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You're built to win it. Welcome to snoozecast, the podcast designed to help help you fall asleep. Find us at snoozecast.com and to learn more about snoozecast plus for ad-free listening and expanded content, put us snoozecast.com slash plus. This episode is brought to you by Waxwork. Tonight, we'll read an excerpt from Charles Dickens' great expectations. Where young Pitt visits the mysterious Miss Havisham at her decaying mansion. There, he meets Estella, a beautiful but scornful girl who treats him with cold disdain, making him painfully aware of his lower social status. Miss Havisham, frozen in time since being jilted at the altar, encourages Estella to toy with Pips' emotions This encounter leaves PIP deeply ashamed of his humble background, planting the seed of his desire to become a gentleman. Miss Havasham's tragic and eerie presence has left a lasting impact on literature, film, television, and music. She appears in Havasham by Carol Ann Duffy, which reimagines her bitter longing and influences characters like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard and Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre. artists artists like Torieamus and Florence in the machine reference her ghostly figure. While the Simpsons parody her infamous heartbreak and decay, solidifying her as a timeless, Gothic archetype.

Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. Mr. Pumbledchoke and I breakfasted at 8 o'clock in the parlor behind the shop. All the shopman took his mug of tea and a hunch of bread on a sack of peas in the front premises, I considered Mr. Pumblechuk wretched company. Besides being possessed by my sister's idea that a punishing character ought to be imparted to my diet, besides giving me as much crumb as possible in combination with as little butter and putting such a quantity of warm water into my milk that it would have been more candid to have left the milk out altogether. His conversation consisted of nothing but arithmetic. On my politely bidding him good morning, he said pompously, seven times nine, boy, and how should I be able to answer, dodged in that way, in a strange place, on an empty stomach.

I was hungry, but before I had swallowed a morsel, he began a running sum that lasted all through the breakfast.

Seven, and four, and eight, and 6, and 2, and 10, and so on. And after each figure was disposed of, it was as much as I could do to get a bite or a sup before the next came. While he sat at his ease, guessing nothing, and eating bacon and hot roll, if I may be allowed the expression, a gorging and gourmandizing manner. For such reasons, I was very glad when 10 o'clock came and we started for Miss Havishams, though I was not at all at my ease regarding the manner in which I should equip myself under that lady's roof. With an quarter of an hour, we came to Miss Havasham's house, which was a old brick and dismal and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the windows had been walled up of those that remained, all the lower were rustily barred. There was a courtyard in front, and that was barred, so we had to wait. After ringing the bell until someone could come to open it. While we waited at the gate, I peeped in, even then Mr. Pumplechuk said, and fourteen, but I pretended not to hear him, and saw that at the side of the house there was a large brewery. No brewing was going on in it, and none seemed to have gone on for a long, long time. A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded, what name? To which my conductor replied, Pumblechuk. The voice returned, quite right, and the window was shut again, and a young lady came across the courtyard with keys in her hand. This said Mr. Pumblechook, is Pip.

This is Pip, is it?

Returned to the young lady, who was very pretty and seemed very proud. Come in Pip. Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also when she stopped him with the gate. Oh, she said.

Did you wish to see Miss Havisham? If Miss Havisham wished to see me, returned Mr. Pumbalchuk, disconfident. Ah, said the girl. But you see she don't. She said it so finally, in such an undiscussable way that Mr. Pumblchuk, though in a condition of ruffled dignity, could not protest. But he eyed me severely as if I had done anything to him and departed with the words reproachfully delivered. Boy, let your behavior here be a credit unto them which brought you up by hand. I was not free from apprehension that he would come back to propound through the gate and sixteen, but he didn't. My young conductress locked the gate and we went across the courtyard.

It was paved and clean, but grass was growing in every crevice. The brewery buildings had a little lane of communication with it, and the wooden gates of that lane stood open, and all the brewery beyond stood open, away to the high and closing wall, and all was empty and disused. The cold wind seemed to blow colder there than outside the gate, and it made a shrill noise and howling in and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea. She saw me looking at it and she said, you could drink without hurt all the strong beer that's brewed there now, boy. I should think I could miss, said I in a shy way. Better not try to brew beer there now, or it would turn out sour, boy. Don't you think so? It looks like it, Miss. Not that anybody means to try, she added. For that's all done with, and the place will stand as idle, as it is, till it falls. a strong beer. There's enough of it in the cellars already to drown the man or house. Is that the name of this house, Miss? One of its names, boy. It has more than one Miss. One more. Its other name was Satis, which is Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew, or all three, or all one to me for enough. "'Enough house,' said I. That's a curious name, Miss.' Yes, she replied. But it meant more than it said.

It meant when it was given, that whoever had this house could want nothing else. They must have been easily satisfied in those days. But don't Lloyd her boy. So she called me boy so often, and with the carelessness that was far from complimentary, she was of about my own age. She seemed much older than I, of course, being a girl and beautiful and self-possessed, And she was as scornful of me as if she had been one in twenty, and a queen. We went into the house by a side door. The great front entrance had two chains across it outside, and the first thing I noticed was that the passages were all dark, and that she had left a candle burning there. She took it up, and we went through more passages, and up a staircase, and still it was all dark, and only the candle lighted us. At last we came to the door of her room, and she said, Go in. I answered, more in shyness than politeness. After you miss, to this she returned.

Don't be ridiculous, boy. I am not going in, and scornfully walked away. And what was worse, took the candle with her. This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the only thing to be done being to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told from within to enter. I entered, therefore, and found myself in a pretty large room, well-lighted with wax candles.

No glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it. It was a dressing room, as I suppose from the furniture, though much of it was of forms and uses then quite unknown to me. prominent in it was a draped table with a gilded looking glass, and that I made out at first sight to be a fine lady's dressing table. Whether I should have made out this object so soon if there had been no fine lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an armchair, with an elbow resting on the table, and her head leaning on that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see. She was dressed in rich materials, satins and lace and silks, all of white. Her shoes were white, and she had a long white veil, dependent from her hair. And she had bridal flowers in her hair. But her hair was white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses less splendid than the dress she wore, half-packed trunks were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on. The other was on the table near her hand. Her veil was but half arranged. Her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay with those trinkets, and with her hanger chief and gloves, and some flowers, and a prayer book all confusedly heaped about the looking glass. It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things, though I saw more of them in the first moments than might be supposed. But I saw that everything within my view, which ought to be white, had been white long ago, and had lost its lustre, and was faded, and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose had shrunk to skin and bone. I had been taken to see some ghastly wax work at the fair, representing I know not what impossible personage lying in state. Once I had been taken to one of our old marsh churches to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress

that had been dug out of a vault under the church pavement. Now wax work and skeleton seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have cried out if I could. Who is that?

Said the lady at the table. I should have cried out if I could. Who is that?

Said the lady at the table.

Pip, Pip, ma'am.

Pip.

Mr. Pumblechooksboy, ma'am.

Come to play.

Come nearer. Let me look at you. Come close. It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped at 20 minutes to 9, and that a clock in the room had stopped at 20 minutes to 9. Look at me," said Miss Hausham.

You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born? I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie comprehended in the answer. No. Do you know what I taught here? She said, laying her hands, one upon the other on her left side. Yes, ma'am, it made me think of the young man. What do I touch your heart broken? She uttered the word with an eager look and with strong emphasis and with a weird smile that had kind of a boast in it.

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