagin came between him and the dog, and Fagin tries to shrug it off. • But then Sikes tells Fagin that he wishes Fagin had been in the dog’s shoes (not that dogs wear shoes…) a few minutes before. Fagin doesn’t think it’s a very funny joke, but then, Sikes probably wasn’t joking. • Sikes tells Fagin that whatever happens to him, will happen to Fagin (in other words, if Sikes gets arrested, he’s ratting out Fagin). • Fagin agrees that they "have a mutual interest" (15.19), and then they get down to business. • Fagin pays Sikes a share of money (he doesn’t say what it’s for), and says that it’s more than it ought to be. • Sikes looks at the amount, and clearly disagrees. • Sikes rings a bell to call for the bartender. • Barney (who is also Jewish, Dickens takes care to inform us) comes in to take Sikes’s order. • He and Fagin exchange glances and communicate something through it that Sikes isn’t aware of. • Fagin then asks Barney if anyone else is in the main part of the bar, and Barney tells him that no one is there but "Biss Dadsy" (Barney talks like he has a bad cold, apparently) (15.32). • Sikes asks Barney to bring Nancy into the side room where they are. • He asks her how her stalking is going, and she says it’s a pain – Oliver’s been sick and confined to the house, so she hasn’t made much headway. • Fagin cuts her off in the middle of her story, as though he doesn’t want Sikes to know too much about it. • So Nancy changes the subject, and eventually heads out with Sikes. • Oliver, meanwhile, is off on his errand to deliver the books to the bookseller, and he’s taken a wrong turn. It’s not a very wrong turn, though, and he knows it’ll get him there eventually, so he doesn’t turn around. • Too bad it’s a dark alley (if you’re an orphan and half the bad guys in the city have it in for you, you should avoid these) and too bad he runs into Nancy and Sikes. • Nancy’s still in her "respectable sister" costume, and as soon as she sees Oliver she starts crying over him and pretending that he’s her little lost brother who ran away from home a month ago. • She’s persuasive enough that everyone on the street around them starts scolding Oliver for being a bad boy, and for running away to join thieves and worrying his family like that. What a naughty boy! • Even though Oliver loudly contradicts it all, Nancy’s act is better than his – everyone thinks he’s just trying to lie because he’s a hardened criminal and he wants to get back to his gang of thieves. • So Nancy and Sikes drag Oliver back into the bad neighborhood they’d just come from, while Mrs. Bedwin, Mr. Brownlow, and Mr. Grimwig are back at the house in Pentonville wondering what’s become of him. Oliver Twist Chapter 16 "Relates What Became of Oliver Twist, After He Had Been Claimed by Nancy" • Oliver, Sikes, and Nancy arrive in an open court, and Sikes tells Oliver to take Nancy’s hand on one side, and his on the other. • Then Sikes tells the dog to go for Oliver’s throat if he makes any sound at all. The dog looks like it’s tempted to jump on him whether he makes a sound or not. Oliver decides not to risk it. • Oliver has no idea where they’re going. • Turns out they’re in Smithfield (the livestock market and slaughterhouse, which was in the middle of the city and was typically and predictably filthy with animal poo, guts, and blood – kind of gross, huh?), and Smithfield is right by Newgate, the main prison for felons. • The clock tolls 8pm, and Nancy stops to listen. • Sikes tries to hurry her on, but she seems transfixed by the idea of what’s going on inside the walls of Newgate – people she probably knows are in there and condemned to die. • Sikes is jealous of her sympathy for the guys in the prison, and tries to hurry her on again, saying that the people in there were as good as dead, anyway. • Nancy tells him that if it were him in there, awaiting execution, she’d walk round and round the place and never leave it. • Nancy’s trying to be romantic, but that’s not Sikes’s style: he says that walking around the place wouldn’t do any good, and that if he were locked up in there, all he’d want her to do would be to smuggle him a file and a rope so that he could break out. • Nancy pretends to laugh, but Oliver sees that her face is very pale. • They eventually arrive in another narrow little street full of used-clothing stores. • They signal with a bell outside a house that looks empty from the outside, and a voice Oliver recognizes tells them from the window that Fagin’s there. • Of course, it’s the Artful Dodger who lets them in and fetches a candle. • Charley’s there, too, and finds Oliver’s appearance in his fancy new clothes to be just too funny for words. • While Charley’s laughing, the Dodger is going through Oliver’s pockets, and eventually comes up with the five-pound note. • Fagin and Sikes argue over it briefly, and Sikes ends up with it – after all, he and Nancy are the ones who found the kid. • Oliver begs them to give the money and the books back to Mr. Brownlow, because he’s afraid Brownlow will think he stole them. • Fagin agrees: that’s exactly what Brownlow will think, and he couldn’t have planned it any better himself. • Oliver is so desperate that he makes a break for it, shrieking. • Fagin, Charley, and the Dodger run out after him, but Nancy, unexpectedly, hangs onto Sikes and begs him to keep the dog off of Oliver. • By the time Sikes manages to throw Nancy off, Fagin and the two boys have come back, dragging Oliver. • When they ask Nancy what the matter is, she’s clearly pissed about something. • Fagin pretends to think she’s faking it, and turns his attention back to Oliver, and is about to smack him good, when Nancy races forward to stop him. She actually throws his club into the fire. • She defends him, and says "Let him be – let him be, or I shall put that mark on some of you that will bring me to the gallows before my time!" (16.69). • Fagin can no longer pretend that Nancy’s not really mad, and looks to Sikes to calm her down. • Sikes threatens and curses her, and asks her if she knows "who you are, and what you are?" (16.75). (We can only assume he’s calling her a whore, but Dickens still hasn’t come out and said that she’s a prostitute – see "Character Analysis" for more about Nancy). • Then Nancy goes off on how Fagin turned her into a thief when she was half Oliver’s age, and has kept her at it for twelve years (okay, math: if she started when she was half Oliver’s age, that would be at four or five years old, and if she’s been at it for twelve years, that would make her sixteen or seventeen now. Got it). • She’s gotten herself so hopping mad at Fagin, now, that she attacks him – but Sikes steps in, struggles with her a bit, and then she faints. • Sikes, Charley, Fagin, and the Dodger seem to think that scenes like that one, although not all that fun to watch or be a part of, are just a natural part of business. • Charley takes Oliver to his bed, with instructions to make him change out of his good clothes. • Oliver’s sad to see his own old set of clothes, which he thought he’d parted with forever, on the bed waiting for him – apparently Fagin bought them off of the used clothing guy. Oliver Twist Chapter 17 "Oliver’s Destiny Continuing Unpropitious, Brings a Great Man to London to Injure his Reputation" • This chapter opens with another digression like the one starting Chapter Fifteen, but this time, Dickens is explaining that going back and forth from tragedy and suspense to comedy and more mundane stuff is just part of good story-telling, and that real life is like that, anyway. • So the real action of the chapter begins a few paragraphs in, with Mr. Bumble (Remember him? The beadle who likes to smack orphans with his beadle cane?) arriving at Mrs. Mann’s baby farm. • Mrs. Mann asks him how he’s doing, just to be polite, and Mr. Bumble is conceited enough to think that she actually cares, so he tells her: "A porochial [he means "parochial," or working for the parish] life […] is a life of worry, and vexation, and hardihood; but all public characters, as I may say, must suffer prosecution (um, we assume he meant to say "persecution")" (17.12). • After more pompous speechifying, Mr. Bumble tells Mrs. Mann that he has to travel to London to deal with a "legal action" that is "coming on about a settlement," and he’ll need to "depose to the matter before the quarter-sessions at Clerkinwell" (17.18). Okay, that wasn’t at all clear – basically, there are a couple of paupers who want to be supported by Mr. Bumble’s parish, but there’s some argument as to whose parish they belong to (remember, the parish only has to look after the poor people who were born there, so if you can’t prove where you were born, you’re kind of screwed). So Mr. Bumble has to travel to London to prove in court that his parish won’t have to take care of these two poor people. • Mrs. Mann seems shocked that Mr. Bumble’s planning on traveling by coach (which is closed to the weather, and faster) instead of an open cart, since he’s traveling with the two paupers (and they don’t usually spend any money on comforts for the poor people if they can help it). • But apparently the rival parish is paying for the coach, because the two paupers are close to dying, and they’ve calculated that it will be cheaper to move them (i.e., to the court by coach) than to bury them. • Mr. Bumble then pays Mrs. Mann her salary, and asks how the orphans are. • She says they’re all just fine – except the two who died last week, and little Dick (remember him?) who still isn’t well. • Mr. Bumble seems to feel insulted that Dick is sick, as though it’s an insult to the whole parish. • Dick comes into the room, and asks if someone can write down a note for him, to be given to Oliver after he dies. • Mr. Bumble is astonished, and asks for an explanation. • Dick says he wants to tell Oliver how much he’s thought of him, and cried at the idea of poor Oliver wandering around in the cold by himself, and how he’s happy to die young because then he and his dead sister will get to be children together in heaven. • Mr. Bumble is shocked at this depressing speech from someone who has, he thinks, so much cause for gratitude, and blames it all on Oliver for "demoralizing" the other kids. • So of course Dick gets locked in the coal cellar as punishment. • Mr. Bumble goes on to London, and when they’ve stopped for the night, he notices an advertisement in the paper, asking for information about Oliver Twist and offering a reward of five guineas. • Nancy seems to read his mind, and tells him that if he ever does manage to escape, it won’t be tonight, and that she’s already been beaten for taking his side, but it hasn’t done any good. She promises that she’ll try to help him, but that if he runs away tonight they’d kill her, and that whatever they make him do, it won’t be his