📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 67
1He lay in prison very ill, during the whole interval between his committal for trial and the coming round of the
2Sessions. He had broken two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great pain and difficulty,
3which increased daily. It was a consequence of his hurt that he spoke so low as to be scarcely audible; therefore he
4spoke very little. But he was ever ready to listen to me; and it became the first duty of my life to say to him, and
5read to him, what I knew he ought to hear. Being far too ill to remain in the common prison, he was removed, after the
6first day or so, into the infirmary. This gave me opportunities of being with him that I could not otherwise have had.
7And but for his illness he would have been put in irons, for he was regarded as a determined prison-breaker, and I know
8not what else. Although I saw him every day, it was for only a short time; hence, the regularly recurring spaces of our
9separation were long enough to record on his face any slight changes that occurred in his physical state. I do not
10recollect that I once saw any change in it for the better; he wasted, and became slowly weaker and worse, day by day,
11from the day when the prison door closed upon him. The kind of submission or resignation that he showed was that of a
12man who was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner or from a whispered word or two which escaped
13him, that he pondered over the question whether he might have been a better man under better circumstances. But he never
14justified himself by a hint tending that way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape. It happened on two or
15three occasions in my presence, that his desperate reputation was alluded to by one or other of the people in attendance
16on him. A smile crossed his face then, and he turned his eyes on me with a trustful look, as if he were confident that I
17had seen some small redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when I was a little child. As to all the rest, he was
18humble and contrite, and I never knew him complain. When the Sessions came round, Mr. Jaggers caused an application to
19be made for the postponement of his trial until the following Sessions. It was obviously made with the assurance that he
20could not live so long, and was refused. The trial came on at once, and, when he was put to the bar, he was seated in a
21chair. No objection was made to my getting close to the dock, on the outside of it, and holding the hand that he
22stretched forth to me. The trial was very short and very clear. Such things as could be said for him were said,--how he
23had taken to industrious habits, and had thriven lawfully and reputably. But nothing could unsay the fact that he had
24returned, and was there in presence of the Judge and Jury. It was impossible to try him for that, and do otherwise than
25find him guilty. At that time, it was the custom (as I learnt from my terrible experience of that Sessions) to devote a
26concluding day to the passing of Sentences, and to make a finishing effect with the Sentence of Death. But for the
27indelible picture that my remembrance now holds before me, I could scarcely believe, even as I write these words, that I
28saw two-and-thirty men and women put before the Judge to receive that sentence together. Foremost among the
29two-and-thirty was he; seated, that he might get breath enough to keep life in him. The whole scene starts out again in
30the vivid colours of the moment, down to the drops of April rain on the windows of the court, glittering in the rays of
31April sun. Penned in the dock, as I again stood outside it at the corner with his hand in mine, were the two-and-thirty
32men and women; some defiant, some stricken with terror, some sobbing and weeping, some covering their faces, some
33staring gloomily about. There had been shrieks from among the women convicts; but they had been stilled, and a hush had
34succeeded. The sheriffs with their great chains and nosegays, other civic gewgaws and monsters, criers, ushers, a great
35gallery full of people,--a large theatrical audience,--looked on, as the two-and-thirty and the Judge were solemnly
36confronted. Then the Judge addressed them. Among the wretched creatures before him whom he must single out for special
37address was one who almost from his infancy had been an offender against the laws; who, after repeated imprisonments and
38punishments, had been at length sentenced to exile for a term of years; and who, under circumstances of great violence
39and daring, had made his escape and been re-sentenced to exile for life. That miserable man would seem for a time to
40have become convinced of his errors, when far removed from the scenes of his old offences, and to have lived a peaceable
41and honest life. But in a fatal moment, yielding to those propensities and passions, the indulgence of which had so long
42rendered him a scourge to society, he had quitted his haven of rest and repentance, and had come back to the country
43where he was proscribed. Being here presently denounced, he had for a time succeeded in evading the officers of Justice,
44but being at length seized while in the act of flight, he had resisted them, and had--he best knew whether by express
45design, or in the blindness of his hardihood--caused the death of his denouncer, to whom his whole career was known. The
46appointed punishment for his return to the land that had cast him out, being Death, and his case being this aggravated
47case, he must prepare himself to Die. The sun was striking in at the great windows of the court, through the glittering
48drops of rain upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of light between the two-and-thirty and the Judge, linking both
49together, and perhaps reminding some among the audience how both were passing on, with absolute equality, to the greater
50Judgment that knoweth all things, and cannot err. Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of face in this way of light,
51the prisoner said, "My Lord, I have received my sentence of Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours," and sat down
52again. There was some hushing, and the Judge went on with what he had to say to the rest. Then they were all formally
53doomed, and some of them were supported out, and some of them sauntered out with a haggard look of bravery, and a few
54nodded to the gallery, and two or three shook hands, and others went out chewing the fragments of herb they had taken
55from the sweet herbs lying about. He went last of all, because of having to be helped from his chair, and to go very
56slowly; and he held my hand while all the others were removed, and while the audience got up (putting their dresses
57right, as they might at church or elsewhere), and pointed down at this criminal or at that, and most of all at him and
58me. I earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before the Recorder's Report was made; but, in the dread of his
59lingering on, I began that night to write out a petition to the Home Secretary of State, setting forth my knowledge of
60him, and how it was that he had come back for my sake. I wrote it as fervently and pathetically as I could; and when I
61had finished it and sent it in, I wrote out other petitions to such men in authority as I hoped were the most merciful,
62and drew up one to the Crown itself. For several days and nights after he was sentenced I took no rest except when I
63fell asleep in my chair, but was wholly absorbed in these appeals. And after I had sent them in, I could not keep away
64from the places where they were, but felt as if they were more hopeful and less desperate when I was near them. In this
65unreasonable restlessness and pain of mind I would roam the streets of an evening, wandering by those offices and houses
66where I had left the petitions. To the present hour, the weary western streets of London on a cold, dusty spring night,
67with their ranges of stern, shut-up mansions, and their long rows of lamps, are melancholy to me from this association.
🎉 全部完成！共 67 行