What I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when I never knew? What I dreaded was, that in some unlucky hour I, being at my grimiest and commonest, should lift up my eyes and see Estella looking in at one of the wooden windows of the forge. I was haunted by the fear that she would, sooner or later, find me out, with a black face and hands, doing the coarsest part of my work, and would exult over me and despise me.
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 14. After starting work as Joe’s apprentice at the forge, Pip is haunted by images of Estella. He fears that she will catch sight of him at the forge and view him as common and dirty. Having been exposed to upper class life in Satis House and Estella’s mockery of his common ways, Pip is self-conscious and ashamed of his lower class status.