Dombey and Son
is nothing coming.”
“Nothing.”
“No, nothing but the day yonder.”
“You are right, I think. I hear nothing now, indeed. Go on!”
The entangled equipage, half hidden in the reeking cloud from the
horses, goes on slowly at first, for the driver, checked unnecessarily
in his progress, sulkily takes out a pocket-knife, and puts a new lash
to his whip. Then “Hallo, whoop! Hallo, hi!” Away once more, savagely.
And now the stars faded, and the day glimmered, and standing in the
carriage, looking back, he could discern the track by which he had
come, and see that there was no traveller within view, on all the heavy
expanse. And soon it was broad day, and the sun began to shine on
cornfields and vineyards; and solitary labourers, risen from little
temporary huts by heaps of stones upon the road, were, here and there,
at work repairing the highway, or eating bread. By and by, there were
peasants going to their daily labour, or to market, or lounging at the
doors of poor cottages, gazing idly at him as he passed. And then there
was a postyard, ankle-deep in mud, with steaming dunghills and vast
outhouses half ruined; and looking on this dainty prospect, an immense,
old, shadeless, glaring, stone chateau, with half its windows blinded,
and green damp crawling lazily over it, from the balustraded terrace to
the taper tips of the extinguishers upon the turrets.
Gathered up moodily in a corner of the carriage, and only intent on
going fast—except when he stood up, for a mile together, and looked
back; which he would do whenever there was a piece of open country—he
went on, still postponing thought indefinitely, and still always
tormented with thinking to no purpose.
Shame, disappointment, and discomfiture gnawed at his heart; a constant
apprehension of being overtaken, or met—for he was groundlessly afraid
even of travellers, who came towards him by the way he was
going—oppressed him heavily. The same intolerable awe and dread that
had come upon him in the night, returned unweakened in the day. The
monotonous ringing of the bells and tramping of the horses; the
monotony of his anxiety, and useless rage; the monotonous wheel of
fear, regret, and passion, he kept turning round and round; made the
journey like a vision, in which nothing was quite real but his own
torment.
It was a vision of long roads, that stretched away to an horizon,
always receding and never gained; of ill-paved towns, up hill and down,
where faces came to dark doors and ill-glazed windows, and where rows
of mudbespattered cows and oxen were tied up for sale in the long
narrow streets, butting and lowing, and receiving blows on their blunt
heads from bludgeons that might have beaten them in; of bridges,
crosses, churches, postyards, new horses being put in against their
wills, and the horses of the last stage reeking, panting, and laying
their drooping heads together dolefully at stable doors; of little
cemeteries with black crosses settled sideways in the graves, and
withered wreaths upon them dropping away; again of long, long roads,
dragging themselves out, up hill and down, to the treacherous horizon.
Of morning, noon, and sunset; night, and the rising of an early moon.
Of long roads temporarily left behind, and a rough pavement reached; of
battering and clattering over it, and looking up, among house-roofs, at
a great church-tower; of getting out and eating hastily, and drinking
draughts of wine that had no cheering influence; of coming forth afoot,
among a host of beggars—blind men with quivering eyelids, led by old
women holding candles to their faces; idiot girls; the lame, the
epileptic, and the palsied—of passing through the clamour, and looking
from his seat at the upturned countenances and outstretched hands, with
a hurried dread of recognising some pursuer pressing forward—of
galloping away again, upon the long, long road, gathered up, dull and
stunned, in his corner, or rising to see where the moon shone faintly
on a patch of the same endless road miles away, or looking back to see
who followed.
Of never sleeping, but sometimes dozing with unclosed eyes, and
springing up with a start, and a reply aloud to an imaginary voice. Of
cursing himself for being there, for having fled, for having let her
go, for not having confronted and defied him. Of having a deadly
quarrel with the whole world, but chiefly with himself. Of blighting
everything with his black mood as he was carried on and away.
It was a fevered vision of things past and present all confounded
together; of his life and journey blended into one. Of being madly
hurried somewhere, whither he must go. Of old scenes starting up among
the novelties through which he travelled. Of musing and brooding over
what was past and distant, and seeming to take no notice of the actual
objects he encountered, but with a wearisome exhausting consciousness
of being bewildered by them, and having their images all crowded in his
hot brain after they were gone.
A vision of change upon change, and still the same monotony of bells
and wheels, and horses’ feet, and no rest. Of town and country,
postyards, horses, drivers, hill and valley, light and darkness, road
and pavement, height and hollow, wet weather and dry, and still the
same monotony of bells and wheels, and horses’ feet, and no rest. A
vision of tending on at last, towards the distant capital, by busier
roads, and sweeping round, by old cathedrals, and dashing through small
towns and villages, less thinly scattered on the road than formerly,
and sitting shrouded in his corner, with his cloak up to his face, as
people passing by looked at him.
Of rolling on and on, always postponing thought, and always racked with
thinking; of being unable to reckon up the hours he had been upon the
road, or to comprehend the points of time and place in his journey. Of
being parched and giddy, and half mad. Of pressing on, in spite of all,
as if he could not stop, and coming into Paris, where the turbid river
held its swift course undisturbed, between two brawling streams of life
and motion.
