At last she stopped before the fire, and said, after muttering and looking at it some seconds, "This is my birthday, Pip."
I was going to wish her many happy returns, when she lifted her stick.
"I don't suffer it to be spoken of. I don't suffer those of my relations who are here now, or any one, to speak of it. They come here on the day, but they dare not refer to it."
Of course I made no further effort to refer to it or her relatives.
"On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of decay," stabbing with her crutched stick at the pile of cobwebs on the table but not touching it, "was brought here. It and I have worn away together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice have gnawed at me." (She said this last part as if to herself.)
She held the head of her stick against her heart as she stood looking at the table; she in her once white dress, all yellow and tattered.
"When the ruin is complete," said she, with a ghastly look, "and when they lay me dead, in my bride's dress on the bride's table - which shall be done, and which will be the finished curse upon him - so much the better if it is done on this day!"
She stood looking at the table as if she stood looking at her own figure lying there. I remained quiet. Estella returned, and she too remained quiet. It seemed to me that we continued thus for a long time. In the heavy air of the room, and the heavy darkness that brooded in its remoter corners, I even had an alarming fancy that Estella and I might presently begin to decay.
At length, not coming out of her distraught state by degrees, but in an instant, Miss Havisham said, "Let me see you two play again; why have you not begun?" With that, we returned to her room, and ran about before, though without the silver dagger. I was defeated, as before; and again, as before, Miss Havisham watched us all the time, directed my attention to Estella's beauty, even as she humiliated me.
When we had finished the game, a day was appointed for my return, and I was taken down into the yard to be fed in a dog-like manner. There, too, I was again left to wander about as I liked.
