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《A Tale of Two Cities》Book2 CHAPTER6

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 楼主| 发表于 2013-3-26 10:40:15 | 显示全部楼层 |阅读模式
《A Tale of Two Cities》 Book2 CHAPTER VI   Hundreds of People
    by Charles Dickens
THE quiet lodgings of
    Doctor Manette were in a quiet street-corner not far from Soho-square. On the afternoon of
    a certain fine Sunday when the waves of four months had rolled over the trial for treason,
    and carried it, as to the public interest and memory, far out to sea, Mr. Jarvis Lorry
    walked along the sunny streets from Clerkenwell where he lived, on his way to dine with
    the Doctor. After several relapses into business-absorption, Mr. Lorry had become the
    Doctor's friend, and the quiet street-corner was the sunny part of his life.
   
    On this certain fine Sunday, Mr. Lorry walked towards Soho, early in the afternoon, for
    three reasons of habit. Firstly, because, on fine Sundays, he often walked out, before
    dinner, with the Doctor and Lucie; secondly, because, on unfavourable Sundays, he was
    accustomed to be with them as the family friend, talking, reading, looking out of window,
    and generally getting through the day; thirdly, because he happened to have his own little
    shrewd doubts to solve, and knew how the ways of the Doctor's household pointed to that
    time as a likely time for solving them.
   
    A quainter corner than the corner where the Doctor lived, was not to be found in London.
    There was no way through it, and the front windows of the Doctor's lodgings commanded a
    pleasant little vista of street that had a congenial air of retirement on it. There were
    few buildings then, north of the Oxford-road, and forest-trees flourished, and wild
    flowers grew, and the
    hawthorn blossomed, in the now vanished fields. As a consequence, country airs circulated
    in Soho with vigorous freedom, instead of languishing into the parish like stray paupers
    without a settlement; and there was many a good south wall, not far off, on which the
    peaches ripened in their season.
   
    The summer light struck into the corner brilliantly in the earlier part of the day; but,
    when the streets grew hot, the corner was in shadow, though not in shadow so remote but
    that you could see beyond it into a glare of brightness. It was a cool spot, staid but
    cheerful, a wonderful place for echoes, and a very harbour from the raging streets.
   
    There ought to have been a tranquil bark in such an anchorage, and there was. The Doctor
    occupied two floors of a large still house, where several callings purported to be pursued
    by day, but whereof little was audible any day, and which was shunned by all of them at
    night. In a building at the back, attainable by a court-yard' where a plane-tree rustled
    its green leaves, church-organs claimed to be made, and silver to be chased, and likewise
    gold to be beaten by some mysterious giant who had a golden arm starting out of the wall
    of the front hall--as if he had beaten himself precious, and menaced a similar conversion
    of all visitors. Very little of these trades, or of a lonely lodger rumoured to live
    up-stairs, or of a dim coach-trimming maker asserted to have a counting-house below, was
    ever heard or seen. Occasionally, a stray workman putting his coat on, traversed
    the hall, or a stranger peered about there, or a distant clink was heard across the
    court-yard, or a thump from the golden giant. These, how-ever, were only the exceptions
    required to prove the rule that the sparrows in the plane-tree behind the house, and
    the echoes in the corner before it, had their own way from Sunday morning unto Saturday
    night.
   
    Doctor Manette received such patients here as his old reputation, and its revival in the
    floating whispers of his story, brought him. His scientific knowledge, and his vigilance
    and skill in conducting ingenious experiments, brought him other-wise into moderate
    request, and he earned a, much as he wanted.
   
    These things were within Mr. Jarvis Lorry's knowledge, thoughts, and notice, when he rang
    the door-bell of the tranquil house in the corner, on the fine Sunday afternoon.
   
    `Doctor Manette at home?'
   
    Expected home.
   
    `Miss Lucie at home?'
   
    Expected home.
   
    `Miss Pross at home?'
   
