David Copperfield's first dissipation

David Copperfield’s first dissipation begins as a house-warming dinner in his new chambers and ends in a night of excess, an embarrassing encounter with Agnes Wickfield, and a day of acute remorse. The episode turns David’s pride in his home and admiration for J. Steerforth into a scene he cannot control; Agnes’s intervention gives the celebration a lasting personal consequence.

A house-warming becomes a feast

After J. Steerforth praises David’s rooms, David takes fresh pride in them and decides that the occasion is an opportunity to make full use of the new home. He insists on hosting rather than accepting J. Steerforth’s suggestion that they dine elsewhere, and secures a promise that J. Steerforth will bring two friends. Dinner is set for six o’clock.

The preparations expose how little practical experience David has of entertaining. Mrs. Crupp says she cannot be expected to wait at table, so David agrees to hire a young man; because she cannot be in two places at once, a young woman is also engaged to work in the pantry. The kitchen fireplace is poorly suited to cooking more than chops and mashed potatoes, and Mrs. Crupp recommends that most of the meal come from a pastry cook. These arrangements make the party possible, but they also leave David dependent on servants and provisions whose management quickly distracts him from his intended role as host.

When dinner is announced, David feels too young and embarrassed to preside, so he asks J. Steerforth to take the head of the table and sits opposite him. The food is good and the wine plentiful. David’s attention initially keeps returning to the household staff: the young man repeatedly leaves the room, and the pantry assistant breaks plates while trying to watch the guests. Once the meal is over, David sends both away from the company and abandons himself to the festivities.

Excess and the loss of self-command

David grows unusually talkative and buoyant. He laughs at his own and other people’s jokes, makes plans to visit Oxford, and announces that he intends to hold a dinner like this every week. As the wine is passed more quickly, he repeatedly rises to open additional bottles before they are needed. His toast to J. Steerforth is especially revealing: David calls him his dearest friend, protector during boyhood, and companion in adulthood, and declares an admiration he cannot repay or adequately express. The exuberance turns friendship into exaltation, while the broken glass and David’s impulsive attempt to shake J. Steerforth’s hand register how far the evening has moved beyond orderly hospitality.

The company’s joking exchanges also show David trying to perform the part of a confident host. When Markham proposes a toast to women, David objects and insists that the company use a more respectful form of address. He presents his household as a place governed by hospitality and its own domestic dignity, then promptly proposes Markham’s health. The sequence makes the party’s comedy depend on the gap between David’s grand declarations and his diminishing judgment.

As the evening continues, David joins the smoking and becomes increasingly unsteady. J. Steerforth speaks in praise of him, and David responds by proposing further dinners on successive days and raising a toast to his aunt, Betsey Trotwood. His own account then becomes disjointed: he addresses himself while looking in a mirror, tries to understand his appearance, and agrees to go to the theatre with the others. The company’s departure from the chambers is confused; David loses his bearings and falls on the stairs. J. Steerforth helps him onward, but David remains unable to judge the situation clearly.

Agnes Wickfield at the theatre

At the theatre, David and his companions move from their original seats toward a box. David is ushered in and discovers Agnes Wickfield seated there with an unidentified lady and gentleman. The unexpected meeting gives the episode its sharpest turn: Agnes sees him in a state of drunken confusion, and her expression conveys regret and wonder. David attempts to address her, but she tells him to be quiet because he is disturbing the company.

David intends to wait and escort Agnes downstairs, but she asks him earnestly to leave for her sake and to have his friends take him home. Her request cuts through his intoxicated insistence. Although he feels angry, he is also ashamed; he gets up and goes, and the others follow. The encounter is not a reconciliation or an explanation of why Agnes is in London. Instead, it leaves David with the knowledge that she has witnessed his behavior and with no immediate way to learn where she is staying.

Back in his chambers, David continues to behave at cross-purposes, at one moment telling J. Steerforth that Agnes is like a sister and at another wanting more wine. The night then gives way to a feverish, unsettled sleep. The shift from the public theatre to the private bedroom does not restore control: the party’s confusion persists in David’s account until he gradually returns to awareness.

Remorse and consequence

The following day David is overwhelmed by remorse and shame. He fears that he has committed offenses he cannot remember, and the recollection of Agnes’s look becomes the most painful part of the evening. He is distressed that he cannot communicate with her because he does not know how she came to London or where she is staying. The rooms themselves have become associated with the revel, and his inability to go out or get up prolongs his isolation.

That evening, the meagre remains of the feast underline the collapse of David’s ambitious house-warming. He sits by the fire with broth and considers whether his future may repeat the unhappy story associated with the previous occupant of his chambers. He even thinks of going to Dover to reveal everything, but cannot bring himself to confide in Mrs. Crupp. The party has therefore left him not with the ease and friendship he imagined, but with embarrassment, uncertainty about Agnes, and a private reckoning with his own lack of self-command.

As a narrated episode, the dissipation contrasts David’s idealized image of himself as host and loyal friend with the disorder of his actual conduct. J. Steerforth’s presence helps set the evening’s social tone, but the crucial consequence comes through Agnes: her serious appeal gives David a reason to feel shame that survives the party. The episode also marks a limit in his knowledge. He can recall the humiliation and regret, but cannot yet reach Agnes or explain her presence in London.