《A Tale of Two Cities》 Book2 CHAPTER
XX A Plea
by Charles Dickens
WHEN the newly-married
pair came home, the first person who appeared, to offer his congratulations, was Sydney
Carton. They had not been at home many hours, when he presented himself. He was not
improved in habits, or in looks, or in manner; but there was a certain rugged air of
fidelity about him, which was new to the observation of Charles Darnay.
He watched his opportunity of taking Darnay aside into a window, and of speaking to him
when no one overheard.
`Mr. Darnay,' said Carton, `I wish we might be friends.'
`We are already friends, I hope.'
`You are good enough to say so, as a fashion of speech; hut, I don't mean any fashion of
speech. Indeed, when I say I wish we might be friends, I scarcely mean quite that,
either.'
Charles Darnay--As was natural--Asked him, in all good-humour and good-fellowship, what he
did mean?
`Upon my life,' said Carton, smiling, `I find that easier to comprehend in my own mind,
than to convey to yours. However, let me try. You remember a certain famous occasion when
I was more drunk than--than usual?'
`I remember a certain famous occasion when you forced me to confess that you had been
drinking.'
`I remember it too. The curse of those occasions is heavy upon me, for I always remember
them. I hope it may be taken into account one day, when all days are at an end for me!
Don't be alarmed; I am not going to preach.'
`I am not at all alarmed. Earnestness in you is anything but alarming to me.'
`Ah!' said Carton, with a careless wave of his hand, as if he waved that away. `On the
drunken occasion in question (one of a large number, as you know), I was insufferable
about liking you, and not liking you. I wish you would forget it.'
`I forgot it long ago.'
`Fashion of speech again! But, Mr. Darnay, oblivion is not so easy to me, as you represent
it to be to you. I have by no means forgotten it, and a light answer does not help me to
forget it.'
`If it was a light answer,' returned Darnay, `I beg your forgiveness for it. I had no
other object than to turn a slight thing, which, to my surprise, seems to trouble you too
much, aside. I declare to you on the faith of a gentleman, that I have long dismissed it
from my mind. Good Heaven, what was there to dismiss! Have I had nothing more important to
remember, in the great service you rendered me that day?'
`As to the great service,' said Carton, `I am bound to avow to you, when you speak of it
in that way, that it was mere professional claptrap. I don't know that I cared what became
of you, when I rendered It.--Mind! I say when I rendered it; I am speaking of the past.'
`You make light of the obligation,' returned Darnay, `but I will not quarrel with your
light answer.'
`Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me! I have gone aside from my purpose; I was speaking
about our being friends. Now, you know me; you know I am incapable of all the higher and
better flights of men. If you doubt it, ask Stryver, and he'll tell you so.'
`I prefer to form my own opinion, without the aid of his.'
`Well! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog who has never done any good, and never
will.'
`I don't know that you "never will."'
`But I do, and you must take my word for it. Well! If you could endure to have such a
worthless fellow, and a fellow of such indifferent reputation, coming and going at odd
times, I should ask that I might be permitted to come and go as a privileged person here;
that I might be regarded as an useless (and I would add, if it were not for the
resemblance I detected between you and me), an unornamental, piece of furniture, tolerated
for its old service, and taken no notice of. I doubt if I should abuse the
permission. It is a hundred to one if I should avail myself of it four times in a year. It
would satisfy me, I dare say, to know that I had it.'
`Will you try?'
`That is another way of saying that I am placed on the footing I have indicated. I thank
you, Darnay. I may use that freedom with your name?'
`I think so, Carton, by this time.'
They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away. Within a minute afterwards, he was, to
all outward appearance, as unsubstantial as ever.
When he has gone, and in the course of an evening passed with Miss Pross, the Doctor, and
Mr. Lorry, Charles Darnay made some mention of this conversation in general terms, and
spoke of Sydney Carton as a problem of carelessness and recklessness. He spoke of him, in
short, not bitterly or meaning to bear hard upon him, but as anybody might who saw him as
he showed himself.
He had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of his fair young wife; but, when he
afterwards joined her in their own rooms, he found her waiting for him with the old pretty
lifting of the forehead strongly marked.
`We are thoughtful to-night!' said Darnay, drawing his arm about her.
`Yes, dearest Charles,' with her hands on his breast, and the inquiring and attentive
expression fixed upon him; `we are rather thoughtful to-night, for we have something on
our mind to-night.'
`What is it, my Lucie?'
`Will you promise not to press one question on me, if I beg you not to ask it?'
"Will I promise? What will I not promise to my Love?'
What, indeed, with his hand putting aside the golden hair from the cheek, and his other
hand against the heart that beat for him!
`I think, Charles, poor Mr. Carton deserves more consideration and respect than you
expressed for him to-night.'
`Indeed, my own? Why so?'
`That is what you are not to ask me? But I think--I know--he does.'
`If you know it, it is enough. What would you have me do, my Life?'
`I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and very lenient on his
faults when he is not by. I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very
seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding.'
`It is a painful reflection to me, said Charles Darnay, quite astounded, `that I should
have done him any wrong. I never thought this of him.'
`My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed; there is scarcely a hope that
anything in his character or fortunes is reparable now. But, I am sure that he is capable
of good things, gentle things, even magnanimous things.'
She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this lost man, that her husband
could have looked at her as she was for hours.
`And, O my dearest Love!' she urged, clinging nearer to him, laying her head upon his
breast, and raising her eyes to his, `remember how strong we are in our happiness, and how
weak he is in his misery!'
The supplication touched him home. `I will always remember it, dear Heart! I will remember
it as long as I live.'
He bent over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to his, and folded her in his arms. If
one forlorn wanderer then pacing the dark streets, could have heard her innocent
disclosure, and could have seen the drops of pity kissed away by her husband from
the soft blue eyes so loving of that husband, he might have cried to the night--and the
words would not have parted from his lips for the first time--
`God bless her for her sweet compassion!' |
