Maximum-assistance view: every word above everyday vocabulary is explained at every appearance; each name is introduced at its first appearance in the chapter.
CHAPTER III.
The Night Shadows (the shapes that thoughts and fears become in the dark)
A wonderful fact to reflect upon (an astonishing thing to think about), that every human creature is constituted (made, by its very nature) to be that profound (deep and complete) secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration (a serious thought to hold in mind), when I enter a great city by night (the person telling the story is speaking for himself here, thinking in his own voice, not telling the story), that every one of those darkly clustered (dark and packed close together) houses encloses its own secret (holds a secret shut inside it, like a box); that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts (chests, standing for the people themselves) there, is, in some of its imaginings (private thoughts and pictures of the mind), a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness (the fear and wonder it stirs in us), even of Death itself, is referable to this (comes partly from this). No more can I (I can no longer) turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved (open the pages of a person I loved, as if reading a book), and vainly (without any chance of success) hope in time (some day, given enough time) to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable (too deep to reach the bottom of or to understand) water, wherein (in which), as momentary (lasting only a moment) lights glanced (flashed briefly across, as light does) into it, I have had glimpses (quick, partial sights) of buried treasure and other things submerged (lying under the water). It was appointed (it was fixed by fate) that the book should shut with a spring (snap shut suddenly), for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page (only one page). It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost (frozen hard for ever, so nothing below could ever be seen again), when the light was playing on its surface (moving and dancing over the top of the water), and I stood in ignorance (knowing nothing of what lay below) on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead, my love, the darling of my soul (the person I loved most), is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life’s end (death makes that person's secret final and permanent, the secret that was always part of that one separate self, and I will carry my own secret, never told to anyone, until I die). In any of the burial-places (grounds where the dead are laid in the earth) of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper (a dead person lying in the ground) more inscrutable (impossible to read or understand) than its busy inhabitants (the people who live there) are, in their innermost (deepest and most private) personality, to me, or than I am to them?
As to this, his natural and not to be alienated inheritance (in this one respect, a possession every person is born with and can never be stripped of), the messenger (the man sent to carry a note) on horseback (riding) had exactly the same possessions as the King (the King of England), the first Minister of State (the chief minister, the most powerful man in the government under the King), or the richest merchant (a trader who buys and sells goods) in London (the capital city of England). So with (it was the same with) the three passengers shut up (shut inside) in the narrow compass (the small enclosed space) of one lumbering (moving heavily and slowly) old mail coach (a big horse-drawn carriage that carried the letters, and passengers with them); they were mysteries to one another, as complete as if each had been in his own coach and six (a coach pulled by six horses, a rich man's carriage), or his own coach and sixty (a joke that stretches the last phrase: a coach pulled by sixty horses, an impossible show of wealth), with the breadth of a county (a whole county's width, many miles) between him and the next.
The messenger (the man sent to carry a note) rode back at an easy trot (a horse's steady middle pace, between a walk and a run), stopping pretty often (quite often) at ale-houses (small pubs that sold beer) by the way (along the road) to drink, but evincing (showing) a tendency to keep his own counsel (say nothing of what he was thinking), and to keep his hat cocked (tilted forward) over his eyes. He had eyes that assorted very well with (matched, went well with) that decoration (the hat, spoken of as if it were something fine, as a joke), being of a surface black, with no depth in the colour or form (black on the surface only, with nothing deep in their colour or their shape), and much too near together--as if they were afraid of being found out (caught, discovered) in something, singly (one on its own), if they kept too far apart. They had a sinister (threatening, suggesting evil) expression, under an old cocked-hat (a hat with its edge folded up on three sides) like a three-cornered (with a three-sided shape) spittoon (a wide bowl kept in pubs for men chewing tobacco to drop the wet brown waste into), and over a great muffler (a thick scarf wrapped round the neck) for the chin and throat (the front of the neck), which descended (hung down) nearly to the wearer’s (the man who had it on) knees. When he stopped for drink, he moved this muffler with his left hand, only while he poured his liquor (strong drink) in with his right; as soon as that was done, he muffled again (he covered his chin and mouth again with the scarf).
“No, Jerry (the rider carrying the message back to London), no!” said the messenger (the man sent to carry a note), harping on one theme as he rode (he is talking to himself, alone on the road, going on and on about the one thing on his mind: the name he calls out is his own). “It wouldn’t do for you (it would be no good for you), Jerry. Jerry, you honest (said as a joke against himself; the reader is not meant to believe it) tradesman (a working man with a skill or a shop), it wouldn’t suit your line of business (it would be bad for your kind of work)! Recalled (brought back: the word from the message he carries, and he cannot believe it)--! Bust me if I don’t think (I would swear that) he’d been a drinking (the man who gave him the answer had been drinking)!”