fault. • So Oliver gives up thinking about escape for the time being, puts his hand in hers, and away they go. • Outside, they jump into a carriage, and drive off. Nancy warns Oliver about Sikes just as Fagin had. • When they get to Sikes’s house, he’s tempted to call for help in the street, but he remembers that Nancy will get beaten and maybe killed if he does. • When Nancy tells Sikes that Oliver came along without complaining or trying to run away, Sikes says it’s a good thing, or he’d have smacked him around. • Then Sikes gives him a lecture with a pistol as a visual aid – he tells Oliver that when they’re out, Oliver had better not speak unless he’s spoken to, or he’ll get a bullet in the head. • Nancy steps out and brings back dinner (mmm…sheep's heads). Maybe it’s the porter, and maybe it’s because he’s about to go break into a house, but Sikes seems to be in a good mood for a change. • After dinner, Sikes goes to bed, telling Nancy to wake him up at 5am. Oliver goes to sleep on the floor. • The next morning, Nancy wakes them both up, and they grab a quick breakfast before heading out. • Sikes gives Oliver a cloak to throw over his clothes. • As they leave, Oliver looks back to Nancy for some parting look or word of advice, but she’s just sitting motionless by the fire. Oliver Twist Chapter 21"The Expedition" • It’s rainy at 5am when Sikes and Oliver set out, and the "kennels" are overflowing (21.1). (FYI, kennels were open gutters/sewers that ran through the streets. So it was pretty gross when they overflowed.) • London is just starting to wake up now, and farmers are coming in with their vegetables and things, and laborers are going to work. • As they approach the main part of the city, everything is bustling. • They cut across Smithfield (which, if you’ll recall from Chapter Sixteen, is the livestock market and slaughterhouse), and it’s market day, so Smithfield is particularly gross – it’s full of farm animals, blood, filth, and general nastiness. And it’s really, really noisy, as you can imagine. • They pass west across the city towards Hyde Park (it’s really far, even if you don’t have legs as short as Oliver’s.) and finally hitch a ride on the back of somebody’s cart. They continue west-southwest through London and pass outside of the city on the cart, and then hop off at a pub near a crossroads. • They keep on walking, with only the occasional break for beer. • Finally they take a dinner break, and stay long enough that Oliver falls asleep at the table. • He’s woken up by a shove from Sikes, because they’re going to catch a ride for the next leg of their trip from a guy with a horse and cart who’s going their direction. • It’s seven o’clock, and already cold and dark when they’re in the cart. • They finally arrive at a dilapidated old house outside the small town of Shepperton, and they go in. Oliver Twist Chapter 22 "The Burglary" • Bill Sikes and Oliver walk into the old house, and are greeted in the dark by Toby Crackit, who throws things at the sleeping Barney until he wakes up enough to light a candle. • Toby is wearing fancy-looking but cheaply-made clothes, and is stretched out on a table, smoking a long pipe. • Oliver is quickly introduced to Toby. • The men sit down to a small supper, and have a drink of some liquor to toast success to their plan. • Toby and Sikes make Oliver have half a glass, too, which makes him cough terribly. • The three men stretch out for a short nap before they go to work, but Oliver can’t really sleep. • They get up at about 1:30am, and put on heavy, long coats and shawls that partially hide their faces, and load up their gear – most of which is listed in thieves’ cant, so it’s hard to tell exactly what they’re taking. Some of it Dickens translates, though – "barkers" are the pistols, and "bits of timber" are thick sticks. • Oliver’s pretty out of it with the all the walking and the booze they made him drink, so he hardly knows what’s going on as they take him out between them. • They hurry through the main street of the town, even though it’s unlikely anyone would be awake to see them (it’s foggy and dark). • They go up to a house about a quarter mile outside of the town. • Toby climbs over the wall quickly, and then Sikes hands Oliver over the wall before climbing over himself. • Now Oliver realizes for the first time (he’s not very quick) that they’re about to rob the house, if not murder people. • Oliver’s horrified, and cries out to Sikes to let him run off, and promises that he’ll never go back to London. • Sikes is about to shoot him, when Toby knocks the pistol out of his hand and slaps a hand over Oliver’s mouth to keep him quiet, and tells him to hush, or he’ll kill him by bopping him on the head, which is a quieter way to do the same thing. • Most of the windows of the house are barred, but there’s one in a back kitchen that isn’t – Sikes and Toby pull off its shutter with the crowbar, and then the lattice so that the window is wide open. • Sikes gives Oliver a "dark lantern" (one that doesn’t throw light very far, or very brightly), and tells Oliver what he has to do: go straight up the stairs in the room, down the hall to the front door, and unlock it. • They pass him through the window, and Sikes points the pistol at Oliver’s head. • They think they hear something, but Sikes sends Oliver ahead anyway. • Oliver’s decided that he’s going to make an effort to wake the family up to warn them, so he starts sneaking forward. • Just then, Sikes calls him to come back. • Oliver drops his lantern, and another light appears in the hallway ahead of him. • There’s a loud noise and a flash (that’s how Oliver perceives it) and he staggers backward. • (Check out the Cruikshank illustration to this scene.) • Sikes shoots his pistol from the window after the men (who are already retreating back up the stairs), and then drags Oliver back out the window. • He realizes that Oliver’s been hit, so he wraps him in a shawl and runs off with him. Oliver Twist Chapter 23 "Which Contains the Substance of a Pleasant Conversation Between Mr. Bumble and a Lady, and Shows that Even a Beadle May be Susceptible on Some Points" • The second book opens with Mrs. Corney (new character!), the matron at the workhouse where Oliver was born, making herself a comfortable cup of tea on a cold and bitter night. • She’s in the middle of reflecting on how lonely she is (she’s been a widow for twenty-five years) when there’s a knock at the door. • She assumes it’s one of the workhouse paupers, come to tell her that someone or other is dying, and she’s annoyed by it: "they always die when I’m at meals," she complains (23.7). • But it’s not a pauper, it’s Mr. Bumble. Mrs. Corney quickly changes her tone of voice. • Mr. Bumble complains about how demanding the poor people all are – even after being given bread and cheese, a man with a large family asked if he could have "a pocket-handkerchief full" of coals to make a fire (23.15). • He tells another story of a man who came looking for relief at the overseer’s house when the overseer was having a dinner party – the man hardly had any clothes on (it’s the middle of winter), and the overseer offered him a pound of potatoes and some oatmeal. The man said that the food wouldn’t save him, and that he’d go die in the streets. And that’s exactly what he did. Mr. Bumble thinks that shows how "obstinate" paupers are. • Even as he finishes telling Mrs. Corney about the man who died in the street of the cold, he pulls out two bottles of good port wine that he’s brought with him, "for the infirmary," and puts on his hat as though to go. • But then he stays when Mrs. Corney invites him to a cup of tea. • Mrs. Corney gets him a cup of tea, and asks him if he wants it sweet. • He says he wants it "very sweet," and gives her a tender look (23.31). • He eats his toast and drinks his tea in silence, until he comments on her cat and kittens. • She says that they make good companions, because they are "so happy, sofrolicsome, and so cheerful" (23.34). • Mr. Bumble uses this as an awkward way to hit on her: he says that "any cat or kitten that could live with you, ma’am, and not be fond of its home, must be an ass, ma’am" (23.37), and that he would himself "drown" any cat so ungrateful. • Mrs. Corney tells him that drowning cats is "cruel" and "hard-hearted" (we’re inclined to agree). • Mr. Bumble doesn’t argue with "cruel" but objects to "hard-hearted." • He scoots his chair away from the fire (and further from Mrs. Corney – it’s a round table). And then he scoots it again – and again – until he’s quite close to her again on the other side. • Mrs. Corney is now pinned between the fire and Mr. Bumble (see the Cruikshank illustration, if you need a visual aid to imagine this). • Mr. Bumble asks Mrs. Corney if she is "hard-hearted," and when she wants to know why he asks, he kisses her. • She threatens to scream, but then there’s a knock at the door. • This time it is a pauper, letting Mrs. Corney know that "old Sally" is dying, and has something she wants to tell Mrs. Corney before she dies. • Mrs. Corney is very put out about all this, but does get up to go, and asks Mr. Bumble to wait until she gets back. • While she’s out, Mr. Bumble goes around her room weighing and counting her silver sugar-tongs, milk pot, spoons, and examining all her furniture. Oliver Twist Chapter 24 "Treats of a Very Poor Subject, but is a Short One, and May be Found of Importance in this History" • The old lady who came to get Mrs. Corney is withered and ugly, but Dickens launches into a long explanation of why so many people are withered and ugly – it’s because they have so much to stress about, but no worries – everyone’s face looks better (i.e., less anxious) when they’re dead! • When Mrs. Corney gets to the room where the sick woman is, she meets with a young man who is the apothecary’s apprentice [note that they didn’t call a doctor, or even the real apothecary (apothecaries were the ones who mixed up medicines) – they called the apothecary’s apprentice. He’s not even licensed yet.]