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Book 2 - 19
An Opinion
Worn out by anxious watching, Mr. Lorry fell asleep at his post. On
the tenth morning of his suspense, he was startled by the shining of
the sun into the room where a heavy slumber had overtaken him when it
was dark night.
He rubbed his eyes and roused himself; but he doubted, when he had
done so, whether he was not still asleep. For, going to the door of
the Doctor's room and looking in, he perceived that the shoemaker's
bench and tools were put aside again, and that the Doctor himself sat
reading at the window. He was in his usual morning dress, and his face
(which Mr. Lorry could distinctly see), though still very pale, was
calmly studious and attentive.
Even when he had satisfied himself that he was awake, Mr. Lorry felt
giddily uncertain for some few moments whether the late shoemaking
might not be a disturbed dream of his own; for, did not his eyes show
him his friend before him in his accustomed clothing and aspect, and
employed as usual; and was there any sign within their range, that the
change of which he had so strong an impression had actually happened?
It was but the inquiry of his first confusion and astonishment, the
answer being obvious. If the impression were not produced by a real
corresponding and sufficient cause, how came he, Jarvis Lorry, there?
How came he to have fallen asleep, in his clothes, on the sofa in
Doctor Manette's consulting-room, and to be debating these points
outside the Doctor's bedroom door in the early morning?
Within a few minutes, Miss Pross stood whispering at his side. If he
had had any particle of doubt left, her talk would of necessity have
resolved it; but he was by that time clear-headed, and had none. He
advised that they should let the time go by until the regular
breakfast-hour, and should then meet the Doctor as if nothing unusual
had occurred. If he appeared to be in his customary state of mind,
Mr. Lorry would then cautiously proceed to seek direction and guidance
from the opinion he had been, in his anxiety, so anxious to obtain.
Miss Pross, submitting herself to his judgment, the scheme was worked
out with care. Having abundance of time for his usual methodical
toilette, Mr. Lorry presented himself at the breakfast-hour in his
usual white linen, and with his usual neat leg. The Doctor was
summoned in the usual way, and came to breakfast.
So far as it was possible to comprehend him without overstepping
those delicate and gradual approaches which Mr. Lorry felt to be the
only safe advance, he at first supposed that his daughter's marriage
had taken place yesterday. An incidental allusion, purposely thrown
out, to the day of the week, and the day of the month, set him thinking
and counting, and evidently made him uneasy. In all other respects,
however, he was so composedly himself, that Mr. Lorry determined to
have the aid he sought. And that aid was his own.
Therefore, when the breakfast was done and cleared away, and he and
the Doctor were left together, Mr. Lorry said, feelingly:
"My dear Manette, I am anxious to have your opinion, in confidence,
on a very curious case in which I am deeply interested; that is to say,
it is very curious to me; perhaps, to your better information it may
be less so."
Glancing at his hands, which were discoloured by his late work, the
Doctor looked troubled, and listened attentively. He had already
glanced at his hands more than once.
"Doctor Manette," said Mr. Lorry, touching him affectionately on the
arm, "the case is the case of a particularly dear friend of mine.
Pray give your mind to it, and advise me well for his sake--and
above all, for his daughter's--his daughter's, my dear Manette."
"If I understand," said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, "some mental
shock--?"
"Yes!"
"Be explicit," said the Doctor. "Spare no detail."
Mr. Lorry saw that they understood one another, and proceeded.
"My dear Manette, it is the case of an old and a prolonged shock, of
great acuteness and severity to the affections, the feelings,
the--the--as you express it--the mind. The mind. It is the case of
a shock under which the sufferer was borne down, one cannot say for
how long, because I believe he cannot calculate the time himself, and
there are no other means of getting at it. It is the case of a shock
from which the sufferer recovered, by a process that he cannot trace
himself--as I once heard him publicly relate in a striking manner.
It is the case of a shock from which he has recovered, so completely,
as to be a highly intelligent man, capable of close application of mind,
and great exertion of body, and of constantly making fresh additions to
his stock of knowledge, which was already very large. But, unfortunately,
there has been," he paused and took a deep breath--"a slight relapse."
The Doctor, in a low voice, asked, "Of how long duration?"
"Nine days and nights."
"How did it show itself? I infer," glancing at his hands again,
"in the resumption of some old pursuit connected with the shock?"
"That is the fact."
