双城记 Book1-3c The Night Shadows
Now, which of the multitude of faces that showed themselvesbefore him was the true face of the buried person, the shadowsof the night did not indicate; but they were all the faces ofa man of five-and-forty by years, and they differedprincipally in the passions they expressed, and in theghastliness of their worn and wasted state. Pride, contempt,defiance, stubbornness, submission, lamentation, succeeded oneanother; so did varieties of sunken cheek, cadaverous colour,emaciated hands and figures. But the face was in the main oneface, and every head was prematurely white. A hundred timesthe dozing passenger inquired of this spectre:
`Buried how long?'
The answer was always the same: `Almost eighteen years.'
`You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?'
`Long ago.'
`You know that you are recalled to life?'
`They tell me so.
`I hope you care to live?'
`I can't say.'
`Shall I show her to you? Will you come and see he''
The answers to this question were various and contradictory.
Sometimes the broken reply was, `Wait! It would kill me if I saw her too soon.' Sometimes, it was given in a tender rain oftears, and then it was `Take me to her.' Sometimes it wasstaring and bewildered, and then it was, `I don't know her. Idon't understand.'
After such imaginary discourse, the passenger in his fancywould dig, and dig, dig--now, with a spade, now with a greatkey, now with his hands--to dig this wretched creature out.
Got out at last, with earth hanging about his face and hair,he would suddenly fall away to dust. The passenger would thenstart to himself and lower the window, to get the reality ofmist and rain on his cheek.
Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, onthe moving patch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at theroadside retreating by jerks, the night shadow's outside thecoach would fall into the train of the night shadows within.
The real Banking-house by Temple Bar, the real business of thepast day, the real strong-rooms, the real express sent afterhim, and the real message returned, would all be there. Out ofthe midst of them, the ghostly face would rise, and he wouldaccost it again.
`Buried how long?'
`Almost eighteen years.
`I hope you care to live?'
`I can't say.'
Dig--dig--dig--until an impatient movement from one of thetwo passengers would admonish him to pull up the window, drawhis arm securely through the leathern strap, and speculateupon the two slumbering forms, until his mind lost its hold of them, and they again slid away into the bank and the grave.
`Buried how long?'
`Almost eighteen years.'
`You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?'
`Long ago.'
The words were still in his hearing as just spoken--distinctly in his hearing as ever spoken words had been in hislife--when the weary passenger started to the consciousness ofdaylight, and found that the shadows of the night were gone.
He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun.
There was a ridge of ploughed land, with a plough upon itwhere it had been left last night when the horses were unyoked; beyond, a quiet coppice-wood, in which many leaves of burning red and golden yellow still remained upon the trees.
Though the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear, and thesun rose bright, placid, and beautiful.
`Eighteen years!' said the passenger, looking at the sun.
`Gracious Creator of day! To be buried alive for eighteen years!'
