'Yes,' replied Mr Dombey. 'I have said so.'
'Yes,' rejoined Carker, quickly; 'but why?'
'Why!' Mr Dombey repeated, not without hesitation. 'Because I told her.'
'Ay,' replied Carker. 'But why did you tell her? You see,' he continued with a smile, and softly laying his velvet hand, as a cat might have laid its sheathed claws, on Mr Dombey's arm; 'if I perfectly understand what is in your mind, I am so much more likely to be useful, and to have the happiness of being effectually employed. I think I do understand. I have not the honour of Mrs Dombey's good opinion. In my position, I have no reason to expect it; but I take the fact to be, that I have not got it?'
'Possibly not,' said Mr Dombey.
'Consequently,' pursued Carker, 'your making the communications to Mrs Dombey through me, is sure to be particularly unpalatable to that lady?'
'It appears to me,' said Mr Dombey, with haughty reserve, and yet with some embarrassment, 'that Mrs Dombey's views upon the subject form no part of it as it presents itself to you and me, Carker. But it may be so.'
'And - pardon me - do I misconceive you,' said Carker, 'when I think you descry in this, a likely means of humbling Mrs Dombey's pride - I use the word as expressive of a quality which, kept within due bounds, adorns and graces a lady so distinguished for her beauty and accomplishments - and, not to say of punishing her, but of reducing her to the submission you so naturally and justly require?'
'I am not accustomed, Carker, as you know,' said Mr Dombey, 'to give such close reasons for any course of conduct I think proper to adopt, but I will gainsay nothing of this. If you have any objection to found upon it, that is indeed another thing, and the mere statement that you have one will be sufficient. But I have not supposed, I confess, that any confidence I could entrust to you, would be likely to degrade you - '
'Oh! I degraded!' exclaimed Carker. 'In your service!'
'or to place you,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'in a false position.'
'I in a false position!' exclaimed Carker. 'I shall be proud - delighted - to execute your trust. I could have wished, I own, to have given the lady at whose feet I would lay my humble duty and devotion - for is she not your wife! - no new cause of dislike; but a wish from you is, of course, paramount to every other consideration on earth. Besides, when Mrs Dombey is converted from these little errors of judgment, incidental, I would presume to say, to the novelty of her situation, I shall hope that she will perceive in the slight part I take, only a grain - my removed and different sphere gives room for little more - of the respect for you, and sacrifice of all considerations to you, of which it will be her pleasure and privilege to garner up a great store every day.'
Mr Dombey seemed, at the moment, again to see her with her hand stretched out towards the door, and again to hear through the mild speech of his confidential agent an echo of the words, 'Nothing can make us stranger to each other than we are henceforth!' But he shook off the fancy, and did not shake in his resolution, and said, 'Certainly, no doubt.'
'There is nothing more,' quoth Carker, drawing his chair back to its old place - for they had taken little breakfast as yet- and pausing for an answer before he sat down.
'Nothing,' said Mr Dombey, 'but this. You will be good enough to observe, Carker, that no message to Mrs Dombey with which you are or may be charged, admits of reply. You will be good enough to bring me no reply. Mrs Dombey is informed that it does not become me to temporise or treat upon any matter that is at issue between us, and that what I say is final.'
Mr Carker signIfied his understanding of these credentials, and they fell to breakfast with what appetite they might. The Grinder also, in due time reappeared, keeping his eyes upon his master without a moment's respite, and passing the time in a reverie of worshipful tenor. Breakfast concluded, Mr Dombey's horse was ordered out again, and Mr Carker mounting his own, they rode off for the City together.
Mr Carker was in capital spirits, and talked much. Mr Dombey received his conversation with the sovereign air of a man who had a right to be talked to, and occasionally condescended to throw in a few words to carry on the conversation. So they rode on characteristically enough. But Mr Dombey, in his dignity, rode with very long stirrups, and a very loose rein, and very rarely deigned to look down to see where his horse went. In consequence of which it happened that Mr Dombey's horse, while going at a round trot, stumbled on some loose stones, threw him, rolled over him, and lashing out with his iron-shod feet, in his struggles to get up, kicked him.
Mr Carker, quick of eye, steady of hand, and a good horseman, was afoot, and had the struggling animal upon his legs and by the bridle, in a moment. Otherwise that morning's confidence would have been Mr Dombey's last. Yet even with the flush and hurry of this action red upon him, he bent over his prostrate chief with every tooth disclosed, and muttered as he stooped down, 'I have given good cause of offence to Mrs Dombey now, if she knew it!'
Mr Dombey being insensible, and bleeding from the head and face, was carried by certain menders of the road, under Carker's direction, to the nearest public-house, which was not far off, and where he was soon attended by divers surgeons, who arrived in quick succession from all parts, and who seemed to come by some mysterious instinct, as vultures are said to gather about a camel who dies in the desert. After being at some pains to restore him to consciousness, these gentlemen examined into the nature of his injuries.