His message perplexed (confused) his mind to that degree that (so much that) he was fain (felt he had to), several times, to take off his hat to scratch his head. Except on the crown (the top of the head), which was raggedly (unevenly, in patches) bald, he had stiff (hard and not bending), black hair, standing jaggedly (in sharp uneven spikes) all over it, and growing down hill (growing lower and lower down his forehead) almost to his broad, blunt (flat and rounded at the end) nose. It was so like Smith’s work (a blacksmith's work, the man who makes iron spikes and nails), so much more like the top of a strongly spiked (topped with sharp iron points) wall than a head of hair, that the best of players at leap-frog (a children's game of jumping over a player who bends down) might have declined him (refused to jump over him), as the most dangerous man in the world to go over (to jump across).
While he trotted (rode at a steady middle pace) back with the message he was to deliver to the night watchman (a man paid to guard a building through the night) in his box (his small shelter at the door) at the door of Tellson’s (the London bank the passenger serves) Bank, by Temple Bar (an old stone gateway across a main London street, at the edge of the old centre of London), who was to deliver it to greater authorities within (more important people inside the bank), the shadows of the night (the shapes a mind's thoughts and fears become in the dark) took such shapes to him as (appeared to him in whatever shapes) arose out of (grew from) the message, and took such shapes to the mare (the female horse) as arose out of (grew from) her private topics of uneasiness (her own worries, spoken of as if a horse had things on her mind). They seemed to be numerous, for (because) she shied (jumped to the side in fear, as horses do) at every shadow on the road.
What time (during which time, meanwhile), the mail-coach lumbered (moved heavily and slowly), jolted (jerked roughly), rattled (shook with a loud noise), and bumped upon its tedious (long and boring) way, with its three fellow-inscrutables (a word the writer invented: fellow travellers who were each a closed mystery to the others) inside. To whom, likewise, the shadows of the night revealed themselves (and to those three too the night's shadows showed themselves), in the forms their dozing eyes and wandering thoughts suggested (in whatever shapes their sleepy eyes and wandering thoughts brought to mind).
Tellson’s Bank had a run upon it (a joke. A run on a bank means crowds rushing to take all their money out of it, and here it means the bank was busy in the passenger's dreams) in the mail (inside the mail coach). As the bank passenger (Mr. Lorry, the traveller who works for the bank)--with an arm drawn through (put through) the leathern strap (a hanging loop for a passenger to hold on to), which did what lay in it (did all it could) to keep him from pounding against (banging into) the next passenger, and driving him into his corner (pushing him into his corner), whenever the coach got a special jolt (sudden rough bump)--nodded (kept falling asleep, his head sinking forward) in his place, with half-shut eyes, the little coach-windows, and the coach-lamp dimly gleaming (shining weakly) through them, and the bulky bundle of opposite passenger (the wrapped-up shape of the passenger sitting across from him), became the bank, and did a great stroke of business (did a lot of business). The rattle (the shaking, knocking noise) of the harness (the leather straps that tie the horses to the coach) was the chink (the light ringing sound of coins) of money, and more drafts were honoured (written orders to pay money were paid out) in five minutes than even Tellson’s, with all its foreign and home connection (its customers abroad and in England), ever paid in thrice (three times) the time. Then the strong-rooms (the locked underground rooms where money and valuables are kept) underground (under the ground), at Tellson’s, with such of their valuable stores and secrets as were known to the passenger (those of the valuable things and secrets kept there that the passenger knew about) (and it was not a little (a lot) that he knew about them), opened before him, and he went in among them with the great keys (big keys) and the feebly-burning (giving only a weak light) candle, and found them safe, and strong, and sound (in good condition), and still (silent, with nothing moving), just as he had last seen them.
But, though the bank was almost always with him (his thoughts kept returning to the bank), and though the coach (in a confused way, like the presence of pain under an opiate (the way a person who has taken a pain-killing drug still faintly feels the pain)) was always with him, there was another current of impression (another stream of thought, flowing like water) that never ceased (stopped) to run, all through the night. He was on his way to dig some one out of a grave (to bring back someone who has been shut away from the world as if dead and buried).
