有声名著之双城记
CHAPTER XIA Companion Picture
`SYDNEY,' said Mr. Stryver, on that self-same night, ormorning, to his jackal; `mix another bowl of punch; I havesomething to say to you.'
Sydney had been working double tides that night, and thenight before, and the night before that, and a good manynights in succession, making a grand clearance among Mr.
Stryver's papers before the setting in of the long vacation.
The clearance was effected at last; the Stryver arrears werehandsomely fetched up; everything was got rid of untilNovember should come with its fogs atmospheric and fogs legal,and bring grist to the mill again.
Sydney was none the livelier and none the soberer for so muchapplication. It had taken a deal of extra wet-towelling topull him through the night; a correspondingly extra quantityof wine had preceded the towelling; and he was in a verydamaged condition, as he now pulled his turban off and threwit into the basin in which he had steeped it at intervals forthe last six hours.
`Are you mixing that other bowl of punch?' said Stryver theportly, with his hands in his waistband, glancing round fromthe sofa where he lay on his back,`I am.'
`Now, look here! I am going to tell you something that willrather surprise you, and that perhaps will make you think menot quite as shrewd as you usually do think me. I intend tomarry.
`Do you?'
`Yes. And not for money. What do you say now?'
`I don't feel disposed to say much. Who is she?'
`Guess.'
`Do I know her?'
`Guess.'
`I am not going to guess, at five o'clock in the morning,with my brains frying and sputtering in my, head. If you wantme to guess, you must ask me to dinner.
`Well then, I'll tell you,' said Stryver, coming slowly intoa sitting posture. `Sydney, I rather despair of making myselfintelligible to you, because you are such an insensible dog.'
`And you,' returned Sydney, busy concocting the punch, `aresuch a sensitive and poetical spirit.'
`Come!' rejoined Stryver, laughing boastfully, `though Idon't prefer any claim to being the soul of Romance (for Ihope I, know better), still I am a tenderer sort of fellowthan you. #p#副标题#e#`You are a luckier, if you mean that.'
`I don't mean that. I mean I am a man of more--more---'
`Say gallantry, while you are about it,' suggested Carton.
`Well! I'll say gallantry. My meaning is that I am a man,'
said Stryver, inflating himself at his friend as he made thepunch, `who cares more to be agreeable, Who takes more painsto be agreeable, who knows better how to be agreeable, in awoman's society, than you do.'
`Go on,' said Sydney Carton.
`No; but before I go on,' said Stryver, shaking his head inhis bullying way, `I'll have this out with you. You've been atDr. Manette's house as much as I have, or more than I have.
Why, I have been ashamed of your moroseness there! Yourmanners have been of that silent and sullen and hang-dog kind,that, upon my life and soul, I have been ashamed of you,Sydney!'
`It should be very beneficial to a man in your practice atthe bar, to be ashamed of anything,' returned Sydney; `youought to be much obliged to me.
`You shall not get off in that Way,' rejoined Stryver,shouldering the rejoinder at him; `no, Sydney, it's my duty totell you--and I tell you to your face to do you good--that youare a devilish ill-conditioned fellow in that sort of society.
You are a disagreeable fellow.'
Sydney drank a bumper of the punch he had made, and laughed.
`Look at me!' said Stryver, squaring himself: `I have lessneed to make myself agreeable than you have, being moreindependent in circumstances. Why do I do it?'
`I never saw you do it yet,' muttered Carton.
`I do it because it's politic; I do it on principle. And lookat me! I get on.'
`You don't get on with your account of your matrimonialintentions,' answered Carton, with a careless air; `I wish youwould keep to that. As to me--will you never understand that Iam incorrigible?'
He asked the question with some appearance of scorn.
`You have no business to be incorrigible,' was his friend'sanswer, delivered in no very soothing tone.
`I have no business to be, at all, that I know of,' saidSydney Carton. `Who is the lady?' #p#副标题#e#`Now, don't let my announcement of the name make youuncomfortable, Sydney,' said Mr. Stryver, preparing him withostentatious friendliness for the disclosure he was about tomake, `because I know you don't mean half you say; and if youmeant it all, it would be of no importance. I make this littlepreface, because,you once mentioned the young lady to me inslighting terms.
`I did?'
`Certainly; and in these chambers.'
Sydney Carton looked at his punch and looked at hiscomplacent friend; drank his punch and looked at hiscomplacent friend.
`You made mention of the young lady as a golden-haired doll.
The young lady is Miss Manette. If you had been a fellow ofany sensitiveness or delicacy of feeling in that kind of way,Sydney, I might have been a little resentful of your employingsuch a designation; but you are not. You want that sensealtogether; therefore I am no more annoyed when I think of theexpression, than I should be annoyed by a man's opinion of apicture of mine, who had no eye for pictures: or of a piece ofmusic of mine, who had no ear for music.'
Sydney Carton drank the punch at a great rate; drank it bybumpers, looking at his friend.
`Now you know all about it, Syd,' said Mr. Stryver. `I don'tcare about fortune: she is a charming creature, and I havemade up my mind to please myself: on the whole, I think I canafford to please myself. She will have in me a man alreadypretty well off and a rapidly rising man, and a man of somedistinction: it is a piece of good fortune for her, but she isworthy of good fortune. Are you astonished?'
Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, `Why should I beastonished?'
`You approve?'
Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, `Why should I notapprove?' `Well!' said his friend Stryver, `you take it moreeasily than I fancied you would, and are less mercenary on mybehalf than I thought you would be; though, to be sure, youknow well enough by this time that your ancient chum is a manof a pretty strong will. Yes, Sydney, I have had enough ofthis style of life, with no other as a change iron' it; I feelthat it is a pleasant thing for a man to have a home when hefeels inclined to go to it (when he doesn't, he can stayaway), and I feel that Miss Manette will tell well in anystation, and will always do me credit. So I have made up mymind. And now, Sydney, old boy, I want to say a word to youabout your prospects. You are in a bad way, you know; youreally are in a bad way. You don't know the value of money,you live hard, you'll knock up one of these days, and be illand poor; you really ought to think about a nurse.
The prosperous patronage with which he said it, made him looktwice as big as he was, and four times as offensive.
`Now, let me recommend you,' pursued Stryver, `to look it inthe face. I have looked it in the face, in my different way;look it in the face, you, in your different way. Marry.
Provide somebody to take care of you. Never mind your havingno enjoyment of women's society, nor understanding of it, nortact for it. Find out somebody. Find out some respectablewoman with a little property--somebody in the landlady way, orlodging-letting way--and marry her, against a rainy day.
That's the kind of thing for you. Now think of it, Sydney.'
`I'll think of it,' said Sydney. |