    Possibly at home, but of a certainty impossible for hand-maid to anticipate intentions of
    Miss Pross, as to admission or denial of the fact.
   
    `As I am at home myself,' said Mr. Lorry, `I'll go up-stairs.'
   
    Although the Doctor's daughter had known nothing of the country of her birth, she appeared
    to have innately derived from it that ability to make much of little means, which is one
    of its most useful and most agreeable characteristics. Simple as the furniture was, it was
    set off by so many little adornments, of no value but for their taste and fancy, that its
    effect was delightful. The disposition of everything in the rooms, from the largest object
    to the least; the arrangement of colours, the elegant variety and contrast obtained by
    thrift in trifles, by delicate hands, clear eyes, and good sense; were at once so pleasant
    in themselves, and so expressive of their originator, that, as Mr. Lorry stood looking
    about him, the very chairs and tables seemed to ask him, with something of that peculiar
    expression which he knew so well by this time, whether he approved?
   
    There were three rooms on a floor, and, the doors by which they communicated being put
    open that the air might pass freely through them all, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of
    that fanciful resemblance which he detected all around him, walked from one to another.
    The first was the best room, and in it were Lucie's birds, and flowers, and books, and
    desk, and work-table, and box of water-colours; the second was the Doctor's
    consulting-room, used also as the dining-room; the third, changingly speckled by the
    rustle of the plane-tree in the yard, was the Doctor's bedroom, and there, in a corner,
    stood the disused
    shoemaker's bench and tray of tools, much as it had stood on the fifth floor of the dismal
    house by the wine-shop, in the suburb of Saint Antoine in Paris.
   
    `I wonder,' said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his looking about, `that he keeps that reminder of
    his sufferings about him!'
   
    `And why wonder at that?' was the abrupt inquiry that made him start.
   
    It proceeded from Miss Pross, the wild red woman, strong of hand, whose acquaintance he
    had first made at the Royal George Hotel at Dover, and had since improved.
   
    `I should have thought---`Mr. Lorry began.
   
    `Pooh! You'd have thought!' said Miss Pross; and Mr. Lorry left off.
   
    `How do you do?' inquired that lady then--sharply, and yet as if to express that she bore
    him no malice.
   
    `I am pretty well, I thank you,' answered Mr. Lorry, with meekness; `how are you?'
   
    `Nothing to boast of,' said Miss Pross.
   
    `Indeed?'
   
    `Ah! indeed!' said Miss Pross. `I am very much put out about my Ladybird.'
   
    `Indeed?'
   
    `For gracious sake say something else besides ``indeed,'' or you'll fidget me to death,'
    said Miss Pross: whose character (dissociated from stature) was shortness.'
   
    `Really, then?' said Mr. Lorry, as an amendment.
   
    `Really, is bad enough,' returned Miss Pross, `but better. Yes, I am very much put out.'
   
    `May I ask the cause?'
   
    `I don't want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of Ladybird, to come here looking
    after her,' said Miss Pross.
   
    `Do dozens come for that purpose?'
   
    `Hundreds,' said Miss Pross.
   
    It was characteristic of this lady (as of some other people before her time and since)
    that whenever her original pro-position was questioned, she exaggerated it.
   
    `Dear me!' said Mr. Lorry, as the safest remark he could think of.
   
    `I have lived with the darling--or the darling has lived with me, and paid me for it;
    which she certainly should never have done, you may take your affidavit, if I could have
    afforded to keep either myself or her for nothing--since she was ten years old. And it's
    really very hard,' said Miss Pross.
   
    Not seeing with precision what was very hard, Mr. Lorry shook his head; using that
    important part of himself as a sort of fairy cloak that would fit anything.
   
    `All sorts of people who are not in the least degree worthy of the pet, are always turning
    up,' said Miss Pross. `When you began it---'
   
    `I began it, Miss Pross?'
   
    `Didn't you? Who brought her father to life?'
   
    `Oh! If that was beginning it---'said Mr. Lorry.
   
