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  .., 2026.



Charles Dickens  

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby     



Author's Preface  

This story was begun a few months after the publication of The Pickwick Papers as a separate edition.            "  ". There were a lot of cheap Yorkshire schools then.       . Now there are very few of them.    .

The public schools have long been a remarkable example of the gross neglect of education in England, and the neglect of the State in the matter of education, whether it be for the production of good or bad citizens, unhappy or happy men.        ,             ,       ,    . Any man who had proved himself unfit for any other calling was free to open a school in any place, without examination or test of knowledge; while the physician was required to be properly qualified to attend a child in its birth or to assist in its departure from this world;  ,     -  ,             ,         ,               ; similar requirements were made of the apothecary, the lawyer, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker, of every profession and trade, except the schoolmaster; and the schoolmasters were generally dupes and knaves, who naturally multiplied and flourished under such circumstances, the Yorkshire schoolmasters occupying the lowest and rottenest rung of the ladder.     ,  ,  , ,         ,    ,   ,  ,    , , ,        ,           . People, people who made a living from the stinginess, indifference or stupidity of parents and the helplessness of children, people ignorant, selfish, cruel, to whom hardly a single reasonable person would entrust the care of a horse or a dog, these people served as a worthy cornerstone of a structure which, with all its existing absurdity and magnificent arrogant disregard, hardly had its like in the world. ,  ,       ,  , , ,              ,       ,                .

We hear of lawsuits being brought against some ignorant physician who has crippled a broken arm or leg while attempting to cure it.      ,   -  ,      ,    . But what can be said of the hundreds of thousands of souls who have been permanently crippled by the incompetent scoundrels who claimed to educate them?        ,    ,     ?

I refer to the breed of Yorkshire schoolmasters in the past tense.         . They have not yet completely disappeared, but they are becoming fewer and fewer every day.     ,          . Heaven knows that we have a lot of work to do in the field of education, but in recent years great strides have been made and funds have been provided for improvement in this area.  ,        ,                .

I cannot now recollect how I came to hear of Yorkshire schools when I was a rather sickly child, spending my time in the lonely nooks near Rochester Castle, and my head full of Partridge, Strap, Tom Pipes, and Sancho Panza.     ,            ,      ,               , ,     . But I do remember that it was then that my first idea of them was formed, and that it was connected with a suppurating boil with which a boy returned home, because his Yorkshire tutor, philosopher, and friend had lanced it with an ink-stained penknife.   ,                -    ,     - ,     ,       ,  . However this idea arose, it never left me.      ,     . I occasionally inquired about Yorkshire schools, and subsequently received many new information about them, and at last, having acquired a readership, I determined to write about them.     ,         , ,  ,    .

With this intention, before beginning this book, I went to Yorkshire during a very severe winter, which is quite accurately described here.   ,     ,    ,     ,     . As I wished to see two or three schoolmasters, and I had been warned that they, in their modesty, might be frightened by a visit from the author of The Pickwick Papers, I consulted a friend who had acquaintances in Yorkshire, and with his help I committed a deception with a good purpose.      -  ,   ,  ,   ,     "  ",     ,      ,          . He gave me several letters of introduction, not addressed to me, but to one of my traveling companions.      ,     ,        . In them, mention was made of a certain non-existent boy left with a widowed mother who did not know what to do with him.       ,   -,   ,    . The poor lady, appealing to the belated compassion of his relatives, determined to send him to a Yorkshire school.  ,     ,      . I am a friend of the poor lady, traveling in these parts, and if the addressee can inform me information about any school in the area, the author of these lines will be very grateful to him     ,    ,            ,       

I visited various places in that part of the country, where, according to the information I received, there were many schools, but I never had an opportunity of delivering a letter until I arrived at a town which I will not name.        ,   ,  ,   ,         ,       ,    . The person to whom it was addressed was not at home, but in the evening, in a snowfall, he came to the inn where I was staying. ,    ,   ,  ,  ,    ,   . We dined, and it did not take much persuasion to get him to sit down in a warm corner by the fire and taste the wine that was on the table.  ,     ,           ,   .

