有声名著之双城记Book2 Chapter01

　　有声名著之双城记

       BOOK THE SECONDTHE GOLDEN THREAD

      CHAPTER IFive Years Later

      TELLSON'S Bank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place, even in the yearone thousand seven hundred and eighty. It was very small, very dark, veryugly, very incommodious. It was an old-fashioned place, moreover, in themoral attribute that the partners in the House were proud of its smallness,proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of its incommodiousness.

They were even boastful of its eminence 2 in those particulars, and were firedby an empress conviction that, if it were less objectionable, it would beless respectable. This was no passive belief, but an active weapon whichthey flashed at more convenient places of business. Tellson's (they said)wanted no elbow-room, Tellson's wanted no light, Tellson's wanted noembellishment. Noakes and Co.'s might, or Snooks Brothers' might; butTellson's, thank Heaven!---Any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on the questionof rebuilding Tellson's. In this respect the House was much on a par 1 withthe Country; which did very often disinherit its sons for suggestingimprovements in laws and customs that had long been highly objectionable,but were only the more respectable.

Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson's was the triumphant 3 perfection ofinconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic 4 obstinacy 5 with a weakrattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson's down two steps, and came toyour senses in a miser-able little shop, with two little counters, where theoldest of men made your cheque shake as if the wind rustled 7 it, while theyexamined the signature by the dingiest 8 of windows, which were always under ashower-bath of mud from Fleet-street, and which were made the dingier 9 bytheir own iron bars proper, and the heavy shadow of Temple Bar. If yourbusiness necessitated 10 your seeing `the House,' you were put into a speciesof Condemned 11 Hold at the back, where you meditated 12 on a misspent life, untilthe House came with its hands in its pockets, and you could hardly blink atit in the dismal 13 twilight 14. Your money came out of' or went into, wormy oldwooden drawers, particles of which flew up your nose and down your throatwhen they were opened and shut. Your bank-notes had a musty odour, as ifthey were fast decomposing 15 into rags again. Your plate was stowed away amongthe neighbouring cesspools, and evil communications corrupted 16 its goodpolish in a day or two. Your deeds got into extemporised strong-rooms madeof kitchens and sculleries, and fretted 17 all the fat out of their parchmentsinto the banking 18 house air. Your lighter 19 boxes of family papers went up-stairs into a Barmecide room, that always had a great dining-table in it andnever had a dinner, and where, even in the year one thousand seven hundredand eighty, the first letters written to you by your old love, or by yourlittle children, were but newly released from the horror of being ogledthrough the windows, by the heads exposed on Temple Bar with an insensatebrutality and ferocity worthy 20 of Abyssinia or Ashantee.

But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in vogue 21 withall trades and professions, and not least of all with Tellson's. Death isNature's remedy for all things, and why not Legislation's? Accordingly, theforger was put to death; the utterer of a bad note was put to Death; theunlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the purloiner 22 of fortyshillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder 23 of a horse at Tellson'sdoor, who made off with it, was put to Death; the coiner of a bad shillingwas put to Death; the sounders of three-fourths of the notes in the wholegamut of Grime, were put to Death. Not that it did the least good in the wayof prevention--it might almost have been worth remarking that the fact wasexactly the reverse--but, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble ofeach particular case, and left nothing else connected with it to be lookedafter. Thus, Tellson's, in its day, like greater places of business, itscontemporaries, had taken so many lives, that, if the heads laid low beforeit had been ranged on Temple Bar instead of being privately 24 disposed of'

they would probably have excluded what little light the ground floor had, ina rather significant manner.

Cramped 25 in all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches at Tellson's, the oldestof men carried on the business gravely.

When they took a young man into Tellson's London house, they hid himsomewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese,until he had the full Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him. Then only washe permitted to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and castinghis breeches and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment.

Outside Tellson's--never by any means in it, unless called in--was an odd-job-man, an occasional porter and messenger, who served as the live sign ofthe house. He was never absent during business hours, unless upon an errand,and then he was represented by his son: a grisly urchin 26 of twelve, who washis express image. People understood that Tellson's, in a stately way,tolerated the odd-job-man. The house had always tolerated some person inthat capacity, and time and tide had drifted this person to the post. Hissurname was Cruncher, and on the youthful occasion of his renouncing 27 byproxy the works of darkness, in the easterly parish church of Houndsditch,he had received the added appellation 28 of Jerry.

The scene was Mr. Cruncher's private lodging 29 in Hanging-sword-alley,Whitefriars: the time, half-past seven of the clock on a windy Marchmorning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and eighty. (Mr. Cruncher himselfalways spoke 30 of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently 31 under theimpression that the Christian 32 era dated from the invention of a populargame, by a lady who had bestowed 33 her name upon it.)Mr. Cruncher's apartments were not in a savoury neighbourhood, and were buttwo in number, even if a closet with a single pane 34 of glass in it might becounted as one. But they were very decently kept. Early as it was, on thewindy March morning, the room in which he lay a-bed was already scrubbedthroughout; and between the cups and saucers arranged for breakfast, and thelumbering deal table, a very clean white cloth was spread.

Mr. Cruncher reposed 35 under a patchwork 36 counterpane, like a Harlequin athome. At first, he slept heavily, but, by degrees, began to roll and surgein bed, until he rose above the surface, with his spiky 37 hair looking as ifit must tear the sheets to ribbons. At which juncture 38, he exclaimed, in avoice of dire 39 exasperation 40:

`Bust me, if she ain't at it agin!'

A woman of orderly and industrious 41 appearance rose from her knees in acorner, with sufficient haste and trepidation 42 to show that she was theperson referred to.

`What!' said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot.

`You're at it agin, are you?

After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw a boot at thewoman as a third. It was a very muddy boot, and may introduce the oddcircumstance connected with Mr. Cruncher's domestic economy, that, whereashe often came home after banking hours with clean boots, he often got upnext morning to find the same boots covered with clay.

`What,' said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after missing his mark--'what are you, up to, Aggerawayter?'