    `It wasn't ending it, I suppose? I say, when you began it, it was hard enough; not that I
    have any fault to find with Doctor Manette, except that he is not worthy of such a
    daughter, which is no imputation on him, for it was not to be expected that anybody should
    be, under any circumstances. But it really is doubly and trebly hard to have crowds and
    multitudes of people turning up after him (I could have forgiven him), to take Ladybird's
    affections away from me.'
   
    Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew her by this time to be,
    beneath the surface of her eccentricity, one of those unselfish creatures--found only
    among women--who will, for pure love and admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to
    youth when they have lost it, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that they
    were never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never shone upon their own
    sombre lives. He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than
    the faithful service of the heart; so rendered and so free from any mercenary taint, he
    had such an exalted respect for it, that in the retributive arrangements made by his own
    mind--we all make such arrangements, more or less--he stationed Miss Pross much nearer to
    the lower Angels than many ladies immeasurably better got up both by Nature and Art, who
    had balances at Tellson's.
   
    `There never was, nor will be, but one man worthy of Lady-bird,' said Miss Pross; `and
    that was my brother Solomon, if he hadn't made a mistake in life.'
   
    Here again: Mr. Lorry's inquiries into Miss Pross's personal history had established the
    fact that her brother Solomon was a heartless scoundrel who had stripped her of everything
    she possessed, as a stake to speculate with, and had abandoned her in her poverty for
    evermore, with no touch of compunction. Miss Pross's fidelity of belief in Solomon
    (deducting a mere trifle for this slight mistake) was quite a serious matter with Mr.
    Lorry, and had its weight in his good opinion of her.
   
    `As we happen to be alone for the moment, and are both people of business,' he said, when
    they had got back to the drawing-room and had sat down there in friendly relations, `let
    me ask you--does the Doctor, in talking with Lucie, never refer to the shoemaking time,
    yet?'
   
    `Never.'
   
    `And yet keeps that bench and those tools beside him?'
   
    `Ah!' returned Miss Pross, shaking her head. `But I don't say he don't refer to it within
    himself.'
   
    `Do you believe that he thinks of it much?'
   
    `I do,' said Miss Pross.
   
    `Do you imagine---' Mr. Lorry had begun, when Miss Pross took him up short with:
   
    `Never imagine anything. Have no imagination at all.'
   
    `I stand corrected,; do you suppose--you go so far as to Suppose, sometimes?
   
    `Now and then,' said Miss Pross.
   
    `Do you suppose,' Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing twinkle in his bright eye, as it
    looked kindly at her, `that Doctor Manette has any theory of his own, preserved through
    all those years, relative to the cause of his being so oppressed; perhaps, even to the
    name of his oppressor?'
   
    `I don't suppose anything about it but what Ladybird tells me.'
   
    `And that is---?'
   
    `That she thinks he has.'
   
    `Now don't be angry at my asking all these questions; because I am a mere dull man of
    business, and you are a woman of business.'
   
    `Dull?' Miss Pross inquired, with placidity.
   
    Rather wishing his modest adjective away, Mr. Lorry replied, `No, no, no. Surely not. To
    return to business:- Is it not remarkable that Doctor Manette, unquestionably innocent of
    any crime as we are all well assured he is, should never touch upon that question? I will
    not say with me, though he had business relations with me many years ago, and we are now
    intimate; I will say with the fair daughter to whom he is so devotedly attached, and who
    is so devotedly attached to him? Believe me, Miss Pross, I don't approach the topic with
    you, out of curiosity, but out of zealous interest.'
   
    `Well! To the best of my understanding, and bad's the best, you'll tell me,' said Miss
    Pross, softened by the tone of the apology, `he is afraid of the whole subject.
   
    `Afraid?'
   
    `It's plain enough, I should think, why he may be. It's a dreadful remembrance. Besides
    that, his loss of himself grew out of it. Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he
    re-covered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again. That alone
    wouldn't make the subject pleasant, I should think.'
   