"Now, did you ever see him," asked the Doctor, distinctly and
collectedly, though in the same low voice, "engaged in that
pursuit originally?"
"Once."
"And when the relapse fell on him, was he in most respects--or in
all respects--as he was then?"
"I think in all respects."
"You spoke of his daughter. Does his daughter know of the relapse?"
"No. It has been kept from her, and I hope will always be kept from
her. It is known only to myself, and to one other who may be trusted."
The Doctor grasped his hand, and murmured, "That was very kind.
That was very thoughtful!" Mr. Lorry grasped his hand in return,
and neither of the two spoke for a little while.
"Now, my dear Manette," said Mr. Lorry, at length, in his most
considerate and most affectionate way, "I am a mere man of business,
and unfit to cope with such intricate and difficult matters. I do
not possess the kind of information necessary; I do not possess the
kind of intelligence; I want guiding. There is no man in this world
on whom I could so rely for right guidance, as on you. Tell me, how
does this relapse come about? Is there danger of another? Could a
repetition of it be prevented? How should a repetition of it be
treated? How does it come about at all? What can I do for my friend?
No man ever can have been more desirous in his heart to serve a friend,
than I am to serve mine, if I knew how.
But I don't know how to originate, in such a case. If your sagacity,
knowledge, and experience, could put me on the right track, I might be
able to do so much; unenlightened and undirected, I can do so little.
Pray discuss it with me; pray enable me to see it a little more clearly,
and teach me how to be a little more useful."
Doctor Manette sat meditating after these earnest words were spoken,
and Mr. Lorry did not press him.
"I think it probable," said the Doctor, breaking silence with an
effort, "that the relapse you have described, my dear friend, was
not quite unforeseen by its subject."
"Was it dreaded by him?" Mr. Lorry ventured to ask.
"Very much." He said it with an involuntary shudder.
"You have no idea how such an apprehension weighs on the sufferer's
mind, and how difficult--how almost impossible--it is, for him to force
himself to utter a word upon the topic that oppresses him."
"Would he," asked Mr. Lorry, "be sensibly relieved if he could
prevail upon himself to impart that secret brooding to any one,
when it is on him?"
"I think so. But it is, as I have told you, next to impossible.
I even believe it--in some cases--to be quite impossible."
"Now," said Mr. Lorry, gently laying his hand on the Doctor's arm
again, after a short silence on both sides, "to what would you refer
this attack?"
"I believe," returned Doctor Manette, "that there had been a strong
and extraordinary revival of the train of thought and remembrance that
was the first cause of the malady. Some intense associations of a
most distressing nature were vividly recalled, I think. It is probable
that there had long been a dread lurking in his mind, that those
associations would be recalled--say, under certain circumstances--say,
on a particular occasion. He tried to prepare himself in vain; perhaps
the effort to prepare himself made him less able to bear it."
"Would he remember what took place in the relapse?" asked Mr. Lorry,
with natural hesitation.
The Doctor looked desolately round the room, shook his head, and
answered, in a low voice, "Not at all."
"Now, as to the future," hinted Mr. Lorry.
"As to the future," said the Doctor, recovering firmness, "I should
have great hope. As it pleased Heaven in its mercy to restore him so
soon, I should have great hope. He, yielding under the pressure of a
complicated something, long dreaded and long vaguely foreseen and
contended against, and recovering after the cloud had burst and passed,
I should hope that the worst was over."
"Well, well! That's good comfort. I am thankful!" said Mr. Lorry.
"I am thankful!" repeated the Doctor, bending his head with reverence.
"There are two other points," said Mr. Lorry, "on which I am anxious
to be instructed. I may go on?"
"You cannot do your friend a better service." The Doctor gave him
his hand.
"To the first, then. He is of a studious habit, and unusually
energetic; he applies himself with great ardour to the acquisition
of professional knowledge, to the conducting of experiments, to
many things. Now, does he do too much?"
"I think not. It may be the character of his mind, to be always in
singular need of occupation. That may be, in part, natural to it; in
part, the result of affliction. The less it was occupied with healthy
things, the more it would be in danger of turning in the unhealthy
direction. He may have observed himself, and made the discovery."
"You are sure that he is not under too great a strain?"
"I think I am quite sure of it."
"My dear Manette, if he were overworked now--"
"My dear Lorry, I doubt if that could easily be. There has been a
violent stress in one direction, and it needs a counterweight."