. • Mrs. Corney and the apothecary’s apprentice exchange pleasantries – they seem to know each other well. • They hear the old lady moan, which reminds them to check on her. The apothecary’s apprentice thinks she’s almost dead, and Mrs. Corney sits on the foot of the bed to wait it out. • The apothecary’s apprentice, meanwhile, has been making a toothpick, and starts using it. Then he gets bored, and leaves. • The old lady who had gone to get Mrs. Corney starts speaking in a low voice with the other old woman – who was also helping with the sick woman – about how "old Sally" was doing. • Mrs. Corney gets impatient, and tells the two old women not to bother her for nothing. • Just as she’s about to leave, old Sally sits up in bed and grabs hold of her arm, and says she has to tell her something, and that it’s for her ears alone (the other two women complain a lot, but finally leave the room). • Old Sally confesses that, many years ago (she doesn’t remember the year), she had attended a sick pretty young woman who had given birth to a baby and then died, and that she had robbed the woman of some gold ornament she’d had hanging around her neck. • Old Sally said that the mother told her that a day might come when her baby wouldn’t be ashamed to hear her name mentioned, and would find some friends in the world. • Mrs. Corney of course wants to know the boy’s name, and old Sally says that they called him Oliver. • And old Sally dies before she can say what the gold was, or any more about it. • Mrs. Corney leaves casually, without indicating to the two old women (who have come back in to deal with the corpse) that old Sally had said anything at all important. Oliver Twist Chapter 25 "Wherein this History Reverts to Mr. Fagin and Company" • Fagin’s back in the old den, thinking about something in front of the fire. • The Artful Dodger, Charley, and Chitling are playing whist (a game of cards usually played with four people), and the Dodger is surreptitiously looking at Chitling’s hand. • Unsurprisingly, the Dodger wins every time. • Chitling has finally had enough, and seems amazed at the Dodger’s luck. • Fagin is less amazed. • After killing time for a while, the Dodger asks Chitling why he seems so down. • Before Chitling can answer, the Dodger asks Fagin and Charley for their opinion. • Fagin diplomatically declines to answer, but Charley thinks it’s because Chitling’s in love with Betsy, and starts laughing like crazy because Chitling is in looooooove. • Fagin comforts Chitling, and says that Betsy’s "a fine girl," and that if he does as she tells him to do, he’ll be a successful thief and make his fortune. • And we’re back with Oliver again, finally. Sikes is in the middle of the chase, pausing to rest while carrying the unconscious Oliver. He can hear them coming after him. • He tries to get Toby to help carry the boy, but Toby’s only interested in looking out for himself. • Sikes reluctantly leaves Oliver in the ditch where he’d paused. He at least has the consideration to throw a cloak over him, and then runs off. • Then we start overhearing the pursuers: they pause together to discuss their plan. • Mr. Giles says he thinks they should go home, and has called back the dogs. • They all want to go back, but no one wants to take the responsibility of making the decision, so they argue about it. • They accuse each other of being frightened for a few minutes before admitting that they’re all frightened – it’s only sensible to be frightened. • They discuss their good sense all the way back to the house. • At this point we learn the names of the three men: Mr. Giles is the steward/butler at the house, and he’s the one who shot the intruder. Brittles is another servant there, and the third guy is a tinker (a traveling repairman, basically) who happened to be staying in an outhouse on the property, and so was recruited to chase the robbers. • Meanwhile, Oliver’s still lying in a ditch. He wakes up in great pain, and after a few efforts (he’s lost a lot of blood, and it’s freeeeeezing outside), he manages to get up, and start staggering. • He doesn’t know where he’s going, but figures if he lies on the cold ground much longer, he’ll die. • He reaches a road, and follows it, and eventually reaches a house. • Hmm, thinks Oliver. This house looks familiar. • He realizes it’s the house they attempted to rob the night before, and his first instinct is to run, but where’s he going to go, especially in his condition? So he staggers to the front door, gives it a hard knock or two, and then collapses on the doorstep. • Mr. Giles, meanwhile, is in the kitchen, telling the story of his exploits to the two female servants, who are listening with baited breath, while Brittles and the tinker just nod away to everything Giles says. • When they hear the knock at the door, they’re all too frightened to answer it (although none of them will admit it, besides the two female servants). Giles persuades Brittles to do it, and they all go in a pack. • They open the front door, and find a half-dead little boy. • Giles realizes it must be the robber he shot, so he drags Oliver inside and starts calling for Mrs. Maylie, the mistress of the house, to come and see. He’s obviously very proud of himself. • A young lady calls for him to be quiet, because he’ll frighten Mrs. Maylie. Without coming down herself, she asks Mr. Giles to treat the "poor fellow" kindly, if only for her sake. • Mr. Giles immediately picks up Oliver and gently carries him to a bed. Oliver Twist Chapter 29 "Has an Introductory Account of the Inmates of the House to Which Oliver Resorted" • The chapter opens in the breakfast room of the house where Oliver ended up. The two ladies are sitting and eating their breakfast, and are described for the first time: the older lady is very upright and elegant, and the young lady is around sixteen or seventeen, and very lovely. • They ask Giles how long Brittles has been gone, and Giles answers that he’d been gone for an hour or more. • They joke about how Brittles "always was a slow boy" (29.10) – it’s a joke because Brittles started out working there when he was a boy. Now he’s over 30, and they still call him a boy. • Finally a coach pulls up, and a plump, friendly gentleman hops out and starts asking Mrs. Maylie and Rose how they’re doing, after the fright of the night before. • Rose says that they’re fine, but that he should go and look after the "poor creature up stairs" (29.19). • Mr. Losberne (who’s the local doctor) heads on upstairs. We don’t get to see what goes on up there, but only see Mrs. Maylie and Rose downstairs, waiting for a long time, and looking anxious. • Finally the doctor comes back, and asks if they’d seen the thief. • They say no, and Giles (realizing that the doctor’s about to tell them that it’s only a boy, and that he probably should have mentioned that earlier), says that he was going to tell them all about it, but that Mr. Losberne had arrived just then and interrupted. • The doctor says that it is necessary that they see the thief. Oliver Twist Chapter 30 Summary Page 1 "Relates what Oliver's new visitors thought of him." (controlla) • Rose and Mrs. Maylie still don’t know that the thief is just a boy, so the doctor decides to let them look for themselves at the kind of thief they’re harboring – but only after assuring them that although the thief "hasn’t shaved in a while," he’s really not so scary. • When they get to the room, Oliver’s asleep on the bed and looking totally angelic as usual. • Rose smoothes his hair on the pillow and cries over him a bit (she’s very soft-hearted). • Rose, Mrs. Maylie, and Mr. Losberne discuss whether or not Oliver can really be a criminal. • Mr. Losberne thinks it’s possible for crime and vice to take hold of a person from a very young age, and that even though Oliver looks innocent, he might really be a hardened criminal. • Rose refuses to believe it, and begs her aunt to protect Oliver from the authorities, saying that she herself might have been an orphan all adrift in the world if Mrs. Maylie hadn’t taken care of her, so could she please, please do the same for Oliver? • Mrs. Maylie promises to, and the doctor thinks about what they can do – after all, the authorities have already been notified about the break-in, and the servants know all about it, so it will be difficult to keep Oliver from being arrested. • Mr. Losberne decides what to do, and gets Mrs. Maylie’s permission to do as he thinks proper – provided that, once they hear the boy’s story, they still think that he’s worth saving. Mrs. Maylie must really trust him, because she agrees to this, even though she doesn’t know what his plan is. • Later on in the day, Oliver wakes up, and tells his story to Rose, Mrs. Maylie, and Mr. Losberne. • They believe him, and put him to bed for the night. • Mr. Losberne goes down to the kitchen, where Mr. Giles is once again telling the story of his heroism to the other servants. • Mr. Losberne pretends to be very angry, and asks Giles and Losberne if they are Protestant – they are – and if they would be willing to swear up and down, on a stack of Bibles, that the boy they found on the doorstep that morning was the same as the boy they had shot the night before. • Mr. Giles and Brittles are so rattled by his unexpected tone of voice that they say they aren’t sure. • Just then, they hear a coach in the driveway. • Brittles says it must be the two Bow-street officers that he and Mr. Giles had sent for that morning (Bow-street officers were the detective branch of the Metropolitan police force at that point – they’ve since been replaced by Scotland Yard). • Mr. Losberne is annoyed that Giles and Brittles had sent for the officers without being asked, but he doesn’t say so, and walks out of the kitchen. Oliver Twist Chapter 30 "Involves a Critical Position" • Brittles answers the door, and the two Bow-street officers, named Duff and Blathers, come right on in and make themselves at home. Well – Blathers makes himself at home. Duff doesn’t seem to be all that comfortable in such fancy surroundings, so he’s a little more awkward. • They sit down with Mrs. Maylie, Rose, and Mr. Losberne, and Mr. Losberne tells them the whole story of the attempted robbery, and really draws it out because he’s trying to buy time. • Blathers and Duff believe that the robbery wasn’t committed by a "yokel" – i.e., it must have been someone from the city. • Then they ask about the boy, because the servants had mentioned him in connection with the robbery. • Mr. Losberne says that the boy had had nothing to do with the robbery, but that "one of the frightened servants" started the rumor that he had. • Mr. Blathers asks where the boy came from, then. • Mr. Losberne tries not to look nervous, and offers to show the officers the place where the robbers had tried to break in. • The officers agree that they had better check out the place first. • Then they ask Mr. Giles and Brittles to go through the events of the night before about six times each, and they start contradicting each other more and more, with each repetition. • Blathers and Duff deliberate for a while by themselves. • While they’re alone, Rose, Mrs. Maylie, and Mr. Losberne discuss whether or not to repeat Oliver’s story to the officers. Rose is certain that the truth of the story will get Oliver off, but Mr. Losberne isn’t convinced – he thinks that they’d arrest him because there’s no proof for any of it, except for the bad stuff. • Blathers and Duff return from inspecting the premises, and announce that the robbers had done a good job, and obviously had had a boy with them, based on