有声名著之双城记Book2 Chapter02
时间：2009-04-06 01:53:17
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有声名著之双城记
CHAPTER II A Sight
`YOU know the Old Bailey well, no doubt?' said one of the oldest of clerksto Jerry the messenger.
`Ye-es, sir,' returned Jerry, in something of a dogged manner. `I do knowthe Bailey.'
`Just so. And you know Mr. Lorry.'
`I know Mr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Much better,'
said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness at the establishment in question,`than I, as a honest tradesman, wish to know the Bailey.'
`Very well. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and show the door-keeper this note for Mr. Lorry. He will then let you in.'
`Into the court, sir?'
`Into the court.'
Mr. Cruncher's eyes seemed to get a little closer to one another, and tointerchange the inquiry1, `What do you think of this?'
`Am I to wait in the court, sir?' he asked, as the result of thatconference.
`I am going to tell you. The door-keeper will pass the note to Mr. Lorry,and do you make any gesture that will attract Mr. Lorry's attention, andshow him where you stand. Then what you have to do, is, to remain thereuntil he wants you.'
`Is that all, sir?'
`That's all. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This is to tell him youare there.'
As the ancient clerk deliberately2 folded and superscribed the note, Mr.
Cruncher, after surveying him in silence until he came to the blotting-paperstage, remarked:
`I suppose they'll be trying Forgeries3 this morning?'
`Treason!'
`That's quartering,' said Jerry. `Barbarous!'
`It is the law,' remarked the ancient clerk, turning his surprisedspectacles upon him. `It is the law.
`It `shard in the law to spile a man, I think. It `shard enough to killhim, but it's wery hard to spile him, sir.'
`Not at all,' returned the ancient clerk. `Speak well of the law. Take careof your chest and voice, my good friend, and leave the law to take care ofitself. I give you that advice.'
`It's the damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice,' said Jerry. `Ileave you to judge what a damp way of earning a living mine is.'
`Well, well,' said the old clerk; `we all have our various ways of gaininga livelihood4. Some of us have damp ways, and some of us have dry ways. Hereis the letter. Go along.'
Jerry took the letter, and, remarking to himself with less internaldeference than he made an outward show of, `You are a lean old one, too,'
made his bow, informed his son, in passing, of [`is destination, and wenthis way.
They hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside Newgate had notobtained one infamous5 notoriety that has since attached to it. But, the gaolwas a vile7 place, in which most kinds of debauchery and villainy werepractised, and where dire8 diseases were bred, that came into court with theprisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from the dock at my Lord ChiefJustice himself, and pulled him off the bench. It had more than oncehappened, that the Judge in the black cap pronounced his own doom9 ascertainly as the prisoner's, and even died before him. For the rest, the OldBailey was famous as a kind of deadly inn-yard, from which pale travellersset out continually, in carts and coaches, on a violent passage into theother world: traversing some two miles and a half of public street and road,and shaming few good citizens, if any. So powerful is use, and so desirableto be good use in the beginning. It was famous, too, for the pillory10, a wiseold institution, that inflicted11 a punishment of which no one could foreseethe extent; also, for the whipping-post, another dear old institution, veryhumanising and softening12 to behold13 in action; also, for extensivetransactions in blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom,systematically leading to the most frightful14 mercenary crimes that could becommitted under Heaven. Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was achoice illustration of the precept15, that `Whatever is is right;' an aphorismthat would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesomeconsequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong. #p#副标题#e#Making his way through the tainted16 crowd, dispersed17 up and down this hideousscene of action, with the skill of a man accustomed to make his way quietly,the messenger found out the door he sought, and handed in his letter througha trap in it. For people then paid to see the play at the Old Bailey, justas they paid to see the play in Bedlam--only the former entertainment wasmuch the dearer. Therefore, all the Old Bailey doors were well guarded--except, indeed, the social doors by which the criminals got there, and thosewere always left wide open.
After some delay and demur18, the door grudgingly19 turned on its hinges a verylittle way, and allowed Mr. Jerry Cruncher to squeeze himself into court.
`What's on?' he asked, in a whisper, of the man he found himself next to.
`Nothing yet.'
`What's coming on,?'
`The Treason case.
`The quartering one, eh?'
`Ah!' returned the man, with a relish20; `he'll be drawn21 on a hurdle22 to behalf hanged, and then he'll be taken down and sliced before his own face,and then his inside will be taken out and burnt while he looks on, and thenhis head will be chopped off, and he'll be cut into quarters. That thesentence.'
`If he's found Guilty, you mean to say?' Jerry added, by way of proviso.
`Oh! they'll find him guilty,' said the other. `Don't you be afraid ofthat.'
Mr. Cruncher's attention was here diverted to the doorkeeper, whom he sawmaking his way to Mr. Lorry, with the note in his hand. Mr. Lorry sat at atable, among the gentlemen in wigs23: not far from a wigged24 gentleman, theprisoner's counsel, who had a great bundle of papers before him: and nearlyopposite another wigged gentleman with his hands in his pockets, whose wholeattention, when Mr. Cruncher looked at him then or afterwards, seemed to beconcentrated on the ceiling of the court. After some gruff coughing andrubbing of his chin and signing with his hand, Jerry attracted the notice ofMr. Lorry, who had stood up to look for him, and who quietly nodded and satdown again.
`What's. he got to do with the case?' asked the man he had spoken with.
`Blest if I know,' said Jerry.
`What have you got to do with it, then, if a person may inquire?'
`Blest if I know that either,' said Jerry.
The entrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and settling down inthe court, stopped the dialogue. Presently, the dock became the centralpoint of interest. Two gaolers, who had been standing25 there, went out, andthe prisoner was brought in, and put to the bar.