    It was a profounder remark than Mr. Lorry had looked for. `True,' said he, `and fearful to
    reflect upon. Yet, a doubt lurks in my mind, Miss Pross, whether it is good for Doctor
    Manette to have that suppression always shut up within him. Indeed, it is this doubt and
    the uneasiness it sometimes causes me that has led me to our present confidence.'
   
    `Can't be helped,' said Miss Pross, shaking her head. `Touch that string, and he instantly
    changes for the worse. Better leave it alone. In short, must leave it alone, like or no
    like. Sometimes, lie gets up in the dead of the night, and will be heard, by us overhead
    there, walking up and down, walking up and down, in his room. Ladybird has learnt to know
    then that his mind is walking up and down, walking up and down, in his old prison. She
    hurries to him, and they go on together, walking up and down, walking up and down, until
    he is composed. But he never says a word of the true reason of his restlessness, to her,
    and
    she finds it best not to hint at it to him. In silence they go walking up and down
    together, walking up and down together, till her love and company have brought him to
    himself.'
   
    Notwithstanding Miss Pross's denial of her own imagination, there was a perception of the
    pain of being monotonously haunted by one sad idea, in her repetition of the phrase,
    walking up and down, which testified to her possessing such a thing.
   
    The corner has been mentioned as a wonderful corner for echoes; it had begun to echo so
    resoundingly to the tread of coming feet, that it seemed as though the very mention of
    that weary pacing to and fro had set it going.
   
    `Here they are!' said Miss Pross, rising to break up the conference; `and now we shall
    have hundreds of people pretty soon!'
   
    It was such a curious comer in its acoustical properties, such a peculiar Ear of a place,
    that as Mr. Lorry stood at the open window, looking for the father and daughter whose
    steps he heard, he fancied they would never approach. Not only would the echoes die away,
    as though the steps had gone; but, echoes of other steps that never came would be heard in
    their stead, and would die away for good when they seemed close at hand. However, father
    and daughter did at last appear, and Miss Pross was ready at the street door to receive
    them.
   
    Miss Pross was a pleasant sight, albeit wild, and red, and grim, taking off her darling's
    bonnet when she came up-stairs, and touching it up with the ends of her handkerchief, and
    blowing the dust off it, and folding her mantle ready for laying by, and smoothing her
    rich hair with as much pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hair if she had
    been the vainest and handsomest of women. Her darling was a pleasant sight too, embracing
    her and thanking her, and protesting against her taking so much trouble for her--which
    last she only dared to do playfully, or Miss Pross, sorely hurt, would have retired to her
    own chamber and cried. The Doctor was a pleasant sight too, looking on at them, and
    telling Miss Pross how she spoilt Lucie, in accents and with eyes that had as much
    spoiling in them as Miss Pross had, and would have had more if it were possible. Mr. Lorry
    was a pleasant sight too, beaming at all this in his little wig, and thanking his bachelor
    stars for having lighted him in his declining years to a Home. But, no Hundreds of people
    came to see the sights, and Mr. Lorry looked in vain for the fulfilment of Miss Pross's
    prediction.
   
    Dinner-time, and still no Hundreds of people. In the arrangements of the little household,
    Miss Pross took charge of the lower regions, and always acquitted herself marvellously.
    Her dinners, of a very modest quality, were so well cooked and so well served, and so neat
    in their contrivances, half English and half French, that nothing could be better. Miss
    Pross's friendship being of the thoroughly practical kind, she had ravaged Soho and the
    adjacent provinces, in search of impoverished French, who, tempted by shillings and
    half-crowns, would impart culinary mysteries to her. From these decayed sons and daughters
    of
    Gaul, she had acquired such wonderful arts, that the woman and girl who formed the staff
    of domestics regarded her as quite a Sorceress, or Cinderella's Godmother: who would send
    out for a fowl, a rabbit, a vegetable or two from the garden, and change them into
    any-thing she pleased.
   