the size of the window. • So of course they want to see the boy upstairs. • Mr. Losberne offers them a drink first, which they gladly accept. • As they drink, they launch into a story about a burglary their friend, Jem Spyers, had investigated. • So Blathers starts telling the story about Conkey Chickweed, and how he’d had his life savings stolen out from under his nose – • Meanwhile, Mr. Losberne steps out of the room briefly, and then returns. • – and so Chickweed was so upset he ranted for days and then hired an investigator, just to keep up appearances, but in reality (as Jem Spyers discovered), he’d robbed himself. • At the end of the story, Mr. Losberne invites them upstairs. • Oliver is too feverish at this point to answer any questions, so Mr. Losberne just points him out to the officers, and says that he was a boy who was accidentally shot by a hunting gun while trespassing on some neighbor’s property, and came to their house for help, only to be jumped on by Mr. Giles and the others because they mistook him for one of the robbers. • Mr. Giles is very confused, and ends up saying that he couldn’t swear it was the same boy, after all – in fact, he’s almost certain it isn’t. • Duff and Blathers think Giles is an idiot, so they ask Brittles. Poor Brittles has no idea anymore. • The question actually gets raised whether Mr. Giles shot anyone at all, and so they inspect his gun. • They find that it’s got powder and wadding in it, but no bullet. • (That’s what Mr. Losberne was doing when he left the room during the Jem Spyers/Conkey Chickweed story) • Finally Blathers and Duff leave, fully convinced that Oliver had nothing to do with the attempted burglary. • The chapter ends with Oliver in the "united care of Mrs. Maylie, Rose, and the kind-hearted Mr. Losberne." Oliver Twist Chapter 31 "Of the Happy Life Oliver Began to Lead with his Kind Friends" • Oliver really is sick – it isn’t just the broken arm from being shot, he also caught a nasty fever from spending the night in a ditch. • As he’s first recovering, he spends a lot of energy trying to express his gratitude to Rose and Mrs. Maylie. • He says that once he’s well, he’ll work for them (especially Rose) night and day running errands to make them happy. • She says that just getting well and being good will make her very happy. Aww. • Oliver is sad that his old friends (Mr. Brownlow and Mrs. Bedwin) don’t know how happy he is. • Mr. Losberne says that he’ll take Oliver to go see them as soon as he’s up to the journey. • So when Oliver’s well, he and Mr. Losberne set out for Pentonville in Mrs. Maylie’s carriage. • On their way there, Oliver sees a house that he thinks is the one Sikes took him to back in Book I, Chapter 21. • Mr. Losberne goes totally berserk: he jumps out of the carriage, and starts banging on the door of the house. • An ugly little man opens the door, and Mr. Losberne grabs him, and asks for Sikes. • The man doesn’t answer about Sikes, but starts yelling at Mr. Losberne (understandably, really), and backs into the house – and Mr. Losberne follows. • A quick look around the house, though, shows that it doesn’t match up with Oliver’s description of it, and the little man is insisting that he’s been living there like a hermit for twenty-five years. • Mr. Losberne figures Oliver made a mistake, and goes back to the carriage. • The little man follows, stamping his feet and yelling curses after him. • Mr. Losberne says that he’s a fool – what could he have done by himself, anyway? Arrested the thieves? Taken on Bill Sikes single-handedly? • When they get to Mr. Brownlow’s house, they find that it’s all boarded up, with a "to let" sign in the window. • They ask a servant what’s up, and find out that Mr. Brownlow, his housekeeper (Mrs. Bedwin), and his friend (Grimwig) had all set off for the West Indies together about six weeks before. • Oliver is very disappointed. • But a few weeks later, Mrs. Maylie and Rose close up the house outside of London and head to their country cottage. • It’s springtime in the country – flowers! Baby animals! Oliver loves it, and regains his health quickly. • He spends a lot of time in the country churchyard, thinking about his mother, and although he’s sad about her, it’s not painful anymore. • He presses his point for a while, and finally gets her to agree that within the next year, he’ll ask her again, and see whether or not her answer is still the same. Oliver Twist Chapter 35 "Is a Very Short One, and May Appear of no Great Importance in its Place, but it Should be Read Notwithstanding, as a Sequel to the Last, and as a Key to One that Will Follow When its Time Arrives" • Harry leaves the cottage with Mr. Losberne, who comments on the fact that Harry’s changed his mind about whether to stay or to go several times. • Harry says that he’s not hurrying away because any of the "great nobs" (i.e., rich people, including his uncle) have written to him, but because he just has to. For some reason. He doesn’t really give a definite reason. • Harry asks Oliver to write to him regularly to give him all the updates on the family (especially Rose) – and not to tell Mrs. Maylie or Rose that he’s doing so. Oliver’s happy to show off his newly acquired ability to write, so he agrees. • Mr. Losberne and Harry leave (Mr. Giles stays behind). • Rose watches them go from her window, and says that she’s pleased that Harry seems to have left in a good mood, but sighs and looks sad anyway. Oliver Twist Chapter 36 "In Which the Reader, if He or She Resort to the Fifth Chapter of This Second Book, Will Perceive a Contrast not Uncommon in Matrimonial Cases" • Mr. Bumble is sitting in the workhouse parlor, being moody. • He’s no longer the beadle – he’s now the master of the workhouse, because he married Mrs. Corney, who was the mistress of the workhouse. • He sighs to himself about it – he’s clearly unhappy – and Mrs. Corney (henceforth to be known as Mrs. Bumble) walks in and hears him. • Mr. Bumble gets in some trouble with the new Mrs. Bumble. • They have a spat, and she tries crying to get him to back down. • Tears don’t work, since Mr. Bumble actually kind of likes making people cry (it makes him feel powerful), and so instead, she smacks him around and throws things at him. That has more the desired effect – Mr. Bumble is a big coward, and runs away in defeat. • Shortly after their scuffle, Mr. Bumble is feeling the need to lord over someone, and the paupers of the workhouse are a convenient target. • Unfortunately, he goes into the workhouse to yell at the paupers doing the laundry, and finds his wife there. • She humiliates him in front of the paupers, and he runs away in shame to a nearby pub. • While having his drink there, Mr. Bumble notices a stranger who seems to be staring at him. • The stranger recognizes Mr. Bumble as the man who used to be the beadle, and asks if he remembers anything about a specific child who was born in the workhouse and ran away to London. • Of course he means Oliver, and Mr. Bumble realizes it, too. • The stranger wants to know about the old woman who nursed Oliver’s mother and helped when Oliver was born. • Mr. Bumble admits that that woman (old Sally) is dead, but that someone had been there when she died to hear a confession. • The stranger is eager to meet with that person, and Mr. Bumble agrees to bring the person to meet him the next day at nine in the evening at a rather dodgy house by the river. • At the very end of the chapter, as he is scurrying away, the stranger says that his name is "MONKS." Oliver Twist Chapter 37 "Containing an Account of What Passed Between Mr. And Mrs. Bumble and Monks at their Nocturnal Interview" • Mr. and Mrs. Bumble are walking along the river to get to a little "colony of ruinous houses" scattered by the bank (38.1). • They arrive at the agreed-upon house, and Mr. Bumble hesitates slightly. • A man appears at an upper window, and calls to them that he’ll come down to meet them. • Mrs. Bumble warns Mr. Bumble not to say too much. • Monks appears at the door and calls them inside. • He asks Mr. Bumble if the lady with him is the woman who had spoken with old Sally, and Mr. Bumble replies that it is. • They start to climb up a ladder to the second floor, when a sudden crack of thunder shakes the building. • Monks’s face distorts, and goes blank – he excuses it to Mr. Bumble by saying that it’s a fit that the thunder sometimes brings on. (In actual fact, Dickens intends Monks to have symptoms of epilepsy, although, medically speaking, he’s kind of off.) • They climb the ladder, and sit down at a table with three chairs. • Monks asks what old Sally had to say to her the night she died, and Mrs. Bumble cuts him off, asking what the information was worth to him. • After some back-and-forth (Mrs. Bumble drives a hard bargain), Monks agrees to pay twenty-five pounds in gold (as opposed to in banknotes) for the information, even though he doesn’t yet know what it is. • Mrs. Bumble leans across the table and tells Monks (and Mr. Bumble, who didn’t know the secret before this) what old Sally had confessed to her: • She was alone with old Sally when she died, and Sally told her that when Oliver’s mother had died, she had robbed the corpse, and had sold the jewel, although Oliver’s mother had begged her to keep it for the sake of the baby. • And then old Sally had died, without telling Mrs. Bumble where, when, or to whom she had sold it. Or even what it was, other than gold. • But old Sally had a slip of paper in her hand when she died: a note from a pawnbroker. • Apparently Sally had sold the jewelry to the pawnbroker, but had scraped together the interest each year so that the pawnbroker would keep it for her, rather than sell it off. • (Monks is very eager to know where the articles are now.) • Mrs. Bumble had taken the note, and had redeemed the things from the pawnbroker, and puts them on the table in a little bag. • The bag contains a gold locket, with two locks of hair inside, and a little gold wedding ring, with the name "Agnes" inscribed inside, along with the date (within a year before Oliver’s birth), but no last name. • Monks seems relieved. • Mrs. Bumble wants to know whether what she’s told him can be used against her. Monks says no, and then rapidly opens a trapdoor in the floor just in front of them. • He says that if he had wanted to, he could have opened it while they were over it (and it drops straight down into the rushing river – the house extends that far over the stream). But fortunately for them, he didn’t want to. • Then, with the Bumbles as his witnesses, Monks ties a weight to the bag with the jewelry and drops it into the stream below. • After various threatening remarks to make sure they aren’t planning to tell anyone about what they’ve seen or heard, Monks shows the Bumbles down the ladder and out of the house. • As