A troubled vision, then, of bridges, quays, interminable streets; of
wine-shops, water-carriers, great crowds of people, soldiers, coaches,
military drums, arcades. Of the monotony of bells and wheels and
horses’ feet being at length lost in the universal din and uproar. Of
the gradual subsidence of that noise as he passed out in another
carriage by a different barrier from that by which he had entered. Of
the restoration, as he travelled on towards the seacoast, of the
monotony of bells and wheels, and horses’ feet, and no rest.
Of sunset once again, and nightfall. Of long roads again, and dead of
night, and feeble lights in windows by the roadside; and still the old
monotony of bells and wheels, and horses’ feet, and no rest. Of dawn,
and daybreak, and the rising of the sun. Of tolling slowly up a hill,
and feeling on its top the fresh sea-breeze; and seeing the morning
light upon the edges of the distant waves. Of coming down into a
harbour when the tide was at its full, and seeing fishing-boats float
on, and glad women and children waiting for them. Of nets and seamen’s
clothes spread out to dry upon the shore; of busy sailors, and their
voices high among ships’ masts and rigging; of the buoyancy and
brightness of the water, and the universal sparkling.
Of receding from the coast, and looking back upon it from the deck when
it was a haze upon the water, with here and there a little opening of
bright land where the Sun struck. Of the swell, and flash, and murmur
of the calm sea. Of another grey line on the ocean, on the vessel’s
track, fast growing clearer and higher. Of cliffs and buildings, and a
windmill, and a church, becoming more and more visible upon it. Of
steaming on at last into smooth water, and mooring to a pier whence
groups of people looked down, greeting friends on board. Of
disembarking, passing among them quickly, shunning every one; and of
being at last again in England.
He had thought, in his dream, of going down into a remote country-place
he knew, and lying quiet there, while he secretly informed himself of
what transpired, and determined how to act, Still in the same stunned
condition, he remembered a certain station on the railway, where he
would have to branch off to his place of destination, and where there
was a quiet Inn. Here, he indistinctly resolved to tarry and rest.
With this purpose he slunk into a railway carriage as quickly as he
could, and lying there wrapped in his cloak as if he were asleep, was
soon borne far away from the sea, and deep into the inland green.
Arrived at his destination he looked out, and surveyed it carefully. He
was not mistaken in his impression of the place. It was a retired spot,
on the borders of a little wood. Only one house, newly-built or altered
for the purpose, stood there, surrounded by its neat garden; the small
town that was nearest, was some miles away. Here he alighted then; and
going straight into the tavern, unobserved by anyone, secured two rooms
upstairs communicating with each other, and sufficiently retired.
His object was to rest, and recover the command of himself, and the
balance of his mind. Imbecile discomfiture and rage—so that, as he
walked about his room, he ground his teeth—had complete possession of
him. His thoughts, not to be stopped or directed, still wandered where
they would, and dragged him after them. He was stupefied, and he was
wearied to death.
But, as if there were a curse upon him that he should never rest again,
his drowsy senses would not lose their consciousness. He had no more
influence with them, in this regard, than if they had been another
man’s. It was not that they forced him to take note of present sounds
and objects, but that they would not be diverted from the whole hurried
vision of his journey. It was constantly before him all at once. She
stood there, with her dark disdainful eyes again upon him; and he was
riding on nevertheless, through town and country, light and darkness,
wet weather and dry, over road and pavement, hill and valley, height
and hollow, jaded and scared by the monotony of bells and wheels, and
horses’ feet, and no rest.
“What day is this?” he asked of the waiter, who was making preparations
for his dinner.
“Day, Sir?”
“Is it Wednesday?”
“Wednesday, Sir? No, Sir. Thursday, Sir.”
“I forgot. How goes the time? My watch is unwound.”
“Wants a few minutes of five o’clock, Sir. Been travelling a long time,
Sir, perhaps?”
“Yes”
“By rail, Sir?”
“Yes”
“Very confusing, Sir. Not much in the habit of travelling by rail
myself, Sir, but gentlemen frequently say so.”
“Do many gentlemen come here?
“Pretty well, Sir, in general. Nobody here at present. Rather slack
just now, Sir. Everything is slack, Sir.”
He made no answer; but had risen into a sitting posture on the sofa
where he had been lying, and leaned forward with an arm on each knee,
staring at the ground. He could not master his own attention for a
minute together. It rushed away where it would, but it never, for an
instant, lost itself in sleep.
He drank a quantity of wine after dinner, in vain. No such artificial
means would bring sleep to his eyes. His thoughts, more incoherent,
dragged him more unmercifully after them—as if a wretch, condemned to
such expiation, were drawn at the heels of wild horses. No oblivion,
and no rest.
How long he sat, drinking and brooding, and being dragged in
imagination hither and thither, no one could have told less correctly
than he. But he knew that he had been sitting a long time by
candle-light, when he started up and listened, in a sudden terror.
For now, indeed, it was no fancy. The ground shook, the house rattled,