This morning, six time zones ago, I was practicing my German on the cabbie, and I told him I had two adopted children. He asked, “Konnten Sie nicht sein eigene Kinder haben?” —somewhat ungrammatically, for he was not a native speaker either, but I knew what he meant. He meant, “Couldn’t you have children of your own?” and I responded reflexively but with equal disdain for cases and endings, “Sie sind meine eigene Kinder!” As I’m sure you can guess, I meant “They are my own children!” I was proud that I could generate politically correct (if not grammatically correct) adopt-speak in two languages.

Coincidentally, a few hours later I was reading Our Mutual Friend on the plane, and two characters in the book who were interested in adopting a child were involved in a similar conversation. ” ‘I think,’ said Mr. Milvey, ‘that you have never had a child of your own, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin?’ ” Of course, they just responded, “Never,” without taking umbrage, and resumed the search for a child.

Dickens recounts their difficulties:

Either an eligible orphan was of the wrong sex (which almost always happened) or was too old, or too young, or too sickly, or too dirty, or too much accustomed to the streets, or too likely to run away; or, it was found impossible to complete the philanthropic transaction without buying the orphan. For, the instant it became known that anybody wanted the orphan, up started some affectionate relative of the orphan who put a price upon the orphan’s head. The suddenness of an orphan’s rise in the market was not to be paralleled by the maddest records of the Stock Exchange. He would be at five thousand per cent. discount out at nurse making a mud pie at nine in the morning, and (being inquired for) would go up to five thousand per cent. premium before noon. The market was “rigged” in various artful ways. Counterfeit stock got into circulation. Parents boldly represented themselves as dead, and brought their orphans with them. Geniuine orphan-stock was surreptitiously withdrawn from the market. It being announced, by emissaries posted for the purpose, that [agents for Mr. and Mrs. Boffin] were coming down the court, orphan scrip would be instantly concealed, and production refused, save on the condition usually stated by the brokers as “a gallon of beer.” Likewise, fluctuations of a wild and South-Sea nature were occasioned, by orphan-holders keeping back, and then rushing into the market a dozen together. But, the uniform principle at the root of all these various operations was bargain and sale, and that principle could not be recognized by [the prospective parents].

The foregoing is either hilarious or reprehensible, depending on your sense of humor. I find it pretty funny, thus skilfully handled by Dickens, but would have been outraged if similar sentiments had emerged from, say, the cabbie in plainer language. Funny or not, though, it is quite cutting. The “orphan market,” either explicit or implicitly driven, is what we fear most in adoption.

Eventually, the couple in question find a genuine orphan, a toddler boy, who lives with his aged grandmother. The grandmother recognizes that it would be a good thing for the child to be raised by younger parents and agrees to place the child for adoption. She approves of the Boffins when she meets them, but when the time comes to make her final decision she find she can’t relinquish the child. “I wouldn’t stand in the dear child’s light, not if I had all my life before me instead of a very little of it. But I hope you won’t take it ill that I cleave to the child closer than words can tell, for he’s the last living thing left me.” The Boffins kindly don’t pressure her, and they tell her they will be there if she changes her mind. They try to relieve her poverty by offering her some money, but she is too proud to take it, and also, I think, concerned that this charity will bind her in ways she is not yet ready to accept.

It is a very affecting scene, a definite jolt to a heart hardened by the satire that came before it. Leave it to Dickens to make you snort and cry in the same chapter. I’m amazed by how relevant these adoption scenes are to our experiences now.