I'm afraid he's no longer alive. ,      . I remember he was a cheerful, ruddy, broad-faced man; ,   , ,  ; I remember that we quickly became close and talked about all sorts of subjects, but not about school - he studiously avoided this topic. ,           ,           . "Is there a big school nearby? "    ?" I asked him, returning to the letter. "    ,   . "Yes," he said, "there is a rather big school." ",   ,    ". - "And a good one?"   " ? - I inquired. "   . "Well, how can I say! ",  ! - he answered.    . - No worse than any other.      . As for someone's taste."    ". And he began to look at the fire, look around the room and whistle quietly.     ,      . When I returned to the topic we had discussed earlier, he immediately perked up, but no matter how hard I tried, I never managed to talk about school:     ,    ,   ,     ,        : even If he had laughed before, I noticed that his face instantly lengthened and he became uneasy.      ,  ,            . After we had spent a very pleasant two hours together, he suddenly grabbed his hat, leaned over the table and, looking me straight in the face, said quietly:          ,     ,    ,     ,  : "Listen, mister, we have had a good talk, and now I will tell you what is on my mind. ", ,     ,     ,     . Let that widow not give her boy to our schoolmasters, while there is still a horse in London to look after, and a ditch in which to lie down and sleep.          ,      ,    ,  ,     . I do not want to slander my neighbors and I am telling you in confidence.            . But I will be damned if I manage to fall asleep without warning that widow through you not to give the boy to such scoundrels, while there is still a horse in London to look after, and a ditch in which to sleep!    ,    ,      ,       ,     ,    ,  ,   ! " Repeating these words with great energy and with such solemnly that his cheerful face seemed twice as wide as before, he shook my hand and left. "          ,       ,  ,      . I never saw him again, but sometimes it seems to me that in the person of John Browdie I gave his foggy image.     ,    ,          .

As for these school teachers, I would like to quote a few words from the first preface to this book:     ,            :

"The author has been much amused and gratified by the fact that more than one Yorkshire schoolmaster claims to be the prototype of Mr. Squeers, as he has been informed by his country friends and by all sorts of absurd notices in the country papers. "        ,           ,               . The author has reason to believe that one worthy gentleman has consulted persons versed in the law, whether he has ground for bringing an action for libel.     ,       ,   ,         . Another gentleman has thought of undertaking a journey to London for the sole purpose of catching the libeler and assaulting him.                 . A third well remembers that in January last he was called upon by two gentlemen, one of whom entered into conversation with him while the other was painting his portrait;   ,            ,       ,        ; and though Mr. Squeers has only one eye, and he has two, and the sketch which has appeared in print bears not the slightest resemblance to him, (whoever he was), nevertheless this gentleman and all his friends and neighbors immediately recognized that it was he, so great was the resemblance between him and the character of this novel.        ,                 (     ),             ,   ,         .

Though the author cannot be insensible to the great praise which has thus reached him, yet he ventures to hint that the cause of the discord is this:          ,     ,    ,    : Mr. Squeers is a representative of his class, and not an individual.      ,    . Where knavery, ignorance, and brutal avarice are the chief characteristics of a small group of men, and one of them is represented with these characteristics, all his neighbours will acknowledge that something of it is peculiar to themselves, and each will have a fleeting fear lest the portrait be painted from himself. ,  , ,                 ,    ,  -   ,     ,      .

