by Dave Mckay
11. Someone to Live With
"Sydney," said Mr. Stryver, on that same night (Or should we say morning?) to his wild dog, "mix us another bowl of drink. I have something to say to you."
Sydney had been working extra hours that night and the night before, and the night before that, and a good many other nights, trying to finish off Mr. Stryver's cases before the long holidays came up. Now they were finished at last. Everything had been cleared away, freeing them until November, when fogs in the weather and fogs in the court would return, bringing them more business.
Sydney was as tired and drunk as ever for all of his hard work. It had taken extra wet cloths for his head to pull him through the night. And an equal measure of extra wine was needed before the cloths. He was in bad shape because of it, as he pulled the cloth off his head and threw it into the bowl which he had been using to keep it wet for the past six hours.
"Are you mixing that other bowl of drink?” asked Stryver the fat one, with his hands in his belt, and looking around from where he was lying on his back on the couch.
"I am."
"Now, listen! I'm going to tell you something that will surprise you and that may make you think I'm not as smart as you thought. I am planning to get married."
"Are you?"
"Yes. And not for money. What do you think of that?"
"I don't think anything. Who is she?"
"See if you can say who it is."
"I am not even going to try, not at five o'clock in the morning, with my brains cooking in my head.
"Well, then I'll tell you," said Stryver, sitting up slowly. "Sydney I don't have much hope of making you understand, because you are such a selfish dog."
"And you," returned Sydney, who was busy adding alcohol to
the juice, "are such a sweet and musical spirit!"
"Come now!" answered Stryver, laughing proudly, "I don't say that I am an expert at love (for I hope I know better than to be), but I am a softer person than you."
"You are luckier than me, if that is what you mean."
"I don't mean that. I mean I am a man of more... more...”
"Well, say class, while you are at it," Carton helped him.
"I will say class. What I mean is that I am a man," said Stryver, pushing his chest out at his friend, who was making the drink, "who tries to be kind, who goes to more pain to be kind, who knows better how to be kind, to a woman, than you do."
"Keep going," said Sydney Carton.
"No, but I must say one thing.” Stryver, shook his head in his pushy way. "I'll have this out with you. You have been at Doctor Manette's house as much as, or more than I have. I've been embarrassed at how selfish and angry you have been when there. Your actions are like those of a dog that hides out of guilt. On my life and soul, I have been embarrassed by you, Sydney!"
"It should be a big help to a man who works in the courts to be embarrassed about anything," returned Sydney. "You should thank me for that."
"You won't get away with it by being foolish," answered Stryver, pushing to the side the smart answer that Carton had given him. "No, Sydney, it is my job to tell you, and tell you to your face, for your own good, that you act like a devil around that class of people. You are not a nice person to be around."
Sydney finished off a tall glass of the drink he had made and laughed.
"Look at me!" said Stryver, standing up straight. "I have less need to be kind than you do, because I don't need anyone's money. So why do I do it?"
"So far I have never seen you do it," Carton said quietly.
"I do it because it works, and because it's right. And look at me. I'm doing well."
"You're not doing well with telling me who you're going to marry," answered Carton with a foolish air. "I wish you would. As for me, will you never understand that I'm never going to change?"
He asked the question with some show of anger.
"You have no business fighting change," was his friend's answer, which was not said in a very friendly way.
"As I understand it, I have no business to be on the earth at all," said Sydney Carton. "So who is the woman?"
"Now don't let my news make you feel bad, Sydney," said Mr. Stryver, preparing him for what he was about to say, with a great show of being friendly, "because I know that you don't mean half of what you say. And if you did, it would not be important. I'm saying this, because you once spoke of this woman in a rough way."
"I did?"
"Truly, and in these rooms."
Sydney Carton looked at his drink and looked at his stupidly happy friend, finished his drink and looked again at his stupidly happy friend.
"You called the young woman a golden-haired doll. The young woman is Miss Manette. If you had been a person with a little more feeling for such things, I would have been hurt by what you said, but I was not. You have no understanding of what you are talking about, and so I was no more hurt than I would be if someone with no eye for art said something bad about a picture I own, or if someone with no ear for music said something bad about some piece of music that was mine."
Sydney Carton was going through the drink very quickly now.
"Well, now I've said it, Syd," said Mr. Stryver. "I don't care about her wealth; she is a beautiful thing; and I have made up my mind to do what makes me happy. On the whole, I think I have enough wealth to do that. She will have in me a man with more than enough money, and a good future. It is very lucky for her, but she should be lucky, for she's a good person. Are you surprised?"
Carton, still drinking, answered, "Why should I be surprised?”
"So you think it's okay?"
Carton, still drinking, answered, "Why shouldn't I think it's okay?"
"Well!" said his friend Stryver. "You've taken it more easily than I'd expected. And you show less interest in her having no money than I had thought you would. But then you know well by now that I'm a difficult man to change. Yes, Sydney, I have had enough of this way of living, with no change from it. I feel it is a good thing for a man to have a home where he can go when he feels like it. (And if he doesn't, then he can stay away from it.) And I feel that Miss Manette will do herself well in any place where she finds herself. Everyone will think well of me for having her at my side. So I have made up my mind. And now, Sydney, old boy, I want to say a word about your life. You are in a bad way, you know, a really bad way! You don't know how important money is. You live a rough life. You will break down one of these days and find yourself sick and poor. You really should be thinking about a nurse."
Looking down on Sydney because he was much richer, made Stryver look twice as big as Sydney, but four times as cruel.
"Now what I think you should do is look this problem in the face. I have looked my problem in the face in a different way, and you must do the same, in your different way. Marry! Find someone who can take care of you. Don't worry that you do not like being around women, or that you often misunderstand them or that you are too rough for them. Find someone. Someone whom you can trust, who has a little wealth. Find someone who has a house that they rent out, or who takes in people for meals and a room. Marry her, as a way of protecting yourself. That's what you need to do. Think about it, Sydney."
"I'll think about it," said Sydney.