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" SO YOU PUT HIM IN HIS COFfiN,'-PrAGE 339.




t I  /li,
~'LIKE THE SOUL OF THE FURIOUS WOMAN WHOSE BODY LAY LIFELESS ON THE
GROUND."~-PA7E 407.
f~ ~ ~ ~~,   /                  j
Ii~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 7  /    */
('LIKE THE SOUL OF THE FURIOUS WOMAN WHOSF BOD)Y LAY LIFELESS ON THE
GROUND." -PAGE 407.








A
TALE OF TWO CITIES.
BY
CHARLES DICKENS.
"B  Z.")
WITH BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATIONS.
FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS BY JOHN McLENAN.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
l) i t ab trp I) i a:
T. B. PETERSON AND BROTHERS,
806 CHESTNUT STREET.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year, 1859, by
T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania.




CHAPTER XVIII.
NINE DAYS.
THE marriage day was shining brightly, and they were
ready outside the closed door of the Doctor's room, where he
was speaking with Charles Darnay. They were ready to go
to church; the beautiful bride, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross —
to whom the event, through a gradual process of reconcilement to the inevitable, would have been one of absolute bliss,
but for the yet lingering consideration that her brother Solomon should have been the bridegroom.
" And so," said Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently admire
the bride, and who had been moving round her to take in every
point of her quiet pretty dress; "and so it was for this, my
sweet Lucie, that I brought you across the Channel, such a
baby I Lord bless me I  Iow little I thought what I was doing. HIow lightly I valued the obligation I was conferring on
my friend Mr. Charles!"
"You didn't mean it," remarked the matter-of-fact Miss
Pross, " and therefore how could you know it?  Nonsense!"
"Really? Well; but don't cry," said the gentle Mr. Lorry.
" I am not crying," said Miss Pross; "you are."
"I, my Pross?"  (By this time Mr. Lorry dared to be
pleasant with her, on occasion.)
"I You were just now; I saw you do it, and I don't wonder
at it.  Such a present of plate as you have made'em, is
enough to bring tears into any body's eyes. There's not a fork
or a spoon in the collection," said Miss Pross, "that I didn't
cry over, last night after the box came, till I couldn't see it."
" I am highly gratified," said Mr. Lorry, "though, upon my
honor, I had no intention of rendering those trifling articles
of remembrance, invisible to any one. Dear me! This is an
occasion that makes a man speculate on all he has lost. Dear,
27                                      (223)




224          A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
dear, dear l To think that there might have been a Mrs.
Lorry, any time these fifty years almost!"
"Not at all!" From Miss Pross.
" You think there never might have been a Mrs. Lorry?"
asked the gentleman of that name.
"Pooh!" rejoined Miss Pross; "you were a bachelor in
your cradle."
"Well I!' observed Mr. Lorry, beamingly adjusting his little
wig, "that seems probable, too."
" And you were cut out for a bachelor," pursued Miss Pross,
"before you were put in your cradle."
"Then, I think," said Mr. Lorry, "that I was very unhandsomely dealt with, and that I ought to have had a voice in the
selection of my pattern. Enough! Now, my dear Lucie!" drawing his arm soothingly round her waist, "I hear them moving
in the next room, and Miss Pross and I, as two formal folks
of business, are anxious not to lose the final opportunity of
saying something to you that you wish to hear.. You leave
your good father, my dear, in hands as earnest and as loving
as your own; he shall be taken every conceivable care of;
during the next fortnight, while you are in Warwickshire and
thereabouts, even Tellson's shall go to the wall (comparatively
speaking) before him. And when, at the fortnight's end, he
comes to join you and your beloved husband, on your other
fortnight's trip in Wales, you shall say that we have sent him
to you in the best health and in the happiest frame. Now, I
hear Somebody's step coming to the door. Let me kiss my
dear girl with an old-fashioned bachelor blessing, before Somebody comes to claim his own."
For a moment, he held the fair face from him to look at the
well-remembered expression on the forehead, and then laid the
bright golden hair against his little brown wig, with a genuine
tenderness and delicacy, which, if such things be old-fashioned,
were as old as Adam.
The door of the Doctor's room opened, and he came out
with Charles Darnay. He was so deadly pale —which had not
been the case when they went in together-that no vestige of
color was to be seen in his face. But, in the composure of his
manner he was unaltered, except that to the shrewd glance of




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                 225
3Mr. Lorry it disclosed some shadowy indication that the old
air of avoidance and dread had lately passed over him, like a
cold wind.
He gave his arm to his daughter, and took her down-stairs
to the chariot which Mr. Lorry had hired in honor of the day.
The rest followed in another carriage, and soon, in a neighboring church, where no strange eyes looked on, Charles Darnay
and Lucie Manette were happily married.
Besides the glancing tears that shone among the smiles of
the little group when it was done, some diamonds, very bright
and sparkling, glanced on the bride's hand, which were newly
released from the dark obscurity of one of Mr. Lorry's pockets.
They returned home to breakfast, and all went well, and in
due course the golden hair that had mingled with the poor
shoemaker's white locks in the Paris garret, were mingling with
them again in the morning sunlight, on the threshold of the
door at parting.
It was a hard parting, though it was not for long. But, her
father cheered her, and said at last, gently disengaging himself from her enfolding arms, "Take her, Charles I She is
yours!"  And her agitated hand waved to them from a chaise
window, and she was gone.
The corner being out of the way of the idle and curious,
and the preparations having been very simple and few, the
Doctor, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross, were left quite alone. It
was when they turned into the welcome shade of the cool, old
hall, that Mr. Lorry observed a great change to have come
over the Doctor; as if the golden arm uplifted, there, had
struck him a poisoned blow.
He had naturally repressed much, and some revulsion might
have been expected in him when the occasion for' repression
was gone. But, it was the old, scared, lost look tha:t troubled
MIr. Lorry; and through his absent manner of clasping his
head and drearily wandering away into his own room when
they got up-stairs, Mr. Lorry was reminded of Defarge the
wine-shop keeper, and the starlight ride.
"I think," he whispered to Miss Pross, after anxious consideration, "I think we had best not speak to him just now, or




226          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
at all disturb him. I must look in at Tellson's; so I will go
there at once and come back presently. Then, we will take
him a ride into the country, and dine there, and all will be
well. "
It was easier for Mr. Lorry to look in at Tellson's than to
look out of Tellson's. He was detained two hours. When he
came back, he ascended the old staircase alone, having asked
no question of the servant; going thus into the Doctor's
rooms, he was stopped by a low sound of knocking.
"Good God!" he said, with a start.  "W mhat's that?"
Miss Pross, with a terrified face, was at his ear. " O me, O
me I All is lost!" cried she, wringing her hands.  "What is
to be told to Ladybird? He doesn't know me, and is making
shoes 1"
Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her, and went himself into the Doctor's room. The bench was turned toward
the light, as it had been when he had seen the shoemaker at
his work before, and his head was bent down, and he was very
busy.
"Doctor Manette. My dear friend, Dr. Manette!"
The Doctor looked at him for a moment-half inquiringly,
half as if he were angry at being spoken to-and bent over
his work again.
He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat; his shirt was open
at the throat, as it used to be when he did that work; and
even the old haggard, faded surface of face had come back to
him. He worked hard-impatiently-as if in some sense of
having been interrupted.
Mr. Lorry glanced at the work in his hand, and observed
that it was a shoe of the old size and shape. He took up another I that was lying by him, and asked him what it was?
"A young lady's walking shoe," he muttered, without looking up. "It ought to have been finished long ago. Let
it be."
"But, Doctor Manette. Look at me I"
He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, without pausing in his work.
"You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is not
your proper occupation. Think, dear fiiend 1"




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  227
Nothing would induce him to speak more.  He looked up,
for an instant at a time, when he was requested to do so; but,
no persuasion would extract a word from him. He worked,
and worked, and worked in silence, and words fell on him as
they would have fallen on an echoeless wall, or on the air. The
only ray of hope that Mr. Lorry could discover, was, that he
sometimes furtively looked up without being asked.  In that
there seemed a faint expression of curiosity or perplexity-as
though he were trying to reconcile some doubts in his mind.
Two things at once impressed themselves on Mr. Lorry, as
important above all others; the first, that this must be kept
secret from Lucie; the second, that it must be kept secret from
all who knew him. In conjunction with Miss Pross, he took immediate steps toward the latter precaution, by giving out that
the Doctor was not well, and required a few days of complete
rest. In aid of the kind deception to be practiced on his
daughter, Miss Pross was to write, describing his having been
called away professionally, and referring to an imaginary letter
of two or three hurried lines in his own hand, represented to
have been addressed to her by the same post.
These measures, advisable to be taken in any case, Mr.
Lorry took in the hope of his coming to himself. If that
should happen soon, he kept another course in reserve; which
was, to have a certain opinion that he thought the best, on the
Doctor's case.
In the hope of his recovery, and of resort to this third
course being thereby rendered practicable, Mr. Lorry resolved
to watch him attentively, with as little appearance as possible
of doing so.  He therefore made arrangements to absent
himself from Tellson's for the first time in his life, and took
his post by the window in the same room.
He was not long in discovering that it was worse than useless to speak to him, since, on being pressed, he became worried. He abandoned that attempt on the first day, and resolved merely to keep himself always before him, as a silent
protest against the delusion into which he had fallen, or was
falling. He remained, therefore, in his seat near the window,
reading and writing, and expressing in as many pleasant and
natural ways as he could think of, that it was a free place.




228          A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
Doctor Manette took what was given him to eat and drink,
and worked on, that first day, until it was too dark to seeworked on, half an hour after Mr. Lorry could not have seen,
for his life, to read or write. When he put his tools aside as
useless, until morning, Mr. Lorry rose and said:
"Will you go out?"
He looked down at the floor on either side of him in the
old manner, looked up in the old manner, and repeated in the
old, low voice,
" Out?"
"Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?"
He made no effort to say why not, and said not a word more.
But, Mr. Lorry thought he saw, as he leaned forward on his
bench in the dusk, with his elbows on his knees and his head
in his hands, that he was in some misty way asking himself,
" Why not?"  The sagacity of the man of business perceived
an advantage here, and determined to hold it.
Miss Pross and he divided the night into two watches, and
observed him at intervals from the adjoining room. He paced
up and down for a long time before he lay down; but, when
he did finally lay himself down, he fell asleep. In the morning,
he was up betimes, and went straight to his bench and to
work.
On this second day, Mr. Lorry saluted him cheerfully by his
name, and spoke to him on topics that had been of late familiar to them. He returned no reply, but it was evident that
he heard what was said, and that he thought about it, however
confusedly.  This encouraged Mr. Lorry to have Miss Pross
in with her work, several times during the day; at those
times, they quietly spoke of Lucie, and of her father then present, precisely in the usual manner, and as if there were nothing amiss. This was done without any demonstrative accompaniment, not long enough, or often enough, to harass him;
and it lightened Mr. Lorry's friendly heart to believe that
he looked up oftener, and that he appeared to be stirred by
some perception of inconsistencies surrounding him.
When it fell dark again, Mr. Lorry asked him (as before:
" Dear Doctor, will you go out?"
As before, he repeated, "Out?"




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                  229
"Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?"
This time, Mr. Lorry feigned to go out when he could extract no answer from him, and, after remaining absent for an
hour, returned. In the mean while, the Doctor had removed
to the seat in the window, and had sat there looking down at
the plane-tree; but, on Mr. Lorry's return, he slipped away
to his bench.
The time went very slowly on, and Mr. Lorry's hope darkened, and his heart grew heavier again, and grew yet heavier
and heavier every day. The third day came and went, the
fourth, the fifth. Five days, six days, seven days, eight days,
nine days.
With a hope ever darkening, and with a heart always growing heavier and heavier, Mr. Lorry passed through this
anxious time. The secret was well kept, and Lucie was unconscious and happy; but, he could not fail to observe that
the shoemaker, whose hand had been a little out at first, was
growing dreadfully skillful, and that he had never been so
intent on his work, and that his hands had never been so nimble
and expert, as in the dusk of the ninth evening.




CHAPTER XIX.
AN OPINION.
WORN out by anxious watching, Mr. Lorry fell asleep at
his post. On the tenth morning of his suspense, he was
startled by the shining of the sun into the room where a heavy
slumber had overtaken him when it was dark night.
He rubbed his eyes and roused himself; but he doubted,
when he had done so, whether he was not still asleep. For,
going to the door of the Doctor's room and looking in, he
perceived that the shoemaker's bench and tools were put aside
-again, and that the Doctor himself sat reading at the window.
lie was in his usual morning dress, and his face (which Mr.
Lorry could distinctly see), though still very pale, was calmly
studious and attentive.
Even when he had satisfied himself that he was awake, Air.
Lorry felt giddily uncertain for some few moments whether
the late shoemaking might not be a disturbed dream of
his own; for, did not his eyes show him his friend before
him in his accustomed clothing and aspect, and employed as
usual; and was there any sign within their range, that the
change of which he had so strong an impression had actually
happened?
It was but the inquiry of his first confusion and astonishment, the answer being obvious. If the impression were not
produced by a real corresponding, and sufficient cause, how
came he, Jarvis Lorry, there? How came he to have fallen
asleep, in his clothes, on the sofa in Doctor Manette's consulting-room, and to be debating these points outside the Doctor's
bedroom door in the early morning?
Witbin a few minutes, Mliss Pross stood whispering at his
side. If he had had any particle of doubt left, her talk would
of necessity have resolved it; but he was by that time clear(230)




A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                 231
headed, and had none. He advised that they should let the
time go by until the regular breakfast-hour, and should then
meet the Doctor as if nothing unusual had occurred.  If he
appeared to be in his customary state of mind, Mr. Lorry
would then cautiously proceed to seek direction and guidance
from the opinion he had been, in his anxiety, so anxious to
obtain.
Miss Pross submitting herself to his judgment, the scheme
was worked out with care. Having abundance of time for his
usual methodical toilette, Mr. Lorry presented himself at the
breakfast-hour in his usual white linen and with his usual neat
leg. The Doctor was summoned in the usual way, and came
to breakfast.
So far as it was possible to comprehend him without overstepping those delicate and gradual approaches which Mr.
Lorry felt to be the only safe advance, he at first supposed
that his daughter's marriage had taken place yesterday. An
incidental allusion, purposely thrown otrt, to the day of the
week, and the day of the month, set him thinking and counting,
and evidently made him uneasy. In all other respects, however, he was so composedly himself, that Mr. Lorry determined to have the aid he sought. And that aid was his own.
Therefore, when the breakfast was done and cleared away,
and he and the Doctor were left together, Mr. Lorry said,
feelingly:
"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."
Glancing at his hands, which were discolored by his late
work, the Doctor looked troubled, and listened attentively.
lie had already glanced at his hands more than once.
"Doctor Manette," said Mr. Lorry, touching him affectionately on the arm, "the case is the case of a particularly dear
friend of mine. Pray give your mind to it, and advise me well
for his sake-and above all, for his daughter's-his daughter's,
my dear Manette."
"If I understand," said the Doctor, in a subdued tone,
"some mental shock -?"
28




232          A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
"Yes!"
"Be explicit," said the Doctor.  " Spare no detail."
nMr. Lorry saw that they understood one another, and proceeded.
"1My dear Manette, it is the case of an old and a prolonged
shock, of great acuteness and severity, to the affections, the
feelings, the-the-as you express it —the mind. The mind.
It is the case of a shock under which the sufferer was borne
down, one cannot say for how long, because I believe le cannot calculate the time himself, and there are no other means
of getting at it. It is the case of a shock from which the sufferer recovered, by a process that he cannot trace himself-as
I once heard him publicly relate in a striking manner.  It is
the case of a shock from which he has recovered, so completely, as to be a highly intelligent man, capable of close application of mind, and great exertion of body, and of constantly making fresh additions to his stock of knowledge,
which was already very large. But, unfortunately, there has
been," he paused, and took a deep breath-"a slight relapse."
The Doctor, in a low voice, asked, " Of how long duration?"
"Nine days and nights."
"How did it show itself?  I infer," glancing at his hands
again, "in the resumption of some old pursuit connected with
the shock?"
" That is the fact."
"Now, did you ever see nim," asked the Doctor, distinctly
and collectedly, though in the same low voice, "engaged in
that pursuit originally?"
"Once."
"And when the relapse fell on him, was he in most respects
-or in all respects-as he was then?,"
"I think in all respects."
"You spoke of his daughter. Does his daughter know of
the relapse?"
"No.  It has been kept from her, and I hope will always
be kept from her. It is known only to myself, and to one
other who may be trusted."
The Doctor grasped his hand, and murmured, "That was
very kind. That was very thoughtful I" Mr. Lorry grasped




A TALE OF TWO   AITIES.                 233
his hand in return, and neither of the two spoke for a little
while.
"Now, my dear Manette," said Mr. Lorry, at length, in his
most considerate and most affectionate way, "I am a mere
man of business, and unfit to cope with such intricate and
difficult matters. I do not possess the kind of information
necessary; I do not possess the kind of intelligence; I want
guiding. There is no man in this world on whom I could so
rely for right guidance, as on you. Tell me, how does this
relapse come about? Is there danger of another? Could a
repetition of it be prevented? How should a repetition of it
be treated? How does it come about at all? What can I
do for my friend? No man ever can have been more desirous
in his heart to serve a friend, than I am to serve mine, if I
knew how. But I don't know how to originate, in such a
case. If your sagacity, knowledge, and experience, could put
me on the right track, I might be able to do so much; unenlightened and undirected, I can do so little. Pray discuss it
with me; pray enable me to see it a little more clearly, and
teach me how to be a little more useful."
Doctor Manette sat meditating after these earnest words
were spoken, and Mr. Lorry did not press him.
" I think it probable," said the Doctor, breaking silence with
an effort, " that the relapse you have described, my dear friend,
was not quite unforeseen by its subject."
"Was it dreaded by him?" Mr. Lorry ventured to ask.
"Very much."  He said it with an involuntary shudder.
"You have no idea how such an apprehension weighs on the
sufferer's mind, and how difficult-how almost impossible-it
is, for him to force himself to utter a word upon the topic that
oppresses him."
"Would he," asked Mr. Lorry, "be sensibly relieved if he
could prevail upon himself to impart that secret brooding to
any one, when it is on him?"
"I think so.  But it is, as I have told you, next to impossible.  I even believe it-in some cases —to be quite impossible."
"Now," said Mr. Lorry, gently laying his hand on the
Doctor's arm  again, after a short silence on both sides, "to
what would you refer this attack?"




234           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
"I believe,'" returned Doctor Manette, "that there had been
a strong and extraordinary revival of the train of thought and
remembrance that was the first cause of the malady. Some intense associations of a most distressing nature were vividly recalled, I think. It is probable that there had long been a
dread lurking in his mind, that those associations would be recalled-say, under certain circumstances-say, on a particular
occasion. He tried to prepare himself, in vain; perhaps the
effort to prepare himself, made him less able to bear it."
"Would he remember what took place in the relapse?"
asked Mr. Lorry, with natural hesitation.
The Doctor looked desolately round the room, shook his
head, and answered, in a low voice, "Not at all."
"Now, as to the future," hinted Mr. Lorry.
"As to the future," said the Doctor, recovering firmness,
"I should have great hope. As it pleased heaven in its mercy
to restore him so soon, I should have great hope. He, yielding under the pressure of a complicated something, long
dreaded and long vaguely foreseen and contended against, and
recovering after the cloud had burst and passed, I should hope
that the worst was over."
" Well, well! That's good comfort.  I am thankful 1" said
Mr. Lorry.
"I am thankful!" repeated the Doctor, bending his head
with reverence.
" There are two other points," said Mr. Lorry, "on which I
am anxious to be instructed I may go on?"
"You cannot do your friend a better service." The Doctor gave him his hand.
"To the first, then. He is of a studious habit, and unusually energetic; he applies himself with great ardor to the
acquisition of professional knowledge, to the conducting of
experiments, to many things.  Now, does he do too much?"
"I think not.  It may be the character of his mind, to be
always in singular need of occupation.  That may be, in part,
natural to it; in part, the result of affliction.  The less it was
occupied with healthy things, the more it would be in danger
of turning in the unhealthy direction.  He may have observed
himself, and made the discovery."




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                   235
"You are sure that he is not under too great a strain?"
"I think I am quite sure of it."
"My dear Manette, if he were overworked now    -"
"My dear Lorry, I doubt if that could easily be.  There
has been a violent stress in one direction, and it needs a
counterwright. "
"Excuse me, as a persistent man of business. Assuming
for a moment, that he was overworked; it would show itself
in some renewal of this disorder?"
"I do not think so.  I do not think," said Doctor Manette,
with the firmness of self-conviction, "that any thing but the
one train of association would renew it. I think that, henceforth, nothing but some extraordinary jarring of that chord
could renew it.  After what has happened, and after his recovery, I find it difficult to imagine any such violent sounding
of that string again. I trust, and I almost believe, that the
circumstances likely to renew it are exhausted.",He spoke with the diffidence of a man who knew how slight
a thing would overset the delicate organization of the mind,
and yet with the confidence of a man who had slowly won his
assurance out of personal endurance and distress.  It was not
for his friend to abate that confidence.  He professed himself
more relieved and encouraged than he really was, and approached his second and last point. He felt it to be the most
difficult of all; but, remembering his old Sunday morning conversation with Miss Pross, and remembering what he had seen
in the last nine days, he knew that he must face it.
"' The occupation resumed under the influence of this passing
affliction so happily recovered from," said Mr. Lorry, clearing
his throat, " we will call-Blacksmith's work. Blacksmith's
work.  We will say, to put a case and for the sake of illustration, that he had been used, in his bad time, to work at a little
forge. We will say that he was unexpectedly found at his
forge again. Is it not a pity that he should keep it by him?"
The Doctor shaded his forehead with his hand, and beat his
foot nervously on the ground.
"He has always kept it by him," said Mr. Lorry with an
anxious look at his friend.  " Now, would it not be better that
he should let it go?"