One surgeon who lived hard by was strong for a compound fracture of the leg, which was the landlord's opinion also; but two surgeons who lived at a distance, and were only in that neighbourhood by accident, combated this opinion so disinterestedly, that it was decided at last that the patient, though severely cut and bruised, had broken no bones but a lesser rib or so, and might be carefully taken home before night. His injuries being dressed and bandaged, which was a long operation, and he at length left to repose, Mr Carker mounted his horse again, and rode away to carry the intelligence home.
Crafty and cruel as his face was at the best of times, though it was a sufficiently fair face as to form and regularity of feature, it was at its worst when he set forth on this errand; animated by the craft and cruelty of thoughts within him, suggestions of remote possibility rather than of design or plot, that made him ride as if he hunted men and women. Drawing rein at length, and slackening in his speed, as he came into the more public roads, he checked his white-legged horse into picking his way along as usual, and hid himself beneath his sleek, hushed, crouched manner, and his ivory smile, as he best could.
He rode direct to Mr Dombey's house, alighted at the door, and begged to see Mrs Dombey on an affair of importance. The servant who showed him to Mr Dombey's own room, soon returned to say that it was not Mrs Dombey's hour for receiving visitors, and that he begged pardon for not having mentioned it before.
Mr Carker, who was quite prepared for a cold reception, wrote upon a card that he must take the liberty of pressing for an interview, and that he would not be so bold as to do so, for the second time (this he underlined), if he were not equally sure of the occasion being sufficient for his justification. After a trifling delay, Mrs Dombey's maid appeared, and conducted him to a morning room upstairs, where Edith and Florence were together.
He had never thought Edith half so beautiful before. Much as he admired the graces of her face and form, and freshly as they dwelt within his sensual remembrance, he had never thought her half so beautiful.
Her glance fell haughtily upon him in the doorway; but he looked at Florence - though only in the act of bending his head, as he came in - with some irrepressible expression of the new power he held; and it was his triumph to see the glance droop and falter, and to see that Edith half rose up to receive him.
He was very sorry, he was deeply grieved; he couldn't say with what unwillingness he came to prepare her for the intelligence of a very slight accident. He entreated Mrs Dombey to compose herself. Upon his sacred word of honour, there was no cause of alarm. But Mr Dombey -
Florence uttered a sudden cry. He did not look at her, but at Edith. Edith composed and reassured her. She uttered no cry of distress. No, no.
Mr Dombey had met with an accident in riding. His horse had slipped, and he had been thrown.
Florence wildly exclaimed that he was badly hurt; that he was killed!
No. Upon his honour, Mr Dombey, though stunned at first, was soon recovered, and though certainly hurt was in no kind of danger. If this were not the truth, he, the distressed intruder, never could have had the courage to present himself before Mrs Dombey. It was the truth indeed, he solemnly assured her.
All this he said as if he were answering Edith, and not Florence, and with his eyes and his smile fastened on Edith.
He then went on to tell her where Mr Dombey was lying, and to request that a carriage might be placed at his disposal to bring him home.
'Mama,' faltered Florence in tears, 'if I might venture to go!'
Mr Carker, having his eyes on Edith when he heard these words, gave her a secret look and slightly shook his head. He saw how she battled with herself before she answered him with her handsome eyes, but he wrested the answer from her - he showed her that he would have it, or that he would speak and cut Florence to the heart - and she gave it to him. As he had looked at the picture in the morning, so he looked at her afterwards, when she turned her eyes away.
'I am directed to request,' he said, 'that the new housekeeper - Mrs Pipchin, I think, is the name - '
Nothing escaped him. He saw in an instant, that she was another slight of Mr Dombey's on his wife.
' - may be informed that Mr Dombey wishes to have his bed prepared in his own apartments downstairs, as he prefers those rooms to any other. I shall return to Mr Dombey almost immediately. That every possible attention has been paid to his comfort, and that he is the object of every possible solicitude, I need not assure you, Madam. Let me again say, there is no cause for the least alarm. Even you may be quite at ease, believe me.'
He bowed himself out, with his extremest show of deference and conciliation; and having returned to Mr Dombey's room, and there arranged for a carriage being sent after him to the City, mounted his horse again, and rode slowly thither. He was very thoughtful as he went along, and very thoughtful there, and very thoughtful in the carriage on his way back to the place where Mr Dombey had been left. It was only when sitting by that gentleman's couch that he was quite himself again, and conscious of his teeth.
About the time of twilight, Mr Dombey, grievously afflicted with aches and pains, was helped into his carriage, and propped with cloaks and pillows on one side of it, while his confidential agent bore him company upon the other. As he was not to be shaken, they moved at little more than a foot pace; and hence it was quite dark when he was brought home. Mrs Pipchin, bitter and grim, and not oblivious of the Peruvian mines, as the establishment in general had good reason to know, received him at the door, and freshened the domestics with several little sprinklings of wordy vinegar, while they assisted in conveying him to his room. Mr Carker remained in attendance until he was safe in bed, and then, as he declined to receive any female visitor, but the excellent Ogress who presided over his household, waited on Mrs Dombey once more, with his report on her lord's condition.
He again found Edith alone with Florence, and he again addressed the whole of his soothing speech to Edith, as if she were a prey to the liveliest and most affectionate anxieties. So earnest he was in his respectful sympathy, that on taking leave, he ventured - with one more glance towards Florence at the moment - to take her hand, and bending over it, to touch it with his lips.