    On Sundays, Miss Pross dined at the Doctor's table, but on other days persisted in taking
    her meals at unknown periods, either in the lower regions, or in her own room on the
    second floor--a blue chamber, to which no one but her Ladybird ever gained admittance. On
    this occasion, Miss Pross, responding to Ladybird's pleasant face and pleasant efforts to
    please  her, unbent exceedingly; so the dinner was very pleasant, too.
   
    It was an oppressive day, and, after dinner, Lucie proposed that the wine should be
    carried out under the plane-tree, and they should sit there in the air. As everything
    turned upon her, and revolved about her, they went out under the plane-tree, and she
    carried the wine down for the special benefit of Mr. Lorry. She had installed herself,
    some time before, as Mr. Lorry's cup-bearer; and while they sat under the plane-tree,
    talking, she kept his glass replenished. Mysterious backs and ends of houses peeped at
    them as they talked, and the plane-tree whispered to them in its own way above their
    heads.
   
    Still, the Hundreds of people did not present themselves. Mr. Darnay presented himself
    while they were sitting under the plane-tree, but he was only One.
   
    Doctor Manette received him kindly, and so did Lucie. But, Miss Pross suddenly became
    afflicted with a twitching in the head and body, and retired into the house. She was not
    unfrequently the victim of this disorder, and she called it, in familiar conversation, `a
    fit of the jerks.'
   
    The Doctor was in his best condition, and looked specially young. The resemblance between
    him and Lucie was very strong at such times, and as they sat side by side, she leaning on
    his shoulder, and he resting his arm on the back of her chair, it was very agreeable to
    trace the likeness.
   
    He had been talking all day, on many subjects, and with unusual vivacity. `Pray, Doctor
    Manette,' said Mr. Darnay, as they sat under the plane-tree--and he said it in the natural
    pursuit of the topic in hand, which happened to be the old buildings of London-have you
    seen much of the Tower?'
   
    `Lucie and I have been there; but only casually. We have seen enough of it, to know that
    it teems with interest; little more.'
   
    `I have been there, as you remember,' said Darnay, with a smile, though reddening a little
    angrily, `in another character, and not in a character that gives facilities for seeing,
    much of it. They told me a curious thing when I was there.
   
    `What was that?' Lucie asked.
   
    `In making some alterations, the workmen came upon an old dungeon, which had been, for
    many years, built up and forgotten. Every stone of its inner wall was covered by
    inscriptions which had been carved by prisoners--dates, names, complaints, and prayers.
    Upon a corner stone in an angle of the wall, one prisoner, who seemed to have gone to
    execution, had cut as his last work, three letters. They were done with some very poor
    instrument, and hurriedly, with an unsteady hand. At first, they were read as D. I. C.;
    but, on being more carefully examined, the last letter was found to be G. There was no
    record or legend of any prisoner with those initials, and many fruitless guesses were made
    what the name could have been. At length, it was suggested that the letters were not
    initials, but the complete word, DIG. The floor was examined very carefully under the
    inscription, and, in the earth beneath a stone, or tile, or some fragment of paving, were
    found the ashes of a paper, mingled with the ashes of a small leathern case or bag. What
    the unknown prisoner had written will never be read, but he had written something, and
    hidden it away to keep it from the gaoler.'
   
    `My father,' exclaimed Lucie, `you are ill!'
   
    He had suddenly started up, with his hand to his head. His manner and his look quite
    terrified them all.
   
    `No, my dear, not ill. There are large drops of rain falling, and they made me start. We
    had better go in.'
   
    He recovered himself almost instantly. Rain was really falling in large drops, and he
    showed the back of his hand with rain-drops on it. But, he said not a single word in
    reference to the discovery that had been told of, and, as they went into the house, the
    business eye of Mr. Lorry either detected, or fancied it detected, on his face, as it
    turned towards Charles Darnay, the same singular look that had been upon it when it turned
    towards him in the passages of the Court House.
   
