Estella Again

The walk to Satis House that morning is described as Pip painting pictures in the air — elaborate fantasies of Miss Havisham's intentions, the restoration of the house, the marriage to Estella, himself as the young knight of romance. The older Pip is careful to note that even in this romantic reverie he did not invest Estella with qualities she did not have: he knew exactly what she was, and loved her for it and despite it. This is the fixed purpose of the older narrator's note here — to establish that Pip's love for Estella was never a mistake about her character but a feeling that persisted in full knowledge of her character. Which makes it, in some ways, more serious, not less.

Estella grown is the same Estella in a different and more commanding body. She has the same manner, the same quality of assessment, the same precision about what she is and is not. She is momentarily warmer to Pip than she used to be — the childhood disdain has relaxed into something like adult courtesy — and this small shift is dangerous to him because he reads too much into it. Miss Havisham is alive to every moment of their interaction. She watches with the same greedy attention she always brought to Estella's cruelties, now transferred to something more ambiguous.

The direct conversation between Pip and Estella, when Miss Havisham leaves them briefly, is the most honest exchange in the novel. Estella tells him she has no heart. She tells him she was trained not to have one. She does not apologize for this and does not pretend it can be changed. She warns him. Pip receives the warning, acknowledges its truth, and continues to love her. The older narrator's note on this — 'I knew to my sorrow, often and often, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope' — is the most precise description of non-rational love in Victorian fiction.