Leaving a Double Behind (sorry this is so late)

“I find it difficult to imagine any such violent sounding of that string again...” (210).

The double himself, Dr. Manette, tells Mr. Lorry (a double in his own right) that he thinks he will never have a relapse again. Just before this, he had been in a shoemaking frenzy for nine days, brought on by recalling “intense associations of a most distressing nature” (209), which is his time in prison. What he is saying now is that the “circumstances likely to renew it” (210) will not happen again, and therefore these crazy lapses will not happen again. Dr. Manette previously had a double personality: one as Lucie’s loving father and the other as the imprisoned Doctor of Beauvais. Now he is permanently discarding his old persona, because the circumstances that bring on those recollections will never arise again. It’s unclear what exactly these are, but it seems rather certain he will not go back; he allowed Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross to destroy his shoemaking tools (his link to his old life as a prisoner). He tells them to do it in Lucie’s name; clearly she is the reason he is abandoning his double. He probably wants to be the best father he can be for her