    He recovered himself so quickly, however, that Mr. Lorry had doubts of his business eye.
    The arm of the golden giant in the hall was not more steady than he was, when he stopped
    under it to remark to them that he was not yet proof against slight surprises (if he ever
    would be), and that the rain had startled him.
   
    Tea-time, and Miss Pross making tea, with another fit of the jerks upon her, and yet no
    Hundreds of people. Mr. Garton had lounged in, but he made only Two.
   
    The night was so very sultry, that although they sat with doors and windows open, they
    were overpowered by heat. When the tea-table was done with, they all moved to one of the
    windows, and looked out into the heavy twilight. Lucie sat by her father; Darnay sat
    beside her; Carton leaned against a window. The curtains were long and white, and some of
    the thunder-gusts that whirled into the corner, caught them up to the ceiling, and waved
    them like spectral wings.
   
    `The rain-drops are still falling, large, heavy, and few,' said Doctor Manette. `It comes
    slowly.
   
    `It comes surely,' said Carton.
   
    They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do; as people in a dark room,
    watching and waiting for Lightning, always do.
   
    There was a great hurry in the streets, of people speeding away to get shelter before the
    storm broke; the wonderful corner for echoes resounded with the echoes of footsteps coming
    and going, yet not a footstep was there.
   
    `A multitude of people, and yet a solitude!' said Darnay, when they had listened for a
    while.
   
    `Is it not impressive, Mr. Darnay?' asked Lucie. `Sometimes, I have sat here of an
    evening, until I have fancied--but even the shade of a foolish fancy makes me shudder
    to-night, when all is so black and solemn---'
   
    `Let us shudder too. We may know what it is.'
   
    `It will seem nothing to you. Such whims are only impressive as we originate them, I
    think; they are not to be communicated. I have sometimes sat alone here of an evening,
    listening, until I have made the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that
    are coming by-and-by into our lives.'
   
    `There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if that be so,' Sydney Carton
    struck in, in his moody way.
   
    The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became more and more rapid. The corner
    echoed and re-echoed with the tread of feet; some, as it seemed, under the windows; some,
    as it seemed, in the room; some coming, some going, some breaking off, some stopping
    altogether; all in the distant streets, and not one within sight.
   
    `Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss Manette, or are we to divide
    them among us?'
   
    `I don't know, Mr. Darnay; I told you it was a foolish fancy, but you asked for it. When I
    have yielded myself to it, I have been alone, and then I have imagined them the foot-steps
    the people who are to come into my life, and my father's.'
   
    `I take them into mine!' said Carton. `I ask no questions and make no stipulations. There
    is a great crowd bearing down upon us, Miss Manette, and I see them---by the Lightning.'
    He added the last words, after there had been a vivid flash which had shown him lounging
    in the window.
   
    `And I hear them.' he added again, after a peal of thunder.
   
    `Here they come, fast, fierce, and furious.'
   
    It was the rush and roar of rain that he typified, and it stopped him, for no voice could
    be heard in it. A memorable storm of thunder and lightning broke with that sweep of water,
    and there was not a moment's interval in crash, and We, and rain, until after the moon
    rose at midnight.
   
    The great bell of Saint Paul's was striking One in the cleared air, when Mr. Lorry,
    escorted by Jerry, high-booted. and bearing a lantern, set forth on his return-passage to
    Clerkenwell. There were solitary patches of road on the way between Soho and Clerkenwell,
    and Mr. Lorry, mindful of footpads, always retained Jerry for this service: though it was
    usually performed a good two hours earlier.
   
    `What a night it has been! Almost a night, `Jerry,' said Mr. Lorry, `to bring the dead out
    of their graves.
   
    `I never see the night myself, master--nor yet I don't expect to--what would do that,'
    answered Jerry.
   
    `Good-night, Mr. Carton,' said the man of business. `Good-night, Mr. Darnay. Shall we ever
    see such a night again, together!'
   
    Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great crowd of people with its rush and roar, bearing down upon
    them, too.
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