Now (well, then), which of the multitude (great number) of faces that showed themselves before him was the true face of the buried person (the shut-away man he is going to bring back), the shadows of the night did not indicate (show); but they were all the faces of a man of five-and-forty by years (forty-five years old), and they differed principally (mainly) in the passions (strong feelings) they expressed, and in the ghastliness (horrible look, like that of a dead body) of their worn and wasted (tired out and thinned by suffering) state. Pride, contempt (the feeling that other people are worthless), defiance (boldly refusing to obey or be beaten), stubbornness (refusing to change one's mind), submission (accepting defeat and doing as one is told), lamentation (loud crying from grief), succeeded one another (came one after another); so did varieties of sunken (hollow, fallen in) cheek, cadaverous (pale like a dead body) colour, emaciated (extremely thin from hunger) hands and figures (bodies). But the face was in the main (mostly) one face, and every head was prematurely (too early, before its time) white. A hundred times the dozing passenger inquired of this spectre (what follows is imagined: the half-asleep passenger puts questions to a ghostly face in his own mind, and nobody in the coach speaks):
“Buried how long?” (the same question every time, asked as if to a man lying in a grave: how long have you been shut away as if dead)
The answer was always the same: “Almost eighteen years.”
“You had abandoned all hope (given up all hope) of being dug out (freed from the ground)?”
“Long ago.”
“You know that you are recalled to life (called back to living, as if from death)?”
“They tell me so.”
“I hope you care to (want to) live?”
“I can’t say (I don't know).”
“Shall I show her to you? (do you want to see the woman he means) Will you come and see her?”
The answers to this question were various and contradictory (of many kinds, and clashing with each other). Sometimes the broken reply (the answer given in pieces, with pauses) was, “Wait! It would kill me if I saw her too soon.” Sometimes, it was given in a tender rain of tears (soft weeping, tears falling like rain), and then it was, “Take me to her.” Sometimes it was staring and bewildered (completely confused), and then it was, “I don’t know her. I don’t understand.”
After such imaginary discourse (talk that took place only in his mind), the passenger in his fancy (in his imagination) would dig, and dig, dig--now with a spade, now with a great key, now with his hands (sometimes with a digging tool, sometimes with a big key, sometimes with his hands)--to dig this wretched creature (poor suffering person) out. Got out at last (once he was finally dug out), with earth hanging about his face and hair (with soil still sticking to his face and hair), he would suddenly fan away to dust (fall to pieces and blow away like dust). The passenger would then start to himself (wake with a jerk), and lower (move down) the window, to get the reality of (real things, to feel he was awake) mist (thin fog) and rain on his cheek.
Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist (thin fog) and rain, on the moving patch (small area) of light from the lamps, and the hedge (a line of bushes along the road) at the roadside retreating by jerks (falling behind in sudden uneven movements), the night shadows outside the coach would fall into the train of (join and follow behind) the night shadows within (the dream shapes inside his mind). The real Banking-house (the bank's building) by Temple Bar (an old stone gateway across a main London street, at the edge of the old centre of London), the real business of the past day, the real strong rooms (the locked rooms where the bank keeps its money and valuables), the real express (the rider who had been sent out with the urgent message) sent after him, and the real message returned, would all be there. Out of the midst of them (from among them), the ghostly (pale and unreal, like something from the dead) face would rise, and he would accost (go up and speak to) it again.
“Buried how long?” (how long have you been shut away as if dead)
“Almost eighteen years.”
“I hope you care to (want to) live?”
“I can’t say (I don't know).”
Dig--dig--dig--until an impatient movement from one of the two passengers would admonish (warn, tell him firmly) him to pull up the window (close the window by pulling it up), draw his arm securely (firmly, so it would not slip) through the leathern strap (a hanging loop for a passenger to hold on to), and speculate upon (wonder about) the two slumbering forms (the two sleeping shapes), until his mind lost its hold of them (stopped thinking about them), and they again slid away into the bank and the grave (melted back into his two dreams, the bank and the buried man).
“Buried how long?” (how long have you been shut away as if dead)
“Almost eighteen years.”
“You had abandoned all hope (given up all hope) of being dug out (freed from the ground)?”
“Long ago.”
The words were still in his hearing as just spoken (still sounding in his ears as if just said)--distinctly (clearly) in his hearing as ever spoken words had been in his life (as clearly as any words he had ever heard in his life)--when the weary (very tired) passenger started to the consciousness of daylight (woke suddenly and knew it was day), and found that the shadows of the night were gone.
He lowered (moved down) the window, and looked out at the rising sun. There was a ridge (a long raised strip) of ploughed land (a field turned over for planting), with a plough (the farm tool pulled by horses that cuts and turns the soil) upon it where it had been left last night when the horses were unyoked (set free from the tool they had been pulling); beyond, a quiet coppice-wood (a small wood of young trees, cut back regularly for timber), in which many leaves of burning red (bright flaming red) and golden yellow still (even now) remained upon the trees. Though the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear, and the sun rose bright, placid (calm), and beautiful.
“Eighteen years!” said the passenger, looking at the sun. “Gracious Creator of day (God, who made the daylight, in a cry of wonder)! To be buried alive (shut away from the world while still living, as if in a grave) for eighteen years!”