236          A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
Still, the Doctor, with shaded forehead, beat his foot nervously on the ground.
"You do not find it easy to advise me?" said Mr. Lorry.
"I quite understand it to be a nice question. And yet I
think- "  And there he shook his head, and stopped.
"You see," said Doctor Manette, turning to him after an
uneasy pause, "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 practiced, the ingenuity
of the hands for the ingenuity of the mental torture; that he
has never been able to bear the thought of putting it 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, gives him a sudden sense of
terror, like that which one may fancy strikes to the heart of a
lost child."
He looked like his illustration, as he raised his eyes to Mr.
Lorry's face.
"But may not-mind I I ask for information, as a plodding
man of business who only deals with such material objects as
guineas, shillings, and bank-notes-may not the retention of
the thing, involve the retention of the idea? If the thing
were gone, my dear Manette, might not the fear go with it?
In short, is it not a concession to the misgiving, to keep the
forge?"
There was another silence.
"You see, too," said the Doctor, tremulously, "it is such an
old companion."'
"I would not keep it," said Mr. Lorry, shaking his head;
for he gained in firmness as he saw the Doctor disquieted.
"I would recommend him to sacrifice it.  I only want your
authority.  I am sure it does no good.  Come I Give me
your authority, like a dear good man. For his daughter's
sake, my dear Manette I"
Very strange to see what a. struggle there was within him I