Edith did not withdraw the hand, nor did she strike his fair face with it, despite the flush upon her cheek, the bright light in her eyes, and the dilation of her whole form. But when she was alone in her own room, she struck it on the marble chimney-shelf, so that, at one blow, it was bruised, and bled; and held it from her, near the shining fire, as if she could have thrust it in and burned it'
Far into the night she sat alone, by the sinking blaze, in dark and threatening beauty, watching the murky shadows looming on the wall, as if her thoughts were tangible, and cast them there. Whatever shapes of outrage and affront, and black foreshadowings of things that might happen, flickered, indistinct and giant-like, before her, one resented figure marshalled them against her. And that figure was her husband.
磨工罗布不再穿卡特尔船长给他的黑色丧服，也不再戴那防水帽，而是穿上一套结实的、棕色的制服了；虽然这套制服在他身上表面上装出很朴实、很端庄的样子，但实际上却显出一副沾沾自喜、逞能自信的神态，这正是任何裁缝都愿意把衣服做成这种气派的；就这样，磨工罗布完全改变了他的外观；他在心里也完全把船长和海军军官候补生抛开，只不过在闲暇的时候才花上几分钟向这些难以分开的、尊贵的朋友们夸耀一下自己的升迁，并在那黄铜乐器——他的良心——发出的赞扬的音乐的伴奏下，回忆起他是怎样得意扬扬地摆脱了他们的；他现在为他的恩人卡克先生服务。他住在卡克先生家里，侍候着他本人，因此一直怀着恐惧的心情，哆哆嗦嗦地把他那圆圆的眼睛片刻不离地注视着卡克先生那雪白的牙齿，而且觉得，他应当把眼睛睁得比过去任何时候都更大才是。
即使他是在一位大巫士手下服务，牙齿又是这巫士最强有力的魔力的话，那么他也不能比对着卡克先生这些牙齿，全身上下颤抖得更厉害的了。这孩子在他恩人身上感觉到一种力量和权威，它吸引了他的全部注意力，迫使他绝对地驯服与顺从。甚至当他的恩人不在的时候，他也并不认为他想到他时就安全无恙，因为他唯恐他的恩人又会像他第一次见到他的那天早上一样，立即就抓住他的喉咙；他唯恐又会看到，他恩人的每一颗牙齿都来揭发他，并谴责他心中的每一个念头。跟他恩人面对面在一起的时候，罗布毫不怀疑：卡克先生看透他的秘密的思想；或者更确切地说，如果卡克先生想要这样做的话，那么他只要稍稍运用一下他的意志，他就能看透它们；罗布完全相信这一点，就像他相信他在看卡克先生的时候，卡克先生一定在看他一样。卡克先生凌驾于他的力量是这样包罗一切，是这样牢牢地把他置于他的控制之下，因此他根本连想也不敢去想，而只是在整个心里不断地愈益强烈地感觉到，他的恩人对他具有不可抗拒的权威，并有能力对他做任何事情，因此他就站着讨取他的欢心，并设法抢先去执行他的命令，至于其他一切思想活动则完全停止了。
也许罗布没有问过他自己——在他当时的心情下，提出这样的问题将会是一件非常轻率的行为——：他在各个方面都这样完全屈服于这种影响，是不是因为他在心中曾浮现过这样的猜疑：他的恩人是奸诈权术的大师，而他自己在磨工学校中在这方面也曾经是一名可怜的学生。不过罗布不仅怕他，而且也的的确确钦佩他。也许卡克先生更了解他力量的源泉，并万无一失地运用它。
罗布在辞退了船长那里的职务的当天晚上，卖掉了鸽子，在匆匆忙忙之中甚至做了一笔不利的交易之后，就直接来到卡克先生的家里，兴奋地出现在他的新主人的面前；他满脸通红，似乎指望得到称赞似的。
“怎么，淘气鬼！”卡克先生向他的包袱看了一眼，说道，“你已经辞退了你的工作，上我这里来了？”
“嗯，对不起，先生，”罗布结结巴巴地说道，“您知道，上次我到这里来的时候，您曾说过——”
“我曾说过，”卡克先生回答道，“我曾说过什么啦？”
“对不起，先生，您什么也没有说过，先生，”罗布回答道；卡克先生问话的语气已对他发出了警告；他感到张皇失措。
他的恩人露出宽阔的牙床，看着他，又用食指点了点，说道：
“我看你今后没有好下场，我的流浪汉朋友。灾祸等待着你。”
“啊，请别这样说，先生！”罗布喊道，他身子下面的两只腿颤抖着。“说实在的，先生，我只想为您工作；先生；只想侍候您，先生；只想忠实地完成您吩咐我的一切事情，先生。”
“如果你想跟我打交道，”他的恩人回答道，“你最好是忠实地完成我吩咐你的一切事情。”
“是的，这我明白，先生，”顺从的罗布辩护道，“这我相信，先生。如果您肯开个恩，考验考验我的话，先生！而且，如果您什么时候发现我做任何违反您的意愿的事情的话，先生，那么我可以让您杀死我。”
