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.rim they look, don't they said Pea, seeing me glance over my
oulder at the lights upon the bridge, and downward at the long
crooked reflections in the river.
"Very" said I, "and make one think with a shudder of Suicides.
What a night for a dreadful leap from that parapet!
"Aye, but Waterloo's the favourite bridge for making holes in the
water from," returned Pea.
Subsequently Dickens and the police-officer stepped ashore and
interviewed the toll-keeper at Waterloo Bridge who had a lengthy
expercience of suicides and would-be suicides. This man was to appear
gain in the essay 'Night Walks' in the UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER, where
ckens wrote:
"Drip, drip, drip, from ledge and coping, splash from pipes and water
spouts, and by-and-by the houseless shadow would fall upon the stones
that pave the way to Waterloo-bridge; it being in the houseless mind
to have a halfpenny worth of excuse for saying 'Good night' to the
toll-keeper, and catching a glimpse of his fire But the river had
an awful look, the buildings on the banks were muffled in black shrouds
and the reflected lights seemed to originate deed in the water, as if
the spectres of suicides were holding them to show were they went down."
Being so fascinated by drowning, Dickens has many references to it.
When David Copperfield enquires about Little Em'ly's father and Mrs
Gummidge's husband he learns that they were both 'drown-ded'. Quilp
is drowned. Rogue Riderhood and bradley Headstone were both drowned
in the lock. "When the two were found, lying under the ooze and scum
behind one of the rotting gates, Riderhood's hold had relaxed,
probably in falling, and his eyes were staring upward." Steerforth
and Ham were both drowned in the same incident. But in none of these
tragedies did Dickens let his imagination have full rein as he did in
one of his early SKETCHES BY BOZ, 'The Drunkard's Death'.
"He retreated a few paces, took a short run, a desperate leap, and
plunged into the river. Net five seconds had passed when he rose to
the water's surface but what a change had taken place in that
short time, in all his thoughts and feelings Life -- life in any
form, poverty, misery, starvation anything but death. He fought and
struggled for life. For one instant for one brief instant the
buildings on the river's banks, the lights on the bridge through which
the current had borne him, the black water, and the fast-flying clouds,
were distinctly visible once more he sank, and once again he rose.