L~L~ aVJ-a VQ B OLflV ~H~L'!~~~~~~~~~~~       /
~~~ 7
I   i     I' 








A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                237
"In her name, then, let it be done; I sanction it. But, I
would not take it away while he was present. Let it be removed when he is not there; let him miss his old companion
after an absence."
Mr. Lorry readily engaged for that, and the conference was
ended. They passed the day in the country, and the Doctor
was quite restored. On the three following days, he remained
perfectly well, and on the fourteenth day, he went away to
join Lucie and her husband. The precaution that had been
taken to account for his silence, Mr. Lorry had previously explained to him, and he had written to Lucie in accordance
with it, and she had no suspicions.
On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr.
Lorry went into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and
hammer, attended by Miss Pross, carrying a light. There,
with closed doors, and in a mysterious and guilty manner, Mr.
Lorry hacked the shoemaker's bench to pieces, while Miss
Pross held the candle as if she were assisting at a murderfor which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable
figure. The burning of the body (previously reduced to pieces
convenient for the purpose), was commenced without delay in
the kitchen fire; and the tools, shoes, and leather, were buried
in the garden. So wicked do destruction and secrecy appear
to honest minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of
its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a
horrible crime.




CHAPTER XX.
A PLEA.
WHEN the newly-married pair came home, the first person
who appeared to offer his congratulations, was Sydney Carton.
They had not been at home many hours, when he presented
himself. He was not improved in habits, or in looks, or in
manner; but, there was a certain rugged air of fidelity about
him, which was new to the observation of Charles Darnay.
He watched his opportunity of taking Darnay aside into a
window, and of speaking to him when no one overheard.
" Mr. Darnay," said Carton, " I wish we might be friends."
"We are already friends, I hope."
"You are good enough to say so, as a fashion of speech;
but, I don't mean any fashion of speech. Indeed, when I say
I wish we might be friends, I scarcely mean quite that,
either. 
Charles Darnay-as was natural —asked him, in all goodhumor and good-fellowship, what he did mean?
"Upon my life," said Carton, smiling, "I find that easier to
comprehend in my own mind, than to convey to yours. However, let me try. You remember a certain famous occasion
when I was more drunk than-than usual?"
"I remember a certain famous occasion when you forced me
to confess that you had been drinking."
"I remember it too. The curse of those occasions is heavy
upon me, for I always remember them. I hope it may be
taken into account one day, when all days are at an end for
me! Don't be alarmed; I am not going to preach."
"I am not at all alarmed. Earnestness in you, is any thing
but alarming to me."
" Ah!" said Carton, with a careless wave of his hand, as if
he waved that away. "On the drunken occasion in question
(238)




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                  239
(one of a large number, as you know), I was insufferable about
liking you, and not liking you. I wish you would forget it."
" I forgot it long ago."
"Fashion of speech again! But, Mr. Darnay, oblivion is
not so easy to me, as you represent it to be to you. I have
by no means forgotten it, and a light answer does not help me
to forget it."
"If it was a light answer," returned Darnay, "I beg your
forgiveness for it. I had no other object than to turn a slight
thing, which, to my surprise, seems to trouble you too much,
aside. I declare to you, on the faith of a gentleman, that I
have long dismissed it from my mind.  Good Heaven, what
was there to dismiss! Have I had nothing more important
to remember, in the great service you rendered me that
day?"
"As to the great service," said Carton, " I am bound to
avow to you, when you speak of it in that way, that it was
mere professional clap-trap. I don't know that I cared what
became of you, when I rendered it. Mind! I say when I
rendered it; I am speaking of the past."
"You make light of the obligation," returned Darnay, "but
I will not quarrel with your light answer."
"Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me! I have gone aside
from my purpose; I was speaking about our being friends.
Now, you know me; you know I am incapable of all the
higher and better flights of men. If you doubt it, ask Stryver,
and he'll tell you so."
"I prefer to form my own opinion, without the aid of
his."
"Well! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog, who
has never done any good, and never will."
"I don't know that you'never will.'"
"But I do, and you must take my word for it. Well! If
you could endure to have such a worthless fellow, and a fellow
of such indifferent reputation, coming and going at odd times,
I should ask that I might be permitted to come and go as a
privileged person here; that I might be regarded as a useless
(and I would add, if it were not for the resemblance I detected
between you and me, an unornamental) piece of furniture,
29




240          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
tolerated for its old service and taken no notice of. I doubt
if I should abuse the permission. It is a hundred to one if I
should avail myself of it four times in a year. It would
satisfy me, I dare say, to know that I had it."
"Will you try?"
" That is another way of saying that I am placed on the
footing I have indicated.  I thank you, Darnay. 1 may use
that freedom with your name?"
"I think so, Carton, by this time."
They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away.
Within a minute afterward, he was, to all outward appearance,
as unsubstantial as ever.
WMhen he was gone, and in the course of an evening passed
with Miss Pross, the Doctor, and Mr. Lorry, Charles Darnay
made some mention of this conversation in general terms, and
spoke of Sydney Carton as a problem of carelessness and recklessness. He spoke of him, in short, not bitterly, or meaning
to bear hard upon him, but as anybody might who saw him
as he showed himself.
He had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of his
fair young wife; but, when he afterward joined her in their
own rooms, he found her waiting for him with the old pretty
lifting of the forehead strongly marked.
"We are thoughtful to-night 1" said Darnay, drawing his
arm about her.
"Yes, dearest Charles," with her hands on his breast, and
the inquiring and attentive expression fixed upon him; "we
are rather thoughtful to-night, for we have something on our
mind to-night."
"What is it, my Lucie?"
"Will you promise not to press one question on me, if I
beg you not to ask it?"
"Will I promise?  What will I not promise to my
Love?"
What, indeed, with his hand putting aside the golden hair
from the cheek, and his other hand against the heart that beat
for him!
" I think, Charles, poor Mr. Carton deserves more consideration and respect than you expressed for him to-night."




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  241
"Indeed, my own? Why so?"
"That is what you are not to ask me. But I think-I know
-he does."
"If you know it, it is enough. What would you have me
do, my Life?"
"I would ask you dearest, to be very generous with him
always, and very lenient on his faults, when he is not by. I
would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it.  My dear,
I have seen it bleeding."
"It is a painful reflection to me," said Charles Darnay,
quite astounded, "that I should have done him any wrong. I
never thought this of him."
"My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed;
there is scarcely a hope that any thing in his character or
fortunes is reparable now. But, I am sure that he is capable
of good things, gentle things, even magnanimous things."
She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this
lost man, that her\ husband could have looked at her as she
was, for hours.
"And, 0 my dearest Love!" she urged, clinging nearer to
him, laying her head upon his breast, and raising her eyes to
his, "remember how strong we are in our happiness, and how
weak he is in his misery!"
The supplication touched him home.  "I will always remember it, dear Heart! I will remember it as long as I live."
He bent over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to his,
and folded her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer then
pacing the dark streets, could have heard her innocent disclosure, and coul'd have seen the drops of pity kissed away by
her husband from the soft, blue eyes so loving of that husband, he might have cried to the night-and the words would
not have parted from his lips for the first time"God bless her for her sweet compassion i"
15




CHAPTER XXI.
ECHOING FOOTSTEPS.
A WONDERFUL corner for echoes, it has been remarked, that
corner where the Doctor lived. Ever busily winding the
golden thread which bound her husband, and her father, and
herself, and her old directress and companion, in a life of quiet
bliss, Lucie sat in the still house in the tranquilly resounding
corner, listening to the echoing footsteps of years.
At first, there were times, though she was a perfectly happy
young wife, when her work would slowly fall from her hands,
and her eyes would be dimmed. For, there was something
coming in the echoes, something light, afar off, and scarcely
audible yet, that stirred her heart too much. Fluttering hopes
and doubts-hopes of a love as yet unknown to her; doubts
of her remaining upon earth, to enjoy that new delightdivided her breast. Among the echoes then, there would arise
the sound of footsteps at her own early grave; and thoughts
of the husband who would be left so desolate, and who would
mourn for her so much, swelled to her eyes and broke like
waves.
That time passed, and her little Lucie lay on her bosom.
Then, among the advancing echoes, there was the tread of
her tiny feet and the sound of her prattling words. Let
greater echoes resound as they would, the young mother at the
cradle side could always hear those coming.  They came, and
the shady house was sunny with a child's laugh, and the Divine
friend of children, to whom in her trouble she had confided
hers, seemed to take her child in His arms, as He took the
child of old, and made it a sacred joy to her.
Ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them all
together, weaving the service of her happy influence through
the tissue of all their lives, and making it predominate no(242)




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                 243
where, Lucie heard in the echoes of years none but friendly
and soothing sounds. Her husband's step was strong and
prosperous among them; her father's, firm and equal. Lo,
Miss Pross, in harness of string, awakening the echoes, as an
unruly charger whip-corrected, snorting and pawing the earth
under the plane-tree in the garden!
Even when there were sounds of sorrow among the rest,
they were not harsh nor cruel. Even when golden hair, like
her own, lay in a halo on a pillow round the worn face of a
little boy, and he said, with a radiant smile, "Dear papa and
mamma, I am very sorry to leave you both, and to leave my
pretty sister; but I am called, and I must go!" those were not
tears all of agony that wetted his young mother's cheek, as the
spirit departed from her embrace that had been entrusted to it.
Suffer them, and forbid them not. They see my Father's face.
O Father, blessed words!
Thus, the rustling of an Angel's wings got blended with the
other echoes, and they were not wholly of earth, but had in
them that breath of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that blew
over a little garden-tomb were mingled with them also, and
both were audible to Lucie, in a hushed murmur-like the
breathing of a summer sea asleep upon a sandy shore —as the
little Lucie, comically studious at the task of the morning, or
dressing a doll at her mother's footstool, chattered in the
tongues of the Two Cities that were blended in her life.
The echoes rarely answered to the actual tread of Sydney
Carton. Some half-dozen times a year, at most, he claimed
his privilege of coming in uninvited, and would sit among
them through the evening as he had once done often. He
never came there, heated with wine. And one other thing regarding him was whispered in the echoes, which has been
whispered by all true echoes for ages and ages.
No man ever really. loved a woman, lost her, and knew her
with a blameless though an unchanged mind, when she was a
wife and mother, but her children had a strange sympathy with
him —an instinctive delicacy of pity for him. What fine, hidden sensibilities are touched in such a case, no echoes tell;
but, it is so, and it was so here. Carton was the first stranger
to whom little Lucie held out her chubby arms, and he kept




244           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
his place with her as she grew.  The little boy had spoken of
him, almost at the last.  "Poor Carton! Kiss him for me!"
Mir. Stryver shouldered his way through the law, like some
great engine forcing itself through turbid waters, and dragged
his useful friend in his wake, like a boat towed astern.  As
the boat so favored is usually in a rough plight and mostly
under water, so, Sydney had a swamped life of it.  But, easy
and strong custom, unhappily so much easier and stronger in
him than any stimulating sense of desert or disgrace, made it
the life he was to lead; and he no more thought of emerging
from his state of lion's jackal, than any real jackal may be
supposed to think of rising to be a lion.  Stryver was rich;
had married a florid widow with property and three boys,
who had nothing particularly shining about them  but the
straight hair of their dumpling heads.
These three young gentlemen, Mr. Stryver, exuding patronage of the most offensive quality from every pore, had walked
before him like three sheep to the quiet corner in Soho, and
had offered as pupils to Lucie's husband: delicately saying,
" Halloa! here are three lumps of bread-and-cheese toward
your matrimonial picnic, Darnay!" The polite rejection of the
three lumps of bread-and-cheese had quite bloated Mr. Stryver
with indignation, which he afterward turned to account in the
training of the young gentlemen, by directing them to beware
of the pride of beggars, like that tutor-fellow.  He was also
in the habit of declaiming to Mrs. Stryver, over his full-bodied
wine, on the arts Mrs. Darnay had once put in practice to
" catch" him, and on the diamond-cut-diamond arts in himself,
madam, which had rendered him " not to be caught." Some
of his King's Bench familiars, who were occasionally parties to
the full-bodied wine and the lie, excused him for the latter by
saying that he had told it so often, that he believed it himself
-which is surely such an incorrigible aggravation of an originally bad offense, as to justify any such offender's being carried
off to some suitably retired spot, and there hanged out of the
way.
These were among the echoes to which Lucie, sometimes pensive, sometimes amused and laughing, listened in the echoing
corner, until her little daughterwas six years old. I-ow near to




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  945
her heart, the echoes of her child's tread came, and those of her
own dear father's, always active and self-possessed, and those
of her dear husband's, need not be told. Nor, how the lightest
echo of their united home, directed by herself with such a
wise and elegant thrift, that it was more abundant than any
waste, was music to her.  Nor, how there were echoes all
about her, sweet in her ears, of the many times her father
had told her that he found her more devoted to him married
(if that could be) than single, and of the many times her husband had said to her that no cares and duties seemed to
divide her love for him or her help to him, and asked her,
"What is the magic secret, my darling, of your being every
thing to all of us, as if there were only one of us, yet never
seeming to be hurried, or to have too much to do?"
But, there were other echoes, from a distance, that rumbled
menacingly in the corner all through this space of time. And
it was now, about little Lucie's sixth birthday, that they began
to have an awful sound, as of a great storm in France with a
dreadful sea rising.
On a night in mid July, one thousand seven hundred and
eighty-nine, M3r. Lorry came in late, from Tellson's, and sat
himself down by Lucie and her husband in the dark window.
It was a hot, wild night, and they were all three reminded of
the old Sunday night when they had looked at the lightning
from the same place.
" I began to think," said Mr. Lorry, pushing his brown wig
back, "that I should have to pass the night at Tellson's. We
have been so full of business all day, that we have not known
what to do first, or which way to turn. There is such an uneasiness in Paris, that we have actually a run of confidence upon
us! Our customers over there, seem not to be able to confide
their property to us fast enough.  There is positively a mania
among some of them for sending it to England."
"That has a bad look," said Darnay.
"A  bad look, you say, my dear Darnay?  Yes, but we
don't know what reason there is in it.- People are so unreasonable! Some of us at Tellson's are getting old, and we
really can't be troubled out of the ordinary course without due
occasion."




246         A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
" Still," said Darnay, "you know how gloomy and threatening the sky is."
"I know that, to be sure," assented Mr. Lorry, trying to
persuade himself that his sweet temper was soured, and that
he grumbled, "but I am determined to be peevish after my
long day's botheration.  Where is Manette?"
" Here he is!" said the Doctor, entering the dark room at
the moment.
"I am quite glad you are at home; for these hurries and
forebodings by which I have been surrounded all day long,
have made me nervous without reason. You are not going
out, I hope?"
"No; I am going to play backgammon with you, if you
like," said the Doctor.
" I don't think I do like, if I may speak my mind. I am
not fit to be pitted against you to-night. Is the tea-board
still there, Lucie? I can't see."
" Of course, it has been kept for you."
" Thank ye, my dear.  The precious child is safe in bed?"
"And sleeping soundly."
" That's right; all safe and well i I don't know why any
thing should be otherwise than safe and well here, thank God;
but I have been so put out all day, and I am not as young as
I was! My tea, my dear? Thank ye. Now, come and take
your place in the circle, let us sit quiet, and hear the echoes
about which you have your theory."
"Not a theory; it was a fancy."
"A fancy, then, my wise pet," said Mir. Lorry, patting her
hand.  "They are very numerous and very loud, though, are
they not? Only hear them!"
Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to force their way
into anybody's life, footsteps not easily made clean again if
once stained red, the footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar
off, as the little circle sat in the dark London window.
Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a vast dusky mass of
scarecrows heaving to and fro, with frequent gleams of light
above the billowy heads, where steel blades and bayonets
shone in the sun. A tremendous roar arose from the throat
of Saint Antoine, and a forest of naked arms struggled in the




A TALE OF T'WO  CITIES.                247
air like shriveled branches of trees in a winter wind: all the
fingers convulsively clutching at every weapon or semblance
of a weapon that was thrown up from the depths below, no
matter how far off.
Who gave them out, whence they last came, where they began, through what agency they crookedly quivered and jerked,
scores at a time, over the heads of the crowd, like a kind of
lightning, no eye in the throng could have told; but, muskets
were being distributed-so were cartridges, powder, and ball,
bars of iron and wood, knives, axes, pikes, every weapon that
distracted ingenuity could discover or devise. People who
could lay hold of nothing else, set themselves with bleeding
hands to force stones and bricks out of their places in walls.
Every pulse and heart in Saint Antoine was on high fever
strain and at high fever heat. Every living creature there,
held life as of no account, and was demented with a passionate
readiness to sacrifice it.
As the whirlpool of boiling waters has a centre point, so,
all this raging circle round Defarge's wine-shop, and every
human drop in the caldron had a tendency to be sucked toward the vortex where Defarge himself, already begrimed with
gunpowder and sweat, issued orders, issued arms, thrust this
man back, dragged this man forward, disarmed one to arm another, labored and strove in the thickest of the uproar.
"Keep near to me, Jacques Three," cried Defarge; "and
do you, Jacques One and Two, separate and put yourselves
at the head of as many of these patriots as you can.  Where
is my wife?"
"Eh, well! Here you see me!" said madame, composed as
ever, but not knitting to-day. Madame's resolute right hand
was occupied with an axe, in place of the usual softer implements, and in her girdle were a pistol and a cruel knife.
"Where do you go, my wife?"
" I go," said madame, "with you at present. You shall see
me at the head of women, by-and-by."
"Come then!" cried Defarge, in a resounding voice. Patriots and friends, we are ready! The Bastille I"
With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had
been shaped into the detested word, the living sea rose, wave
30




!248         A TALE  OF TWO CITIEtS.
on wave, depth on depth, and overflowed the city to that point.
Alarm bells ringing, drums beating, the sea raging and thundering on its new beach. the attack begun.
Deep ditches, double drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight
great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. Through the
fire and through the smoke-in the fire and in the smoke, for
the sea cast him up against a cannon, and on the instant he
became a cannonier-iDefarge of the wine-shop worked, like a
manful soldier, Two fierce hours.
Deep ditch, single drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight
great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke.  One drawbridge down I "Work, comrades all, work! Work, Jacques One,
Jacques Two, Jacques One Thousand, Jacques Two Thousand,
Jacques Five-and-Twenty Thousand; in the name of all
the Angels or the Devils-which you prefer-work!"  Thus
Defarge of the wine-shop, still at his gun, which had long
grown hot.
" To me, women!" cried madame his wife.  "What I We
can kill as well as the men when the place is taken!" And tc
her, with a shrill, thirsty cry, trooping women variously armed,
but all armed alike in hunger and revenge.
Cannon, muskets, fire, and smoke; but, still the deep ditch,
the single drawbridge, the massive stone walls, and the eight
great towers. Slight displacements of the raging sea, made
by the falling wounded. Flashing weapons, blazing torches,
smoking wagon-loads of wet straw, hard work at neighboring
barricades; in all directions, shrieks, volleys, execrations, bravery
without stint, boom smash and rattle, and the furious sounding
of the living sea; but, still the deep ditch, and the single
drawbridge, and the massive stone walls, and the eight great
towers, and still Defarge of the wine-shop at his gun, grown
doubly hot by the service of Four fierce hours.
A white flag from within the fortress, and a parley-this
dimly perceptible through the raging storm, nothing audible
in it-suddenly the sea rose immeasurably wider and higher,
and swept Defarge of the wine-shop over the lowered drawbridge, past the massive stone outer walls, in among the eight
great towers surrendered!
So resistless was the force of the ocean bearing him on, that




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"IN THE NAME OF ALL THE ANGELS OR DEVILS, WORK "-PAGE 2485








A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                   249
even to draw his breath or turn his head was as impracticable
as if' he had been struggling in the surf of the South Sea,
until he was landed in the outer court-yard of the Bastille.
There, against an angle of a wall, he made a struggle to look
about him.  Jacques Three was nearly at his side; Madame
Defarge, still heading some of her women, was visible in the
inner distance, and her knife was in her hand.  Everywhere
was tumult, exultation, deafening and maniacal bewilderment,
astoundcling noise, yet furious dumb-show.
" The Prisoners!"
" The Records!"
"The secret cells!"
"The instruments of torture I"
" The Prisoners!"
Of all these cries, and ten thousand incoherencies, "The
Prisoners!" was the cry most taken up by the sea that rushed
in, as if there were an eternity of people, as well as of time
and space. When the foremost billows rolled past, bearing
the prison officers with them, and threatening them all with
instant death if any secret nook remained undisclosed, Defarge laid his strong hand on the breast of one of these men-a
man with a gray head who had a lighted torch in his handseparated him from the rest, and got him between himself and
the wall.
" Show me the North Tower," said Defarge. " Quick!"
"I will, faithfully," replied the man, "if you will come with
me.  But there is no one there."
" What is the meaning of One Hundred and Five, North
Tower?"' asked Defarge.  "Quick!"
"The meaning, monsieur?"
"Does it mean a captive, or a place of captivity? Or do
you mean that I shall strike you dead?"
" Kill him!" croaked Jacques Three, who had come close up.
" Monsieur, it is a cell."
" Show it me!"
" Pass this way, then."
Jacques Three, with his usual craving on him, and evidently
disappointed by the dialogue taking a turn that did not seem
to promise bloodshed, held by Defarge's arm as he held by the




250          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
turnkey's.  Their three heads had been close together during
this brief discourse, and it had been as much as they could do
to hear one another, even then: so tremendous was the noise
of the living ocean, in its irruption into the Fortress, and its
inundation of the courts and passages and staircases.  All
around outside, too, it beat the walls with a deep, hoarse roar,
from which, occasionally, some partial shouts of tumult broke
and leaped into the air like spray.
Through gloomy vaults where the light of day had never
shone, past hideous doors of dark dens and cages, down cavernous flights of steps, and again up steep rugged ascents of
stone and brick, more like dry waterfalls than staircases, Defarge, the turnkey, and Jacques Three, linked hand and arm,
went, with all the speed they could make.  Here and there,
especially at first, the inundation started on them and swept
by; but, when they had done descending, and were winding
and climbing up the tower, they were alone.  Hemmed in here
by the massive thickness of walls and arches, the storm within
the fortress and without was only audible to them in a dull,
subdued way, as if the noise out of which they had come had
almost destroyed their sense of hearing.
The turnkey stopped at a low door, put a key in a clashing
lock, swung the door slowly open, and said, as they all bent
their heads and passed in:
" One hundred and five, North Tower!"
"There was a small, heavily-grated, unglazed window high
in the wall, with a stone screen before it, so that the sky could
be only seen by stooping low and looking up. There was a
small chimney, heavily barred across, a few feet within. There
was a heap of old feathery wood ashes on the hearth. There
were a stool, and table, and a straw bed.  There were the
four blackened walls, and a rusted iron ring in one of them.
"Pass that torch slowly along these walls, that I may see
them," said Defarge to the Turnkey.
The man obeyed, and Defarge followed the light closely with
his eyes.
" Stop! Lok here, Jacques!"
"A. M.!" croaked Jacques Three, as he read greedily
"Alexander Manette," said Defarge in his ear, following




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                  251
the letters with his swart fore-finger, deeply engrained with
gunpowder. "And here he wrote'a poor physician.' And it
was he, without doubt, who scratched a calendar on this stone.
What is that in your hand? A crowbar? Give it me!"
He had still the linstock of his gun in his own hand.  He
made a sudden exchange of the two instruments, and turning
on the wormeaten stool and table, beat them- to pieces in a few
blows.
"Hold the light higher!" he said, wrathfully, to the turnkey. "Look among those fragments with care, Jacques. And
see! Here is my knife," throwing it to him; "rip open that
bed, and search the straw. Hold the light higher, you!"
With a menacing look at the turnkey he crawled upon the
hearth, and, peering up the chimney, struck and prised at its
sides with the crowbar, and worked at the iron grating across
it. In a few minutes, some mortar and dust came dropping
down, which he averted his face to avoid; and in it, and in the
old wood-ashes, and in a crevice in the chimney into which his
weapon had slipped or wrought itself, he groped with a cautious touch.
"Nothing in the wood, and nothing in the straw, Jacques?"
N"Nothing. "
" Let us collect them together, in the middle of the cell.
So I Light them, you!"
The turnkey fired the little pile, which blazed high and hot.
Stooping again to come out at the low-arched door, they left
it burning, and retraced their way to the court-yard: seeming
to recover their sense of hearing as they came down, until
they were in the raging flood once more.
They found it surging and tossing, in quest of Defarge himself.  Saint Antoine was clamorous to have its wine-shopkeeper foremost in the guard upon the governor who had
defended the Bastille and shot the people. Otherwise, the
governor would not be marched to the Hotel de Ville for
judgment. Otherwise, the governor would escape, and the
people's blood (suddenly of some value, after so many years of
worthlessness) be unavenged.
In the howling universe of passion and contention that
seemed to encompass this grim old officer, conspicuous in his




252          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
gray coat and red decoration, there was but one quite steady
figure, and that was a woman's. "See, there is my husband I"
she cried. pointing him out. " See Defarge!"  She stood immovable close to the grim old officer, and remained immovable
close to him; remained immovable close to him through the
streets, as Defarge and the rest bore him along; remained immovable close to him when he was got near his destination,
and began to be struck at from behind; remained immovable
close to him when the long-gathering rain of stabs and blows
fell heavy; was so close to him when he dropped dead under
it, that, suddenly animated, she put her foot upon his neck, and
with her cruel knife —long ready-hewed off his head.
The hour was come, when Saint Antoine was to execute his
horrible idea of hoisting up men for lamps to show what he
could be and do. Saint Antoine's blood was up, and the
blood of tyranny and domination by the iron hand was down
-down on the steps of the Hotel de Ville where the governor's body lay-down on the sole of the shoe of Madame
Defarge where she had trodden on the body to steady it for
mutilation.  " Lower the lamp yonder!" cried Saint Antoine,
after glaring round for a new means of death; " here is one of
his soldiers to be left on guard!" The swinging sentinel was
posted, and the sea rushed on.
The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructive
upheavings of wave against wave, whose depths were yet unfathomed and whose forces were yet unknown. The remorseless sea of turbulently swaying shapes, voices of vengeance, and
faces hardened in the furnaces of suffering until the touch of
pity could make no mark on them.
But, in the ocean of faces, where every fierce and furious
expression was in viyid life, there were two groups of faceseach seven in number-so fixedly contrasting with the rest,
that never did sea roll which bore more memorable wrecks
with it.  Seven faces of prisoners, suddenly released by the
storm that had burst their tomb, were carried high over head:
all scared, all lost, all wondering and amazed, as if the Last
Day were come, and those who rejoiced around them were
lost spirits.  Other seven faces there were, carried higher,
seven dead faces, whose drooping eyelids and half-seen eyes




A TALE  OF TWO CITIES.                   253
awaited the Last Day. Impassive faces, yet with a suspended
-not an abolished-expression on them; faces, rather, in a
fearful pause, as having yet to raise the dropped lids of the
eyes, and bear witness with the bloodless lips, "THou D IDST
IT!"
Seven prisoners released, seven gory heads on pikes, the
keys of the accursed fortress of the eight strong towers, some
discovered letters and other memorials of prisoners of old
time, long dead of broken hearts,-such, and such-like, the
loudly echoing footsteps of Saint Antoine escort through
the Paris streets in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and
eighty-nine.  Now, Heaven defeat the fancy of Lucy Darnay,
and keep these feet far out of her life! For, they are headlong, mad, and dangerous; and in the years so long after the
breaking of the cask at Defarge's wine-shop door, they are not
easily purified when once stained red.




CHAPTER XXII.
THE SEA STILL RISES.
HAGGARD Saint Antoine had had only one exultant week,
in which to soften his modicum of hard and bitter bread to
such extent as he could, with the relish of fraternal embraces and congratulations, when Madame Defarge sat at her
counter, as usual, presiding over the customers.  Madame
Defarge wore no rose in her head, for the great brotherhood of Spies had become, even in one short week, extremely
chary of trusting themselves to the saint's mercies. The
lamps across his streets had a portentously elastic swing with
them.
Madame Defarge, with her arms folded, sat in the morning
light and heat, contemplating the wine-shop and the street.
In both, there were several knots of loungers, squalid and
