第277章

`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.