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"You respect nobody, Carker, I think," said Mr. Dombey.
Fred Barnard
1877
13.8 cm high x 10.7 cm wide, framed.
composite wood-block engraving
Dombey and Son, p. 89
Illustration for Chapter 14, "Shipping Intelligence and Office Business," Dickens's Dombey and Son, in the fifteenth volume of the Household Edition.
[Click on the image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham
Mr. Dombey did not look less pompous or at all displeased, as he stood leaning against the chimney-piece, surveying his (of course unconscious) clerk, from head to foot. The stiffness and nicety of Mr. Carker’s dress, and a certain arrogance of manner, either natural to him or imitated from a pattern not far off, gave great additional effect to his humility. He seemed a man who would contend against the power that vanquished him, if he could, but who was utterly borne down by the greatness and superiority of Mr. Dombey.
"Is Morfin here?" asked Mr. Dombey after a short pause, during which Mr. Carker had been fluttering his papers, and muttering little abstracts of their contents to himself.
"Morfin’s here," he answered, looking up with his widest and almost sudden smile; "humming musical recollections — of his last night’s quartette party, I suppose — through the walls between us, and driving me half mad. I wish he’d make a bonfire of his violoncello, and burn his music-books in it."
"You respect nobody, Carker, I think," said Mr. Dombey.
"No?" inquired Carker, with another wide and most feline show of his teeth. "Well! Not many people, I believe. I wouldn’t answer perhaps," he murmured, as if he were only thinking it, "for more than one."
A dangerous quality, if real; and a not less dangerous one, if feigned. [Chapter 13, "Shipping Intelligence and Office Business," 90]
In this chapter, set in the commercial offices of the Dombey import-export firm, Barnard presents contrasting images of the junior Mr. Carker, Dombey's knowing Manager. From the first appearances of this devious character it is clear that Dickens always intended James Carker to be the chief villain of the story, signalled by his perpetual, almost feral smile beneath which he conceals his envious and malicious disposition. As the accompanying text suggests, Dombey relies upon his Manager's competency and business acumen, but is utterly deceived as to his true nature. Even as he pretends to be the ever-reliable subordinate, he grossly resents his inferior position, and reveals his true nature in the next scene with his older brother, John, who embezzled from the firm as a young clerk, but was retrained in his lowly status by Mr. Dombey's father rather than fired outright, leaving a perpetual stain on the name "Carker." Dickens describes his younger brother, James, in terms that enable Barnard to realize him visually:
Mr. Carker was a gentleman thirty-eight or forty years old, of a florid complexion, and with two unbroken rows of glistening teeth, whose regularity and whiteness were quite distressing. It was impossible to escape the observation of them, for he showed them whenever he spoke; and bore so wide a smile upon his countenance (a smile, however, very rarely, indeed, extending beyond his mouth), that there was something in it like the snarl of a cat. He affected a stiff white cravat, after the example of his principal, and was always closely buttoned up and tightly dressed. His manner towards Mr. Dombey was deeply conceived and perfectly expressed. He was familiar with him, in the very extremity of his sense of the distance between them. "Mr. Dombey, to a man in your position from a man in mine, there is no show of subservience compatible with the transaction of business between us, that I should think sufficient. I frankly tell you, Sir, I give it up altogether. I feel that I could not satisfy my own mind; and Heaven knows, Mr Dombey, you can afford to dispense with the endeavour." If he had carried these words about with him printed on a placard, and had constantly offered it to Mr. Dombey’s perusal on the breast of his coat, he could not have been more explicit than he was.
This was Carker the Manager. [Chapter 13, "Shipping Intelligence and Office Business," 88]
Left: Detail of Carker in his speeding carriage,
Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Phiz. (Hablot K. Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1848.
_______. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz). 8 coloured plates. London and Edinburgh: Caxton and Ballantyne, Hanson, 1910.
_______. Dombey and Son.16 Illustrations by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and A. V. S. Anthony (engraver). The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. III.
_______. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard [62 composite wood-block engravings]. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.
"Dombey and Son — Sixty-two Illustrations by Fred Barnard." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-six Drawings by Fred Barnard, Gordon Thomson, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), J. McL. Ralston, J. Mahoney, H. French, Charles Green, E. G. Dalziel, A. B. Frost, F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1907.
Created 17 December 2020