miserable, but now with a manifest sense of power enthroned
on their distress.  The raggedest nightcap, awry on the
wretchedest head, had this crooked significance in it: "I
know how hard it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to
support life in myself; but do you know how easy it has grown
for me, the wearer of this, to destroy life in you?" Every
lean bare arm, that had been without work before, had this
work always ready for it now, that it could strike.  The
fingers of the knitting women were vicious, with the experience
that they could tear. There was a change in the appearance
of Saint Antoine; the image had been hammering into this
for hundreds of years, and the last finishing blows had told
mightily on the expression.
Mladame Defarge sat observing it, with such suppressed approval as was to be desired in the leader of the Saint Antoine
women.  One of her sisterhood knitted beside her.  The
short, rather plump wife of a starved grocer, and the mother
(254)




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  255
of two children withal, this lieutenant had already earned the
complimentary name of The Vengeance.
"Hark!" said The Vengeance.  "Listen, then! Who
comes?"
As if a train of powder laid from the outermost bound of
the Saint Antoine Quarter to the wine-shop door, had been
suddenly fired, a fast-spreading murmur came rushing along.
"It is Defarge," said Madame.  "Silence, patriots!"
Defarge came in breathless, pulled off a red cap he wore,
and looked around him.  "Listen, everywhere!" said Madame
again. "Listen to him!" Defarge, stood, panting, against a
background of eager eyes and open mouths, formed outside
the door; all those within the wine-shop had sprung to their
feet.
" Say then, my husband.  What is it?"
"News from the other world!"
"How, then?" cried Madame, contemptuously.  "The
other world?"7
"Does everybody here recall old Foulon, who told the famished people that they might eat grass, and who died, and
went to Hell?"
"Everybody I" from all throats.' The news is of him. He is among us!"
"Among us I" from  the universal throat again.  "And
dead?"
"Not dead!  IHe feared us so much. —and with reasonthat he caused himself to be represented as dead, and had a
grand mock-funeral. But they have found him alive, hiding
in the country, and have brought him in. I have seen him
but now, on his way to the H6tel de Ville, a prisoner. I have
said that he had reason to fear us. Say all!.Had he
reason?'9
Wretched old sinner of more than threescore years and ten,
if he had never known it yet, he would have known it in his
heart of hearts if he could have heard the answering cry.
A moment of profound silence followed.  Defarge and his
wife looked steadfastly at one another.  The Vengeance
stooped, and the jar of a drum was heard as she moved it at
her feet behind the counter.
31




f256 8A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
"Patriots!" said Defarge, in a determined voice, " are we
ready?"
Instantly Madame Defarge's knife was in her girdle; the
drum was beating in the streets, as if it and a drummer had
flown together by magic; and The Vengeance, uttering terrific shrieks, and flinging her arms about her head like all the
forty Furies at once, was tearing from house to house, rousing
the women.
The men were terrible, in the bloody-minded anger with
which they looked from windows, caught up what arms they
had, and came pouring down into the streets; but, the women
were a sight to chill the boldest. From such household occupations as their bare poverty yielded, from their children, from
their aged and their sick crouching on the bare ground famished and naked, they ran out with streaming hair, urging one
another, and themselves, to madness with the wildest cries and
actions. Villain Foulon taken, my sister! Old Foulon taken,
my mother I Miscreant Foulon taken, my daughter! Then,
a score of others ran into the midst of these, beating their
breasts, tearing their hair, and screaming, Foulon alive I
Foulon who told the starving people they might eat grass I
Foulon who told my old father that he might eat grass, when
I had no bread to give him! Foulon who told my baby it
might suck grass, when these breasts were dry with want! O
mother of God, this Foulon! O Heaven, our suffering! Hear
me, my dead baby and my withered father: I swear on my
knees, on these stones, to avenge you on Foulon I Husbands,
and brothers, and young men, Give us the blood of Foulon,
Give us the head of Foulon, Give us the heart of Foulon, Give
us the body and soul of Foulon, Rend Foulon to pieces, and
dig him into the ground, that grass may grow from him I
W~ith these cries, numbers of the women, lashed into blind
frenzy, whirled about, striking and tearing at their own friends
until they dropped in a passionate swoon, and were only saved
by the men belonging to them from being trampled under
foot.
Nevertheless, not a moment was lost; not a moment I! This
Foulon was at the Hotel de Ville, and might be loosed. Never,
if Saint Antoine knew his own sufferings, insults, and wrongs!




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                 257
Armed men and women flocked out of the Quarter so fast,
and drew even these last dregs after them with such a force
of suction, that within a quarter of an hour there was not a
human creature in Saint Antoine's bosom but a few old crones
and the wailing children.
No. They were all by that time choking the Hall of examination where this old man, ugly and wicked, was, and
overflowing into the adjacent open space and streets.  The
Defarges, husband and wife, The Vengeance, and Jacques
Three, were in the first press, and at no great distance from
him in the Hall.
" See!" cried Madame, pointing with her knife.  " See the
old villain bound with ropes. That was well done to tie a
bunch of grass upon his back. Ha, ha I That was well done.
Let him eat it now!" Madame put her knife under her arm,
and clapped her hands as at a play.
The people immediately behind Madame Defarge, explaining the cause of her satisfaction to those behind them, and
those again explaining to others, and those to others, the
neighboring streets resounded with the clapping of hands.
Similarly, during two or three hours of drawl, and the winnowing of many bushels of words, Madame Defarge's frequent
expressions of impatience were taken up, with marvellous
quickness, at a distance; the more readily, because certain men
who had by some wonderful exercise of agility climbed up the
external architecture to look in from the windows, knew Madame Defarge well, and acted as a telegraph between her and
the crowd outside the building.
At length, the sun rose so high that it struck a kindly ray,
as of hope or protection, directly down upon the old prisoner's
head. The favor was too much to bear; in an instant the
barrier of dust and chaff that had stood surprisingly long, went
to the winds, and Saint Antoine had got him!
It was known directly, to the furthest confines of the crowd.
Defarge had but sprung over a railing and a table, and folded
the miserable wretch in a deadly embrace-Madame Defarge
had but followed and turned her hand in one of the ropes with
which he was tied —The Vengeance and Jacques Three were
not yet up with them, and the men at the windows had not
16




258          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
yet swooped into the Hall, like birds of prey from their high
perches-when the cry seemed to go up, all over the city,
"Bring him out I Bring him to the lamp!"
Down, and up, and head foremost on the steps of the building; now, on his knees; now, on his feet; now, on his back;
dragged, and struck at, and stifled by the bunches of grass
and straw that were thrust into his face by hundreds of hands;
torn, bruised, panting, bleeding, yet always entreating and beseeching for mercy; now, full of vehement agony of action,
with a small clear space about him as the people drew one
another back that they might see; now, a log of dead wood
drawn through a forest of legs; he was hauled to the nearest
street corner where one of the fatal lamps swung, and there
Madame Defarge let him go-as a cat might have done to s
mouse-and silently and composedly looked at him while thej
made ready, and while he besought her: the women passionately screeching at him all the time, and the men sternly calling out to have him killed with grass in his mouth. Once, he
went aloft, and the rope broke, and they caught him shrieking; twice, he went aloft, and the rope broke, and they caught
him shrieking; then, the rope was merciful and held him, and
his head was soon upon a pike, with grass enough in the
mouth for all Saint Antoine to dance at the sight of.
Nor was this the end of the day's bad work, for Saint
Antoine so shouted and danced his angry blood up, that it
boiled again, on hearing when the day closed in that the sonin-law of the dispatched, another of the people's enemies and
insulters, was coming into Paris under a guard five hundred
strong, in cavalry alone. Saint Antoine wrote his crimes on
flaring sheets of paper, seized him-would have torn him out
of the breast of an army to bear Foulon company-set his
head and heart on pikes, and carried the three spoils of the
day, in Wolf-procession through the streets.
Not before dark night did the men and women come back
to the children, wailing and breadless. Then, the miserable
bakers' shops were beset by long files of them, patiently waiting to buy bad bread; and while they waited with stomachs
faint and empty, they beguiled the time by embracing one
another on the triumphs of the day, and achieving them again




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                  259
in gossip. Gradually, these strings of ragged people shortened and frayed away; and then poor lights began to shine in
high windows, and slender fires were made in the streets, at
which neighbors cooked in common, afterward supping at
their doors.
Scanty and insufficient suppers those, and innocent of meat,
as of most other sauce to wretched bread. Yet, human fellowship infused some nourishment into the flinty viands, and
struck some sparks of cheerfulness out of them. Fathers and
mothers who had had their full share in the worst of the day,
played gently with their meagre children; and lovers, with
such a world around them and before them, loved and hoped.
It was almost morning, when Defarge's wine-shop parted
with its last knot of customers, and Monsieur IDefarge said to
Madame, his wife, in husky tones, while fastening the door:
"At last it is come, my dear!"
"Eh, well!" returned Madame.  "Almost."
Saint Antoine slept, the Defarges slept: even The Vengeance slept with her starved grocer, and the drum was at
rest.  The drum's was the only voice in Saint Antoine, that
blood and hurry had not changed. The Vengeance as custodian of the drum, could have wakened him up and had the
same speech out of him as before the Bastille fell, or old
Foulon was seized; not so with the hoarse tones of the men
and women in Saint Antoine's bosom.




CHAPTER XXIII.
FIRE RISES.
THERE was a change on the village where the fountain fell,
and where the mender of roads went forth daily to hammer out
of the stones on the highway, such morsels of bread as might
serve for patches to hold his poor ignorant soul and his poor
reduced body, together. The prison on the crag was not so
dominant as of yore; there were soldiers to guard it, but not
many; there were officers to guard the soldiers, but not one of
them knew what his men would do-beyond this: that it would
probably not be what he was ordered.
Far and wide, lay a ruined country, yielding nothing but
desolation. Every green leaf, every blade of grass and blade
of grain, was as shriveled and poor as the miserable people.
Every thing was bowed down, dejected, oppressed, and broken.
Habitations, fences, domesticated animals, men, women, children,
and the soil that bore them-all worn out.
Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman)
was a national blessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was a
polite example of luxurious and shining life, and a great deall
more to equal purpose; nevertheless, Monseigneur as a class
had, somehow or other, brought things to this.  Strange that
creation, designed expressly for Monseigneur, should be so
soon wrung dry and squeezed out I There must be something
short-sighted in the eternal arrangements, surely! Thus it was,
however; and the last drop of blood having been extracted from
the flints, and the last screw of the rack having been turned so
often that its purchase crumbled, and it now turned and turned
with nothing to bite, AMonseigneur began to run away from a
phenomenon so slow and unaccountable.
But, this was not the change on the village, and on many a
village like it. For scores of years gone by, Monseigneur had
(26o0)




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                   261
squeezed it and wrung it, and had seldom  graced it with his
presence except for the pleasures of the chase-now, found in
hunting the people-now, found in hunting the beasts, for whose
preservation Monseigneur made edifying spaces of barbarous
and barren wilderness.  No.  The change consisted in the
appearance of strange faces of low caste, rather than in the disappearance of the high-caste, chiseled and otherwise beatified
and beatifying features of Monseigneur.
For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary,
in the dust, not often troubling himself to reflect that dust he
was and to dust he must return, being for the most part too
much occupied in thinking how little he had for supper and
how much more he would eat if he had it-in these times, as
he raised his eyes from his lonely labor and viewed the prospect, he would see some rough figure approaching on foot, the
like of which was once a rarity in those parts, but was now a
fiequent presence.  As it advanced, the mender of roads would
discern without surprise, that it was a shaggy-haired man, of
almost barbarian aspect, tall, in wooden shoes that were clumsy
even to the eyes of a mender of roads, grim, rough, swart,
steeped in the mud and dust of many highways, dank with the
marshy moisture of many low grounds, sprinkled with the thorns
and leaves and moss of many byways through woods.
Such a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the July
weather, as he sat on his heap of stones under a bank, taking
such shelter as he could get from a shower of hail.
The man looked at him, looked at the village in the hollow
at the mill, and at the prison on the crag. When he had
identified these objects in what benighted mind he had, he said,
in a dialect that vwas just intelligible
"How goes it, Jacques?"
"All well, Jacques."
"Touch then!"
They joined hands, and the man sat down on the heap of
stones.
" No dinner?"
"Nothing but supper now," said the mender of roads, with
a hungry face.
"It is the fashion," growled the man.  "I meet no dinner
anywhere."




262          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
He took out a blackened pipe, filled it, lighted it with flint
and steel, pulled at it until it was in a bright glow: then, suddenly held it from him and dropped something into it from
between his finger and thumb, that blazed and went out in a
puff of smoke.
"Touch then." It was the turn of the mender of roads to
say it this time, after observing these operations.  They again
joined hands.
" To-night?" said the mender of roads.
"To-night," said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth.
"Where?"
" Here."
He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones looking silently at one another, with the hail driving in between them
like a pigmy charge of bayonets, until the sky began to clear
over the village.
"Show me I" said the traveler then, moving to the brow of
the hill
" See!" returned the mender of roads, with extended finger.
"You go down here, and straight through the street, and past
the fountain-    "
"To the Devil with all that!" interrupted the other, rolling
his eye over the landscape.  " Igo through no streets and past
no fountains. Well?"
" Well I About two leagues beyond the summit of that hill
above the village."
"Good. When do you cease to work?"
"At sunset."
"Will you wake me, before departing? I have walked two
nights without resting. Let me finish my pipe, and I shall
sleep like a child. Will you wake me?"
"Surely."
The wayfarer smoked his pipe out, put it in his breast, slipped
off his great wooden shoes, and lay down on his back on the
heap of stones.  He was fast asleep directly.
As the road-mender plied his dusty labor, and the hail-clouds,
rolling away, revealed bright bars and streaks of sky which were
responded to by silver gleams upon the landscape, the little man
(who wore a red cap now, in place of his blue one) seemed




..>i __~_.B;d._~~~....
j~<.',,m~
7-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~7                                       5- —;'
"'H TOOK OUT A BLACKEN~ED PIPE" —PAGE 262.








A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                   263
fascinated by the figure on the heap of stones.  Htis eyes were
so often turned toward it, that he used his tools mechanically,
and, one would have said, to very poor account.  The bronze
face, the shaggy black hair and beard, the coarse woolen red
cap, the rough medley dress of homespun stuff and hairy skins
of beasts, the powerful frame attenuated by spare living, and
the sullen and desperate compression of the lips in sleep, inspired the mender of roads with awe. The traveler had traveled
far, and his feet were footsore, and his ankles chafed and bleeding; his great shoes, stuffed with leaves and grass, had been
heavy to drag over the many long leagues, and his clothes were
chafed into holes, as he himself was into sores.  Stooping down
beside him, the road-mender tried to get a peep at secret weapons in his breast or where not; but in vain, for he slept with
his arms crossed upon him, and set as resolutely as his lips.
Fortified  towns with  their stockades, guard-houses, gates,
trenches, and drawbridges, seemed, to the mender of roads, to
be so much air as against this figure. And when he lifted his
eyes from it to the horizon and looked around, he saw in his
small fancy similar figures, stopped by no obstacle, tending to
centres all over France.
The man slept on, indifferent to showers of hail and intervals
of brightness, to sunshine on his face and shadow, to the pattering lumps of dull ice on his body and the diamonds into
which the sun changed them, until the sun was low in the west,
and the sky was glowing. Then the mender of roads having
got his tools together and all things ready to go down into the
village, roused him.
"Good!" said the sleeper, rising on his elbow.  "Two
leagues beyond the summit of the hill?"
"About."
"About.  Good!"
The mender of roads went home, with the dust going on
before him according to the'set of the wind, and was soon at
the fountain, squeezing himself in among the lean kine brought
there to drink, and appearing even to whisper to them in his
whispering to all the village.  When the village had taken its
poor supper, it did not creep to bed, as it usually did, but came
out of doors again, and re'mained there. A curious contagion
of whispering was upon it, and also, when it gathered together
32




264           A TALE  OF TWO CITIES.
at the fountain in the dark, another curious contagion of looking
expectantly at the sky in one direction only.  MIonseigneur
Gabelle, chief functionary of the place, became uneasy; wellt out
on his house-top alone, and looked in that direction too; glanced
down from behind his chimneys at the darkening faces by the
fountain below, and sent word to the sacristan who kept the keys
of the church, that there might be need to ring the tocsin byand-by.
The night deepened.  The trees environing the old chateau,
keeping its solitary state apart, moved in a rising wind, as
though they threatened the pile 6f building massive and dark
in the gloom.  Up the two terrace flights of steps the rain ran
wildly, and beat at the great door, like a swift messenger rousing
those within; uneasy rushes of wind went through the hall,
among the old spears and knives, and passed lamenting up the
stairs, and shook the curtains of the bed where the last Marquis
had slept.  East, West, North, and South, through the woods,
four heavy-treading, unkempt figures crushed the high grass
and cracked the branches, striding on cautiously to come together in the court-yard.  Four lights broke out there, and
moved away in different directions, and all was black again.
But, not for long. Presently, the chateau began to make
itself strangely visible by some light of its own, as though it
were growing luminous.  Then, a flickering streak played
behind the architecture of the front, picking out transparent
places, and showing where balustrades, arches, and windows
were.  Then it soared higher, and grew broader and brighter.
Soon, from a score of the great windows, flames burst forth, and
the stone faces, awakened, stared out of fire.
A faint murmur arose about the house from the few people
who were left there, and there was the saddling of a horse and
riding away.  There was spurring and splashing through the
darkness, and bridle was drawn in the space by the village
fountain, and the horse in a foam stood at Monsieur Gabelle's
door.  "Help, Gabelle! Help every one!" The tocsin rang
impatiently, but other help (if that were any) there was none.
The mender of roads, and two hundred and fifty particular
friends, stood with folded arms at the fountain, looking at the
pillar of fire in the sky.'"It must be forty feet high," said
they, grimly; and never moved.




A  TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                   265
The rider from the chateau, and the horse in a foam, clattered
away through the village, and galloped up the stony steep, to
the prison on the crag.  At the gate, a group of officers were
looking at the fire; removed from them, a group of soldiers.
"Help, gentlemen-officers I The chateau is on fire; valuable
objects may be saved from the flames by timely aid! Help!
help i"  The officers looked toward the soldiers who looked at
the fire; gave no orders; and answered, with shrugs and biting
of lips, " It must burn."
As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the
street, the village was illuminating.  The mender of roads, and
the two hundred and fifty particular friends, inspired as one
man and woman by the idea of lighting up, had darted into
their houses, and were putting candles in every dull little pane
of glass. The general scarcity of every thing, occasioned candles
to be borrowed in a rather peremptory manner of Monsieur
Gabelle; and in a moment of reluctance and hesitation on that
functionary's part, the mender of roads, once so submissive to
authority, had remarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with, and that post-horses would roast.
The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn.  In the
roaring and raging of the conflagration, a red hot wind, driving
straight from the infernal regions, seemed to be blowing the
edifice away. With the rising and falling of the blaze, the stone
fatces showed as if they were in torment. When great masses
of stone and timber fell, the face with the two dents in the nose
became obscured: anon struggled out of the smoke again, as if
it were the face of the cruel Marquis, burning at the stake and
contending with the fire.
The chateau burned; the nearest trees, laid hold of by the
fire, scorched and shriveled; trees at a distance, fired by the
four fierce figures, begirt the blazing edifice with a new forest
of smoke.  Molten lead and iron boiled in the marble basin of
the fountain; the water ran dry; the extinguisher tops of the
towers vanished like ice before the heat, and trickled down into
four rugged wells of flame. Great rents and splits branched
out in the solid walls, like crystallization; stupefied birds
wheeled about, and dropped into the furnace; four fierce figures
trudged away, East, West, North, and South, along the nightenshrouded roads, guided by the beacon they lad lighted.




266           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
toward their next destination.  The illuminated village had
seized hold of the tocsin, and, abolishing the lawful ringer, rang
for joy.
Not only that; but, the village, light-headed with famine,
fire, and bell-ringing, and bethinking itself that Monsieur Gabelle
had to do with the collection of rent and taxes —though it was
but a small instalment of taxes, and no rent at all, that Gabelle
had got in those latter days-became impatient for an interview
with him, and, surrounding his house, summoned him to come
forth for personal conference. Whereupon, Monsieur Gabelle
did heavily bar his door, and retire to hold counsel with himself.  The result of that conference was, that Gabelle again
withdrew himself to his house-top behind his stack of chimneys:
this time resolved, if his door were broken in (he was a small
Southern man of retaliative temperament), to pitch himself
head foremost over the parapet, and crush a man or two below.
Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there,
with the distant chateau for fire and candle, and the beating at
his door, combined with the joy-ringing, for music; not to
mention his having an ill-omened lamp slung across the road
before his posting-house gate, which the village showeda lively
inclination to displace in his favor. A trying suspense, to be
passing a whole summer night on the brink of the black ocean,
ready to take that plunge into it upon which Monsieur Gabelle
had resolved! But, the friendly dawn appearing at last, and
the rush-candles of the village guttering out, the people happily
dispersed, and Monsieur Gabelle came down, bringing his life
with him for that while.
Within a hundred miles, and in the light of other fires, there
were other functionaries less fortunate, that night and other
nights, whom the rising sun found hanging across once-peaceful
streets, where they had been born and bred; also, there were
other villagers and townspeople less fortunate than the mender
of roads and his fellows, upon whom  the functionaries and
soldiery turned with success, and whom they strung up in their
turn.  But the fierce figures were steadily wending East, West,
North, and South, be that as it would; and whosoever hung,
fire burned.  The altitude of the gallows that would turn to
water and quench it, no functionary, by any stretch of mathematics, was able to calculate. successfully.




CHAPTER XXIV.
DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK.
IN such risings of fire and risings of sea-the firm earth
shaken by the rushes of an angry ocean which had now no ebb
but was always on the flow, higher and higher, to the terror and
wonder of the beholders on the shore-three years of tempest
were consumed. Three more birthdays of little Lucie had
been woven by the golden thread into the peaceful tissue of
the life of her home.
Many a night and many a day had its inmates listened to
the echoes in the corner, with hearts that failed them when
they heard the thronging feet. For, the footsteps had become
to their minds as the footsteps of a people, tumultuous under a
red flag and with their country declared in danger, changed
into wild beasts, by terrible enchantment long persisted in.
Monseigneur, as a class, had dissociated himself from the
phenomenon of his not being appreciated: of his being so
little wanted in France, as to incur considerable danger of receiving his dismissal from it, and this life together.  Like the
fabled rustic who raised the Devil with infinite pains, and was
so terrified at the sight of him that he could ask the Enemy
no question, but immediately fled; so, Monseigneur, after
boldly reading the Lord's Prayer backward for a great number of years, and performing many other potent spells for
compelling the Evil One, no sooner beheld him in his terrors
than he took to his noble heels.
The shining Bull's Eye of the Court was gone, or it would
have been the mark for a hurricane of national bullets. It had
never been a good eye to see with-had long had the mote in
it of Lucifer's pride, Sardanapalus's luxury, and a mole's
blindness-but it had dropped out and was gone. The Court,
from that exclusive inner circle to its outermost rotten ring of
(267)




268           A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.
intrigue, corruption, and dissimulation, was all gone together.
Royalty was gone; had been besieged in its Palace and " suspended," when the last tidings came over.
The August of the year one thousand seven hundred and
ninety-two was come, and Monseigneur was by this time scattered far and wide.
As was natural, the head-quarters and great gathering-place
of Monseigneur, in London, was Tellson's Bank.  Spirits are
supposed to haunt the places where their bodies most resorted,
and Monseigneur without a guinea haunted the spot where his
guineas used to be. Moreover, it was the spot to which such
French intelligence as was most to be relied upon, came
quickest. Again: Tellson's was a munificent house, and extended great liberality to old customers who had fallen from
their high estate. Again: those nobles who had seen the
coming storm in time, and, anticipating plunder or confiscation,
had made provident remittances to Tellson's, were always to
be heard of there by their needy brethren. To which it must
be added that every new comer from France reported himself
and his tidings at Tellson's, almost as a matter of course. For
such variety of reasons, Tellson's was at that time, as to French
intelligence, a kind of High Exchange; and this was so well
known to the public, and the inquiries made there were in consequence so numerous, that Tellson's sometimes wrote the
latest news out in a line or so and posted it in the Bank windows, for all who ran through Temple Bar to read.
On a steaming, misty afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his desk,
and Charles Darnay stood leaning on it, talking with him in a
low voice. The penitential den once set apart for interviews
with the House, was now the news-Exchange, and was filled
to overflowing. It was within half an hour or so of the time
of closing.
" But, although you are the youngest man that ever lived,"
said Charles Darnay, rather hesitating, "I must still suggest
to you    "
"I understand.  That I am too old?" said Mr. Lorry.
"Unsettled weather, a long journey, uncertain means of
traveling, a disorganized country, a city that may not even be
safe for you."




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  269
"My dear Charles," said Mr. Lorry, with cheerful confidence, " you touch some of the reasons for my going: not for
my staying away. It is safe enough for me; nobody will care
to interfere with an old fellow of hard upon fourscore when
there are so many people there much better worth interfering
with.  As to its being a disorganized city, if it were not a
disorganized city there would be no occasion to send somebody
from our House here to our House there, who knows the city
and the business, of old, and is in Tellson's confidence.  As to
the uncertain traveling, the long journey, and the winter
weather, if I were not prepared to submit myself to a few inconveniences for the sake of Tellson's, after all these years, who
ought to be?"'
"I wish I were going myself," said Charles Darnay, somewhat restlessly, and like one thinking aloud.
" Indeed! You are a pretty fellow to object and advise I"
exclaimed Mr. Lorry.  "You wish you were going yourself?
And you a Frenchman born? You are a wise counselor."
"My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a Frenchman born,
that the thought (which I did not mean to utter here, however) has passed through my mind often.  One cannot help
thinking, having had some sympathy for the miserable people,
and having abandoned something to them," he spoke here in
his former thoughtful manner, "that one might be listened to,
and might have the power to persuade to some restraint.
Only last night after you had left us, when I was talking to
Lucie    "
"When you were talking to Lucie," Mr. Lorry repeated.
"Yes. I wonder you are not ashamed to mention the name
of Lucie! Wishing you were going to France at this time
of day?"
"However, I am not going," said Charles Darnay, with a
smile. "It is more to the purpose that you say you are."
"And I am, in plain reality. The truth is, my dear Charles,"
Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and lowered his voice,
"you can have no conception of the difficulty with which our
business is transacted, and of the peril in which our books and
papers over yonder are involved.  The Lord above knows
what the compromising consequences would be to numbers of




270          A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.
people, if some of our documents were seized or destroyed;
and they might be, at any time, you know, for who can say
that Paris is not set afire to-day, or sacked to-morrow I Now,
a judicious selection from these with the least possible delay,
and the burying of them, or otherwise getting of them out of
harm's way, is within the power (without loss of precious time)
of scarcely any one but myself, if any one. And shall I hang
back, when Tellsorn's knows this and says this-Tellson's, whose
bread I have eaten these sixty years-because I am a little
stiff about the joints?  Why, I am a boy, sir, to half a dozen
old codgers here!"
"How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr.
Lorry."
"Tut! Nonsense, sir!  And, my dear Charles," said Mr.
Lorry, glancing at the House again, "you are to remember,
that getting things out of Paris at this present time, no matter what things, is next to an impossibility. Papers and precious matters were this very day brought to us here (I speak
in strict confidence; it is not business-like to whisper it, even
to you), by the strangest bearers you can imagine, every one
of whom had his head hanging on by a single hair as he passed
the Barriers. At another time, our parcels would come and
go, as easily as in business-like Old England; but now, everything is stopped."
"And do you really go to-night?"
"I really go to-night, for the case has become too pressing
to admit of delay."
" And do you take no one with you?"
"All sorts of people have been proposed to me, but I will
have nothing to say to any of them. I intend to take Jerry.