The author's object in calling public attention to the system of education would be by no means attained if he did not now state with great force that Mr. Squeers and his school are but a feeble reflection of the existing system, deliberately softened and glossed over in the book, lest it should appear incredible.               ,       ,            ,      ,     . There are reports of lawsuits in which the plaintiffs have claimed damages as a paltry compensation for the prolonged torture and mutilation of children committed to the hands of a schoolmaster in these parts, reports containing a detailed description of vile treatment, cruelty, and disease, which no novelist would dare to invent.     ,               ,        , ,     ,   ,        . And, since he began writing the Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, the author has received from persons above suspicion and worthy of complete trust, information of cruelty to neglected or rejected children, of which schools have been guilty, which exceeds all that has been stated in these pages." ,        "  ",    ,       ,         ,             ".

That's all I wanted to say on this issue.  ,       . But if necessary, I decided to reprint some data from the court records from old newspapers.           -   .

Another quote from the first protocol reports a fact that may be of interest to my readers:         ,     :

"To turn to a more pleasant topic, it must be said that the two heroes of this book are copied from life. "     ,   ,        . It does not hurt to note that the so-called society, which is very trusting of everything that claims to be called reality, is extremely distrustful of what is called fiction;   ,    ,     ,    ,     ,   ; and although in everyday life society recognizes in one person the absence of any vices, and in others the absence of any virtues, it rarely allows the appearance in a novel of a person with sharply expressed qualities, good or bad, who remains plausible.             ,       ,           ,   ,   . But readers interested in this story will be glad to know that the Cheeryble brothers really live in the world and their mercy, their sincerity, their noble nature and boundless goodwill are not the fruit of the author's imagination, but every day (and mostly secretly) contribute to the fact that people commit noble and magnanimous deeds in this city, the pride and decoration of which "Brothers serve."  ,   ,   ,            ,  ,           ,   (   )  ,          ,      ".

If I were to attempt to sum up the thousands of letters from all sorts of people, living in all sorts of latitudes - and letters poured in upon me after this unfortunate communication - I should be mired in arithmetical calculations from which it would not be easy to extricate myself.           ,    ,          ,       ,      . Suffice it to say that the solicitations for loans, allowances, and cushy positions offered to me by the prototypes of the Cheeryble brothers (with whom I have never exchanged a single word in my entire life) would exhaust the stock of offices at the disposal of all the Lord Chancellors since the accession of the House of Brunswick and would ruin the Bank of England.   ,    ,    ,        (           ),    ,     -            .

The brothers are no longer alive.     .

There is only one point on which I would like to add something.        - . If Nicholas is not always blameless or likeable, then he should not always appear so.        ,        . He is a young man of violent temperament and very inexperienced or even completely inexperienced, and I see no reason why this hero should be exalted above human nature.   ,           ,     ,        .



Chapter I Serves as an introduction to all the others  I     

There once lived in a lonely corner of the county of Devonshire a certain Mr. Godfrey Nickleby, a worthy gentleman, who was rather late in the day in thinking of marriage, and not being young or rich enough to seek the hand of a rich lady, he married purely for love the object of his long-standing attachment, and she married him for the same reason.           ,  ,        ,      ,     ,         ,           . In the same way, two people who cannot afford to play cards for money sometimes sit down to a peaceful game for pleasure.     ,          ,        .

Some grumblers who make fun of married life may perhaps remark that the worthy couple should be compared to two prize-fighters, who, when the going gets tough and no one is urging them on, chivalrously set to work for the mere pleasure of a fight; and in one respect the comparison is indeed applicable; for, just as the brave pair of Five's Court go round the spectators with their hats in their hands, and rely upon their generosity to provide them with the means of a good carouse, so, after their honeymoon, Mr. Godfrey Nickleby and his partner looked out anxiously upon the world, hoping largely for a lucky chance to increase their livelihood.  ,    ,  , ,         , ,         ,        ,        , ,       -             ,    ,                ,             . Mr. Nickleby's income at the time of his marriage fluctuated between sixty and eighty pounds a year.               .

