Dickens's characters are great conversationalists; they have rich mental models of each others' minds. Doctor Manette has awoken from nine days of relapse into shoemaking, and Mr. Lorry needs to broach the subject.
"My dear Manette, I am anxious to have your opinion, in confidence, on a very curious case in which I am deeply interested; that is to say, it is very curious to me; perhaps, to your better information it may be less so."Lorry goes on to describe the patient's condition, probing gently for more details and asking the doctor for his interpretation. Doctor Manette and Mr. Lorry step out of their world into the world Mr. Lorry conjures, of a different friend and a different afflicted man. This is a useful fiction--it allow the doctor to approach the painful subject at his own pace while allowing the real encounter, which might be blocked up with shame or danger, to recede from reality.
...
"Be explicit," said the Doctor. "Spare no detail."
Mr. Lorry saw that they understood one another, and proceeded. (199-200)
Other realities abound here: Jarvis Lorry reiterates constantly that he is "a mere man of business, unfit to cope with such intricate and difficult matters" while he tenderly and carefully helps his friend to come to terms with the relapse. Manette's identity as a shoemaker is similarly a useful fiction. Posing as the doctor offering a diagnosis, he tells Mr. Lorry why he keeps the shoemaker's tools:
It is very hard to explain, consistently, the innermost workings of this poor man's mind. He once yearned so frightfully for that occupation, and it was so welcome when it came; no doubt it relieved his pain so much, by substituting the perplexity of the fingers for the perplexity of the brain, and by substituting, as he became more practised, the ingenuity of the hands for the ingenuity of the mental torture that he has never been able to bear the thought of putting quite out of his reach. Even now, when I believe he is more hopeful of himself than he has ever been, and even speaks of himself with a kind of confidence, the idea that he might need that old employment, and not find it, fives him a sudden sense of terror, like that which one may fancy strikes to the heard of a lost child." (203-204)As he concludes his account, it attaches to the outer reality: the doctor "looked like his illustration," his terror confessing to his identification as the patient in Lorry's story.
I have frequently seen my students use fictions in similar ways, to talk about their identities or their relationships. Fiction gives us plausible deniability, a safe space to try out possibilities without incurring real-world consequences on ourselves or on those around us. Shared fiction allows minds to commingle without barriers; it is the deepest form of communication.
But if fiction is to be useful, it must return to reality. Otherwise it generates nothing; it is mere escapism. The chapter ends with Manette giving up his shoemaker's tools, surrendering the alluring possibility of flight from the world. We read, and explore possibilities. Then we must return to the world and act.
