and then it was, “Take me to her.” Sometimes it was staring and
bewildered, and then it was, “I don’t know her. I don’t
understand.”
After such imaginary discourse, the passenger in his fancy
would dig, and dig, dignow, with a spade, now with a great key,
now with his handsto dig this wretched creature out. Got out at
last, with earth hanging about his face and hair, he would
suddenly fall away to dust. The passenger would then start to
himself, and lower the window, to get the reality of mist and rain
on his cheek.
Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, on
the moving patch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at the
roadside retreating by jerks, the night shadows outside the coach
would fall into the train of the night shadows within. The real
Banking-house by Temple Bar, the real business of the past day,
the real strong rooms, the real express sent after him, and the real
message returned, would all be there. Out of the midst of them,
the ghostly face would rise, and he would accost it again.
“Buried how long?”
“Almost eighteen years.”
“I hope you care to live?”
“I can’t say.”
Digdigdiguntil an impatient movement from one of the
two passengers would admonish him to pull up the window, draw
his arm securely through the leathern strap, and speculate upon
the two slumbering forms, until his mind lost its hold of them, and
they again slid away into the bank and the grave.
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
“Buried how long?”
“Almost eighteen years.”
“You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?”
“Long ago.”
The words were still