Jerry has been my body-guard on Sunday nights for a long
time past, and I am used to him.  Nobody will suspect Jerry
of being any thing but an English bulldog, or of having any
design in his head but to fly at anybody who touches his
master. "
"I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry and
youthfulness. "
" I must say again, nonsense, nonsense! When I have executed this little commission, I shall, perhaps, accept Tell.




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                 271
son's proposal to retire and live at my ease. Time enough,
then, to think about growing old."
This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry's usual desk,
with Monseigneur swarming within a yard or two of it, boastful of what he would do to avenge himself on the rascal-people
before long. It was too much the way of Monseigneur under
his reverses as a refugee, and it was much too much the way
of native British orthodoxy, to talk of this terrible Revolution
as if it were the one only harvest ever known under the skies
that had not been sown-as if nothing had ever been done, or
omitted to be done, that had led to it-as if observers of the
wretched millions in France, and of the misused and perverted
resources that should have made them prosperous, had not
seen it inevitably coming, years before, and had not in plain
words recorded what they saw. Such vaporing, combined
with the extravagant plots of Monseigneur for the restoration
of a state of things that had utterly exhausted itself, and
worn out Heaven and earth as well as itself, was hard to be
endured without some remonstrance by any sane man who
knew the truth. And it was such vaporing all about his ears,
like a troublesome confusion of blood in his own head, added
to a latent uneasiness in his mind, which had already made
Charles Darnay restless, and which still kept him so.
Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King's Bench Bar,
far on his way to state promotion, and, therefore, loud on the
theme; broaching to Monseigneur, his devices for blowing the
people up and exterminating them from the face of the earth,
and doing without them: and for accomplishing many similar
objects akin in their nature to the abolition of eagles, by
sprinkling salt on the tails of the race. Him, Darnay heard
with a particular feeling of objection; and Darnay stood
divided between going away that he might hear no more, and
remaining to interpose his word, when the thing that was to
be, went on to shape itself out.
The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying a soiled and
unopened letter before him, asked if he had yet discovered any
traces of the person to whom it was addressed? The House
laid the letter down so close to Darnay that he saw the direction-the more quickly, because it was his own right name.
The address, turned into English, ran: "Very pressing. To
33




272          A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
Monsieur heretofore the Marquis St. Evr6mond, of France,
Confided to the cares of Messrs. Tellson and Co., Bankers,
London, England."
On the marriage morning, Doctor Manette had made it his
one urgent and express request to Charles Darnay, that the
secret of this name should be-unless he, the Doctor, dissolved
the obligation-kept inviolate between them. Nobody else
knew it to be his name; his own wife had no suspicion of the
fact; Mr. Lorry could have none.
" No," said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House; "I have referred it, I think, to everybody now here, and no one can tell
me where this gentleman is to be found."
The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing
the Bank, there was a general set of the current of talkers past
Mr. Lorry's desk. He held the letter out inquiringly; and
Monseigneur looked at it, in the person of this plotting and
indignant refugee; and Monseigneur looked at it, in the person of that plotting and indignant refugee; and This, That,
and The Other, all had something disparaging to say, in
French or in English, concerning the Marquis who was not to
be found.
"Nephew, I believe-but in any case'degenerate successor
-of the polished Marquis who was murdered," said one.
"Happy to say, I never knew him."
"A craven who abandoned his post," said another-this
Monseigneur had been got out of Paris, legs uppermost and
half suffocated, in a load of hay-" some years ago."
"Infected with the new doctrines," said a third, eyeing the
direction through his glass in passing; "set himself in opposition to the last Marquis, abandoned the estates when he inherited them, and left them to the ruffian herd. They will
recompense him now, I hope, as he deserves."
"HIey?" cried the blatant Stryver.  "Did he though?  Is
that the sort of fellow? Let us look at his infamous name.
D-n the fellow!"
Darnay, unable to restrain himself any longer, touched Mr.
Stryver on the shoulder, and said:
"I know the fellow."
"Do you, by Jupiter?" said Stryver.  "I am sorry for it."
"Why?"




Iii                                                               __!   Ii t,                      K,i~~~~~~
ii I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~,
~IKNOW THE FELLOW"' PAGE 272.








A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                   273
"'Why, Mr. Darnay?  D'ye hear what he did?  Don't ask
why, in these times."
" But I do ask why."
" Then I tell you again, Mir. Darnay, I am sorry for it.  I
am sorry to hear you putting any such extraordinary qucestions.
Here is a fellow, who, infected by the most pestilent and blasphemous code of devilry that ever was known, abandoned his
property to the vilest scum of the earth that ever did murder
by wholesale, and you ask me why I am sorry that a man who
instructs youth knows him? Well, but I'll answer you. I
am sorry, because I believe there is contamination in such a
scoundrel. That's why."
Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked
himself, and said: "You may not understand the gentleman."
"I understand how to put you in a corner, iMr. Darnay,"
said Bully Stryver, "and I'll do it.  If this fellow is a gentleman, I don't understand him. You may tell him so, with my
compliments. You may also tell him, from me, that after
abandoning his worldly goods and position to this butcherly
mob, I wonder he is not at the head of them. But, no, gentlemen," said Stryver, looking all around, and snapping his
fingers, "I know something of human nature, and I tell you
that you'll never find a fellow like this fellow, trusting himself
to the mercies of such precious protegys. No, gentlemen;
he'll always show'em a clean pair of heels very early in the
scuffle, and sneak away."
With those words, and a final snap of his fingers, Mr.
Stryver shouldered himself into Fleet-street, amidst the general
approbation of his hearers.  Mr. Lorry and Charles Darnay
were left alone at the desk, in the general departure from the
Bank.
"Will you take charge of the letter?" said Mr. Lorry.
"You know where to deliver it?"
"I do."
"Will you undertake to explain that we suppose it to have
been addressed here, on the chance of our knowing where to
forward it, and that it has been here some time?"
" I will do so. Do you start for Paris from here?"
"From here, at eight."
17




274          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
"I will come back to see you off."
Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most
other men, Darnay made the best of his way into the quiet of
the Temple, opened the letter and read it.  These were its
contents:
"Prison of the Abbaye, Paris. June 21, 1792.
" MONSIEUR HERETOFORE TIIE MIARQUIS.
"After having long been in danger of my life at the hands
of the village, I have been seized, with great violence and indignity, and brought a long journey on foot to Paris. On the
road I have suffered a great deal. Nor is that all; my house
has been destroyed-razed to the ground.
" The crime for which I am imprisoned, Monsieur heretofore
the Marquis, and for which I shall be summoned before the
tribunal, and shall lose my life (without your so generous help),
is, they tell mb, treason against the majesty of the people, in
that I have acted against them for an emigrant. It is in vain
I represent that I have acted for them, and not against, according to your commands. It is in vain I represent that, before the sequestration of emigrant property, I had remitted the
imposts they had ceased to pay; that I had collected no rent;
that I had had recourse to no process. The only response is,
that I have acted for an emigrant, and where is that emigrant?
"Ah! most gracious Monsieur heretofore the Marquis,
where is that emigrant! I cry in my sleep where is he! I
demand of HI-eaven will he not come to deliver me! No
answer.  Ah I Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I send my
desolate cry across the sea, hoping it may perhaps reach your
ears through the great bank of Tellson known at Paris!
" For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the
honor of your noble name, I supplicate you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, to succor and release me. My fault is, that
I have been true to you. O Monsieur heretofore the Marquis,
I pray you be you true to me!
" From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend
nearer and nearer to destruction, I send you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, the assurance of my dolorous and unhappy
service.
"Your afflicted,
" GABELLE. "




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                 275
The latent uneasiness in Darnay's mind was roused to vigorous life by this letter. The peril of an old servant and a
good one, whose only crime was fidelity to himself and his
family, stared him so reproachfully in the face, that, as he
walked to and fro in the Temple, considering what to do, he
almost hid his face from the passers-by.
He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which
had culminated the bad deeds and bad reputation of the old
family house, in his resentful suspicions of his uncle, and in
the aversion with which his conscience regarded the crumbling
fabric that he was supposed to uphold, he had acted imperfectly. He knew very well that in his love for Lucie, his renunciation of his social place, though by no means new to his
own mind, had been hurried and incomplete. He knew that
he ought to have systematically worked it out and supervised
it, and that he had meant to do it, and that it had never been
done.
The happiness of his own chosen English home, the necessity of being always actively employed, the swift changes and
troubles of the time which had followed on one another so fast,
that the events of this week annihilated the immature plans
of last week, and the events of the week following made all
new again; he knew very well, that to the force of these circumstances he had yielded: —not without disquiet, but still
without continuous and accumulating resistance. That he had
watched the times for a time of action, and that they had
shifted and struggled until the time had gone by, and the nobility were trooping from France by every highway and byway, and their property was in course of confiscation and destruction, and their very names were blotting out, was as well
known to himself as it could be to any new authority in
France that might impeach him for it.
But, he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man;
he was so far from having harshly exacted payment of his dues,
that he had relinquished them of his own will, thrown himself
on a world with no favor in it, won his own private place
there, and earned his own bread. Monsieur Gabelle had held
the impoverished and involved estate on written instructions
to spare the people, to give them what little there was to give




276          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
-such fuel as the heavy creditors would let them have in the
winter, and such produce as could be saved from the same
grip in the summer-and no doubt he had put the fact in plea
and proof, for his own safety, so that it could not but appear
now.
This favored the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had
begun to make, that he would go to Paris.
Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and
streams had driven him within the influence of the Loadstone
Rock, and it was drawing him to itself, and he must go.
Every thing that arose before his mind drifted him on, faster
and faster, more and more steadily, to the terrible attraction.
His latent uneasiness had been, that bad aims were being
worked out in his own unhappy land by bad instruments, and
that he who could not fail to know that he was better than
they, was not there, trying to do something to stay bloodshed,
and assert the claims of mercy and humanity. With this uneasiness half stifled, and half reproaching him, he had been
brought to the pointed comparison of himself with the brave
old gentleman in whom duty was so strong; upon that comparison (injurious to himself), had instantly followed the
sneers of Monseigneur, which had stung him bitterly, and
those of Stryver, which above all, were coarse and galling, for
old reasons.  Upon those, had followed Gabelle's letter: the
appeal of an innocent prisoner, in danger of his death, to his
justice, honor and good name.
Eis resolution was made. He must go to Paris.
Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must
sail on, until he struck. HIe knew of no rock; he saw hardly
any danger.  The intention with which he had done what he
had done, even although he had left it incomplete, presented it
before him in an aspect that would be gratefully acknowledged
in France on his presenting himself to assert it.  Then, that
glorious vision of doing good, which is so often the sanguine
mirage of so many good minds, arose before him, and he even
saw himself in the illusion with some influence to guide this
raging Revolution that was running so fearfully wild.
As he walked to and fro with his resolution made, he considered that neither Lucie nor her father must know of it until




A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                  277
he was gone.  Lucie should be spared the pain of separationrT;
and her father, always reluctant to turn his thoughts toward
the dangerous ground of old, should come to the knowledge
of the step, as a step taken, and not in the balance of suspense
and doubt. How much of the incompleteness of his situation
was referable to her father, through the painful anxiety to
avoid reviving old associations of France in his mind, he did
not discuss with himself. But, that circumstance too, had
had its influence in his course.
He walked to and fro, with thoughts very busy, until it was
time to return to Tellson's, and take leave of Mr. Lorry.  As
soon as he arrived in Paris he would present himself to this
old friend, but he must say nothing of his intention now.
A carriage with post-horses was ready at the Bank door,
and Jerry was booted and equipped.
"I have delivered that letter," said Charles Darnay to Mr.
Lorry. "I would not consent to your being charged with any
written answer, but perhaps you will take a verbal one?"
"That I will, and readily," said Mr. Lorry, "if it is not
dangerous. "
"Not at all.  Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye."
"What is his name?" said Mr. Lorry, with his open pocketbook in his hand.
" Gabelle'."
"Gabelle.  And what is the message to the unfortunate
Gabelle in prison?"
"Simply,' that he has received the letter, and will come.'"
"Any time mentioned?"
"He will start upon his journey to-morrow night."
"Any person mentioned?"," No. "
He helped Mr. Lorry to wrap himself in a number of coats
and cloaks, and went out with him from the warm atmosphere
of the old bank, into the misty air of Fleet-street.  " My love
to Lucie, and to little Lucie," said Mr. Lorry at parting, " and
take precious care of them till I come back." Charles Darnay
shook his head and doubtfully smiled, as the carriage rolled
away.
That night-it was the fourteenth of August-he sat up




278          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
late, and wrote two fervent letters; one was to Lucie, explaining the strong obligation he was under to go to Paris, and
showing her, at length, the reasons that he had, for feeling
confident that he could become involved in no personal danger
there; the other was to the Doctor, confiding Lucie and their
dear child to his care, and dwelling on the same topics with
the strongest assurances. To both, he wrote that he would
dispatch letters in proof of his safety, immediately after his
arrival.
It was a hard day, that day of being among them, with the
first reservation of their joint lives on his mind. It was a
hard matter to preserve the innocent deceit of which they
were profoundly unsuspicious. But, an affectionate glance at
his wife, so happy and busy, made him resolute not to tell her
what impended (he had been half moved to do it, so strange it
was to him to act in any thing without her quiet aid), and the
day passed quickly. Early in the evening he embraced her,
and her scarcely less dear namesake, pretending that he would
return by-and-by (an imaginary engagement took him out, and
he had secreted a valise of clothes ready), and so he emerged
into the heavy mist of the heavy streets, with a heavier heart.
The unseen force was drawing him fast to itself, now, and
all the tides and winds were setting straight and strong toward
it. He left his two letters with a trusty porter, to be delivered
half an hour before midnight, and no sooner; took horse for
Dover; and began his journey.  "For the love of Heaven,
of justice, of generosity, of the honor of your noble name!'7
was the poor prisoner's cry with which he strengthened his
sinking heart, as he left all that was dear on earth behind him,
and floated away for the Loadstone Rock.
(THE END OF THE SECOND BOOK.)




BOOK THE THIRD. —THE TRACK OF A STORM.
CHAPTER I.
IN SECRET.
THE traveler fared slowly on his way, who fared toward Paris
from England in the autumn of the year one thousand seven
hundred and ninety-two. More than enough of bad roads, bad
equipages, and bad horses, he would have encountered to delay
him, though the fallen and unfortunate King of France had
been upon his throne in all his glory; but, the changed times
were fraught with other obstacles than these. Every town gate
and village taxing-house had its band of citizen-patriots, with
their national muskets in a most explosive state of readiness,
who stopped all comers and goers, cross-questioned them, inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their
own, turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and
laid them in hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed
best for the dawning Republic, One and Indivisible, of Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity, or Death.
A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished,
when Charles Darnay began to perceive that for him along
these country roads there was no hope of return until he should
have been declared a good citizen at Paris. Whatever might
befall now, he must on to his journey's end. Not a mean village
closed upon him, not a common barrier dropped across the road
behind him, but he knew it to be another iron door in the series
that was barred between him and England. The universal
watchfulness so encompassed him, that if he had been taken in
a net, or were being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he
could not have felt his freedom more completely gone.
34                                   (279)




280          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highway twenty times in a stage, but retarded his progress twenty
times in a day, by riding after him and taking him back, riding
before him and stopping him by anticipation, riding with him
and keeping him in charge. He had been days upon his journey
in France alone, when he went to bed tired out, in a little town
on the high road, still a long way from Paris.
Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle's letter
from his prison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far.
His difficulty at the guard-house in this small place had been
such, that he felt his journey to have come to a crisis. And he
was, therefore, as little surprised as a man could be, to find
himself awakened at the small inn to Which he had been remitted
until morning, in the middle of the night.
Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed
patriots in rough red caps and with pipes in their mouths, who
sat down on the bed.
"Emigrant," said the functionary, " I am going to send you
on to Paris, under an escort."
"Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though
I could dispense with the escort."
" Silence!" growled a red-cap, striking at the coverlet with
the butt-end of his musket.  " Peace, aristocrat I"
" It is as the good patriot says," observed the timid functionary.  "You are an aristocrat, and must have an escort-and
must pay for it."
" I have no choice,." said Charles Iarnay.
" Choice I Listen to him!" cried the same scowling red-cap.
"As if it was not a favor to be protected from the lamp-iron!"
" It is always as the good patriot says," observed the functionary.  "Rise and dress yourself, emigrant."
Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guard-house
where other patriots in rough red caps were smoking, drinking,
and sleeping, by a watch-fire. Here he paid a heavy price for
his escort, and hence he started with it on the wet, wet roads
at three o'clock in the morning.
The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tricolored cockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, who
rode one on either side of him. The escorted governed his




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  281
own horse, but a loose line was attached to his bridle, the end
of which one of the patriots kept girded round his wrist. In
this state they set forth, with the sharp rain driving in their
faces: clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneven town
pavement, and out upon the mire-deep roads. In this state
they traversed without change, except of horses and pace, all
the mire-deep leagues that lay between them and the capital.
They traveled in the night, halting an hour or two after daybreak, and lying by until the twilight fell. The escort were so
wretchedly clothed, that they twisted straw round their bare
legs, and thatched their ragged shoulders to keep the wet off.
Apart from the personal discomfort of being so attended,
and apart from such considerations of present danger as arose
from one of the patriots being chronically drunk, and carrying
his musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay did not allow the
restraint that was laid upon him to awaken any serious fears in
his breast; for, he reasoned with himself that it could have no
reference to the merits of an individual case that was not yet
stated, and of representations, confirmable by the prisoner in
the Abbaye, that were not yet made.
But, when they came to the town of Beauvais —which they did
at eventide, when the streets were filled with people-he could
not conceal from himself that the aspect of affairs was very
alarming. An ominous crowd gathered to see him dismount
at the posting-yard, and many voices in it called out loudly,
"Down with the emigrant!"
He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle,
and, resuming it as his safest place, said:
" Emigrant, my friends I Do you not see me here, in France,
of my own will?"
"You are a cursed emigrant," cried a farrier, making at him
in a furious manner through the press, hammer in hand; "and
you are a cursed aristocrat!"
The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the
rider's bridle (at which he was evidently making), and soothingly
said, "Let him be; let him be! He will be judged at Paris."
"Judged I" repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer.
"'Ay! and condemned as a traitor." At this, the crowd roared
approval.




282           A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.
Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse's head
to the yard (the drunken patriot sat composedly in his saddle
looking on, with the line round his wrist), Darnay said, as soon
as he could make his voice heard:
"Friends, you deceive yourselves, or you are deceived. I
am not a traitor."
"He lies!" cried the smith. "He is a traitor since the decree.
His life is forfeit to the people.  His cursed life is not his
own i"
At this instant, when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the
crowd, which another instant would have brought upon him,
the postmaster turned his horse into the yard, the escort rode in
close upon his horse's flanks, and the postmaster shut and barred
the crazy double gates. The farrier struck a blow upon them
with his hammer, and the crowd groaned; but, no more was done.
" What is this decree that the smith spoke of?" Darnay asked
the postmaster, when he had thanked him, and stood beside
him in the yard.
" Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants."
"When passed?",
" On the fourteenth."
"The day I left England!'"
"Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will
be others-if there are not already-banishing all emigrants,
and condemning all to death who return. That is what he
meant when he said your life was not your own."
"But there are no such decrees yet?"
"What do I know I" said the postmaster, shrugging his
shoulders; "there may be, or there will be. It is all the same.
What would you have?"
They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the
night, and then rode forward again when all the town was
asleep. Among the many wild changes observable on familiar
things which make this wild ride unreal, not the least was the
seeming rarity of sleep. After long and lonely spurring over
dreary roads, they would come to a cluster of poor cottages,
not steeped in darkness, but all glittering with lights, and would
find the people, in a ghostly manner, in the dead of the night,
circling hand in hand round a shriveled tree of Liberty, or all




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1t                                  IIi
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YO  ARI  ACRE   MGAT"CRE      ARE-AE21








A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                   283
drawn up together singing a Liberty song.  Happily, however,
there was sleep in Beauvais that night to help them out of it,
and they passed on once more into solitude and loneliness:
jingling through the untimely cold and wet, among impoverished
fields that had yielded no fruits of the earth that year, diversified by the blackened remains of burnt houses, and by the
sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining-up across
their way, of patriot patrols on the watch on all the roads.
Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The
barrier was closed and strongly guarded when they rode up to it.
" Where are the papers of this prisoner?" demanded a resolute.looking man in authority, who was summoned out by the
guard.
Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay
requested the speaker to take notice that he was a free traveler
and French citizen, in charge of an escort which the disturbed
state of the country had imposed upon him, and which he had
paid for.
"Where," repeated the same personage, without taking any
heed of him whatever, "are the papers of this prisoner?"
The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced
them.  Casting his eyes over Gabelle's letter, the same personage in authority showed some disorder and surprise, and
looked at Darnay with a close attention.
He left escort and escorted without saying a word, however,
and went into the guard-room; meanwhile, they sat upon their
horses outside the gate. Looking about him while in this state
of suspense, Charles Darnay observed that the gate was held
by a mixed guard of soldiers and patriots, the latter far outnumbering the former; and that while ingress into the city for
peasants' carts bringing in supplies, and for similar traffic and
traffickers, was easy enough, egress, even for the homeliest
people, was very difficult. A numerous medley of men and
women, not to mention beasts and vehicles of various sorts,
was waiting to issue forth; but, the previous identification
was so strict that they filtered through the barrier very slowly.
Some of these people knew their turn for examination to be so
far off, that they lay down on the ground to sleep or smoke,
while others talked together, or loitered about. The red cap




284           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
and tricolor cockade were universal, both among men and
women.
When he had sat in his saddle some half-hour, taking note
of these things, Darnay found himself confronted by the same
man in authority, who directed the guard to open the barrier.
Then he delivered to the escort, drunk and sober, a receipt for
the escorted, and requested him to dismount. He did so, and
the two patriots, leading his tired horse, turned and rode away
without entering the city.
He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling
of common wine and tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots,
asleep and awake, drunk and sober, and in various neutral
states between sleeping and waking, drunkenness and sobriety,
were standing and lying about.  The light in the guard-house,
half derived from the waning oil-lamps of the night, and half
from  the overcast day, was in a correspondingly uncertain
condition.  Some registers were lying open on a desk, and an
officer of a coarse, dark aspect, presided over these.
" Citizen Defarge," said he to Darnay's conductor, as he took
a slip of paper to write on.  "Is this the emigrant Evremonde?"
"This is the man."
"Your age, Evremonde?"
" Thirty-seven."
" Married, Evremonde?"
" Yes."
" Where married?"
"In England."
"Without doubt. Where is your wife, Evremonde?"
"In England."
"Without doubt. You are consigned, Evremonde, to the
Prison of La Force."
"Just Heaven!" exclaimed Darnay. "Under what law, and
for what offense?"
The officer looked up from his slip of paper for a moment.
"We have new laws, Evremonde, and new offenses, since
you were here." He said it with a hard smile, and went on
writing.
" I entreat you to observe that I have come here voluntarily,
in response to that written appeal of a fellow-citizen which lies




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  285
before you. I have come here, to clear him and to clear
myself. I demand no more than the opportunity to do so
without delay. Is not that my right?"
"Emigrants have no rights, Evremonde," was the stolid
reply. The officer wrote until he had finished, read over to
himself what he had written, sanded it, and handed it to Citizen
Defarge, with the words " In secret."
Citizen Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner
that he must accompany him. The prisoner obeyed, and a
guard of two armed patriots attended them.
" It is you," said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down
the guard-house steps and turned into Paris, "who married
the daughter of Doctor Manette, once a prisoner in the Bastille
that is no more."
"Yes," replied Darnay, looking at him with surprise.
" My name is Defarge, and I keep a wine-shop in the Quarter
Saint Antoine. Possibly you have heard of me?"
" My wife came to your house to reclaim her father? Yes!"
The word " wife" seemed to serve as a gloomy reminder to
Citizen Defarge, to say with sudden impatience, " In the name
of that sharp female newly born and called La Guillotine, why
did you come to France?"
" You heard me say why, a minute ago. Do you not believe
it is the truth?"
" A bad truth for you," said Defarge, speaking with knitted
brows, and looking straight before him.
"Indeed, I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so
changed, so sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost. Will
you render me a little help?"
"None."  Citizen Defarge spoke, always looking straight
before him.
" Will you answer me a single question?"
"Perhaps. According to its nature. You can say what
it is."
" In this prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have
some free communication with the world outside?"
"You will see."
"I am not to be buried there, prejudged, and without any
means of presenting my case?"




286          A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
"You will see. But, what then? Other people have been
similarly buried in worse prisons, before now."
" But never by me, Citizen Defarge."
Citizen Defarge glanced darkly at him for answer, and walked
on in a steady and set silence. The deeper he sank into this
silence, the fainter hope there was-or so Darnay thought-of
his softening in any slight degree. He, therefore, made haste
to say:
"It is of the utmost importance to me (you know, Citizen,
even better than I, of how much importance), that I should be
able to communicate to Mr. Lorry of Tellson's Bank, an English
gentleman who is now in Paris, the simple fact, without comment, that I have been thrown into the prison of La Force.
Will you cause that to be done for me?"
"I will do," Defarge doggedly rejoined, "nothing for you.
My duty is to my country and the people. I am the sworn
servant of both, against you. I will do nothing for you."
Charles Darnay felt it hopeless to entreat him further, and
his pride was touched besides. As they walked on in silence,
he could not but see how used the people were to the spectacle
of prisoners passing along the streets. The very children scarcely
noticed him. A few passers turned their heads, and a few
shook their fingers at him as an aristocrat; otherwise, that a
man in good clothes should be going to prison, was no more
remarkable than that a laborer in working clothes should be
going to work. In one narrow, dark, and dirty street through
which they passed, an excited orator, mounted on a stool, was
addressing an excited audience on the crimes against the people,
of the king and the royal family. The few words that he
caught from this man's lips, first made it known to Charles
Darnay that the king was in prison, and that the foreign
embassadors had one and all left Paris.  On the road (except
at Beauvais) he had heard absolutely nothing. The escort and
the universal watchfulness had completely isolated him.