Everybody present, except the one wigged gentleman who looked at theceiling, stared at him. All the human breath in the place, rolled at him,like a sea, or a wind, or a fire. Eager faces strained round pillars andcorners, to get a sight of him; spectators in back rows stood up, not tomiss a hair of him; people on the floor of the court, laid their hands onthe shoulders of the people before them, to help themselves, at anybody'scost, to a view of him--stood a-tiptoe, got upon ledges26, stood upon next tonothing, to see every inch of him. Conspicuous27 among these latter, like ananimated bit of the spiked28 wall of Newgate, Jerry stood: aiming at theprisoner the beery breath of a whet29 he had taken as he came along, anddischarging it to mingle30 with the waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, andcoffee, and what not, that flowed at him, and already broke upon the greatwindows behind him in an impure31 mist and rain.
The object of all this staring and blaring, was a young man of about five-and-twenty, well-grown and well-looking, with a sunburnt cheek and a darkeye. His condition was that of a young gentleman. He was plainly dressed inblack, or very dark grey, and his hair, which was long and dark, wasgathered in a ribbon at the back of his neck; more to be out of his way thanfor ornament32. As an emotion of the mind will express itself through anycovering of the body, so the paleness which his situation engendered33 camethrough the brown upon his cheek, showing the soul to be stronger than thesun. He was otherwise quite self-possessed, bowed to the Judge, and stoodquiet.
The sort of interest with which this man was stared and breathed at, wasnot a sort that elevated humanity. Had he stood in peril34 of a less horriblesentence--had there been a chance of any one of its savage35 details beingspared--by just so much would he have lost in his fascination36. The form thatwas to be doomed37 to be so shamefully38 mangled39, was the sight; the immortalcreature that was to be so butchered and torn asunder40, yielded thesensation. Whatever gloss41 the various spectators put upon the interest,according to their several arts and powers of self-deceit, the interest was,at the root of it, Ogreish. #p#副标题#e#Silence in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded Not Guilty to anindictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle42 and jangle) for that he wasa false traitor43 to our serene44, illustrious, excellent, and so forth45, prince,our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers46 occasions, and bydivers means and ways, assisted Lewis, the French King, in his wars againstour said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth; that was to say, bycoming and going, between the dominions47 of our said serene, illustrious,excellent, and so forth, and those of the said French Lewis, and wickedly,falsely, traitorously48, and otherwise evil-adverbiously, revealing to thesaid French Lewis what forces our said serene, illustrious, excellent, andso forth, had in preparation to send to Canada and North America. This much,Jerry, with his head becoming more and more spiky49 as the law terms bristledit, made out with huge satisfaction, and so arrived circuitously50 at theunder-standing that the aforesaid, and over and over again aforesaid,Charles Darnay, stood there before him upon his trial; that the jury wereswearing in; and that Mr. Attorney-General was making ready to speak.
The accused, who was (and who knew he was) being mentally hanged, beheaded,and quartered, by everybody there, neither flinched51 from the situation, norassumed any theatrical52 air in it. He was quiet and attentive53; watched theopening proceedings54 with a grave interest; and stood with his hands restingon the slab55 of wood before him, so composedly, that they had not displaced aleaf of the herbs with which it was strewn. The court was all bestrewn withherbs and sprinkled with vinegar, as a precaution against gaol6 air and gaolfever.
Over the prisoner's head there was a mirror, to throw the light down uponhim. Crowds of the wicked and the wretched had been reflected in it, and hadpassed from its surface and this earth's together. Haunted in a most ghastlymanner that abominable56 place would have been, if the glass could ever haverendered back its reflections, as the ocean is one day to give up its dead.
Some passing thought of the infamy57 and disgrace for which it had beenreserved, may have struck the prisoner's mind. Be that as it may, a changein his position making him conscious of a bar of light across his face, helooked up; and when he saw the glass his face flushed, and his right handpushed the herbs away.
It happened, that the action turned his face to that side of the courtwhich was on his left. About on a level with his eyes, there sat, in thatcorner of the Judge's bench, two persons upon whom his look immediatelyrested; so immediately, and so much to the changing of his aspect, that allthe eyes that were turned upon him, turned to them.
The spectators saw in the two figures, a young lady of little more thantwenty, and a gentleman who was evidently her father; a man of a veryremarkable appearance in respect of the absolute whiteness of his hair, anda certain indescribable intensity58 of face: not of an active kind, butpondering and self-communing. When this expression was upon him, he lookedas if he were old; but when it was stirred and broken up--as It was now, ina moment, on his speaking to his daughter--he became a handsome man, notpast the prime of life.
His daughter had one of her hands drawn through his arm, as she sat by him,and the other pressed upon it. She had drawn close to him, in her dread59 ofthe scene, and in her pity for the prisoner. Her forehead had beenstrikingly expressive60 of an engrossing61 terror and compassion62 that sawnothing but the peril of the accused. This had been so very noticeable, sovery powerfully and naturally shown, that starers who had had no pity forhim were touched by her; and the whisper went about, `Who are they?'
Jerry, the messenger, who had made his own observations, in his own manner,and who had been sucking the rust63 off his fingers in his absorption,stretched his neck to hear who they were. The crowd about him had pressedand passed the inquiry on to the nearest attendant, and from him it had beenmore slowly pressed and passed back; at last it got to Jerry:
`Witnesses.'
`For which side?'
`Against.'
`Against what side?'
`The prisoner's.'
The Judge, whose eyes had gone in the general direction, recalled them,leaned back in his seat, and looked steadily64 at the man whose life was inhis hand, as Mr. Attorney-General rose to spin the rope, grind the axe65, andhammer the nails into the scaffold.
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