Awoke to find Jonas standing at his bedside watching him. And that very door wide open (1872). Forty-seventh illustration by Fred Barnard for Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit (Chapter XLII), page 329. [Mr. Montague, after a particularly disturbing dream, is shocked when he awakes to find Jonas Chuzzlewit in his bedroom, although he had meticulously checked that every possible entry was secure before he went to bed.] 9.5 by 13.7 cm, or 4 ¼ high by 5 ½ inches, framed, engraved by the Dalziels. Running head: “Alarming Condition of Mr. Bailey." [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Jonas Subtly Menaces Mr. Montague
After examining his chamber, and looking under the bed, and in the cupboards, and even behind the curtains, with unusual caution (although it was, as has been said, broad day), he double-locked the door by which he had entered, and retired to rest. There was another door in the room, but it was locked on the outer side; and with what place it communicated, he knew not.
His fears or evil conscience reproduced this door in all his dreams. He dreamed that a dreadful secret was connected with it; a secret which he knew, and yet did not know, for although he was heavily responsible for it, and a party to it, he was harassed even in his vision by a distracting uncertainty in reference to its import. Incoherently entwined with this dream was another, which represented it as the hiding-place of an enemy, a shadow, a phantom; and made it the business of his life to keep the terrible creature closed up, and prevent it from forcing its way in upon him. With this view Nadgett, and he, and a strange man with a bloody smear upon his head (who told him that he had been his playfellow, and told him, too, the real name of an old schoolmate, forgotten until then), worked with iron plates and nails to make the door secure; but though they worked never so hard, it was all in vain, for the nails broke, or changed to soft twigs, or what was worse, to worms, between their fingers; the wood of the door splintered and crumbled, so that even nails would not remain in it; and the iron plates curled up like hot paper. All this time the creature on the other side — whether it was in the shape of man, or beast, he neither knew nor sought to know — was gaining on them. But his greatest terror was when the man with the bloody smear upon his head demanded of him if he knew this creatures name, and said that he would whisper it. At this the dreamer fell upon his knees, his whole blood thrilling with inexplicable fear, and held his ears. But looking at the speaker’s lips, he saw that they formed the utterance of the letter "J;" and crying out aloud that the secret was discovered, and they were all lost, he awoke.
Awoke to find Jonas standing at his bedside watching him. And that very door wide open.
As their eyes met, Jonas retreated a few paces, and Montague sprang out of bed.
"Heyday!" said Jonas. "You’re all alive this morning."
"Alive!" the other stammered, as he pulled the bell-rope violently. "What are you doing here?"
"It’s your room to be sure," said Jonas; "but I’m almost inclined to ask you what you are doing here? My room is on the other side of that door. No one told me last night not to open it. I thought it led into a passage, and was coming out to order breakfast. There’s — there’s no bell in my room." [Chapter XLII, "Continuation of the Enterprise of Mr. Jonas and His Friends," pp. 330-331. Running Head: "News for The Dragon"]
Commentary: A Terrifying Dream and a Terrible Awakening
In the the rhythm of the monthly serialisation Dickens had to inject suspense in the criminal enterprise plot to balance the challenges of the protagonist in the romantic plot. Reluctantly Montague Tigg has undertaken a trip by coach into the countryside with the sinister Jonas Chuzzlewit. Over the course of the stormy night at the inn where they have put up, Tigg dreams that his travelling companion "in the shape of man, or beast" (330) is about to attack him — and is startled to discover Jonas at his bedside. All we know at this point is that Tigg has received incriminating information from Nadgett that is enabling him to blackmail Jonas.
Relevant Illustrations from Other Editions, 1844-1910
Left: Hablot Knight Browne heightens the suspense in this chapter by having Jonas use the carriage horses to make Montague's death look like an accident, Mr. Jonas Exhibits his Presence of Mind (Chapter 42, April 1844). Right: Harry Furniss's rather more low key approach to creating suspense in Chapter 42, On the Road to Salisbury (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use the images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Barnard, Fred. Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens. London: Chapman and Hall, 1908.
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne. London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne. London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.
_____. Martin Chuzzlewit. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 55 vols. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1863. Vol. 2 of 4.
_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, with 59 illustrations by Fred Barnard. Household Edition, 22 volumes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. 2. [The copy of the Household Edition from which these pictures were scanned was the gift of George Gorniak, proprietor of The Dickens Magazine, whose subject for the fifth series, beginning in January 2008, was this 1843-44 novel.
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 7.
Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 15: Martin Chuzzlewit." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 17. Pp. 267-294.
Kyd [Clayton J. Clarke]. Characters from Dickens. Nottingham: John Player & Sons, 1910.
"The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit: Fifty-nine Illustrations by Fred Barnard." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-Six Drawings by Fred Barnard, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), J. Mahoney, Charles Green, A. B. Frost, Gordon Thomson, J. McL. Ralston, H. French, E. G. Dalziel, F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes. Printed from the Original Woodblocks Engraved for "The Household Edition." London: Chapman and Hall, 1908. Pp. 185-216.
Matz, B. W., and Kate Perugini; illustrated by Harold Copping. Character Sketches from Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1924.
Steig, Michael. "From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock and Martin Chuzzlewit." Ch. 3, Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U.P., 1978. Pp. 51-85. [See e-text in Victorian Web.]
Steig, Michael. "Martin Chuzzlewit's Progress by Dickens and Phiz. Dickens Studies Annual 2 (1972): 119-149.
4 February 2008
Last modified 26 November 2024