soon as they’re gone, Monks calls a servant boy to go upstairs with him, since apparently he hates being alone. Oliver Twist Chapter 38 "Introduces Some Respectable Characters with whom the Reader is Already Acquainted, and Shows how Monks and the Jew Laid their Worthy Heads Together" • The chapter opens with Sikes grumpily asking what time it is. • He’s not in the same room he’d rented before the failed housebreaking attempt of a few months earlier, but it’s in the same dodgy part of town. • There’s not a lot of furniture, or much in the way of spare clothes in the room – apparently Sikes is pretty strapped for cash. • Sikes himself is lying in bed, wrapped in a big overcoat, and looking like a shadow of his former self. The dog is lying by the bed, occasionally growling at passing noises from the street. Nancy is sitting by the bed, looking thin and pale. • She asks how he’s feeling. • He responds with growls and grouchiness, and asks for help getting out of bed. • She helps, but he swears at her and smacks her. • She tears up, and faints. • Sikes isn’t used to this – usually Nancy’s hysterics are loud and violent, like we’ve seen before. • So Sikes calls for help. • Fagin looks in, and brings the Dodger and Charley Bates in to help bring Nancy around. • Nancy recovers, staggers to the bed, and lies down. • Sikes asks what Fagin is doing there, since he hasn’t seen him for weeks. • Fagin says that they’ve brought lots of goodies: rabbit pie (don’t knock it 'til you’ve tried it), special green tea, sugar, bread, butter, and cheese. • Sikes wants to know why they haven’t been by before, and have left him sick and weak without coming to help him out. • Fagin says he was out of town for part of the time, and unable to come for reasons he doesn’t like to repeat for the rest. • Sikes says he would have died, if it hadn’t been for "the girl." • Fagin reminds him that he wouldn’t have such a handy girl as Nancy around if it weren’t for him, and Nancy agrees. • Sikes eats, and Nancy does too, a little. • When he’s finished, Sikes tells Fagin that he needs some money. • Fagin insists that he doesn’t have any, but Sikes knows better. He sends Nancy with Fagin to pick up the cash and bring it back. • They arrive at Fagin’s house, and Toby Crackit is there. He’s just finished winning all of Tom Chitling’s money at cribbage. • Toby seems slightly embarrassed at being caught playing with someone as uncool as Tom Chitling (remember, Toby’s the coolest member of the gang). • Toby takes off (but he remembers to take his winnings with him). • Tom Chitling says that the money he lost to Toby is a small price to pay for the privilege of being seen in his company, because Toby’s the coolest. • Fagin says he agrees, and sends Tom, Charley, and the Dodger out to "work," leaving him alone with Nancy. • He takes a key to get the money (all the while insisting that there’s no money for him to lock up). • Just then, they hear a voice from the street. • Fagin’s too busy hiding his key to notice Nancy’s reaction – she tears off her bonnet and shawl, and sticks them under the table. • Fagin says that the visitor won’t be more than ten minutes, and goes down to let him in. • Monks comes into the room, and notices Nancy sitting there. • Rather than ask Nancy to leave, Fagin takes Monks to an upstairs room for their talk. • As soon as they’re gone, Nancy slips out of her shoes, pulls her skirt up so that it won’t rustle, and sneaks upstairs after them. • She listens for fifteen minutes, and slips back into the room (and into her shoes) just before Fagin comes back in (Monks goes straight outside). • Fagin remarks that she looks pale, but she blows it off, saying that it’s just because she’s been sitting in a stuffy room too long. • Fagin counts out the money for her, and she hurries out. • She starts to run in a direction away from her home with Sikes, then stops, cries, and heads home. • Sikes doesn’t notice anything unusual about her – he barely wakes up enough to ask if she’s gotten the money before going back to sleep. Oliver Twist Chapter 39 "A Strange Interview, which is a Sequel to the Last Chapter" • The next day, Sikes is too busy eating and drinking with the money Fagin had sent to notice anything unusual about Nancy’s behavior. • Nancy is waiting for Sikes to drink himself asleep when he finally asks her what she’s thinking to make her eyes all wild and her skin so flushed. • He wants to know if she’s caught his fever, or if she’s agitated. • Finally he falls into a heavy sleep, and Nancy is relieved – the laudanum has finally kicked in (apparently she put laudanum – a mixture of opium and alcohol – into his drink). • She hurries out of the house, and books it across London in record time. • She arrives at a family hotel in a street near Hyde Park (in the fancy west end of London), hesitates a bit, and then goes inside to ask to speak with Miss Maylie – alone. • The servants are skeptical – what could this girl want with a sweet young lady like Miss Maylie? • One of the servants feels sorry for her, and agrees to send the message to Miss Maylie. • The other servants mumble and grumble self-righteously about it, loudly enough for Nancy to hear, but otherwise leave her alone. • Miss Maylie comes down, and is so sweet that Nancy immediately bursts into tears. • Of course Rose offers to help her in any way she can, even before knowing why Nancy’s there. • Nancy tells her to hold off on offering to help before knowing who and what she is. • Fagin tells him to chill, since he’s in the business (of theft) himself, and can get them in with a "friend" who will put them on the right track. • Noah sends Charlotte upstairs with the bundles, and has another word in private with Fagin. • He asks Fagin if his "friend" is at the top of his business – of course, Fagin says yes. • Fagin says that he’d have to "hand over" – i.e., give up the money he’s already stolen. • Noah’s reluctant to do that, but asks what he’d be paid by Fagin’s "friend." • Fagin replies that the wages include room and board, tobacco, liquor, and half all he and Charlotte both earn. • Of course, Noah realizes that if he says no, Fagin knows enough to have him arrested and hanged, so he says yes. The wages seem pretty good, anyway. • Noah says that Charlotte will be able to work a lot for them both, so he’d like to do something easy, and not too dangerous. • Fagin suggests stealing purses from old ladies, but that’s too dangerous for Noah. • Finally, Fagin suggests stealing from little kids who are sent out on errands. • Noah gives Fagin fake names – Mr. and Mrs. Morris Bolter. • Of course, Charlotte immediately blows their cover by calling him "Noah" in front of Fagin. • Fagin doesn’t really care, and tells them good night. Oliver Twist Chapter 42 "Wherein is Shown how the Artful Dodger Got into Trouble" • The next morning, Noah realizes that Fagin was his own friend, as it were, and agrees to work for the gang. • Fagin has to explain to him that they’re all responsible for each other, and that if one of them gets caught, they all get caught. • This is hard for Noah to understand, because he’s remarkably selfish. • Fagin illustrates his point by explaining that his "best hand" was taken the day before, and tells the story. • The Dodger was caught attempting to pickpocket, and they found a silver snuff-box on him. • Fagin thinks that they might let him off, but if not, he’ll only get transported for life (as opposed to hanged). • Charley comes in just then, and is totally despondent about the Dodger’s arrest. Not because he’s sad that his friend will be transported for life, but because the Dodger was "only" arrested for a snuff-box. And that will mean that he won’t get a big and dramatic entry in the Newgate Calendar. • (Let’s pause for a quick Historical Context Lesson: the Newgate Calendar was a popular multi-volume collection of criminal biographies. Originally, it was a collection of dying speeches and last confessions published in the eighteenth century, but it got reprinted in new editions all the time – there was one out in 1824 that Dickens may have used. And the joke here is that a young criminal like Charley or the Dodger’s greatest ambition would be to appear among the criminal "greats" in the Newgate Calendar.) • Back to the story: Fagin comforts Charley by reminding him what a show the Dodger is likely to make in the courtroom, and what a great "distinction" it is, to be transported so young. • Charley is comforted pretty well. • Fagin wants to send someone to the court to hear what the Dodger says, but he doesn’t want to go himself, and doesn’t want to send Charley, either. • They decide to send Noah, since none of the authorities in London knows him, yet. • Noah’s reluctant to go, because he doesn’t want anything dangerous, but they eventually bully him into agreeing. • At the court, the Dodger gives as great a performance as Charley could wish for: he makes fun of all the magistrates and judges, demands his "priwileges" as an "Englishman," and makes all the spectators laugh. • Noah waits until he sees the Dodger locked up by himself, and then rejoins Charley and Fagin with the report that the Dodger was "doing full justice to his bringing-up, and establishing for himself a glorious reputation." Oliver Twist Chapter 43 "The Time Arrives for Nancy to Redeem her Pledge to Rose Maylie. She Fails." • Although Nancy is sure that she’s done the right thing by going to Rose Maylie, she’s still pretty conflicted about the idea of betraying Sikes and Fagin. • She’s so stressed out about it that she loses sleep, and becomes "pale and thin" in just a few days. • Everyone notices the change in her, but they don’t know the cause. • It’s Sunday night, and the clock strikes eleven. • Fagin and Sikes are talking business – it’s a good night for housebreaking ("dark and heavy"), but there’s no work to be done. Fagin tries to be friendly to Sikes, but Sikes insults him. • Nancy puts on her bonnet and starts to leave, but Sikes asks her where she’s going. • She just says, "not far," and insists that she be allowed to go out – she says she’s getting cabin fever, sitting cooped up in the small apartment all the time. • Sikes suggests that she stick her head out the window if she wants fresh air, and refuses to let her go. • Nancy gets hysterical, and Sikes thinks that she’s gone crazy. • Nancy appeals to Fagin, but Fagin stays out of it. • Sikes keeps her in the house by force, and Nancy struggles and begs to go until the clock strikes midnight, and then stops bothering. • Sikes goes back out to Fagin, and says it was just the "fever in her blood," or else "woman’s obstinacy," but Fagin doesn’t seem so sure. • He keeps his opinions to himself, though, and takes Nancy aside for a moment on his way out the door. He tells Nancy that he knows that Sikes