Martin Chuzzlewit
The Chorus put its hand in its waistcoat, and smiled. ‘Let him go on,
my worthy sir,’ it said. ‘I know what you are thinking of, but don’t
express it prematurely.’
Old Martin raised his eyes to Mr Pecksniff’s face, and appearing to
derive renewed instruction from his looks and words, said, once again:
‘Go on!’
‘I have little more to say,’ returned Martin. ‘And as I say it now, with
little or no hope, Grandfather; whatever dawn of hope I had on entering
the room; believe it to be true. At least, believe it to be true.’
‘Beautiful Truth!’ exclaimed the Chorus, looking upward. ‘How is your
name profaned by vicious persons! You don’t live in a well, my holy
principle, but on the lips of false mankind. It is hard to bear with
mankind, dear sir’--addressing the elder Mr Chuzzlewit; ‘but let us do
so meekly. It is our duty so to do. Let us be among the Few who do their
duty. If,’ pursued the Chorus, soaring up into a lofty flight, ‘as the
poet informs us, England expects Every man to do his duty, England is
the most sanguine country on the face of the earth, and will find itself
continually disappointed.’
‘Upon that subject,’ said Martin, looking calmly at the old man as
he spoke, but glancing once at Mary, whose face was now buried in her
hands, upon the back of his easy-chair; ‘upon that subject which first
occasioned a division between us, my mind and heart are incapable of
change. Whatever influence they have undergone, since that unhappy time,
has not been one to weaken but to strengthen me. I cannot profess sorrow
for that, nor irresolution in that, nor shame in that. Nor would you
wish me, I know. But that I might have trusted to your love, if I had
thrown myself manfully upon it; that I might have won you over with
ease, if I had been more yielding and more considerate; that I should
have best remembered myself in forgetting myself, and recollecting you;
reflection, solitude, and misery, have taught me. I came resolved to say
this, and to ask your forgiveness; not so much in hope for the future,
as in regret for the past; for all that I would ask of you is, that you
would aid me to live. Help me to get honest work to do, and I would do
it. My condition places me at the disadvantage of seeming to have only
my selfish ends to serve, but try if that be so or not. Try if I be
self-willed, obdurate, and haughty, as I was; or have been disciplined
in a rough school. Let the voice of nature and association plead between
us, Grandfather; and do not, for one fault, however thankless, quite
reject me!’
As he ceased, the grey head of the old man drooped again; and he
concealed his face behind his outspread fingers.
‘My dear sir,’ cried Mr Pecksniff, bending over him, ‘you must not give
way to this. It is very natural, and very amiable, but you must not
allow the shameless conduct of one whom you long ago cast off, to move
you so far. Rouse yourself. Think,’ said Pecksniff, ‘think of Me, my
friend.’
‘I will,’ returned old Martin, looking up into his face. ‘You recall me
to myself. I will.’
‘Why, what,’ said Mr Pecksniff, sitting down beside him in a chair which
he drew up for the purpose, and tapping him playfully on the arm, ‘what
is the matter with my strong-minded compatriot, if I may venture to take
the liberty of calling him by that endearing expression? Shall I have
to scold my coadjutor, or to reason with an intellect like this? I think
not.’
‘No, no. There is no occasion,’ said the old man. ‘A momentary feeling.
Nothing more.’
‘Indignation,’ observed Mr Pecksniff, ‘WILL bring the scalding tear
into the honest eye, I know’--he wiped his own elaborately. ‘But we
have highest duties to perform than that. Rouse yourself, Mr Chuzzlewit.
Shall I give expression to your thoughts, my friend?’
‘Yes,’ said old Martin, leaning back in his chair, and looking at him,
half in vacancy and half in admiration, as if he were fascinated by
the man. ‘Speak for me, Pecksniff, Thank you. You are true to me. Thank
you!’
‘Do not unman me, sir,’ said Mr Pecksniff, shaking his hand vigorously,
‘or I shall be unequal to the task. It is not agreeable to my feelings,
my good sir, to address the person who is now before us, for when I
ejected him from this house, after hearing of his unnatural conduct from
your lips, I renounced communication with him for ever. But you desire
it; and that is sufficient. Young man! The door is immediately behind
the companion of your infamy. Blush if you can; begone without a blush,
if you can’t.’
Martin looked as steadily at his grandfather as if there had been a
dead silence all this time. The old man looked no less steadily at Mr
Pecksniff.
‘When I ordered you to leave this house upon the last occasion of your
being dismissed from it with disgrace,’ said Mr Pecksniff; ‘when,
stung and stimulated beyond endurance by your shameless conduct to this
extraordinarily noble-minded individual, I exclaimed “Go forth!” I told
you that I wept for your depravity. Do not suppose that the tear which
stands in my eye at this moment, is shed for you. It is shed for him,
sir. It is shed for him.’
Here Mr Pecksniff, accidentally dropping the tear in question on a
bald part of Mr Chuzzlewit’s head, wiped the place with his
pocket-handkerchief, and begged pardon.
‘It is shed for him, sir, whom you seek to make the victim of your
arts,’ said Mr Pecksniff; ‘whom you seek to plunder, to deceive, and to
mislead. It is shed in sympathy with him, and admiration of him; not in
pity for him, for happily he knows what you are. You shall not wrong
him further, sir, in any way,’ said Mr Pecksniff, quite transported with
enthusiasm, ‘while I have life. You may bestride my senseless corse,
sir. That is very likely. I can imagine a mind like yours deriving great
satisfaction from any measure of that kind. But while I continue to be
called upon to exist, sir, you must strike at him through me. Awe!’ said
Mr Pecksniff, shaking his head at Martin with indignant jocularity; ‘and
in such a cause you will find me, my young sir, an Ugly Customer!’
