Estella

"It must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together made me." ~ Estella (from "Great Expectations")

電視在播1998年的電影"Great Expectations", 有我喜歡的Gwyneth Paltrow和Ethan Hawke, 影碟買了多年都未看過, Cable也播了數十次也未看過, 此片有別於原著, 是個發生在紐約的故事.

中四時英國文學倒讀過Charles Dickens的原著. 喜歡Estella這個名字, 無聊時會想, 他日如果有個女兒, 會給她起英文名Estella.

Great Expectations是個充滿遺憾的故事. 一對從童年便開始認識的男女的故事. 細看wikipedia才知道Charles Dickens寫了兩個結局, 因為原本的那個結局不太愉快. 真的忘記了中學時看的是哪個, 你又喜歡哪個?

Original ending:

Pip meets Estella on the streets. Her abusive husband Drummle has died, and she has remarried, to a doctor. Estella and Pip exchange brief pleasantries, after which Pip states while he could not have her in the end, he was at least glad to know she was a different person now, somewhat changed from the cold-hearted girl Miss Havisham had reared her to be. The novel ends with Pip saying he could see that "suffering had been stronger than Miss Havisham's teaching and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be."

Revised ending:

Pip and Estella meet again at the ruins of Satis House:

'"We are friends," said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from the bench.

"And will continue friends apart," said Estella.

I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.