is terrible to her, and assures her that if she needs any help from him, she’ll have it. • Nancy doesn’t really respond, but lets him out the door and says good night. • Fagin heads home, thinking it all over: he assumes that Nancy’s gotten tired of Sikes’s brutality, and has found a new boyfriend that she was going to meet. But the new boyfriend isn’t part of the gang, and so Fagin needs to know who it is, so that he can control them both. • Fagin has another consideration: he really hates Sikes, and Sikes knows too much about all of his plans. What, he muses, are the odds of using Nancy’s new boyfriend as leverage to get Nancy to do away with Sikes? • Fagin walks home, considering the best way to persuade/coerce Nancy into killing Sikes – he decides that if he could only figure out who the new boyfriend is, he could threaten to reveal the whole affair to Sikes (who would kill her if he found out), and so Nancy would agree to Fagin’s plan to save her own life, and the life of her new boyfriend. Oliver Twist Chapter 44 "Noah Claypole is Employed by Fagin on a Secret Mission" • The next morning, Fagin gives a secret mission to Noah Claypole (a.k.a. Morris Bolter). • Before giving him the details, Fagin flatters him on how well he’s been doing at robbing little kids. You know the expression, "easy as taking candy from a baby"? Yeah, well, that’s pretty much Noah’s job, and he’s awfully good at it. • Fagin tells him that the secret mission will be to follow a woman around, and report back to Fagin about who she sees, and where she goes, and what she says. • Of course Noah wants to know how much he’ll get paid, and Fagin offers him a pound for the job. • Fagin explains that it’s one of their own gang, but that she’s found new friends, and that he must know who they are. • Noah agrees to the mission immediately, and seems pretty jazzed about the idea of following some young woman around – says he was pretty good at that when he was back in school. Lovely. • Fagin tells Noah that he’ll point out the young woman in question in a few days. • The next Sunday, Fagin is certain that Nancy will sneak out, because Sikes is planning on being out all night. • Fagin takes Noah to their house, and points her out as she leaves. • Noah gets a good look at her as she passes a candle, and then follows her through the streets. Oliver Twist Chapter 45 "The Appointment Kept" • It’s 11:45 at night, and two people are walking on London Bridge. • One of them is a woman, who looks as though she’s expecting to meet someone. • The other is a man, who is following the woman, and keeping pace with her – stopping when she stops, and starting again when she moves. • She almost sees him when she doubles back, but he avoids her by hiding in the shadows. • Just after the clock has struck midnight, a coach stops at the end of the bridge. • A young woman and an older gentleman climb out, and walk towards the bridge. • Nancy hurries to meet them. • They start to talk, but Nancy urges them to step off of the main road, and points to some steps nearby. • The steps go down to the river from the end of the bridge – the bottom two or three steps are wider, and extend beyond the pier at the end of the bridge. • Noah (since he was the man following her, obviously) hurries down the steps before they get there, and hides himself on the bottom step, around the corner of the pier, so that he can overhear anything people say on the steps without being seen. If you’re confused about this setup, just check out the Cruikshank illustration to this scene. • The gentleman and the young lady follow Nancy down the steps, and Noah can hear every word they say. • Nancy is saying that she’s been afraid all day, and can’t stop thinking about death. • She even imagined coffins passing her in the streets. • The gentleman tries to assure her that it was just her imagination, but Nancy’s looks are giving him the creeps. • They ask Nancy why she didn’t come the week before. • Nancy explains that she was kept by force – by Bill, the man she had told the young lady of before – and that she had only been able to get out to see the lady the first time because she’d drugged him with laudanum. • She reassures them that none of Fagin’s gang suspects her, or knows that she’s been in communication with them. • The gentleman tells her that they trust her, but that if they aren’t able to get the secret of Oliver’s birth out of Monks, they want her to betray Fagin to the police, so that they can get the secret out of him. • Nancy refuses – even though Fagin is the one who corrupted her, she won’t betray him, because that’s the one rule in their gang. • And besides, she adds – the young lady promised. • Then they tell her that if she will only tell them where they can get their hands on Monks, the rest of the gang is off the hook. • She believes them, and explains where and when Monks can be found. She describes the location of the "Three Cripples" pub in great detail, and then describes Monks. He’s pretty easy to pick out: he’s tall and strong, and has "a lurking walk, and […] constantly looks over his shoulder, first on one side and then on the other […] His face is dark, like his hair and eyes, but, although he can’t be more than six or eight and twenty, withered and haggard. His lips are often disfigured with the marks of teeth, for he has desperate fits, and sometimes even bites his hands and covers them with wounds" (46.59). • At this point in her description, the gentleman looks surprised. • Nancy finishes up by starting to describe a mark on Monks’s throat – • But the gentleman already knows what it is – a "broad red mark, like a burn or scald" (46.62). • Nancy is obviously surprised the gentleman knows him, but he’s too cautious to say more – he says that people often look strangely alike, so it might not be the same person. • They offer to give her money, or to help her escape from Fagin’s gang, but once again, she refuses. • Even though they offer her a quiet home in a foreign country, she still refuses. She says she’s "chained to her old life" (46.74). • The young lady worries about where Nancy will end up if they let her go without helping her, and Nancy reminds her of all the women she’s heard about who have killed themselves off of London Bridge. • As they part, Nancy asks for something that the young lady had carried, as a kind of talisman against future evil. The young lady gives her a white handkerchief. • On that cheery note, they say good night and leave the stairs. • Nancy stays behinds for a few minutes to cry by herself, before picking herself up and walking home. • Noah takes his opportunity to leave, too, and runs as fast as he can to Fagin’s house. Oliver Twist Chapter 46 "Fatal Consequences" • The chapter opens with Fagin looking like hell – bloodshot eyes and pale – sitting up in the middle of the night. • Noah is sleeping on the floor nearby. • He’s thinking about what Noah has told him, and is torn between rage at Nancy for daring to tell secrets to strangers, and distrust at her promise to them that she would never betray him. • Then the bell rings – it’s Sikes. • Fagin gives him a funny look, and Sikes asks what’s up. • Fagin breaks it to him slowly: first he asks Sikes what he’d do if Noah (who’s still sleeping at their feet) had betrayed them. • Sikes says (predictably) that he’d murder the kid. • Fagin then asks, what if he, Fagin, had betrayed them all? • Monks’s mother went to "the continent" (i.e., Europe) with their son, and blew all her money on entertainment and clothes. • Monks’s father stayed in England, and made friends with a retired navy officer and his two children. • One of the children was a beautiful daughter. • And as the navy officer grew to like Monks’s father and to love him as a friend, the daughter likewise fell in love with him. • At the end of a year, they were engaged. • Monks, meanwhile, is acting very skeptical about all of this. • But Brownlow continues the story, anyway. • Around the time that Monks’s father fell in love with his friends’ daughter, a rich relative died and left him a lot of money, but required him to travel to Rome to deal with the will. • Monks’s mother was in Paris, and traveled to Rome with Monks (who was then only a boy) to meet him there. • Monks’s father got sick and died in Rome just a day after his wife and son arrived, leaving no will, so the whole of the estate – including the money the rich relative had just left him – went to his wife and son. • Monks gets very eager at this point in the story. • Brownlow tells him that, before his father had left for Rome, he’d gone through London to see his old friend, Brownlow, and had left a few things with him that he couldn’t take abroad. • Monks is unpleasantly surprised. • One of the things Monks’s father left was a portrait he’d made of the girl he was in love with. • He told Brownlow that he was planning on selling everything he’d inherited, taking the money, and leaving England forever. • He didn’t tell Brownlow that he was planning on leaving with a girl, but Brownlow was smart enough to guess that much. • But he never saw his friend again, because he died when he arrived in Rome. • After his friend died, Brownlow went to visit the girl, and the scene of his friend’s "guilty love," as he put it (because Monks’s father was still married, and couldn’t legitimately engage himself to this other girl). • But the family had left the neighborhood, and no one could tell him why or where they had gone. • Monks looks pleased at this. • Then Brownlow tells Monks that he had rescued his brother (Oliver) from a life of crime when Oliver had been cast into his life as if by fate. • Monks is surprised and less pleased about this. • Brownlow tells Monks how startled he’d been by the resemblance between Oliver and the portrait his dead friend had made of his special lady. • However, Oliver had been stolen away before he was able to tell Brownlow his story – but then, Brownlow tells Monks, you knew that. • Monks denies it. • Brownlow is unimpressed with his denial, and says that, since Monks’s mother was dead, he knew that only Monks could clear up the mystery, so he left London for the West Indies, which was the last place where he’d heard Monks was living. • But Monks had long since left, and had come back to London. • So Brownlow had returned to London, looking for Monks, and had only just found him. • Monks still denies everything. He says that a resemblance between some orphan boy and a dead man’s painting of his old lover doesn’t prove a thing, especially given that Brownlow has no proof that a baby was ever born to his father and his second lover. • Brownlow admits that he didn’t have proof, but that he has gotten all the proof he needed within the last couple of weeks. • Brownlow continues his narrative as a string of accusations