Still Martin looked steadily and mildly at his grandfather. ‘Will you
give me no answer,’ he said, at length, ‘not a word?’
‘You hear what has been said,’ replied the old man, without averting his
eyes from the face of Mr Pecksniff; who nodded encouragingly.
‘I have not heard your voice. I have not heard your spirit,’ returned
Martin.
‘Tell him again,’ said the old man, still gazing up in Mr Pecksniff’s
face.
‘I only hear,’ replied Martin, strong in his purpose from the first, and
stronger in it as he felt how Pecksniff winced and shrunk beneath his
contempt; ‘I only hear what you say to me, grandfather.’
Perhaps it was well for Mr Pecksniff that his venerable friend found
in his (Mr Pecksniff’s) features an exclusive and engrossing object
of contemplation, for if his eyes had gone astray, and he had compared
young Martin’s bearing with that of his zealous defender, the latter
disinterested gentleman would scarcely have shown to greater advantage
than on the memorable afternoon when he took Tom Pinch’s last receipt
in full of all demands. One really might have thought there was some
quality in Mr Pecksniff--an emanation from the brightness and purity
within him perhaps--which set off and adorned his foes; they looked so
gallant and so manly beside him.
‘Not a word?’ said Martin, for the second time.
‘I remember that I have a word to say, Pecksniff,’ observed the old man.
‘But a word. You spoke of being indebted to the charitable help of some
stranger for the means of returning to England. Who is he? And what help
in money did he render you?’
Although he asked this question of Martin, he did not look towards him,
but kept his eyes on Mr Pecksniff as before. It appeared to have become
a habit with him, both in a literal and figurative sense, to look to Mr
Pecksniff alone.
Martin took out his pencil, tore a leaf from his pocket-book, and
hastily wrote down the particulars of his debt to Mr Bevan. The old man
stretched out his hand for the paper, and took it; but his eyes did not
wander from Mr Pecksniff’s face.
‘It would be a poor pride and a false humility,’ said Martin, in a
low voice, ‘to say, I do not wish that to be paid, or that I have any
present hope of being able to pay it. But I never felt my poverty so
deeply as I feel it now.’
‘Read it to me, Pecksniff,’ said the old man.
Mr Pecksniff, after approaching the perusal of the paper as if it were a
manuscript confession of a murder, complied.
‘I think, Pecksniff,’ said old Martin, ‘I could wish that to be
discharged. I should not like the lender, who was abroad, who had
no opportunity of making inquiry, and who did (as he thought) a kind
action, to suffer.’
‘An honourable sentiment, my dear sir. Your own entirely. But a
dangerous precedent,’ said Mr Pecksniff, ‘permit me to suggest.’
‘It shall not be a precedent,’ returned the old man. ‘It is the only
recognition of him. But we will talk of it again. You shall advise me.
There is nothing else?’
‘Nothing else,’ said Mr Pecksniff buoyantly, ‘but for you to recover
this intrusion--this cowardly and indefensible outrage on your
feelings--with all possible dispatch, and smile again.’
‘You have nothing more to say?’ inquired the old man, laying his hand
with unusual earnestness on Mr Pecksniff’s sleeve.
Mr Pecksniff would not say what rose to his lips. For reproaches he
observed, were useless.
‘You have nothing at all to urge? You are sure of that! If you have, no
matter what it is, speak freely. I will oppose nothing that you ask of
me,’ said the old man.
The tears rose in such abundance to Mr Pecksniff’s eyes at this proof
of unlimited confidence on the part of his friend, that he was fain to
clasp the bridge of his nose convulsively before he could at all compose
himself. When he had the power of utterance again, he said with great
emotion, that he hoped he should live to deserve this; and added, that
he had no other observation whatever to make.
For a few moments the old man sat looking at him, with that blank and
motionless expression which is not uncommon in the faces of those whose
faculties are on the wane, in age. But he rose up firmly too, and walked
towards the door, from which Mark withdrew to make way for him.
The obsequious Mr Pecksniff proffered his arm. The old man took it.
Turning at the door, he said to Martin, waving him off with his hand,
‘You have heard him. Go away. It is all over. Go!’
Mr Pecksniff murmured certain cheering expressions of sympathy and
encouragement as they retired; and Martin, awakening from the stupor
into which the closing portion of this scene had plunged him, to the
opportunity afforded by their departure, caught the innocent cause of
all in his embrace, and pressed her to his heart.
‘Dear girl!’ said Martin. ‘He has not changed you. Why, what an impotent
and harmless knave the fellow is!’
‘You have restrained yourself so nobly! You have borne so much!’
‘Restrained myself!’ cried Martin, cheerfully. ‘You were by, and were
unchanged, I knew. What more advantage did I want? The sight of me was
such a bitterness to the dog, that I had my triumph in his being forced
to endure it. But tell me, love--for the few hasty words we can exchange
now are precious--what is this which has been rumoured to me? Is it true
that you are persecuted by this knave’s addresses?’
‘I was, dear Martin, and to some extent am now; but my chief source
of unhappiness has been anxiety for you. Why did you leave us in such
terrible suspense?’
‘Sickness, distance; the dread of hinting at our real condition, the
impossibility of concealing it except in perfect silence; the knowledge
that the truth would have pained you infinitely more than uncertainty