That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those
which had developed themselves when he left England, he of
course knew now. That perils had thickened about him fast,
and might thicken faster and faster yet, he of course knew now.
He could not but admit to himself that he might not have made




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                 287
this journey, if he could have foreseen the events of a few days.
And yet his misgivings were not so dark as, imagined by the
light of this later time, they would appear. Troubled as the
future was, it was the unknown future, and in its obscurity there
was ignorant hope. The horrible massacre, days and nights
long, which, within a few rounds of the clock, was to set a great
mark of blood upon the blessed garnering time of harvest, was
as far out of his knowledge as if it had been a hundred thousand
years away. The "sharp female newly-born, and called La
Guillotine," was hardly known to him, or to the generality of
the people, by name. The frightful deeds that were to be soon
done, were probably unimagined at that time in the brains of
the doers. How could they have a place in the shadowy conceptions of a gentle mind?
Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel
separation from his wife and child, he foreshadowed the likelihood or the certainty; but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing
distinctly. With this on his mind, which was enough to carry
into a dreary prison court-yard, he arrived at the prison of
La Force.
A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to whom
Defarge presented "The Emigrant Evremonde."
" What the Devil I How many more of them I" exclaimed the
man with the bloated face.
Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation,
and withdrew, with his two fellow-patriots.
"What the Devil, I say again!" exclaimed the gaoler, left
with his wife. " How many more I"
The gaoler's wife, being provided with no answer to the
question, merely replied, " One must have patience, my dear 1"
Three turnkeys who entered responsive to a bell she rang, echoed
the sentiment, and one added, " For the love of Liberty I" which
sounded in that place like an inappropriate conclusion.
The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and
filthy, and with a horrible smell of foul sleep in it. Extraordinary how soon the noisome flavor of imprisoned sleep becomes
manifest in all such places that are ill-cared for I
"In secret, too," grumbled the gaoler, looking at the written
paper.  " As if I was not already full to bursting I"
35




288           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
He stuck the paper on a file, in an ill-humor, and Charles
Darnay awaited his further pleasure for half an hour: sometimes, pacing to and fro in the strong arched room: sometimes, resting on a stone seat: in either case detained to be
imprinted on the memory of the chief and his subordinates.
" Come i" said the chief, at length taking up his keys, " come
with me, emigrant."
Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge accompanied him by corridor and staircase, many doors clanging and
locking behind them, until they came into a large, low, vaulted
chamber, crowded with prisoners of both sexes. The women
were seated at a long table, reading and writing, knitting, sew.ing, and embroidering; the men were for the most part standing
behind their chairs, or lingering up and down the room.
In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful
crime and disgrace, the new-comer recoiled from this company.
But, the crowning unreality of his long, unreal ride, was, their
all at once rising to receive him, with every refinement of
manner known to the time, and with all the engaging graces
and courtesies of life.
So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison
manners and gloom, so spectral did they become in the inappropriate squalor and misery through which they were seen,
that Charles Darnay seemed to stand in a company of the dead.
Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, the ghost of stateliness, the
ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride, the ghost of frivolity, the
ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, all waiting
their dismissal from the desolate shore, all turning on him eyes
that were changed by the death they had died in coming there.
It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side,
and the other gaolers moving about, who would have been well
enough as to appearance in the ordinary exercises of their functions, looked so extravagantly coarse contrasted with sorrowing
mothers and blooming daughters who were there-with the apparitions of the coquette, the young beauty, and the mature
woman delicately bred-that the inversion of all experience and
likelihood which the scene of shadows presented, was heightened
to its utmost.  Surely, ghosts all.  Surely, the long unreal ride
some progress of disease that had brought him to these gloomy
shades.




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                 289
"In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune,"
said a gentleman of courtly appearance and address, coming
forward, " I have the honor of giving you welcome to La Force,
and of condoling with you on the calamity that has brought you
among us. May it soon terminate happily I It would be an
impertinence elsewhere, but it is not so here, to ask your name
and condition?"
Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required information, in words as suitable as he could find.
"But I hope," said the gentleman, following the chief gaoler
with his eyes, who moved across the room, " that you are not
in secret?"
"I do not understand the meaning of the term, but I have
heard them say so."
" Ah, what a pity I We so much regret it I But take courage; several members of our society have been in secret, at
first, and it has lasted but a short time." Then he added, raising his voice,'" I grieve to inform the society —in secret."
There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay
crossed the room to a grated door where the gaoler awaited
him, and many voices-among which, the soft and compassionate voices of women were conspicuous-gave him good wishes
and encouragement. He turned at the grated door, to render
the thanks of his heart; it closed under the gaoler's hand; and
the apparitions vanished from his sight forever!
The wicket opened on a stone staircase, leading upward.
When they had ascended forty steps (the prisoner of half an
hour already counted them), the gaoler opened a low black
door, and they passed into a solitary cell. It struck cold and
damp, but was not dark.
"Yours," said the gaoler.
"Why am I confined alone?"
" How do I know!"
"I can buy pen, ink, and paper?"
" Such are not my orders. You will be visited, and can ask
then. At present, you may buy your food, and nothing more."
There were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mattress.
As the gaoler made a general inspection of these objects, and
of the four walls, before going out, a wandering fancy wandered
18




290          A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
through the mind of the prisoner leaning against the wall opposite to him, that this gaoler was so unwholesomely bloated,
both in face and person, as to look like a man who had been
drowned and filled with water. When the gaoler was gone,
he thought, in the same wandering way, "Now am I left, as if
I were dead." Stopping then, to look down at the mattress,
he turned from it with a sick feeling, and thought, "And here
in these crawling creatures is the first condition of the body
after death."
" Five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half,
five paces by four and a half." The prisoner walked to and
fro in his cell, counting its measurement, and the roar of the
city arose like muffled drums with a wild swell of voices added
to them. "Hle made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes."
The prisoner counted the measurement again, and paced faster,
to draw his mind with him from this latter repetition.  "The
ghosts that vanished when the wicket closed. There was one
among them, the appearance of a lady dressed in black, who
was leaning in the embrasure of a window, and she had a light
shining upon her golden hair, and she looked like * * * *  Let
us ride on again, for God's sake, through the illuminated villages
with the people all awake I * * * *  He made shoes, he made
shoes, he made shoes. * * * *  Five paces by four and a half."
With such scraps tossing and rolling upward from the depths
of his mind, the prisoner walked faster and faster, obstinately
counting and counting; and the roar of the city changed to this
extent-that it still rolled in like muffled drums, but with the
wail of voices that he knew, in the swell that rose above them.




CHAPTER II.
THE GRINDSTONE.
TELLSON'S Bank, established in the Saint Germain Quarter
of Paris, was in a wing of a large house, approached by a courtyard and shut off from the street by a high wall and a strong
gate. The house belonged to a great nobleman who had lived
in it until he made a flight from the troubles, in his own cook's
dress, and got across the borders. A mere beast of the chase
flying from hunters, he was still in his metempsychosis no other
than the same Monseigneur, the preparation of whose chocolate
for whose lips had once occupied three strong men besides the
cook in question.
Monseigneur gone, and the three strong men absolving themselves from the sin of having drawn his high wages, by being
more than ready and willing to cut his throat on the altar of
the dawning Republic one and indivisible of Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity, or Death, Monseigneur's house had been first sequestrated, and then confiscated. For, all things moved so fast,
and decree followed decree with that fierce precipitation, that
now upon the third night of the autumn month of September,
patriot emissaries of the law were in possession of Monseigneur's
house, and had marked it with the tricolor, and were drinking
brandy in its state apartments.
A place of business in London like Tellson's place of business
in Paris, would soon have driven the House out of its mind and
into the Gazette. For, what would staid British responsibility
and respectability have said to orange-trees in boxes in a Bank
court-yard, and even to a Cupid over the counter? Yet such
things were. Tellson's had whitewashed the Cupid, but he
was still to be seen on the ceiling, in the coolest linen, aiming
(as he very often does) at money from morning to night. Bankruptcy must inevitably have come of this young Pagan, in
(291)




292           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
Lombard-street, London, and also of a curtained alcove in the
rear of the immortal boy, and also of a looking-glass let ito
the wall, and also of clerks not at all old who danced in public
on the slightest provocation. Yet, a French Tellson's could
get on with these things exceedingly well, and, as long as the
times held together, no man had taken fright at them, and
drawn out his money.
What money would be drawn out of Tellson's, henceforth,
and what would lie there, lost and forgotten; what plate and
jewels would tarnish in Tellson's hiding-places, while the depositors rusted in prisons, and when they should have violently
perished; how many accounts with Tellson's never to be balanced
in this world, must be carried over into the next; no man could
have said, that night, any more than Mr. Jarvis Lorry could,
though he thought heavily of these questions. He sat by a
newly lighted wood fire (the blighted and unfruitful year was
prematurely cold), and on his honest and courageous face there
was a deeper shade than the pendant lamp could throw, or any
object in the room distortedly reflect-a shade of horror.
He occupied rooms in the Bank, in his fidelity to the house
of which he had grown to be a part, like strong root-ivy. It
chanced that they derived a kind of security from the patriotic
occupation of the main building, but the true-hearted old gentleman never calculated about that. All such circumstances
were indifferent to him, so that he did his duty. On the opposite side of the court-yard, under a colonnade, was extensive
standing for carriages —where, indeed, some carriages of Monseigneur yet stood. Against two of the pillars were fastened
two great flaring flambeaux, and, in the light of these, standing
out in the open air, was a large grindstone: a roughly mounted
thing, which appeared to have hurriedly been brought there from
some neighboring smithy, or other workshop. Rising and
looking out of window at these harmless objects, Mr. Lorry
shivered, and retired to his seat by the fire. He had opened,
not only the glass window, but the lattice blind outside it, and
he had closed both again, and he shivered through his frame.
From the street beyond the high wall and the strong gate,
there came the usual night hum of the city, with now and then
an indescribable ring in it, weird and unearthly, as if some
unwonted sounds of a terrible nature were going up to heaven.




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                  293
"Thank God," said Mr. Lorry, clasping his hands, "that no
one near and dear to me is in this dreadful town to-night.
May He have mercy on all who are in danger!"
Soon afterward, the bell at the great gate sounded, and he
thought, "They have come back!" and sat listening. But, there
was no loud irruption into the court-yard as he had expected,
and he heard the gate clash again, and all was quiet.
The nervousness and dread that were upon him inspired that
vague uneasiness respecting the Bank, which a great charge
would naturally awaken, with such feelings roused. It was
well guarded, and he got up to go among the trusty people
who were watching it, when his door suddenly opened, and two
figures rushed in, at sight of which he fell back in amazement.
Lucie and her father I Lucie with her arms stretched out to
him, and with that old look of earnestness so concentrated and
intensified, that it seemed as though it had been stamped upon
her face expressly to give force and power to it in this one passage of her life.
"What is this!" cried Mr. Lorry, breathless and confused.
"What is the matter?  Lucie! Manette! What has happened? What has brought you here? What is it?"
With the look fixed upon him, in her paleness and wildness
she panted out in his arms, imploringly, " Oh my dear friend!
My husband!"
"Your husband, Lucie?"
" Charles."
"What of Charles?"
" Here."
" Here, in Paris?"
"Has been here, some days-three or four.-I don't know
how many-I can't collect my thoughts. An errand of gen.
erosity brought him here unknown to us; he was stopped at
the barrier, and sent to prison."
The old man uttered an irrepressible cry. Almost at the
same moment, the bell of the great gate rang again, and a loud
noise of feet and voices came pouring into the court-yard.
"What is that noise?" said the Doctor, turning toward the
window.
" Don't look I" cried Mr. Lorry. " Don't look out I Manette,
for your life, don't touch the blind!"




294          A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
The Doctor turned, with his hand upon the fastening of tne
window, and said, with a cool, bold smile:
" My dear friend, I have a charmed life in this city. I have
been a Bastille prisoner. There is no patriot in Paris-in Paris?
-in France-who, knowing me to have been a prisoner in the
Bastille would touch me, except to overwhelm me with embraces,
or carry me in triumph. My old pain has given me a power
that has brought us through the barrier, and gained us news of
Charles there, and brought us here. I knew it would be so; I
knew I could help Charles out of all danger; I told Lucie so.
-What is that noise?"  His hand was again upon the window.
"Don't look I" cried Mr. Lorry, absolutely desperate.  "No,
Lucie, my dear, nor you!"  He got his arm around her, and
held her. " Don't be so terrified, my love. I solemnly swear
to you that I know of no harm having happened to Charles;
that I had no suspicion even, of his being in this fatal place.
What prison is he in?"
"La Force."
"La Force I Lucie, my child, if ever you were brave and
serviceable in your life-and you were always both-you will
compose yourself now, to do exactly as I bid you; for, more
depends upon it than you can think, or I can say. There is
no help for you in any action on your part to-night; you cannot
possibly stir out. I say this, because what I must bid you to do
for Charles's sake, is the hardest thing to do of all. You must
instantly be obedient, still, and quiet. You must let me put
you in a room at the back here. You must leave your father
and me alone for two minutes, and as there are Life and Death
in the world, you must not delay."
"I will be submissive to you. I see in your face that you
know I can do nothing else than this. I know you are true."
The old man kissed her, and hurried her into his room, and
turned the key; then, came hurrying back to the Doctor, and
opened the window and partly opened the blind, and put his
hand upon the Doctor's arm, and looked out with him into the
court-yard.
Looked out upon a throng of men and women: not enough
in number, or near enough, to fill the court-yard: not more than
forty or fifty in all. The people in possession of the house had




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A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                  295
let them in at the gate, and they had rushed in to work at the
grindstone; it had evidently been set up there for their purpose,
as in a cdnvenient and retired spot.
But, such awful workers, and such awful work!
The grindstone had a double handle, and, turning at it madly
were two men, whose faces, as their long hair flapped back
when the whirlings of the grindstone brought their faces up,
were more horrible and cruel than the visages of the wildest
savages in their most barbarous disguise. False eyebrows and
false mustaches were stuck upon them, and their hideous countenances were all bloody and sweaty, and all awry with howling,
and all staring and glaring with beastly excitement and want
of sleep. As these ruffians turned and turned, their matted
locks now flung forward over their eyes, now flung backward
over their necks, some women held wine to their mouths that
they might drink; and what with dropping blood, and what
with dropping wine, and what with the stream of sparks struck
out of the stone, all their wicked atmosphere seemed gore and
fire. The eye could not detect one creature in the group,
free from the smear of blood. Shouldering one another to
get next at the sharpening-stone, were men stripped to the
waist, with the stain all over their limbs and bodies; men in
all sorts of rags, with the stain upon those rags; men devilishly
set off with spoils of women's lace and silk and ribbon, with the
stain dyeing those trifles through and through. Hatchets,
knives, bayonets, swords, all brought to be sharpened, were all
red with it. Some of the hacked swords were tied to the
wrists of those who carried them, with strips of linen and fragments of dress: ligatures various in kind, but all deep of the
one color. And as the frantic wielders of these weapons
snatched them from the stream of sparks and tore away into
the streets, the same red hue was red in their frenzied eyes; —
eyes which any unbrutalized beholder would have given twenty
years of life, to petrify with a well-directed gun.
All this was seen in a moment, as the vision of a drowning
man, or of any human creature at any very great pass, could
see a world if it were there. They drew back from the window,
and the doctor looked for explanation in his friend's ashy face.
"They are," Mr. Lorry whispered the words glancing fear36




296          A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
fully round at the locked room, "murdering the prisoners.
If you are sure of what you say; if you really have the power
you think you have-as I believe you have-make yourself
known to these devils, and get taken to La Force. It may be
too late, I don't know, but let it not be a minute later!"
Doctor Manette pressed his hand, hastened bareheaded out
of the room, and was in the court-yard when Mr. Lorry regained
the blind.
His streaming white hair, his remarkable face, and the impetuous confidence of his manner, as he put the weapons aside
like water, carried him in an instant to the heart of the concourse at the stone. For a few moments there was a pause,
and a hurry, and a murmur, and the unintelligible sound of his
voice; and then Mr. Lorry saw him, surrounded by all, and in
the midst of a line twenty men long, all linked shoulder to
shoulder, and hand to shoulder, hurried out with cries of "Live
the Bastille prisoner! Help for the Bastille prisoner's kindred
in La Force I Room for the Bastille prisoner in front there I
Save the prisoner Evremonde at La Force!" and a thousand
answering shouts.
He closed the lattice again with a fluttering heart, closed
the window and the curtain, hastened to Lucie, and told her
that her father was assisted by the people, and gone in search
of her husband.  He found her child and Miss Pross with her;
but it never occurred to him to be surprised by their appearance
until a long time afterward, when he sat watching them in
such quiet as the night knew.
Lucie had, by that time, fallen into a stupor on the floor at
his feet, clinging to his hand. Miss Pross had laid the child
down on his own bed, and her head had gradually fallen on the
pillow beside her pretty charge. 0 the long, long night, with
the moans of the poor wife. And 0 the long, long night, with
no return of her father and no tidings I
Twice more in the darkness the bell at the great gate sounded,
and the irruption was repeated, and the grindstone whirled and
spluttered.  "What is it?" cried Lucie, affrighted.  "tHushI
The soldiers' swords are sharpened there," said Mr. Lorry.
"The place is national property now, and used as a kind of
armory, my love."




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  297
Twice more in all; but, the last spell of work was feeble and
fitful. Soon afterward the day began to dawn, and he softly
detached himself from the clasping hand, and cautiously looked
out again. A man, so besmneared that he might have been a
sorely wounded soldier creeping back to consciousness on a
field of slain, was rising from the pavement by the side of the
grindstone, and looking about him with a vacant air.  Shortly,
this worn-out murderer descried in the imperfect light one of
the carriages of Monseigneur, and, staggering to that gorgeous
vehicle, climbed in at the door, and shut himself up to take his
rest on its dainty cushions.
The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry
looked out again, and the sun was red on the court-yard.
But, the lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with a red upon it that the sun had never given, and
would never take away.




CHAPTER III.
THE SHADOW.
ONE of the first considerations which arose in the business
mind of Mr. Lorry when business hours came round, was this:
-that he had no right to imperil Tellson's by sheltering the
wife of an emigrant prisoner under the bank roof. His own
possessions, safety, life, he would have hazarded for Lucie and
her child, without a moment's demur; but, the great trust he
held was not his own, and as to that business charge he was
a strict man of business.
At first, his mind reverted to Defarge, and he thought of
finding out the wine-shop again and taking counsel with its
master in reference to the safest dwelling-place in the distracted
state of the city. But, the same consideration that suggested
him, repudiated him; he lived in the most violent Quarter, and
doubtless was influential there, and deep in its dangerous
workings.
Noon coming, and the Doctor not returning, and every
minute's delay tending to compromise Tellson's, Mr. Lorry
advised with Lucie. She said that her father had spoken of
hiring a lodging for a short term, in that Quarter, near the
Banking house. As there was no business objection to this,
and as he foresaw that even if it were all well with Charles, and
he were to be released, he could not hope to leave the city, Mr.
Lorry went out in quest of such a lodging, and found a suitable
one, high up in a removed by-street, where the closed blinds in
all the other windows of a high melancholy square of buildings
marked deserted homes.
To this lodging he at once removed Lucie and her child, and
Miss Pross: giving them what comfort he could, and much
more than he had himself.  He left Jerry with them, as a
figure to fill a doorway that would bear considerable knocking
(298)




A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                 299
on the head, and returned to his own occupations. A disturbed
and doleful mind he brought to bear upon them, and slowly
and heavily the day lagged on with him.
It wore itself out, and wore him out with it, until the Bank
closed. He was again alone in his room of the previous night,
considering what to do next, when he heard a foot upon the
stair. In a few moments, a man stood in his presence, who,
with a keenly observant look at him, addressed him by his
name.
"Your servant," said Mr. Lorry.  "Do you know me?"
He was a strongly made man with dark, curling hair, from
forty-five to fifty years of age. For answer he repeated, without any change of emphasis, the words:
"Do you know me?"
"I have seen you somewhere."
"Perhaps at my wine-shop?"
Much interested and agitated, Mr. Lorry said: "You come
from Doctor Manette?"
"Yes. I come from Doctor Manette."
" And what says he?  What does he send me?"
Defarge gave into his anxious hand, an open scrap of paper.
It bore the words in the Doctor's writing.
" Charles is safe, but I cannot safely leave this place yet. I
have obtained the favor that the bearer has a short note from
Charles to his wife. Let the bearer see his wife."
It was dated from La Force, within an hour.
" Will you accompany me," said Mr. Lorry, joyfully relieved
after reading this note aloud, " to where his wife resides?"
"Yes," returned Defarge.
Scarcely noticing, as yet, in what a curiously reserved and
mechanical way Defarge spoke, Mr. Lorry put on his hat and
they went down into the court-yard. There, they found two
women; one, knitting.
"Madame Defarge, surely!" said Mr. Lorry, who had left
her in exactly the same attitude some seventeen years ago.
" It is she," observed her husband.
"Does madame go with us?" inquired Mr. Lorry, seeing
that she moved as they moved.
"Yes. That she may be able to recognize the faces and
know the persons. It is for their safety."




300          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
Beginning to be struck by Defarge's manner, Mr. Lorry
looked dubiously at him, and led the way. Both the women
followed; the second woman being The Vengeance.
They passed through the intervening streets as quickly as
they might, ascended the staircase of the new domicile, were
admitted by Jerry, and found Lucie weeping, alone. She was
thrown into a transport by the tidings Mr. Lorry gave her of
her husband, and clasped the hand that delivered his notelittle thinking what it had been doing near him in the night,
and might, but for a chance. have done to him.
"DEAREST,-Take courage. I am well, and your father has
influence around me. You cannot answer this. Kiss our child
for me."
That was all the writing. It was so much, however, to her
who received it, that she turned from Defarge to his wife, and
kissed one of the hands that knitted. It was a passionate,
loving, thankful, womanly action, but the hand made no response-dropped cold and heavy, and took to its knitting
again.
There was something in its touch that gave Lucie a check.
She stopped in the act of putting the note in her bosom, and,
with her hands yet at her neck, looked terrified at Madame
Defarge. Madame Defarge met the lifted eyebrows and forehead with a cold, impassive stare.
"My dear," said Mr. Lorry, striking in to explain; "there
are frequent risings in the streets; and, although it is not likely
that they will ever trouble you, Madame Defarge wishes to see
those whom she has the power to protect at such times, to the
end that she may know them-that she may identify them. I
believe," said Mr. Lorry, rather halting in his reassuring words,
as the stony manner of all the three impressed itself upon him
more and more, " I state the case, Citizen Defarge?"
Defarge looked gloomily at his wife, and gave no other
answer than a gruff sound of acquiescence.
"You had better, Lucie," said Mr. Lorry, doing all he could
to propitiate, by tone and manner, " have the dear child here,
and our good Pross. Our good Pross, Defarge, is an English
lacdy and knows no French."




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                   301
The lady in question, whose rooted conviction that she was
more than a match for any foreigner, was not to be shaken by
distress and danger, appeared with folded arms, and observed
in English to The Vengeance whom her eyes first encountered,
i' Well, I am sure, Boldface! I hope you are pretty well!" She
also bestowed a British cough on Madame Defarge; but, neither
of the two took much heed of her.
" Is that his child?" said Madame Defarge, stopping in her
work for the first time, and pointing her knitting-needle at little
Lucie, as if it were the finger of Fate.
"Yes, madame," answered Mr. Lorry; "this is our poor
prisoner's darling daughter, and only child."
The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party
seemed to fall so threatening and dark on the child, that her
mother instinctively kneeled on the ground beside her, and
held her to her breast.  The shadow attendant on Madame
Defarge and her party seemed then to fall, threatening and
dark, on both the mother and the child.
" It is enough, my husband," said Madame Defarge. " I have
seen them.  We may go."
But, the suppressed manner had enough of menace in it-not
visible and presented, but indistinct and withheld-to alarm
Lucie into saying, as she laid her appealing hand on Madame
Defarge's dress:
" You will be good to my poor husband. You will do him
no harm. You will help me to see him if you can?"
"Your husband is not my business here," returned Madame
Defarge, looking down at her with perfect composure.  "It is
the daughter of your father who is my business here."
"For my sake, then, be merciful to my husband.  For my
child's sake! She will put her hands together and pray you
to be merciful. We are more afraid of you than of these
others. "
Madame Defarge received it as a compliment, and looked at
her husband. Defarge, who had been uneasily biting his
thumb-nail and looking at her, collected his face into a sterner
expression.
" What is it that your husband says in that little letter?"
asked Madame Defarge, with a lowering smile. "Influence;
he says something touching influence I"




302          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
"That my father," said Lucie, hurriedly taking the paper
from her breast, but with her alarmed eyes on her questioner,
and not on it, "has much influence around him."
" Surely it will release him!" said Madame Defarge.  "Let
It do so."
"As a wife and mother," cried Lucie, most earnestly, "I
implore you to have pity on me, and not to exercise any power
that you possess, against my innocent husband, but to use it
in his behalf. Oh, sister woman, think of me I As a wife and
mother!"
Madame Defarge looked coldly as ever at the suppliant, and
said, turning to her friend, The Vengeance:
" The wives and mothers we have been used to see, since we
were as little as this child, and much less, have not been greatly
considered? We have known their husbands and fathers laid
in prison and kept from them, often enough? All our lives,
we have seen our sister-women suffer, in themselves and in
their children, poverty, nakedness, hunger, thirst, sickness, misery, oppression and neglect of all kinds?"
" We have seen nothing else," returned The Vengeance.
"We have borne this a long time," said Madame Defarge,
turning her eyes again upon Lucie. "Judge you! Is it likely
that the trouble of one wife and mother would be much to us
now?"
She resumed her knitting and went out. The Vengeance
followed. Defarge went last, and closed the door.
"Courage, my dear Lucie," said Mr. Lorry, as he raised
her. " Courage, courage!  So far all goes well with usmuch, much better than it has of late gone with many poor
souls. Cheer up, and have a thankful heart."
"I am not thankless, I. hope, but that dreadful woman seems
to throw a shadow on me and on all my hopes."
"Tut, tut I" said Mr. Lorry; "what is this despondency in
the brave little breast? A shadow, indeed I No substance in
it, Lucie."
But the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark
upon himself, for all that, and in his secret mind it troubled
him greatly.




CHAPTER IV.
CALM IN A STORM.
DOCTOR MANETTE did not return until the morning of the
fourth day of his absence. So much of what had happened in
that dreadful time as could be kept from the knowledge of
Lucie, was so well concealed from her, that not until long
afterward, when France and she were far apart, did she know
that eleven hundred defenseless prisoners, of both sexes and
all ages, had been killed by the populace; that four days and
nights had been darkened by this deed of horror; and that the
air around her had- been tainted by the slain. She only knew
that there had been an attack upon the prisons, that all political prisoners had been in danger, and that some had been
dragged out by the crowd and murdered.
To Mr. Lorry, the Doctor communicated under an injunction
of secrecy on which he had no need to dwell, that the crowd
had taken him through a scene of carnage to the prison of La
Force.  That, in the prison he had found a self-appointecl
Tribunal sitting, before which the prisoners were brought
singly, and by which they were rapidly ordered to be put forth
to be massacred, or to be released, or (in a few cases) to be
sent back to their cells. That, presented by his conductors to
this Tribunal, he had announced himself by name and profession as having been for eighteen years a secret and an unaccused prisoner in the Bastille; that, one of the body so sitting
in judgment had risen and identified him, and that this man