against Monks: there was a will that Monks’s father left, but that his mother had destroyed, that made reference to the child of the young lady. • Monks accidentally ran into the child, whose resemblance to his father caught his attention. So Monks went to the place where the child was born, to discover – and destroy – the proofs of his parentage. • Brownlow then quotes Monks’s own words back at him (words that had been overheard and repeated by Nancy), and tells him that not a single word or action was unknown to him. • Monks is pretty terrified by this point, especially when Brownlow tells him that he was indirectly responsible for the murder of Nancy by Sikes. • Monks is terrified by all these accusations, and agrees to tell the whole story, sign his name to it in front of witnesses, and fulfill the provisions of his father’s will to Oliver. • Just as all this has been agreed to, Mr. Losberne bursts in, and tells them that the murderer is going to be arrested that very night – his dog had been seen lurking around a house by the river, and the government is offering a reward of a hundred pounds. • Brownlow offers fifty more. • He tells Monks to stay where he is until they get back, or they’ll go to the police with the whole story. • They lock him in, and agree on meeting the day after tomorrow to write the whole thing down in front of witnesses. • Brownlow takes off for the police office so that he’ll be in time to see Sikes caught, and Losberne stays behind to look after Monks. Oliver Twist Chapter 49 "The Pursuit and Escape" • The chapter opens with a description of a dodgy neighborhood on the bank of the Thames that really existed in Dickens day – a muddy maze of streets surrounded by a tidal ditch that was sometimes filled with high water. The houses are all in rough shape, falling into each other, or into the river. • Toby Crackit, Tom Chitling, and Kags (another criminal who just returned from transportation) are sitting in an upper room of one of these houses. • Toby asks when Fagin was arrested, and Chitling answers that it happened around 2pm. He and Charley were able to hide, but Bolter (a.k.a. Noah) was arrested, and Bet got hysterical, so they put her into "the hospital" (presumably into Bedlam, the main lunatic asylum of Victorian London). • Charley, Chitling tells them, will be with them shortly. All of the other hideouts have been found out, and are crawling with cops ("traps" is the cant word for policemen). • They expect that Bolter will give evidence against Fagin, so that Fagin will be convicted as an accessory to Nancy’s murder. • Chitling describes how bloodthirsty the mob was when Fagin was arrested. • Just then, Sikes’s dog runs into the room. • Toby hopes that Sikes isn’t close behind – he doesn’t seem to be. • They wonder where "he" could be, and whether "he" has "made away with himself" (50.26). • None of them are willing to call "him" by his name. • They figure that Sikes must have left the country, and left the dog behind. • They hear knocking at the door downstairs. • At first they think it’s Charley, but Charley doesn’t knock like that. • It’s Sikes. • They aren’t so keen about letting him in, but what can they do? They let him in. • He looks like hell. • Sikes asks if it’s true that Fagin was arrested. • It is. • No one really seems to feel inclined to chat with him. • He asks if they’ll let him hole up there until the search is over, or whether they plan on selling him to the police. • Toby says he can stay as long as he thinks it’s safe. • Sikes asks if the body is buried. • It isn’t. • Sikes is horrified. • Another knock at the door – this time it is Charley. • Charley comes in, and is terrified of Sikes. He calls him a "monster," and says that if the police came looking for him, he’d wouldn’t hide him. • Charley actually throws himself at Sikes (who is about twice his size) and catches him so off his guard that he knocks him down. • Charley and Sikes roll on the ground, with Charley shouting for help the whole time. • The other three are stupefied. • There’s another loud knocking at the door, and voices call for them to open in the King’s name (quick historical side note: this is an indication that the end of the novel is still during the reign of King William IV, who died in 1837). • Charley calls for them to break down the door. • Sikes throws him in a spare room and locks the door, then asks Toby how secure the place is. • The doors and walls are reinforced with iron. • Meanwhile, a huge crowd is forming outside – someone on horseback yells that he’ll give twenty guineas to the man who brings a ladder. • Sikes asks for a rope so that he can drop down into the ditch that surrounds the area – the tide is in, so he thinks he’ll be able to swim out. • Sikes climbs out onto the roof. • The water’s out, so the ditch below is just a bed of mud. • The crowd sees him up on the roof, and everyone calls out and points to him. • Sikes is momentarily afraid, and then ties one end of his rope to the chimneys, and ties a loop on the other end to put under his arms, so that he can lower himself down. • But just as he’s pulling the loop over his head, he slips. • He falls the full length of the cord, and hangs himself. • The dog had climbed out on the roof with him, sees him fall, jumps after him, and cracks its head and dies on impact in the mud below. Oliver Twist Chapter 50 "Affording an Explanation of More Mysteries than One, and Comprehending a Proposal of Marriage with no Word of Settlement or Pin-Money" • Two days later, Oliver, Mrs. Maylie, Rose, Mrs. Bedwin, Mr. Losberne are traveling to Oliver’s native town (Mudfog, if you’re reading an edition that names the town). Mr. Brownlow and some nameless additional person are following in a separate carriage. • Oliver, Rose, and Mrs. Maylie have been told about what Monks admitted (that Oliver is, in fact, his younger half brother, and that he and his mother had conspired to keep him from his inheritance – all that good stuff). • Mr. Brownlow decided that the delicate and innocent ears of Oliver, Rose, and Mrs. Maylie shouldn’t hear about what happened to Sikes. • Oliver is especially excited to see his dear old friend Dick again (remember the little orphan at Mrs. Mann’s baby farm who blessed him when Oliver ran away from home?), and Rose promises him that they’ll take Dick away from the parish authorities and take care of him. • Everything in the town is very much as Oliver remembered it, only maybe it seems smaller and less intimidating now. • They arrive at the hotel in Mudfog, and Mr. Grimwig is there to meet them. • All the men, and occasionally Mrs. Maylie, as well, are bustling around looking anxious and dealing with "business," and Rose and Oliver are kept in the dark. • Finally, the men all enter the room where Oliver and Rose have been waiting, and bring with them the man who had appeared at Oliver’s window with Fagin – Monks! • Monks looks hatefully at Oliver. • They introduce Oliver to Monks as his half brother, the illegitimate son of Edward Leeford, Mr. Brownlow’s oldest friend, and Agnes Fleming, who died in childbirth way back in the very first chapter. • Mr. Brownlow asks Monks to explain the circumstances of Oliver’s birth to the assembled group, even though it’s already been written down and signed by Monks in his "confession." • Monks tells the story of what happened when he and his mother arrived in Rome to meet his dying father: • His father was in the last stages of his illness, and was so feverish he didn’t know they were there. • He and his mother found two papers on his desk that were supposed to have been forwarded to Mr. Brownlow – one was a letter, and the other was his will. • The letter was addressed to Agnes, begging her forgiveness (he had, after all, knocked her up without marrying her – a big no-no), and asking her to take care of the child and not to blame the innocent baby for any of its father’s sins. • The will described how evil his first wife was, and how wicked and malicious his first son (Monks) was, and how he wanted his property to be divided into two portions: the first to go to Agnes Fleming, and the second portion to go to their as-yet-unborn child – but only if he reached adulthood without having committed any public act of dishonor. If the • Once they’re alone with Fagin, Mr. Brownlow asks him where he’d hidden the papers that Monks had given him for safekeeping. • Fagin won’t tell Brownlow, but calls Oliver over. • Fagin mostly wants to persuade Oliver to help him escape (he seems to be slightly out of his mind), but he does tell Oliver where the papers are. • Oliver tries to comfort Fagin and asks to pray with him, but Fagin starts shrieking and gets all clingy, and they have to skedaddle. • The chapter ends with a crowd of people assembling to watch the hanging. Oliver Twist Chapter 52 "And Last" • Three months later, Rose and Harry are married at the church where Harry’s going to be the new clergyman. • Mrs. Maylie moves in with them, and they’re all very happy together. • Turns out that there wasn’t much money left in Monks’s father’s estate, because Monks had squandered most of it. Even though it should all go to Oliver, Mr. Brownlow doesn’t want to cut Monks off without a penny, so they divide it in half. But it’s only about three thousand pounds each. • Monks disappears with his half of the money to some distant part of America, squanders it, falls back on his old wicked ways, and eventually dies of some complication from his disease in prison. • All the surviving members of Fagin’s gang also die far from home – they were transported from England. • Mr. Brownlow legally adopts Oliver as his own son – after all, Oliver was the son of his oldest friend. • The two of them, and Mrs. Bedwin, move to a house only about a mile from the Maylies’ new house, so they all form an idyllic, happy little community. • Mr. Losberne decides that Chertsey isn’t such a great village anymore, now that the Maylies have left, so he gets a little cottage near theirs, and moves as well. • Mr. Losberne develops a taste for gardening, and fishing, and carpentry, and various other hobbies. • Mr. Grimwig and Mr. Losberne have become great friends, so Mr. Grimwig visits several times a year, and always criticizes the sermon to Harry’s face, even if he thought it was good. • Noah Claypole is pardoned for his share in all of the crimes of Fagin’s gang because he was a witness against them. He decides that being a paid informer is a pretty good gig, so he goes into that full time. • Mr. and Mrs. Bumble are fired from the workhouse, and become so poor that they eventually have to enter the same workhouse as paupers. • Mr. Giles and Brittles move with the Maylies to the new house, and divide their time between Mr. Brownlow’s house and the Maylies’. • Charley Bates decides to give up