XIII. The Fellow of No Delicacy
If Sydney Carton ever shone anywhere, he certainly never shone in thehouse of Doctor Manette. He had been there often, during a whole year,and had always been the same moody and morose lounger there. When hecared to talk, he talked well; but, the cloud of caring for nothing,which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarelypierced by the light within him.
And yet he did care something for the streets that environed that house,and for the senseless stones that made their pavements. Many a nighthe vaguely and unhappily wandered there, when wine had brought notransitory gladness to him; many a dreary daybreak revealed his solitaryfigure lingering there, and still lingering there when the first beamsof the sun brought into strong relief, removed beauties of architecturein spires of churches and lofty buildings, as perhaps the quiet timebrought some sense of better things, else forgotten and unattainable,into his mind. Of late, the neglected bed in the Temple Court had knownhim more scantily than ever; and often when he had thrown himself uponit no longer than a few minutes, he had got up again, and haunted thatneighbourhood.
On a day in August, when Mr. Stryver (after notifying to his jackalthat ”he had thought better of that marrying matter”) had carried hisdelicacy into Devonshire, and when the sight and scent of flowers in theCity streets had some waifs of goodness in them for the worst, of healthfor the sickliest, and of youth for the oldest, Sydney's feet still trodthose stones. From being irresolute and purposeless, his feet becameanimated by an intention, and, in the working out of that intention,they took him to the Doctor's door.
He was shown up-stairs, and found Lucie at her work, alone. She hadnever been quite at her ease with him, and received him with some littleembarrassment as he seated himself near her table. But, looking up athis face in the interchange of the first few common-places, she observeda change in it.
”I fear you are not well, Mr. Carton!”
”No. But the life I lead, Miss Manette, is not conducive to health. Whatis to be expected of, or by, such profligates?”
”Is it not--forgive me; I have begun the question on my lips--a pity tolive no better life?”
”God knows it is a shame!”
”Then why not change it?”
Looking gently at him again, she was surprised and saddened to see thatthere were tears in his eyes. There were tears in his voice too, as heanswered:
”It is too late for that. I shall never be better than I am. I shallsink lower, and be worse.”
He leaned an elbow on her table, and covered his eyes with his hand. Thetable trembled in the silence that followed.
She had never seen him softened, and was much distressed. He knew her tobe so, without looking at her, and said:
”Pray forgive me, Miss Manette. I break down before the knowledge ofwhat I want to say to you. Will you hear me?”
”If it will do you any good, Mr. Carton, if it would make you happier,it would make me very glad!”
”God bless you for your sweet compassion!”
He unshaded his face after a little while, and spoke steadily.
”Don't be afraid to hear me. Don't shrink from anything I say. I am likeone who died young. All my life might have been.”
”No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it might still be; I amsure that you might be much, much worthier of yourself.”
”Say of you, Miss Manette, and although I know better--although in themystery of my own wretched heart I know better--I shall never forgetit!”
She was pale and trembling. He came to her relief with a fixed despairof himself which made the interview unlike any other that could havebeen holden.
”If it had been possible, Miss Manette, that you could have returned thelove of the man you see before yourself--flung away, wasted, drunken,poor creature of misuse as you know him to be--he would have beenconscious this day and hour, in spite of his happiness, that he wouldbring you to misery, bring you to sorrow and repentance, blight you,disgrace you, pull you down with him. I know very well that you can haveno tenderness for me; I ask for none; I am even thankful that it cannotbe.”
”Without it, can I not save you, Mr. Carton? Can I not recallyou--forgive me again!--to a better course? Can I in no way repay yourconfidence? I know this is a confidence,” she modestly said, after alittle hesitation, and in earnest tears, ”I know you would say this tono one else. Can I turn it to no good account for yourself, Mr. Carton?”
He shook his head.
”To none. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear me through a verylittle more, all you can ever do for me is done. I wish you to know thatyou have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have notbeen so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of thishome made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I thought haddied out of me. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse thatI thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers fromold voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. Ihave had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking offsloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, alla dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down,but I wish you to know that you inspired it.”
”Will nothing of it remain? O Mr. Carton, think again! Try again!”
”No, Miss Manette; all through it, I have known myself to be quiteundeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still theweakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me,heap of ashes that I am, into fire--a fire, however, inseparable inits nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing noservice, idly burning away.”
”Since it is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to have made you more unhappythan you were before you knew me--”
”Don't say that, Miss Manette, for you would have reclaimed me, ifanything could. You will not be the cause of my becoming worse.”
”Since the state of your mind that you describe, is, at all events,attributable to some influence of mine--this is what I mean, if I canmake it plain--can I use no influence to serve you? Have I no power forgood, with you, at all?”
”The utmost good that I am capable of now, Miss Manette, I have comehere to realise. Let me carry through the rest of my misdirected life,the remembrance that I opened my heart to you, last of all the world;and that there was something left in me at this time which you coulddeplore and pity.”
”Which I entreated you to believe, again and again, most fervently, withall my heart, was capable of better things, Mr. Carton!”
”Entreat me to believe it no more, Miss Manette. I have proved myself,and I know better. I distress you; I draw fast to an end. Will you letme believe, when I recall this day, that the last confidence of my lifewas reposed in your pure and innocent breast, and that it lies therealone, and will be shared by no one?”
”If that will be a consolation to you, yes.”
”Not even by the dearest one ever to be known to you?”
”Mr. Carton,” she answered, after an agitated pause, ”the secret isyours, not mine; and I promise to respect it.”
”Thank you. And again, God bless you.”
He put her hand to his lips, and moved towards the door.
”Be under no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever resuming thisconversation by so much as a passing word. I will never refer to itagain. If I were dead, that could not be surer than it is henceforth. Inthe hour of my death, I shall hold sacred the one good remembrance--andshall thank and bless you for it--that my last avowal of myself was madeto you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were gently carriedin your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy!”
He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was sosad to think how much he had thrown away, and how much he every day keptdown and perverted, that Lucie Manette wept mournfully for him as hestood looking back at her.
”Be comforted!” he said, ”I am not worth such feeling, Miss Manette. Anhour or two hence, and the low companions and low habits that I scornbut yield to, will render me less worth such tears as those, than anywretch who creeps along the streets. Be comforted! But, within myself, Ishall always be, towards you, what I am now, though outwardly I shall bewhat you have heretofore seen me. The last supplication but one I maketo you, is, that you will believe this of me.”
”I will, Mr. Carton.”
”My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieveyou of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, andbetween whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless to sayit, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear toyou, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind thatthere was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I wouldembrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to holdme in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this onething. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when newties will be formed about you--ties that will bind you yet more tenderlyand strongly to the home you so adorn--the dearest ties that will evergrace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of ahappy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own brightbeauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there isa man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!”
He said, ”Farewell!” said a last ”God bless you!” and left her.