有声名著之双城记Book2 Chapter05
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有声名著之双城记
CHAPTER VThe Jackal
THOSE were drinking days, and moot1 men drank hard. So very great is theimprovement Time has brought about in such habits, that a moderate statementof the quantity of wine and punch which one man would swallow in the courseof a night, without any detriment2 to his reputation as a perfect gentleman,would seem, in these days, a ridiculous exaggeration. The learned professionof the law was certainly not behind any other learned profession in itsBacchanalian Propensities3; neither was Mr. Stryver, already fast shoulderinghis way to a large and lucrative4 practice, behind his compeers in thisparticular, any more than in the drier parts of the legal race.
A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke5 at the Sessions, Mr. Stryver hadbegun cautiously to hew6 away the lower staves of the ladder on which hemounted. Sessions and Old Bailey had now to summon their favourite,specially, to their longing7 arms; and shouldering itself towards the visageof the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of King's Bench, the floridcountenance of Mr. Stryver might be daily seen, bursting out of the bed ofwigs, like a great sunflower pushing its way at the sun from among a rankgarden full of flaring8 companions.
ad once been noted9 at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryver was a glib10 man, andan unscrupulous, and a ready, and a bold, he had not that faculty11 ofextracting the essence from a heap of statements, which is among the moststriking and necessary of the advocate's accomplishments12. But a remarkableimprovement came upon him as to this. The more business he got, the greaterhis power seemed to grow of getting at its pith and marrow13; and however lateat night he sat carousing14 with Sydney Carton, he always had his points athis fingers' ends in the morning.
Sydney Carton, idlest and most unpromising of men, was Stryver's greatally. What the two drank together, between Hilary Term and Michaelmas, mighthave floated a king's ship. Stryver never had a case in hand, anywhere, butCarton was there, with his hands in his pockets, staring at the ceiling ofthe court; they went the same Circuit, and even there they prolonged theirusual orgies late into the night, and Carton was rumoured15 to be seen atbroad day, going home stealthily and unsteadily to his lodgings16, like adissipated cat. At last, it began to get about, among such as wereinterested in the matter, that although Sydney Carton would never be a lion,he was an amazingly good jackal, and that he rendered suit and service toStryver in that humble17 capacity.
`Ten o'clock, sir,' said the man at the tavern18, whom he had charged to wakehim--'ten o'clock, sir.'
`What's the matter?'
`Ten o'clock, sir.'
`What do you mean? Ten o'clock at night?'
`Yes, sir. Your honour told me to call you.'
`Oh! I remember. Very well, very well.'
After a few dull efforts to get to sleep again, which the man dexterouslycombated by stirring the fire continuously for five minutes, he got up,tossed his hat on, and walked out. He turned into the Temple, and, havingrevived himself by twice pacing the pavements of King's Bench-walk andPaper-buildings, turned into the Stryver chambers20.
The Stryver clerk, who never assisted at these conferences, had gone home,and the Stryver principal opened the door. He had his slippers21 on, and aloose bed-gown, and his throat was bare for his greater ease. He had thatrather wild, strained, seared marking about the eyes, which may be observedin all free livers of his class, from the portrait of Jeffries downward, andwhich can be traced, under various disguises of Art, through the portraitsof every Drinking Age.
`You are a little late, Memory,' said Stryver.
`About the usual time; it may be a quarter of an hour later.'
They went into a dingy22 room lined with books and littered with papers,where there was a blazing fire. A kettle steamed upon the hob, and in themidst of the wreck23 of papers a table shone, with plenty of wine upon it, andbrandy, and rum, and sugar, and lemons.
`You have had your bottle, I perceive, Sydney.'
`Two to-night, I think. I have been dining with the day's client; or seeinghim dine--it's all one!'
`That was a rare point, Sydney, that you brought to bear upon theidentification. How did you come by it? When did it strike you?'
`I thought he was rather a handsome fellow, and I thought I should havebeen much the same sort of fellow, if I had had any luck.'
Mr. Stryver laughed till he shook his precocious24 paunch.
`You and your luck, Sydney! Get to work, get to work.' Sullenly25 enough, thejackal loosened his dress, went into an adjoining room, and came back with alarge jug26 of cold water, a basin, and a towel or two. Steeping the towels inthe water, and partially27 wringing28 them out, he folded them on his head in amanner hideous29 to behold30, sat down at the table, and said, `Now I am ready!' #p#副标题#e#`Not much boiling down to be done to-night, Memory,' said Mr. Stryver,gaily, as he looked among his papers.
`How much?'
`Only two sets of them.'
`Give me the worst first.'
`There they are, Sydney. Fire away!'
The lion then composed himself on his back on a sofa on one side of thedrinking-table, while the jackal sat at his own Paper bestrewn table proper,on the other side of it, with the bottles and glasses ready to his hand.
Both resorted to the drinking-table without stint31, but each in a differentway; the lion for the most part reclining with his hands in his waistband,looking at the fire, or occasionally flirting32 with some lighter33 document;the jackal, with knitted brows and intent face, so deep in his task, thathis eyes did not even follow the hand he stretched out for his glass--whichoften groped about, for a minute or more, before it found the glass for hislips. Two or three times, the matter in hand became so knotty34, that thejackal found it imperative35 on him to get up, and steep his towels anew. Fromthese pilgrimages to the jug and basin, he returned with such eccentricitiesof damp headgear as no words can describe; which were made the moreludicrous by his anxious gravity.