crime, and becomes a farm hand in the north of England. • The narrator gives a brief sketch of how happy they all are together, and how Rose and Harry have lots of little babies, and how Mr. Brownlow loved Oliver as his own son. • The chapter ends with a description of the tablet on the wall in the church with the name "Agnes" on it, in memory of Oliver’s mother and Rose’s sister. Oliver Twist è la storia di un giovane orfano che cerca di sopravvivere in una società, quella vittoriana, che non tutelava in alcun modo le classi più deboli della popolazione. Oliver nasce in una "workhouse", all'inizio del 1800. Sua madre muore subito dopo averlo dato alla luce e il piccolo viene mandato in un orfanotrofio gestito da preti fino all'età di 8 anni. A questo punto i suoi tutori decidono che per lui è giunto il momento di tornare nella workhouse, ma qui Oliver soffre la fame e una sera commette "l'imperdonabile" errore di chiedere un'altra razione di cibo. I preti decidono allora di mandarlo via e lo fanno assumere come apprendista presso Mr. Sowberry. Anche qui Oliver viene trattato così male che decide di scappare a Londra. Quasi giunto in città il ragazzo, stremato dal viaggio, incontra Jack Dawkins (Dodger) che gli offre del cibo e gli promette una sistemazione. Oliver fa così la conoscenza di Fagin, un uomo che gestisce una banda di ladruncoli e che lo avvia al mestiere di ladro. Ma Oliver non è un bravo studente: al primo tentativo viene accusato (ingiustamente) di furto e solo la clemenza dell'uomo che aveva subito il borseggio, Mr. Brownlow, gli eviterà la prigione. Oliver viene portato a casa da Brownlow che si prende cura di lui e lo rimette in salute. A questo punto, un personaggio misterioso, Monks, rivuole Oliver nella banda dei ladruncoli e ordina a Bill Sikes e alla sua amante Nancy di andare a riprendere il ragazzo. Oliver viene rapito, e il misterioso Monks lo costringe a lavorare per lui come ladro; il primo colpo deve proprio essere in casa del sig. Brownlow, ma finisce male: Oliver viene ferito da un colpo di pistola e viene curato dalla signora Maylie e dalla nipote adottiva Rose. Fagin, con l’aiuto di Monks, tenta di riprendersi il ragazzo, ma la compassionevole Nancy avverte Rose del complotto. Sikes, scoperto il tradimento di Nancy, la uccide. Dopo questo fatto, Oliver scopre che Monks è il suo fratellastro che non voleva dividere l'eredità del padre con Oliver e per questo cercava di metterlo sulla strada del crimini. Intanto la banda di ladruncoli viene sgominata dalla polizia. Fagin viene arrestato, e dopo pochi giorni muore impiccato. Oliver viene adottato dal signor Brownlow. Rose si sposa con il suo amico d'infanzia Harry e va a vivere vicino a Oliver. Monks deve accettare di dividere l’eredità del padre con Oliver ma sperpererà questi soldi e ritornerà nel mondo della mala fama. Oliver Twist è un romanzo del 1838 di Charles Dickens. Fu pubblicato in origine a puntate.Come molti lavori di Dickens, Oliver Twist tendeva a portare all’attenzione dell’opinione pubblica una serie di mali dell’epoca, fra i quali il lavoro in fabbrica, il lavoro minorile, il reclutamento di bambini per il crimine, le condizioni igeniche nelle città. Anche se intende sollevare problemi molto seri, svelando la fondamentale ipocrisia dell’epoca vittoriana, il romanzo è sarcastico ed ha tratti di humour nero che ne alleggeriscono la lettura.Oliver Twist è stato utilizzato come soggetto per molti adattamenti cinematografici e televisivi. I più celebri adattamenti per il grande schermo sono stati realizzati da David Lean nel 1948 e da Roman Polański nel 2005. Nel 1988 la Walt Disney Pictures ha realizzato un film di animazione ispirato al romanzo, Oliver & Company. Il romanzo ha inoltre fornito lo spunto per un musical inglese di successo, intitolato Oliver!.Alla periferia di Londra Oliver è un piccolo orfano. La mamma è morta subito dopo averlo dato alla luce ed il padre è sconosciuto. Il neonato finisce quindi all’orfanotrofio dei poveri. Il terribile orfanotrofio è finanziato dalla chiesa tutti i soldi sono intascati dai gestori ed i piccoli sopravvivono a stento. Il piccolo è succube dei grandi e non può essere aiutato dai suoi coetanei poiché tutti hanno il solo scopo di sopravvivere alla situazione disumana in cui si trovano. Vessato dai compagni e dagli insegnanti il piccolo Oliver diventa un problema per la direttrice e per il “mazziere”, un arido uomo che sovraintende alla disciplina dei ragazzi. Dopo l’ennesimo episodio in cui è coinvolto Oliver la direttrice dell’istituto cerca di liberarsene. Viene mandato a servire presso un fabbricante di bare che non lesina percosse. Dopo poco tempo Oliver esasperato scappa cercando fortuna raggiungendo a piedi la grande città. Quando arriva a Londra è allo stremo delle forze, incontra per strada un coetaneo che lo aiuta e lo porta con sè. Il ragazzo e altri fanciulli fanno capo ad un vecchio ebreo di nome Fagin, ricettatore di merce rubata. Ospitato nella casa di Fagin al ragazzo viene, a poco a poco, insegnato dall’ebreo e dai ragazzi, il mestiere del ladro. Oliver è ancora ingenuo e non riesce ad interpretare i sentimenti che lo sconvolgono, inizia ugualmente a capire la razza di compagnia in cui si è imbattuto. La sua sorte non volge al meglio.Il suo primo lavoro è quello di rubare dalle tasche di benestanti e distratti passanti qualsiasi oggetto prezioso riesca a racimolare. In quest’occasione è affiancato da due compagni. Il giovane benché innocente viene rincorso e arrestato, mentre i veri ladruncoli riescono a fuggire. Finito in prigione e interrogato dalla polizia capisce di che pasta siano gli uomini della legge. In seguito, liberato grazie ad una testimonianza favorevole, viene notato da un anziano libraio e accolto nella sua casa. Finalmente per il povero Oliver inizia un periodo favorevole.Il periodo è breve e caduto nuovamente in disgrazia al soldo della banda di ladri il ragazzo sarà subdolamente minacciato e costretto ad aiutare il rozzo e alcolizzato ladro di nome Sikes a rapinare una villa. Il compito del segaligneo ragazzo è quello di penetrare in una stretta apertura della casa e una volta dentro recarsi alla porta per aprire al ladro. Oliver viene però sentito dai domestici del padrone di casa e da questi ferito con un colpo di arma da fuoco. Il ladro scappa e lui rischia la morte. I servi accorgendosi che si tratta di un fanciullo lo affidano alle cure della figlia del padrone, Mr. Brownlow, che lo tratta come un fratello caduto in disgrazia. Oliver torna in forze e acquista sicurezza in sé stesso. Ora viene anche istruito e sta forse raggiungendo una dimensione di vita più normale, quella che ogni ragazzino dovrebbe avere.Dopo qualche tempo i loschi ex compagni rapiscono il ragazzo mentre si reca in città. Vogliono servirsi ancora una volta di lui per ottenere un lauto riscatto. Dopo nuove vicissitudini, tra cui la comparsa di un fratellastro, che conoscendo le origini. I malvagi personaggi che per tutta la sua breve vita l’hanno angustiato saranno tutti assicurati alla giustizia e subiranno la giusta condanna. Le avventure di Oliver Twist -Charles Dickens. Personaggi: • Signora Mann: si occupò della crescita di Oliver fino all’età di nove anni con metodi molto duri e severi. • Sig. Bumble: tipo grasso e collerico, mazziere parrocchiale utilizza metodi molto duri con i ragazzi indisciplinati e Oliver facendo parte di questo gruppo anche con lui. In seguito si sposa con la signora Mann e diviene il propretario di un ospizio perdendo la carica di maziere parrocchiale. • Gamfield: spazzacamino che, bisognoso di denaro, vuole far diventare Oliver suo apprendista per intascare il denaro proposto dalla parrocchia per chi adotti Oliver, però il giudice, capendo la natura violenta dell’uomo lo impedisce. • Sig. Soweberry: primo padrone di Oliver. Costruttore di bare ha un’ottima opinione di Oliver a differenza della moglie. Quest’ultima lo costringe a cacciare Oliver di casa. • Jack Dawkins: ragazzo avente il naso schiacciato e la fronte piatta. Indossa abiti da uomo molto lunghi e larghi e un cappello posto in testa. Fa conoscere a Oliver Fagin ed è soprannominato dagli amici Trappolone. • Fagin: vecchi ebreo tirchio e taccagno che porta Oliver nel giro del furto. Viene alla fine impiccato. Descritto come un uomo rugoso dai capelli rossastri. • Fang: magistrato di polizia molto crudele con gli imputati dal viso paffuto e rossastro. • Sig. Browlow: vecchio signore che ospita Oliver per qualche giorno a casa propria quando era malato. Si dimostra gentile e premuroso nei confronti di Oliver e lo aiuta a mascherare i suoi nemici ladri. • Signora Bedwin: come Browlow molto gentile e disponibile, le presta affettuose cure che lo portano alla guarigione. • Bill Sikes: socio di Fagin è un ladro dalle dure maniere; è sempre in compagnia di un cane che viene frequentemente maltrattato. Morirà nel tentativo di fuggire. • Nancy: amante di Sikes che si dimostra affettuosa con Oliver prendendone le parti durante una lite. Viene uccisa da Sikes in un momento d’ira. • Rosa: ragazza dalle forme miti e gentili, accoglie Oliver in fin di vita nella casa della zia. • Signora Maylie: signora avanzata negli anni con aspetto nobile e autoritario, dimostra affetto nei confronti del povero Oliver. • Monks: fratellastro di Oliver che perseguita Oliver perchè lo crede il responsabile della morte del padre. La storia: Una vagabonda muore dando alla luce un bambino di nome Oliver Twist, che resta fino a nove anni in orfanotrofio. Poi dopo aver lavorato alle dipendenze di un costruttore di bare fugge a Londra, e in quella citta' fa la conoscenza di Dawkin che lo introduce in una banda di ladri capeggiata da Fagin. I ladri derubano il signor Bronlow: Oliver fugge ma viene arrestato. Bronlow pero' lo discolpa e lo ospita nella propria casa. Ma per ordine di Fagin, Sikes, Nancy, la sua amante, riprendono il ragazzo. Oliver partecipa a un'impresa del gruppo, ma il colpo va male e Oliver viene ferito da un colpo di pistola: la signora Maylie e la nipote adottiva Rosa lo curano. Fagin intanto e' sempre alla ricerca di Oliver, con l'aiuto di Monks, che sembra avere un odio particolare per il ragazzo. Nancy, che e' sempre stata buona con Oliver, avverte Rosa Maylie del complotto che si sta tramando contro di lui: il suo tradimento viene scoperto e Sikes l'ammazza. Lo scassinatore pero' viene rintracciato: mentre tenta di fuggire resta accidentalmente impiccato. Il signor Bronlow fa arrestare Fagin e la sua banda e scopre che Monks e' il fratellastro di Oliver. Il padre di Oliver ha lasciato del denaro a tutti e due i suoi figli, il legittimo e l'illegittimo: per questo Monks avrebbe voluto togliere di mezzo Oliver. Inoltre Rosa Maylie e' la sorella della madre di Oliver, e quindi zia del ragazzo. Oliver viene adottato da Bronlow e condusse una vita felice e serena.