was Defarge.
That, hereupon he had ascertained, through the registers on
the table, that his son-in-law was among the living prisoners,
and had pleaded hard to the Tribunal-of whom some members were asleep and some awake, some dirty with murder and
37                                   (303)




304          A TALE (IF TWO CITIES.
some clean, some sober and some not-for his life and liberty.
That, in the first frantic greetings lavished on himself as a
notable sufferer under the overthrown system, it had been
accorded to him to have Charles Darnay brought before the
lawless Court, and examined. That, he seemed on the point
of being at once released, when the tide in his favor met with
some unexplained check (not intelligible to the Doctor), which
led to a few words of secret conference.  That, the man sitting
as President had then informed Doctor Manette that the prisoner must remain in custody, but should, for his sake, be held
inviolate in safe custody.  That, immediately, on a signal, the
prisoner was removed to the interior of the prison again; but
that he, the Doctor, had then so strongly pleaded for permission to remain and assure himself that his son-in-law was,
through no malice or mischance, delivered to the concourse
whose murderous yells outside the gate had often drowned the
proceedings; that he had obtained the permission, and had remained in that Hall of Blood until the danger was over.
The sights he had seen there, with brief snatches of food and
sleep by intervals, shall remain untold.  The mad joy over the
prisoners who were saved, had astounded him scarcely less
than the mad ferocity against those who were cut to pieces.
One prisoner there was, he said, who had been discharged into
the street free, but at whom a mistaken savage had thrust a
pike as he passed out.  Being besought to go to him and dress
the wound, the Doctor had passed out at the same gate, and
had found him in the arms of a company of Samaritans, who
were seated on the bodies of their victims.  With an inconsistency as monstrous as any thing in this awful nightmare,
they had helped the healer, and  tended  the wounded man
with the gentlest solicitude-had made a litter for him and
escorted him carefully fiom the spot-had then caught up their
weapons and plunged anew into a butchery so dreadful, that
the Doctor had covered his eyes with his hands, and swooned
away in the midst of it.
As Mr. Lorry received these confidences, and as he watched
the face of his friend now sixty-two years of age, a misgiving
arose within him that such dread experiences would revive the
old danger. iBut, he had never seen his friend in his present




A  TALE  OF TWVO  CITIES.                 305
aspect; he had never at all known himn in his present character.  For the first time the Doctor felt, now, that his suffering was strength and power.  For the first titme, he felt that
in that sharp fire, he had slowly forged the iron which could
break the prison door of his daughter's husband, and deliver
him.  " It all tended to a good end, my friend; it was not
mere waste and ruin.  As my beloved child was helpful in
restoring me to myself; I will be lhelpful now in restoring the
dearest part of herself to her; by the aid of heaven I will do
it!" Thus, Doctor Manette. And when Jarvis Lorry saw
the kindled eyes, the resolute face, the calm  strong look and
bearing of the man whose life always seemed to him to have
been stopped, like a clock, for so many years, and then set
going again with an energy which had laid dormant during the
cessation of its usefulness, he believed greater things than
the Doctor had at that timne to contend with, would have
yielded before his persevering purpose.
While he kept himself in his place, as a physician whose business was with all degrees of mankind, bond and free, rich and
poor, bad and good, he used his personal influence so wisely,
that he was soon the inspecting pllhysicia  of three prisons, and
among them  of La Force.  IHe could ()now assure Lucie that
her husband was no longer confined alolle, but was mixed with
the general body of prisoners; lie saw her husband weekly,
and brought sweet messages to her,, straight froom his lips;
sometimes her husband himself sent a letter to her, (though
never by the Doctor's hand), but she was not permitted to
write to him; for, among the many wild suspicions of plots in
the prisons, the wildest of all pointed at emigrants who were
known to have made fiiends or permanent connections abroad.
This new life of the Doctor's was an anxious life, no doublt;
still, the sagacious Mlr. Lorry saw that there was a new sustaining pride in it.  Nothing unbecoming tinged the pride; it
was a natural and worthy one; but, he observed it as a curiosity.  The Doctor knew, that up to that time, his imprisonment had been associated in the minds of his daughter and his
friend, with his personal affliction, deprivation, and weakness.
Now that this was changed, and lie knew himnself to be invested,
through that old trial, witll forces to which, they both looked




306           A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.
for Charles's ultimate safety and deliverance, he became so far
exalted by the change, that he took the lead and direction, and
required them as the weak, to trust to him as the strong.  The
preceding relative position of himself and Lucie were reversed,
yet only as the liveliest gratitude and affection could reverse
them, for he could have had no pride but in rendering some service to her who had rendered so much to him. " All curious
to see," thought Mr. Lorry, in his amiably shrewd way, "but
all natural and right; so, take the lead, my dear friend, and
keep it; it couldn't be in better hands."
But, though the Doctor tried hard, and never ceased trying
to get Charles Darnay set at liberty, or at least to get him
brought to trial, the public current of the time set too strong
and fast for him.  The new Era began; the king was tried,
doomed, and beheaded; the Republic of Liberty, Equality,
_Fraternity, or Death, declared for victory or death against
the world in arms; the black flag waved night and day from
the great towers of Notre-Dame; three hundred thousand
men, summoned to rise against the tyrants of the earth, rose
from all the varying soils of France, as if the dragon's teeth
had been sown broadcast, and had yielded fruit equally on
hill and plain, on rock, in gravel, and alluvial mud, under the
bright sky of the South, and under the clouds of the North,
in fell and forest, in the vineyards and the olive-grounds, and
amonlg the cropped grass and the stubble of the corn, along the
fruitful banks of the broad rivers, and in the sand of the seashore.  What private solicitude could rear itself against the
deluge of the Year One of Liberty —the deluge rising from
below, not falling from above, and with the windows of HIeaven
shut, not opened!
There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting
rest, no measurement of time.  Though days and nights circled
as regularly as when time was young, and the evening and  the
morning were the first day, other count of time there was none.
Hold of it was lost in the raging fever of a nation, as it is in
the fever of one patient.  Now, breaking the unnatural silence
of a whole city, the executioner showed the people the head
of tlie kilng —and low. it seemed l almost in the same breatlh,
the head of his fair Nwife(, whlichl llad had eight weary months
of imprisoned widowhood and luisery, to turn it gray.




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  30/
And yet, observing the strange law of contradiction which
obtains in all such cases, the time was long, while it flamed by
so fast. A revolutionary tribunal in the capital, and forty or
fifty thousand revolutionary committees all over the land; a
law of the Suspected, which struck away all security for liberty
or life, and delivered over any good and innocent person to
any bad and guilty one; prisons gorged with people who had
committed no offense, and could obtain no hearing; these
things became the established order and nature of appointed
things, and seemed to be ancient usage before they were many
weeks old. Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as
if it had been before the general gaze from the foundations
of the world-the figure of the sharp female called La Guillotine.
It was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure for
headache; it infallibly prevented hair from turning gray; it
imparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion; it was the
National Razor which shaved close: who kissed La Guillotine,
looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack.
It was the sign of the regeneration of the human race.  It
superseded the Cross.  Models of it were worn on breasts
from which the Cross was discarded, and it was bowed down
to and believed in where the Cross was denied.
It sheared off heads so many, that it, and the ground it almost
polluted, were a rotten red.  It was taken to pieces, like a
toy puzzle for a young Devil, and was put together again
where the occasion wanted it. It hushed the eloquent, struck
down the powerful, abolished the beautiful and good. Twentytwo friends of high public mark, twenty-one living and one
dead, it had lopped the heads off, in one morning, in as many
minutes. The name of the strong man of Old Scripture had
descended to the chief functionary who worked it; but, so
armed, he was stronger than his namesake and blinder, and
tore away the gates of God's own Temple every day.
Among these terrors, and the brood belonging to them, the
Doctor walked with a steady head; confident in his power,
cautiously persistent in his end, never doubting that he would
save Lucie's husband at last.  Yet the current of the time
swept by, so strong and deep, and carried the time away so




308           A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.
fiercely, that Charles had lain in prison one year and three
months when the Doctor was thus steady and confident.  So
much more wicked and distracted had the Revolution grown
in that December month, that the rivers of the South were encumbered with the bodies of the violently drowned by night,
and prisoners were shot in lines and squares under the southern
wintry sun.  Still, the Doctor walked among the terrors with
a steady head. No man better known than he ill Paris at that
day; no man in a stranger situation.  Silent, humane, indispensable in hospital and prison, using his art equally among
assassins and victims, he was a man apart.  In the exercise
of his skill, the appearance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all other men.  He was not suspected
or brought in question, any more than if he had indeed been
recalled to life some eighteen years before, or were a Spirit
moving among mortals.




CHAPTER V.
THE WOOD-SAWYER.
ONE year and three months. During all that time Lucie
was never sure, from hour to hour, but that the Guillotine
would strike off her husband's head next day. Every day,
through the stony streets, the tumbrils now jolted heavily, filled
with Condemned.  Lovely girls; bright women, brown-haired,
black-haired, and gray; youths; stalwart men and old; gentle
born and peasanit born; all red wine for La Guillotine, all
daily brought into light from the dark cellars of the loathsome
prisons,' and carried to her through the streets to slake her devouring thirst.  Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death; the
last much the easiest to bestow, 0 Guillotine!
If the suddenness of her calamity, and the whirling wheels
of the time, had stunned the Doctor's daughter into awaiting
the result in idle despair, it would but have been with her as it
was with many.  But, from the hour when she had taken the
white head to her fresh young bosom in the garret of Saint
Antoine, she had been true to her duties.  She was truest to
them in the season of trial, as all the quietly loyal and good
will always be.
As soon as they were established in their new residence, and
her father had entered on the routine of his avocations, she
arranged the little household as exactly as if her husband had
been there. Every thing had its appointed place and its appointed time.  Little Lucie she taught as regularly as if they
had all been united in their English home. The slight devices with which she cheated herself into the show of a belief
that they would soon be reunited-the little preparations for
his speedy return, the setting aside of his chair and his booksthese, and the solemn prayer at night for one dear prisoner
(309)




310          A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.
especially, among the many unhappy souls in prison, and the
shadow of death-were almost the only out-spoken reliefs of
her heavy mind.
She did not yet greatly alter in appearance. The plain
dark dresses, akin to mourning dresses, which she and her
child wore, were as neat and as well attended to as the brighter
clothes of happy days.  She lost her color, and the old intent
expression was a constant, not an occasional thing: otherwise,
she remained very pretty and comely.  Sometimes, at night
on kissing her father, she would burst into the grief she had
repressed all day, and would say that her sole reliance, under
Heaven, was on him.  He always resolutely answered:" Nothing can happen to him without my knowledge, and I
know that I can save him, Lucie."
They had not made the round of their changed life many
weeks, when her father said to her, on coming home, one evening:
" My dear, there is an upper window in the prison, to which
Charles can sometimes gain access at three in the afternoon.
When he can get to it —which depends on many uncertainties
and incidents-he might see you in the street, he thinks, if you
stood in a certain place that I can show you.  But you will
not be able to see him, my poor child, and even if you could,
it would be unsafe for you to make a sign of recognition."
" 0 show me the place, my father, and I will go there every
day."
From that time, in all weathers, she waited there two hours.
As the clock struck two, she was there, and at four she turned
resignedly away. When it was not too wet or inclement for
her child to be with her, they went together; at other times
she was alone; but she never missed a single day.
It was the dark and dirty corner of a small winding street.
The hovel of a cutter of wood into lengths for burning, was
the only house at that end; all else was wall.  On the third
day of her being there, he noticed her.
"Good-day, citizeness."'
"Good-day, citizen."
This mode of address was now prescribed bly decree.  Tt
had been established voluntarily some time ago, among the
more thorough patriots; but, was now law for everybody."




"~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1
It   I-Z-t'~i'~iIiiilil l?!~!,',?,       ~  ~~..    ~  ~I,~,
SRll
AI i                                                     I~I
I CALL MYSELF THE SAMSON OF TH  FIEWOOD GUILLOTINE.-PAE 311.
i                   i!                                        CALLMSEFTESMOOFTEFRWODGLLTEPAE31








A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  311
"Walking here again, citizeness?"
"You see me, citizen!"
The wood-sawyer, who was a little man with a redundancy
of gesture, (he had once been a mender of roads), cast a glance
at the prison, pointed at the prison, and putting his ten fingers
before his face to represent the bars, peeped through them
jocosely.
"But it's not my business," said he.  And went on sawing
his wood.
Next day, he was looking out for her, and accosted her the
moment she appeared.
" What! Walking here again, citizeness?"
"Yes, citizen."
"Ah I A  child too! Your mother, is it not, my little
citizeness?"
"Do I say yes, mamma?" whispered little Lucie, drawing
close to her.
"Yes, dearest."
"Yes, citizen."
" Ah I But it's not my business. My work is my business.
See my saw l I call it my Little Guillotine.  La, la, la! La,
la, la! And off his head comes!"
The billet fell as he spoke, and he threw it into a basket.
"I call myself the Sainson of the firewood guillotine.  See
here again! Loo, loo, loo! Loo, loo, loo  And off her
head comes I Now, a child. Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle!
And off its head comes I All the family I"
Lucie shuddered as he threw two more billets into his basket, but it was impossible to be there while the wood-sawyer
was at work, and not be in his sight.  Thenceforth, to secure
his good-will, she always spoke to him  first, and often gave
him drink-money, which he readily received.
IHe was an inquisitive fellow, and sometimes when she had
quite forgotten him in gazing at the prison roofs and grates,
and in lifting her heart up to her husband, she would come to
herself to find him looking at her, with his knee on his bench
and his saw stopped in its work.  "But it's not my business!"
le would generally say at those times, and briskly fall to his
sawing again.
38




312           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
In all weathers, in the snow and frosts of winter, in the
bitter winds of spring, in the hot sunshine of summer, in the
rains of autumn, and again in the snow and frosts of winter,
Lucie passed two hours of every day at this place; and every
day, on leaving it, she kissed the prison wall.  Her husband
saw her, (so she learned from her father), it might be once in
five or six times: it might be twice or thrice running: it might
be, not for a week or a fortnight together. It was enough
that he could and did see her when the chances served, and on
that possibility, she would have waited out the day, seven days
a week.
These occupations brought her round to the December month,
wherein her father walked among the terrors with a steady bead.
On a lightly snowing afternoon she arrived at the usual corner.  It was a day of some wild rejoicing, and a festival.  She
had seen the houses, as she came along, decorated with little
pikes, and with little red caps stuck upon them; also, with tricolored ribbons; also, with the standard inscription, (tricolored
letters were the favorite), Republic One and Indivisible.  Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death!
The miserable shop of the wood-sawyer was so small, that
its whole surface furnished very indifferent space for this legend.
He had got somebody to scrawl it up for him, however, who
had squeezed Death in with most inappropriate difficulty.  On
his house-top, he displayed pike and cap, as a good citizen
must, and in a window he had stationed his saw, inscribed as
his " Little Saint Guillotine"-for the great sharp female was
by that time popularly canonized.  His shop was shut and he
was not there, which was a relief to Lucie, and left her quite
alone.
But, he was not far off, for presently she heard a troubled
movement and a shouting coming along, which filled her with
fear.  A moment afterward, and a throng of people came pouring round the corner by the prison wall, in the midst of whom
was the wood-sawyer, hand-in-hand with The Vengeance.
There could not be fewer than five hundred people, and they
were dancing like five thousand demons.  There was no other
music than their own singing.  They danced to the popular
Revolution song, keeping a ferocious time that was like a




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                   313
gnashing of teeth in unison. Men and women danced together,
women danced together, men danced together, as hazard had
brought them  together.  At first, they were a mere storm of
coarse red caps and coarse woolen rags; but, as they filled the
place, and stopped to dance about Lucie, some ghastly apparition of a dance-fig-ure gone raving mad, rose among them.
They advanced, retreated, struck at one another's hands,
clutched at one another's heads, spun round alone, caught one
another and spun round in pairs, until many of them dropped.
While those were down, the rest linked hand-in-hand, and all
spun round together; then the ring broke, and in separate
rings of two and four they turned and turned until they all
stopped at once, began again, struck, clutched, and tore, and
then reversed the spin, and all spun round another way.  Suddenly they stopped again, paused, struck out the time afresh,
formed into lines the width of the public way, and, with their
heads low down and their hands high up, swooped screaming
off. No fight could have been half so terrible as this dance.
It was so emphatically a fallen sport-a something once innocent delivered over to all devilry-a healthy pastime changed
into a means of angering the blood, bewildering the senses,
and steeling the heart,  Such grace as was visible in it, made
it the uglier, showing how warped and perverted all things
good by nature were become.  The maidenly bosom  bared to
this, the pretty almost-child's head thus distracted, the delicate
foot mincing in this slough of blood and dirt, were types of the
disjointed time.
This was the Carmagnole.  As it passed, leaving Lucie
frightened and bewildered in the doorway of the wood-sawyer's
house, the feathery snow fell as quietly and lay as white and
soft, as if it had never been.
"0 my father!" for he stood before her when she lifted up
the eyes she had momentarily darkened with her hand; "such a
cruel, bad sight! "
"I know, my dear, I know.  I have seen it many times.
Don't be frightened! Not one of them would harim you.'
"I am not frightened for myself, my father.  But when I
think of my husband, and the mercies of these people- -"
" We will set him above their mercies, very soon.  I left him




314          A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
climbing to the window, and I came to tell you. There is no
one here to see. You may kiss your hand toward the highest
shelving roof."
"I do so, father, and I send my Soul with it,"'
"You cannot see him, my poor dear?"
"No, father," said Lucie, yearning and weeping as she
kissed her hand, " no."
A footstep in the snow. Madame Defarge. "I salute you,
citizeness," from the Doctor. " I salute you, citizen." This
in passing.  Nothing more. Madame Defarge gone, like a
shadow over the white road.
" Give me your arm, my love. Pass from here with an air
of cheerfulness and courage, for his sake. That was well done;"
they had left the spot; "it shall not be in vain.  Charles is
summoned for to-morrow."
"For to-morrow 1"
" There is no time to lose. I am well prepared, but there are
precautions to be taken, that could not be taken until he was
actually summoned before the Tribunal. He has not received
tbe notice yet, but I know that he will presently be summoned
for to-morrow, and remove to the Conciergerie; I have timely
information.  You are not afraid?"
She could scarcely answer, "I trust in you."
"Do so, implicitly. Your suspense is nearly ended, my
darling; he shall be restored to you within a few hours; I
have encompassed him with every protection. I must see
Lorry."
He stopped. There was a heavy lumbering of wheels within
hearing. They both knew too well what it meant. One.
Two. Three. Three tumbrils faring away with their dread
loads over the hushing snow.
"I must see Lorry," the Doctor repeated, turning her
another way.
The stanch old gentleman was still in his trust: had never
left it.  He and his books were in frequent requisition as to
property confiscated and made national.  What he could save
for the owners, he saved. No better mall living to hold fast
by what Tellson's had in keeping, and to hold his peace.
A murky red and yellow sky, and a rising mist from the




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  315
Seine, denoted the approach of darkness. It was almost dark
when they arrived at the Bank. The stately residence of
Monseigneur was altogether blighted and deserted.  Above a
heap of dust and ashes in the court, ran the letters: National
Property. Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity, or Death.
Who could that be with Mr. Lorry-the owner of the riding-coat upon the chair-who must not be seen? From whom
newly-arrived, did he come out, agitated and surprised, to take
his favorite in his arms? To whom did he appear to repeat
her faltering words, when, raising his voice and turning his
head toward the door of the room from which he had issued,
he said: "Removed to the Conciergerie, and summoned for
to-morrow?"




CHAPTER VI.
TRIUMPH.
THE dread Tribunal of five Judges, Public Prosecutor, and
determined Jury, sat every day.  Their lists went forth every
evening, and were read out by the gaolers of the various prisons
to their prisoners.  The standard gaoler-joke was, "Come out
and listen to the Evening Paper, you inside there!"
" Charles Evremonde, called Darnay!"
So, at last, began the Evening Paper at La Force.
When a name was called, its owner stepped apart into a spot
reserved for those who were announced as being thus fatally
recorded.  Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, had reason to
know the usage; he had seen hundreds pass away so.
His bloated gaoler, who wore spectacles to read with, glanced
over them to assure himself that he had taken his place, and
went through the list, making a similar short pause at each
name. There were twenty-three names, but only twenty were
responded to; for, one of the prisoners so summoned had died
in gaol and been forgotten, and two had been already guillotined and forgotten. The list was read, in the vaulted
chamber where Darnay had seen the associated prisoners on
the night of his arrival. Every one of those had perished in
the massacre; every human creature he had since cared for and
parted with, had died on the scaffold.
There were hurried words of farewell and kindness, but the
parting was soon over. It was the incident of every day, and
the society of La Force were engaged in the preparation of
some games of forfeits and a little concert, for that evening.
They crowded to the gates and shed tears there; but, twenty
places in the projected entertainments had to be refilled, and
the time was, at best, short to the lock-up hour, when the common rooms and corridors would be delivered over to the great
(316)




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                   317
dogs who kept watch there through the night.  The prisoners
were far from insensible or unfeeling; their ways arose out of
the condition of the time.  Similarly, though with a subtle
difference, a species of fervor or intoxication, known, without
doubt, to have led some persons to brave the guillotine unnecessarily, and to die by it, was not mere boastfulness, but a
wild infection of the wildly shaken public mind. In seasons
of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the
disease-a terrible passing inclination to die of it.  And all of
us have like wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them.
The passage to the Conciergerie was short and dark; the
night in its vermin-haunted cells was long and cold.  Next
day, fifteen prisoners were put to the bar before Charles
Darnay's name was called.  All the fifteen were condemned,
and the trials of the whole occupied an hour and a half.
"Charles Evrernonde, called Darnay," was at length arraigned.
His Judges sat upon the Bench in feathered hats; but the
rough red cap and tricolored cockade was the head-dress otherwise prevailing.  Looking at the Jury and the turbulent audience he might have thought that the usual order of things was
reversed, and that the felons were trying the honest men.
The lowest, cruelest, and worst populace of a city, never without its quantity of low, cruel, and bad, were the directing
spirits of the scene: noisily commenting, applauding, disapproving, anticipating, and precipitating the result, without a
check. Of the men, the greater part were armed in various
ways; of the women, some wore knives, some daggers, some
ate and drank as they looked on, many knitted. Among these
last, was one, with a spare piece of knitting under her arm as
she worked. She was in a front row, by the side of a man
whom he had never seen since his arrival at the Barrier, but
whom he directly remembered as Defarge.  He noticed that
she once or twice whispered in his ear, and that she seemed to
be his wife; but, what he most noticed in the two figures was,
that although they were posted as close to himself as they
could be, they never looked toward him. They seemed to be
waiting for something with a dogged determination, and they




318          A TALE  OF TWO CITIES.
looked at the Jury, but at nothing else. Under the President
sat Doctor Manette, in his usual quiet dress. As well as the
prisoner could see, he and Mr. Lorry were the only men there,
unconnected with the Tribunal, who wore their usual clothes,
and had not assumed the coarse garb of the Carmagnole.
Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, was accused by the public
prosecutor as an aristocrat and an emigrant, whose life was
forfeit to the Republic, under the decree which banished all
emigrants on pain of Death.  It was nothing that the decree
bore date since his return to France. There he was, and there
was the decree; he had been taken in France, and his head
was demanded.
" Take off his head!" cried the audience.  "An enemy to
the Republic!"
The President rang his bell to silence those cries, and asked
the prisoner whether it was not true that he had lived many
years in England?
Undoubtedly it was.
Was he not an emigrant then?  What did he call himself?
Not an emigrant, he hoped, within the sense and spirit of
the law.
" Why not?" the President desired to know.
Because he had voluntarily relinquished a title that was distasteful to him, and a station that was distasteful to him, and
had left his country —he submitted, before the word emigrant
in its present acceptation by the Tribunal was in use-to live
by his own industry in England, rather than on the industry
of the overladen people of France.
What proof had he of this?
He handed in the names of two witnesses: Theophile Gabelle,
and Alexandre Manette.
But he had married in England? the President reminded him.
True, but not an English woman.
A citizeness of France?
Yes. By birth.
Her name and family?
"Lucie Manette, only daughter of Doctor Manlette, the good
physician who sits there."
This answer had a happy effect upon the audience. Cries




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  319
in exaltation of the well-known good physician rent the hall.
So capriciously were the people moved, that tears immediately
rolled down several ferocious countenances which had been
glaring at the prisoner a moment before, as if with impatience
to pluck him out into the streets and kill him.
On these few steps of his dangerous way, Charles Darnay
had set his foot according to Doctor Manette's reiterated instructions.  The same cautious counsel directed every step
that lay before him, and had prepared every inch of his road.
The President asked why had he returned to France when
he did, and not sooner?
He had not returned sooner, he replied, simply because he
had no means of living in France, save those he had resigned;
whereas, in England, he lived by giving instruction in the
French language and literature.  He had returned when he
did, on the pressing and written entreaty of a French citizen,
who represented that his life was endangered by his absence.
He had come back, to save a citizen's life, and to bear his
testimony, at whatever personal hazard, to the truth.  WVas
that criminal in the eyes of the republic?
The populace cried enthusiastically, "No!" and the I'resident
rang his bell to quiet them.  Which it did not, for they continued to cry " No!" until they left off, of their own will.
The President required the name of that citizen? The
accused explained that the citizen was his first witness.  He
also referred with confidence to the citizen's letter, which had
been taken from him at the Barrier, but which he did not doubt
would be found among the papers then before the President.
The Doctor had taken care that it should be there-had
assured him that it would be there-and at this stage of the
proceedings it was produced and read. Citizen Gabelle was
called to confirm it, and did so. Citizen Gabelle hinted, with
infinite delicacy and politeness, that in the pressure of business.
imposed on the Tribunal by the multitude of enemies of the
Republic with which it had to deal, he had been slightly overlooked in his prison of the Abbaye-in fact, had rather passed
out of the Tribunal's patriotic remembrance —until three days
ago; when lie had been summoned before it, and had been set
at liberty on the jury's declaring themselves satisfied that the
39




320          A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.
accusation against him  was answered, as to himself, by the
surrender of the citizen Evremonde, called Darnay..Doctor Manette was next questioned.  His high personal
popularity, and the clearness of his answers, made a great impression; but, as he proceeded-as lie showed that the accused
was his first friend on his release from his long imprisonment;
that the accused had remained in England, always faithful and
devoted to his daughter and himself in their exile; that, so
far from being in favor with the aristocrat government there,
he had actually been tried for his life by it, as the foe of
England and a friend of the United States-as he brought these
circumstances into view, with the greatest discretion and with
the straightforward force of truth and earnestness, the Jury and
the populace became one. At last, when he appealed by name
to Monsieur Lorry, an English gentleman then and there
present, who, like himself, had been a witness on that English
trial and could corroborate his account of it, the Jury declared
that they had heard enough, and that they were ready with
their votes if the President were content to receive them.
At every vote (the Jurymen voted aloud and individually),
the populace set up a shout of applause. All the voices were
in the prisoner's favor, and the President declared him free.
Then, began one of those extraordinary scenes with which
the populace sometimes gratified their fickleness, or their better
impulses toward generosity and mercy, or which they regarded
as some set-off against their swollen account of cruel rage.
No man can decide now to which of these motives such extraordinary scenes were referable; it is probable, to a blending of
all the three, with the second predominating. No sooner was
the acquittal pronounced, than tears were shed as freely as