At length the jackal had got together a compact repast for the lion, andproceeded to offer it to him. The lion took it with care and caution, madehis selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal assistedboth. When the repast was fully36 discussed, the lion put his hands in hiswaistband again, and lay down to meditate37. The jackal then invigoratedhimself with a bumper38 for his throttle39, and a fresh application to his head,and applied40 himself to the collection of a second meal; this wasadministered to the lion in the same manner, and was not disposed of untilthe clocks struck three in the morning.
`And now we have done, Sydney, fill a bumper of punch,' said Mr. Stryver.
The jackal removed the towels from his head, which had been steaming again,shook himself, yawned, shivered, and complied.
`You were very sound, Sydney, in the matter of those crown witnesses to-day. Every question told.'
`I always am sound; am I not?'
`I don't gainsay41 it. What has roughen'ed your temper? Put some punch to itand smooth it again.
With a deprecatory grunt42, the jackal again complied.
`The old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School,' said Stryver, nodding hishead over him as he reviewed him in the present and the past, `the oldseesaw Sydney. Up one minute and down the next; now in spirits and now indespondency!'
`Ah!' returned the other, sighing: `yes! The same Sydney, with the sameluck. Even then, I did exercises for other boys, and seldom did my own.'
`And why not?' `God knows. It was my way, I suppose.'
He sat, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out beforehim, looking at the fire.
`Carton,' said his friend, squaring himself at him with a bullying43 air, asif the fire-grate had been the furnace in which sustained endeavour wasforged, and the one delicate thing to be done for the old Sydney Carton ofold Shrewsbury School was to shoulder him into it, `your way is, and alwayswas, a lame44 way. You summon no energy and purpose. Look at me.
`Oh, botheration!' returned Sydney, with a lighter and more good-humouredlaugh, `don't *you be moral!' #p#副标题#e#`How have I done what I have done?' said Stryver; `how do I do what I do?'
`Partly through paying me to help you, I suppose. But it's not worth yourwhile to apostrophise me, or the air, about it; what you want to do, you do.
You were always in the front rank, and I was always behind.'
`I had to get into the front rank; I was not born there, was I?'
`I was not present at the ceremony; but my opinion is you were,' saidCarton. At this, he laughed again, and they both laughed.
`Before Shrewsbury, and at Shrewsbury, and ever since Shrewsbury,' pursuedCarton, `you have fallen into your rank, and I have fallen into mine. Evenwhen we were fellow students in the Student-Quarter of Paris, picking upFrench, and French law, and other French crumbs45 that we didn't get much goodof, you were always somewhere, and I was always--nowhere.'
`And whose fault was that?'
`Upon my soul, I am not sure that it was not yours. You were always drivingand riving and shouldering and pressing, to that restless degree that I hadno chance for my life but in rust46 and repose47. It's a gloomy thing, however,to talk about one's Own past, with the day breaking. Turn me in some otherdirection before I go.'
`Well then! Pledge me to the pretty witness,' said Stryver, holding up hisglass. `Are you turned in a pleasant direction?'
Apparently48 not, for he became gloomy again.
`Pretty witness,' he muttered, looking down into his glass. `I have hadenough of witnesses to-day and to-night; who's your pretty witness?'
`The picturesque49 doctor's daughter, Miss Manette.'
`She pretty?'
`Is she not?'
`No.'
`Why, man alive, she was the admiration50 of the whole Court!'
`Rot the admiration of the whole Court! Who made the Old Bailey a judge ofbeauty? She was a golden-haired doll!'
`Do you know, Sydney,' said Mr. Stryver, looking at him with sharp eyes,and slowly drawing a hand across his florid face: `do you know, I ratherthought, at the time, that you sympathised with the golden-haired doll, andwere quick to see what= happened to the golden-haired doll?'
`Quick to see what happened! If a girl, doll or no doll, swoons within ayard or two of a man's nose, he can see it without a perspective-glass. Ipledge you, but I deny the beauty. And now I'll have no more drink; I'll getto bed.'
When his host followed him out on the staircase with a candle, to light himdown the stairs, the day was coldly looking in through its grimy windows.
When he got out of the house, the air was cold and sad, the dull skyovercast, the river dark and dim, the whole scene like a lifeless desert.
And wreaths of dust were spinning round and round before the morning blast,as if the desert-sand had risen far away, and the first spray of it in itsadvance had begun to overwhelm the city.
Waste forces within him, and a desert' all around, this man stood still onhis way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying in thewilderness before him, a mirage51 of honourable52 ambition, self-denial, andperseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airy galleriesfrom which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the fruitsof life hung ripening53, waters of Hope that sparkled in his sight. A moment,and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber19 in a well of houses, he threwhimself down in his clothes on a neglected bed, and its pillow was wet withwasted tears.
Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man ofgood abilities and good emotions, incapable54 of their directed exercise,incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight55 onhim, and resigning him-self to let it cat him away.
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