Heaven knows there are plenty of people in the world, and even in London (where Mr. Nickleby then resided) there are few who complain of the smallness of the population.  ,      ,     (      )      . It is hard to believe how long a man can look out for a friend in that crowd and not find his face, but it is true, nevertheless.  ,             - ,      . Mr. Nickleby looked and looked, till his eyes ached as well as his heart, but no friend appeared;     ,      ,   ,      ; and when, tired of searching, he turned his gaze to his own fireside, he found there very little relief for his weary eyes.  ,   ,       ,         . An artist who has looked too long at a bright color rests his eyes by turning them to darker and duller tints; ,     ,    ,        ; but everything that came within Mr. Nickleby's field of vision was of such a black and gloomy hue that it would have been an indescribable relief to him, by the contrast, to see quite different colors.  ,       ,      ,             .

At last, five years after, when Mrs. Nickleby had given her husband two sons, and the care-laden gentleman, overwhelmed by the necessity of providing for his family, was seriously contemplating a little commercial speculation, which consisted in insuring his life on the following quarter-day, and then accidentally falling from the top of the Monument, there arrived one morning by post a letter with a black border, informing him that his uncle, Mr. Ralph Nickleby, had died, and left him his entire small fortune - five thousand pounds sterling. ,   ,             ,   -  ,     ,           ,       ,          ,   ,   ,   ,             .

As the deceased had not paid the slightest attention to his nephew during his life, but had only sent his eldest son (christened Ralph, from a consideration prompted by despair) a silver spoon in a morocco case, which, for it had little use, might have seemed a mockery of his being born without this useful silver thing in his mouth, Mr. Godfrey Nickleby could at first hardly believe the news he received.           ,       (   ,  ,  )     ,                ,          ,         . However, on investigation it turned out to be quite accurate.       . The amiable old gentleman had apparently intended to leave all his property to the Royal Philanthropic Society, and had even made a will to that effect, but a few months before his death that institution had the misfortune to save the life of a poor relation of Ralph Nickleby, to whom he had been giving a weekly allowance of three shillings and sixpence, and so, in a fit of very natural irritation, he revoked the gift, making a codicil to will, and left his entire estate to Mr. Godfrey Nickleby;    , -,              ,                 ,          ,          ,    ,       ; He especially mentioned his indignation not only against the society for saving his poor relative's life, but also against his poor relative for allowing himself to be saved.          ,     ,      ,    .

Part of this money Mr. Godfrey Knucklebn spent in purchasing a small farm near Dawlish in Devonshire, whither he retired with his wife and two children, to live on the highest interest he could get from the remaining capital, and the modest income he could extract from his land.               ,        ,      ,      ,    ,      . He and his wife prospered so well that when he died, about fifteen years after this event and about five years after the death of his wife, he left his eldest son, Ralph, three thousand pounds in cash, and his youngest son, Nicholas, one thousand and a farm, which was the smallest estate imaginable.      , , ,              ,     , ,    ,   , ,    ,     ,     .

These two brothers had been brought up together at school in Exeter, and, going home usually once a week, often heard from their mother a long narrative of their father's sufferings in the days of poverty, and of the influence of their late relative in the days of his prosperity.          ,      ,                        . These stories made a very different impression on the two brothers.         . While the younger, who was of a timid and modest disposition, drew from them only the advice to keep away from the great world and not to change the peaceful habits of country life, Ralph, the elder, drew from the oft-repeated story two great morals:     ,     ,                , , ,        : that wealth is the only true source of happiness and power, and that it is lawful and just to seek the possession of it by all means, short of criminal.                   ,   . "And if my uncle's money did not do any good during his lifetime," Ralph reasoned with himself, "it has done all the good since his death, since my father has now entrusted it to him and is saving it for me, which is very commendable. "           ,      ,         ,           ,    . In fact, they also brought good to the old gentleman, for he had the pleasure of thinking about them all his life and, in addition, of becoming the object of envy and respect of all his relatives.  ,       ,                  ". And Ralph invariably ended these mental monologues with the conclusion that there is nothing equal to money.        ,     .




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