"Excuse me, as a persistent man of business. Assuming for a moment,
that he WAS overworked; it would show itself in some renewal of this disorder?"
"I do not think so. I do not think," said Doctor Manette with the
firmness of self-conviction, "that anything but the one train of
association would renew it. I think that, henceforth, nothing but
some extraordinary jarring of that chord could renew it. After what
has happened, and after his recovery, I find it difficult to imagine
any such violent sounding of that string again. I trust, and I almost
believe, that the circumstances likely to renew it are exhausted."
He spoke with the diffidence of a man who knew how slight a thing
would overset the delicate organisation of the mind, and yet with the
confidence of a man who had slowly won his assurance out of personal
endurance and distress. It was not for his friend to abate that
confidence. He professed himself more relieved and encouraged than he
really was, and approached his second and last point. He felt it to
be the most difficult of all; but, remembering his old Sunday morning
conversation with Miss Pross, and remembering what he had seen in the
last nine days, he knew that he must face it.
"The occupation resumed under the influence of this passing affliction
so happily recovered from," said Mr. Lorry, clearing his throat, "we will
call--Blacksmith's work, Blacksmith's work. We will say, to put a case
and for the sake of illustration, that he had been used, in his bad time,
to work at a little forge. We will say that he was unexpectedly found
at his forge again. Is it not a pity that he should keep it by him?"
The Doctor shaded his forehead with his hand, and beat his foot nervously
on the ground.
"He has always kept it by him," said Mr. Lorry, with an anxious look
at his friend. "Now, would it not be better that he should let it go?"
Still, the Doctor, with shaded forehead, beat his foot nervously on
the ground.
"You do not find it easy to advise me?" said Mr. Lorry. "I quite
understand it to be a nice question. And yet I think--" And there he
shook his head, and stopped.
"You see," said Doctor Manette, turning to him after an uneasy pause,
"it is very hard to explain, consistently, the innermost workings of
this poor man's mind. He once yearned so frightfully for that
occupation, and it was so welcome when it came; no doubt it relieved
his pain so much, by substituting the perplexity of the fingers for
the perplexity of the brain, and by substituting, as he became more
practised, the ingenuity of the hands, for the ingenuity of the
mental torture; that he has never been able to bear the thought of
putting it quite out of his reach. Even now, when I believe he is
more hopeful of himself than he has ever been, and even speaks of
himself with a kind of confidence, the idea that he might need that
old employment, and not find it, gives him a sudden sense of terror,
like that which one may fancy strikes to the heart of a lost child."
He looked like his illustration, as he raised his eyes to
Mr. Lorry's face.
"But may not--mind! I ask for information, as a plodding man of
business who only deals with such material objects as guineas,
shillings, and bank-notes--may not the retention of the thing involve
the retention of the idea? If the thing were gone, my dear Manette,
might not the fear go with it? In short, is it not a concession to
the misgiving, to keep the forge?"
There was another silence.
"You see, too," said the Doctor, tremulously, "it is such an
old companion."
"I would not keep it," said Mr. Lorry, shaking his head; for he gained
in firmness as he saw the Doctor disquieted. "I would recommend him
to sacrifice it. I only want your authority. I am sure it does no
good. Come! Give me your authority, like a dear good man. For his
daughter's sake, my dear Manette!"
Very strange to see what a struggle there was within him!
"In her name, then, let it be done; I sanction it. But, I would not
take it away while he was present. Let it be removed when he is not
there; let him miss his old companion after an absence."
Mr. Lorry readily engaged for that, and the conference was ended.
They passed the day in the country, and the Doctor was quite restored.
On the three following days he remained perfectly well, and on the
fourteenth day he went away to join Lucie and her husband. The
precaution that had been taken to account for his silence, Mr. Lorry
had previously explained to him, and he had written to Lucie in
accordance with it, and she had no suspicions.
On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr. Lorry went
into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer, attended by
Miss Pross carrying a light. There, with closed doors, and in a
mysterious and guilty manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker's bench
to pieces, while Miss Pross held the candle as if she were assisting
at a murder--for which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable
figure. The burning of the body (previously reduced to pieces
convenient for the purpose) was commenced without delay in the kitchen
fire; and the tools, shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden.
So wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds, that
Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the commission of their
deed and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked,
like accomplices in a horrible crime.
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