blood at another time, and such fraternal embraces were bestowed upon the prisoner by as many of both sexes as could
rush at him, that after his long and unwholesome confinement
he was in danger of fainting from exhaustion; none the less
because he knew- very well, that the very same people, carried
by another current, would have rushed at him with the very
same intensity, to rend him to pieces and strew him over the
streets.
His removal, to make way for other accused persons who




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                 321
were to be tried, rescued him from these caresses for the moment.  Five were to be tried together, next, as enemies of the
Republic, forasmuch as they had not assisted it by word or
deed.  So quick was the Tribunal to compensate itself and the
nation for a chance lost, that these five came down to him before he left the place, condemned to die within twenty-four
hours.  The first of them told him so, with the customary
prison sign of Death-a raised finger —and they all added in
words, " Long live the Republic'"
The five had had, it is true, no audience to lengthen their
proceedings, for when he and Doctor Manette emerged from
the gate, there was a great crowd about it, in which there
seemed to be every face he had seen in Court-except two,
for which he looked in vain. On his coming out, the concourse made at him anew, weeping, embracing, and shouting,
all by turns and a11l together, until the very tide of the river
on the bank of which the mad scene was acted, seem to run
mad, like the people on the shore.
They put him into a great chair they had among them, and
which they had taken either out of the Court itself, or one of
its rooms or passages.  Over the chair they had thrown a red
flag, and to the back of it they had bound a pike with a red
cap on its top.  In this car of triumph, not even the Doctor's
entreaties could prevent his being carried to his home on
men's shoulders, with a confused sea of red caps heaving about
him, and casting up to sight from the stormy deep such wrecks
of faces, that he more than once misdoubted his mind being in
confusion, and that he was in the tumbril on his way to the
Guillotine.
In wild, dreamlike procession, embracing whom they met,
and pointing him out, they carried him on. Reddening the
snowy streets with the prevailing Republican color, in winding and trampling through them, as they had reddened them
below the snow with a deeper dye, they carried him thus into
the courtyard of the building where he lived. Her father had
gone on before, to prepare her, and when her husband stood
upon his feet, she dropped insensible into his arms.
As he held her to his heart and turned her beautiful head
between his face and the brawling crowd, so that his tears and
20




322           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
her lips might come together unseen, a few of the people fell
to dancing.  Instantly, all the rest fell to dancing, and the
courtyard overflowed with the Carmagnole.  Then, they elevated into the vacant chair a young woman from the crowd,
to be carried as the Goddess of Liberty, and then, swelling
and overflowing out into the adjacent streets, and along the
river's bank, and over the bridge, the Carmagnole absorbed
them every one and whirled them away
After grasping the Doctor's hand, as he stood victorious and
proud before him; after grasping the hand of Mr. Lorry, who
came panting in breathless from his struggle against the waterspout of the Carmagnole; after kissing little Lucie, who was
lifted up to clasp her arms round his neck; and after embracing the ever zealous and faithful Pross who lifted her, he
took his wife in his arms and carried her up to their rooms.
"Lucie! My own! I am safe!"
" 0 dearest Charles! let me thank God for this on my knees
as I have prayed to Him."
They all reverently bowed their heads and hearts. When
she was again in his arms, he said to her:
"And now speak to your father, dearest. No other man in
all this France could have done what he has done for me."
She laid her head upon her father's breast as she had laid
his poor head on her own breast, long, long ago.  He was
happy in the return he had made her, he was recompensed for
his suffering, he was proud of his strength.  "You mlust not
be weak, my darling," he remonstrated; "don't tremble so. I
have saved him."




CHAPTER  VII.
A KNOCK AT THE DOOR.
"I HAVE saved him."  It was not another of the dreams in
which he had often come back; he was really here. And yet
his wife trembled, and a vague but heavy fear was upon her.
All the air around was so thick and dark, the people were
so passionately revengeful and fitful, the innocent were so constantly put to death on vague suspicion and black malice, it
was so impossible to forget that many as blameless as her husband and as dear to others as he was to her, every day shared
the fate from which he had been clutched, that her heart could
not be as lightened of its load as she felt it ought to be.  The
shadows of the wintry afternoon were beginning to fall, and
even now the dreadful carts were rolling through the streets.
Her mind pursued them, looking for him  among the Condemned; and then she clung closer to his real presence, and
trembled more.
Her father, cheering her, showed a compassionate superiority to this woman's weakness, which was wonderful to see.
No garret, no shoemaking, no One Hundred and Five, North
Tower, now I He had accomplished the task he had set himself, his promise was redeemed he had saved Charles. Let
them all lean upon him.
Their housekeeping was of a very frugal kind; not only because that was the safest way of life, involving the least offense
to the people, but because they were not rich, and Charles,
throughout his imprisonment, had had to pay heavily for his
bad food, and for his guard, and toward the living of the
poorer prisoners.  Partly on this account, and partly to avoid
a domestic spy, they kept no servant; the citizen and citizeness
who acted as porters at the court-yard gate, rendered theIn
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324          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
occasional service; and Jerry (almost wholly transferred to
them by Mr. Lorry) had become their daily retainer, and had
his bed there every night.
It was an ordinance of the Republic One and Indivisible of
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, that on the door or
door-post of every house, the name of every inmate must be
legibly inscribed in letters of a certain size, at a certain convenient height from the ground.  Mr. Jerry Cruncher's name,
therefore, duly embellished the door-post down below; and, as
the afternoon shadows deepened, the owner of that name himself appeared, from overlooking a painter whom Doctor
Manette had employed to add to the list the name of Charles
Evr6monde, called Darnay.
In the universal fear and distrust that darkened the time,
all the usual harmless ways of life were changed. In the
Doctor's little household, as in very many others, the articles
of daily consumption that were wanted, were purchased every
evening, in small quantities, and at various small shops. To
avoid attracting notice, and to give as little occasion as possible for talk and envy, was the general desire.
For some months past, Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher had
discharged the office of purveyors: the former carrying the
money, the latter the basket.  Every afternoon, at about the
time when the public lamps were lighted, they fared forth on
this duty, and made and brought home such purchases as were
needful.  Although Miss Pross, through her long association
with a French family, might have known as much of their
language as of her own, if she had had a mind, she had no
mind in that direction; consequently she knew no more of
"that nonsense," (as she was pleased to call it,) than Mr.
Cruncher did. So her manner of marketing was to plump a
noun-substantive at the head of a shopkeeper without any introduction in the nature of an article, and, if it happened not
to be the name of the thing she wanted, to look round for
that thing, lay hold of it, and hold on by it until the bargain
was concluded. She always made a bargain for it, by holding
up, as a statement of its just price, one finger less than the
merchant held up, whatever his number might be.
" Now, Mr. Cruncher," said Miss Pross, whose eyes were
red with felicity; " if you are ready, I am."




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                    325
Jerry hoarsely professed himself at Miss Pross's service. He
had worn all his rust off long ago, but nothing would file his
spiky head down.
"There's all manner of things wanted," said Miss Pross,
"and we shall have a precious time of it.  We want wine,
amiong the rest.  Nice toasts these Redheads will be drinking, wherever we buy it."
" It will be much the same to your knowledge, miss, I
should think," retorted Jerry, "whether they drink your
health or the Old Un's.'"
" Who's he?" said Miss Pross.
Mir. Cruncher, with some diffidence, explained himself as
meaning " Old Nick's."
" Ha!" said Miss Pross, " it doesn't need an interpreter to
explain the meaning of these creatures. They have but one,
and it's Midnight M/[urder and Mischief."
" Hush, dear! Pray, pray, be cautious!" cried Lucie.
"Yes, yes, yes, I'll be cautious," said Miss Pross; "but I
may say among ourselves, that I do hope there will be no
oniony and tobaccoey smotherings in the form of embracings
going on in the streets.  Now, Ladybird, never you stir from
that fire till I come back! Take care of the dear husband
you have recovered, and don't move your pretty head from
his shoulder as you have it now, till you see me again! May
I ask a question, Doctor Manette, before I go?"
"I think you may take that liberty," the Doctor, answered,
smiling.
" For gracious sake don't talk about liberty! we have quite
enough of that," said Miss Pross.
"Hush, dear! Again?"  Lucie remonstrated.
"Well, my sweet," said Miss Pross, nodding her head emphatically, "the short and long of it is, that I am a subject of
His Most Gracious Majesty King George the Third"; Miss
Pross courtesied at the name; "and as such, my maxim is,
Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks, On
him our hopes we fix, God save the King!"
Mr. Cruncher, in an access of loyalty, growlingly repeated
the words after Miss Pross, like somebody at church.
"I am glad you have so much of the Englishman in you,




326          A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
though I wish you had never taken that cold in your voice,"
said Miss Pross, approvingly.  "But the question, Doctor
Manette.  Is there"-it was the good creature's way to affect
to make light of any thing that was a great anxiety with them
all, and to come at it in this chance manner-" is there any
prospect yet, of our getting out of this place?"
"I fear not yet. It would be dangerous for Charles yet."
"Heigh-ho-hum!" said Miss Pross, cheerfully repressing a
sigh, as she glanced at her darling's golden hair in the light
of the fire, "then we must have patience and wait: that's all.
We must hold up our heads and fight low, as my brother
Solomon used to say. Now, Mr. Cruncher! —Don't you move,
Ladybird!"
They went out leaving Lucie, and her husband, her father
and the child, by a bright fire.  Mr. Lorry was expected back
presently from the Banking House.  Miss Pross had lighted
the lamp, but had put it aside in a corner, that they might
enjoy the firelight undisturbed. Little Lucie sat by her grandfather, with her hands clasped through his arm; and he, in a
tone not rising much above a whisper, began to tell her a story
of a great and powerful Fairy who had opened a prison wall
and let out a captive who had once done the Fairy a service.
All was subdued and quiet, and Lucie was more at ease than
she had been.
"What is that!" she cried, all at once.
"My dear!" said her father, stopping in his story, and
laying his hand on hers, "command yourself.  What a disordered state you are in I The least thing-nothing-startles
you.  You, your father's daughter?"
" I thought, my father," said Lucie, excusing herself, with
a pale face and in a faltering voice, "that I heard strange feet
upon the stairs."
" My love, the staircase is as still as Death."
As he said the word, a blow was struck upon the door.
"0 father, father! What can this be I Hide, Charles.
Save him i"
" My child," said the Doctor, rising and laying his hand
upon her shoulder. "I have saved him. What weakness is
this, my dear I Let me go to the door."




\A  ~i'                         III 
i\w!! I   i'     i! ljl
ii'/_~j..... - /?:                                             -> 6_
-    _                                     -----
"THE CITIZEN EVREMONDE, CALLED DARNAY.'-PAGE 327.








A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                  327
He took the lamp in his hand, crossed the two intervening
outer rooms, and opened it. A rude clattering of feet over
the floors, and four rough men in red caps, armed with sabres
and pistols, entered the room.
" The Citizen Evremonde, called Darnay," said the first.
"Who seeks him?" answered Darnay.
"I seek him. We seek him. I know you, Evremonde; I
saw you before the Tribunal to-day. You are again the prisoner of the Republic."
The four surrounded him, where he stood with his wife and
child clinging to him.
"Tell me how, and why am I again a prisoner?"
"It is enough that you return straight to the Conciergerie,
and will know to-morrow. Yon are summoned for to-morrow. "
Dr. Manette, whom this visitation had so turned into stone,
that he stood with the lamp in his hand, as if he were a statue
made to hold it, moved after these words were spoken, put
the lamp down, and confronting the speaker, and taking him,
not ungently, by the loose front of his red woollen shirt,
said:
"You know him, you have said. Do you know me?"
"Yes, I know you, Citizen Doctor."
"We all know you, Citizen Doctor," said the other three.
He looked abstractedly from one to another, and said, in a
lower voice, after a pause:
"Will you answer his question to me?  How does this
happen?"
"Citizen Doctor," said the first, reluctantly, "he has been
denounced to the Section of Saint Antoine.  This citizen,"
pointing out the second who had entered, "is from Saint
Antoine. "
The citizen here indicated nodded his head, and added:
"He is accused by Saint Antoine."
" Of what?" asked the Doctor.
" Citizen Doctor," said the first, with his former reluctance,
"ask no more. If the Republic demands sacrifices from you,
without doubt you, as a good patriot, will be happy to make
them. The Republic goes before all. The people is supreme.
Evremonde, we are pressed."
40




328          A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
" One word," the Doctor entreated.  " Vill you tell me who
denounced him?"
" It is against rule," answered the first; "but you can ask
Iiim of Saint Antoine here."
The Doctor turned his eyes upon that man, who moved
uneasily on his feet, pulled his beard a little, and at length
said:"Well! Truly it is against rule. But he is denouncedand gravely-by the Citizen and Citizeness Defarge. And by
one other."
" What other?"
" Do you ask, Citizen Doctor?"
"Yes!"
"Then," said he of Saint Antoine, with a strange look,
"you will be answered to-morrow.  Now, I am dumb!"




CHAPTER  VIII.
A HAND AT CARDS.
HAPPILY unconscious of the new calamity at home, Miss
Pross threaded her way along the narrow streets and crossed
the river by the bridge of the Pont-Neuf, reckoning in her
mind the number of indispensable purchases she had to make.
Mr. Cruncher, with the basket, walked at her side.  They both
looked to the right and to the left into most of the shops they
passed, had a wary eye for all gregarious assemblages of people, and turned out of their road to avoid any very excited
group of talkers.  It was a raw evening, and the misty river,
blurred to the eye with blazing lights and to the ear with
harsh noises, showed where the barges were stationed in which
the smiths worked, making guns for the Army of the Republic.
W.oe to the man who played tricks with that Army, or got
undeserved promotion in it! Better for him that his beard
had never grown, for the National Razor shaved him close.
Having purchased a few small articles of grocery, and a
measure of oil for the lamp, Miss Pross bethought herself of
the wine they wanted. After peeping into several wine-shops,
she stopped at the sign of The Good Republican Brutus of
Antiquity, not far from the National Palace, once (and twice)
the Tuileries, where the aspect of things rather took her fancy.
It had a quieter look than any other place of the same description they had passed, and, though red with patriotic caps,
was not so red as the rest. Sounding Mr. Cruncher and finding him of her opinion, Miss Pross resorted to the Good Republican Brutus of Anticiuity, attended by her cavalier.
Slightly observant of the smoky lights; of the people, pipe
in mouth, playing with limp cards and yellow dominoes; of
the one bare-breasted, bare-armed, soot-begrimed workman,
reading a journal aloud, and of the others listening to him;
(329)




330           A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
of the weapons worn, or laid aside to be resumed; of the two
or three customers fallen forward asleep, who in the popular,
high-shouldered shaggy black spencer, looked, in that attitude, like slumbering bears or dogs; the two outlandish ciistomers approached the counter, and showed what they wanted.
As their wine was measuring out, a man parted from another
man in a corner, and rose to depart.  In going, he had to face
Miss Pross.  No sooner did he face her, than Miss Pross
uttered a scream, and clapped her hands.
In a moment the whole company were on their feet. That
somebody was assassinated by somebody vindicating a difference of opinion, was the likeliest occurrence. Everybody
looked to see somebody fall, but only saw a man and woman
standing staring at each other; the man with all the outward
aspect of a Frenchman and a thorough Republican; the woman, evidently English.
What was said in this disappointing anti-climax, by the disciples of Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, except that it
was something very voluble and loud, would have been as so
much Hebrew or Chaldean to Miss Pross and her protector,
though they had been all ears. But, they had no ears for
any thing in their surprise. For, it must be recorded, that
not only was Miss Pross lost in amazement and agitation;
but, Mr. Cruncher —though it seemed on his own separate
and individual account-was in a state of the greatest wonder.
"What is the matter?" said the man who had caused Miss
Pross to scream; speaking in a vexed, abrupt voice, (though
in a low tone), and in English.
" Oh, Solomon, dear Solomon!" cried Miss Pross, clapping
her hands again. "After not setting eyes upon you or hearing of you for so long a time, do I find you here!"
" Don't call me Solomon.  Do you want to be the death of
me?" asked the man, in a furtive, frightened way.
"Brother, brother!" cried Miss Pross, bursting into tears.
" Have I ever been so hard with you that you ask me such a
cruel question I"
"Then hold your meddlesome tongue," said Solomon, "and
come out, if you want to speak to me. Pay for your wine,
and come out.  Who's this man?"




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                    331
Miss Pross, shaking her loving and dejected head at her by
no means affectionate brother, said, through her tears, " Mr.
Cruncher. "
"Let him come out, too," said Solomon.  "Does he think
me a ghost?"
Apparently, Mr. Cruncher did, to judge from  his looks.
lie said not a word, however, and Miss Pross, exploring the
depths of her reticule through her tears, with great difficulty,
paid for the wine. As she did so, Solomon turned to the followers of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, and
offered a few words of explanation in the French language,
which caused them all to relapse into their former places and
pursuits.
" Now," said Solomon, stopping at the dark street corner,
" what do you want?"
" How dreadfully unkind in a brother nothing has ever
turned my love away from," cried Miss Pross, "to give me
such a greeting, and show me no affection!"
"There i Con-found it! There I" said Solomon, making
a dab at Miiss Pross's lips with his own. "' Now are you
content?"
Miss Pross only shook her head and wept in silence.
"If you expect me to be surprised," said her brother Solomon, " I am not surprised; I knew you were here; I know of
most people who are here.  If you really don't want to endanger my existence-which I half believe you do-go your
ways as soon as possible, and let iue go mine.  I am busy.  I
am an official."
"My English brother Solomon," mourned Miss Pross, casting up her tear-fraught eyes, "that had the nmakings in him
of one of the best and greatest of men in his native country,
an official among foreigners, and such foreigners! I would
almost sooner have seen the dear boy lying in his — "
"I said so!' cried her brother, interrupting.  "I knew it!
You want to be the death of me. I shall be rendered Suspected, and by my own sister.  Just as I am getting on!"
"The gracious and merciful Heavens forbid!" cried Miss
Pross. "F Far rather would I never see you again, dear Solomon, though I have ever loved you truly, and ever shall. Say




332          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
but one affectionate word to me, and tell me there is nothing
angry or estranged between us, and I will detain you no
longer. "
Good Miss Pross! As if the estrangement between them
had come of any culpability of hers.  As if Mr. Lorry had
not known it for a fact, years ago, in the quiet corner of Soho,
that this precious brother had spent her money and left, her I
He was saying the affectionate word, however, with a far
more grudging condescension and patronage than he could
have shoiwn if their relative merits and positions had been
reversed (which is invariably the case, all the world over),
when Mr. Cruncher, touching him  on the shoulder, hoarsely
and unexpectedly interposed with the following singular question:" I say! Might I ask the favor? As to whether your name
is John Solomlon, or Solomon John?"
The official turned toward him  with a sudden distrust.
He had not previously uttered a word.
"Come!" said Mr. Cruncher.  "Speak out, you know."
(Which, by the way, was more than he could do himself.)
"John Solomon, or Solomon John?  She calls you Solomon,
and she must know, being your sister. And I know you're
John, you know.  Which of the two goes first? And regarding that name of Pross, likewise? That warn't your name over
the water."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't know all I mean, for I can't call to mind
what your name was over the water."
"No."7 sneered Solomon.
" No. But I'll swear it was a name of two syllables."
"Indeed!"
"Yes. T'other one's was one syllable. I know you. You
was a spy-witness at the Bailey. What in the name of the
Father of Lies —own father to yourself-was you called at
that time?"
"Barsad," said another voice, striking in.
"That's the name for a thousand pound I" cried Jerry.
The speaker who struck in was Sydney Carton. He had
his hands behind him, under the skirts of his riding-coat, and




A TALE  OF TWO CITIES.                   333
he stood at Mr. Cruncher's elbow as negligently as he might
have stood at the Old Bailey itself.
" Don't be alarmed, my dear Miss Press.  I arrived at Mr.
Lorry's, to his surprise, yesterday evening; we agreed that I
would not present myself elsewhere until all was well, or unless
I could be useful; I present myself here, to beg a little talk
with your brother. I wish you had a better employed brother
than Mr. Barsad.  I wish, for your sake, Mr. Barsad was not
a Sheep of the Prisons."
Sheep was the cant word of the time for a spy, under the
gaolers.  The spy, who was pale, turned paler, and asked him
how he dared -
" I'll tell you," said Sydney.  " I lighted on you, Mr. Barsad, coming out of the prison of the Conciergerie while I was
contemplating the walls, an hour or more ago.  You have a
face to be remembered, and I remember faces well.  Made
curious by seeing you in that connection, and having a reason
to which you are no stranger, for associating you with the
misfortunes of a friend now very unfortunate, I walked in your
direction.  I walked into the wine-shop here, close after you,
and sat near you.  I had no difficulty in deducing from your
unreserved conversation, and the rumor openly going about
among your admirers, the nature of your calling.  And gradually, what I had done at random, seemed to shape itself into
a purpose, Mr. Barsad."
"What purpose?" the spy asked.
"It would be troublesome, and might be dangerous to explain in the street. Could you favor me, in confidence, with
some minutes of your company-at the office of Tellson's
Bank, for instance."
"Under a threat?"
"Oh! Did I say that?"
"Then why should I go there?"
"Really, Mr. Barsad, I can't say, if you can't."
"Do you mean that you won't say, sir?" the spy irresolutely asked.
" You apprehend me very clearly, Mr. Barsad. I won't."
"Carton's negligent recklessness of manner came powerfully in aid of his quickness and skill, in such a business as




334           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
he had in his secret mind, and with such a man as he
had to do with.  His practiced eye saw it, and made the most
of it.
" Now, I told you so," said the spy, casting a reproachful
look at his sister; "if any trouble comes of this, it's your
doing. "
" Come, come, Mr. Barsadc!" exclaimed Sydney.  "Don't
be ungrateful. But for my great respect for your sister, I
might not have led up so pleasantly to a little proposal that I
wish to make for our mutual satisfaction. Do you go with
me to the Bank?"
"I'll hear what you have got to say. Yes, I'll go with
you. "
"I propose that we first conduct your sister safely to the
corner of her own street. Let me take your arm, Miss Pross.
This is not a good city, at this time, for you to be out in, unprotected; and as your escort knows Mr. Barsad, I will invite
him to Mr. Lorry's with us.  Are we ready?  Come then!"
Miss Pross recalled soon afterward, and to the end of her
life remembered, that as she pressed her hands on Sydney's
arm  and looked up in his face, imploring him to do no hurt
to Solomon, there was a braced purpose in the arm and a kind
of inspiration in the eyes, which not only contradicted his
light manner, but changed and raised the man.  She was too
much occupied then, with fears for the brother who so little
deserved her affection, and with Sydney's friendly reassurances,
adequately to heed what she observed.
They left her at the corner of the street, and Carton led
the way to Mr. Lorry's, which was within a few minutes' walk.
John Barsad, or Solomon Pross, walked at his side.
Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and was sitting before a cheery little log or two of fire-perhaps looking into
their blaze for the picture of that younger elderly gentleman
from Tellson's, who had looked into the red coals at the Loyal
George at Dover, now a good many years ago. He turned
his head as they entered, and showed the surprise with which
he saw a stranger.
"Miss Pross's brother, sir," said Sydney.  " Mr. Barsad."
"Barsad I" repeated the old gentleman, "Barsad I I have
an association with the name-and with the face."




A  TALE  OF TWO CITIES.                  335
"I told you, you had a remarkable face, Mr. Barsacd," observedl Carton, coolly. " Pray sit down. "
As he took a chair himself, lie supplied the link that Mr.
Lorry wanted, by saying to him with a frown, "Witness at
that trial."  Mr. Lorry immediately remembered, and regarded his new visitor with an undisguised look of abhorrence.
" Mr. Barsad has been recognized by Miss Pross as the affectionate brother you have heard of," said Sydney, and has
acknowledged the relationship.  I pass to worse news.  Darnay has been arrested again."
Struck with consternation, the old gentleman exclaimed:
"What do you tell me! I left him safe and free within these
two hours, and am about to return to him!"
" Arrested for all that.  When was it done, Mr. Barsad?"
"Just now, if at all."
" Mr. Barsad is the best authority possible, sir," said Sydney; " and I have it from Mr. Barsad's communication to a
friend and brother Sheep over a bottle of wine, that the arrest
has taken place. He left the messengers at the gate, and saw
them admitted by the porter.  There is no earthly doubt that
he is retaken."
Mr. Lorry's business eye read in the speaker's face that it
was loss of time to dwell upon the point. Confused, but sensible that something might depend on his presence of mind, he
commanded himself, and was silently attentive.' Now, I trust,"' said Sydney to him, "that the name and
influence of Doctor Manette may stand him in as good stead
to-morrow-you said he would be before the Tribunal again
to-morrow, Mr. Barsad?-   "
" Yes; I believe so."
"- -_In as good stead to-morrow as to-day.  But it may
not be so.  I own to you, I am shaken, Mr. Lorry, by Doctor
Manette's not having had the power to prevent this arrest."
" He may not have known of it beforehand," said Mr.
Lorry.
"But that very circumstance would be alarming, when Wy
remember how identified he is with his son-in-law."
"That's true," Mr. Lorry acknowledged, with his troublae4
hand at his chin, and his troubled eyes on Carton.
41I




336           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
" In short," said Sydney, "this is a desperate time, when
desperate games are played for desperate stakes.  Let the
Doctor play the winning game; I will play the losing one.
~No man's life here is worth purchase.  Any one carried home
by the people to-day, may be condemned to-morrow.  Now,
the stake I have resolved to play for, in case of the worst, is
a friend in the Conciergerie.  And the friend I purpose to
myself to win, is Mr. Barsad."
"You need have good cards, sir," said the spy.
"I'll run them over; I'll see what I hold.  Mr. Lorry, you
know what a brute I am; I wish you'd give me a little
brandy. "
It was put before him, and he drank off a glassful-drank
off another glassful-pushed the bottle thoughtfully away.
"aMr. Barsad," he went on, in the tone of one who really
was looking over a hand at cards: " Sheep of the prisons,
emisary of Republican committees, now turnkey, now prisoner,
always spy and secret informer, so much the more valuable
here for being English, that an Englishman is less open to
suspicion of subornation in those characters than a Frenchman, represents himself to his employers under a false name.
That's a very good card.  Mr. Barsad, now in the employ of
the republican French government, was formerly in the employ of the aristocratic English government, the enemy of
France and freedom.  That's an excellent card.  Inference
clear as day in this region of suspicion, that Mr. Barsad, still
in the pay of the aristocratic English government, is the spy
of Pitt, the treacherous foe of the Republic, crouching in its
bosom, the English traitor and agent of all mischief so much
spoken of and so difficult to find.  That's a card not to be
beaten.  Have you followed up my hand, Mr. Barsad?"
"Not to understand your play," returned the spy, somewhat
uneasily.
" I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the nearest
Section Committee.  Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and
see what you have. Don't hurry."
He drew the bottle near, poured out another glassful of
brandy, and drank it off. He saw that the spy was fearful of
his drinking himself into a fit state for the immediate denun



A TALE OF T WO  CITIES.                 337
ciation of him.  Seeing it, he poured out and drank another
glassful.
" Look over your hand carefully, Mir. Barsad.  Take time."
It was a poorer hand than he suspected. IMr. Barsad saw
loosing cards in it that Sydney Carton knew nothing of.
Thrown out of his honorable employment in England, through
too much unsuccessful hard swearing there-not because he
was not wanted there; our English reasons for vaunting our
superiority to secrecy and spies are of very modern date-he
knew that he had crossed the Channel, and accepted service in
France: first, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among his own
countrymen there: gradually, as a tempter and an eavesdropper
among the natives.  He knew that under the overthrown
government he had been a spy upon Saint Antoine and Defarge's wine-shop; had received from the watchful police such
heads of information concerning Doctor Maanette's imprisonment, release, and history, as should serve him for an introduction to familiar conversation with the Defarges; had tried
them on Madame Defarge, and had broken down with them
signally. He always remembered with fear and trembling,
that that terrible woman hacl knitted when he talked with her,
and had looked ominously at him as her fingers moved. He
had since seen her, in the Section of Saint Antoine, over and
over again produce her knitted registers, and denounce people
whose lives the guillotine then surely swallowed up. He knew,
as every one employed as he was, did, that he was never safe;
that flight was impossible; that he was tied fast under the
shadow of the axe; and that in spite of his utmost tergiversation and treachery in furtherance of the reigning terror, a word
might bring it down upon him. Once denounced, and on such
grave grounds as had just now been suggested to his mind, he
foresaw that the dreadful woman of whose unrelenting character
he had seen many proofs, would produce against him that fiatal
register, and would quash his last chance of life. Besides that
all secret men are men soon terrified, here were surely cards
enough of one black suit, to justify the holder in growing rather
livid as he turned them over.
" You scarcely seem to like your hand," said Sydney, with
the greatest composure.  " Do you play?"




338           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
"I think, sir," said the spy, in the meanest manner, as he
turned to M{r. Lorry, " I may appeal to a gentleman of your
years and benevolence, to put it to this other gentleman, so
much your junior, whether he can under any circumstance reconcile it to his station to play that Ace of which he has spoken.
I admit that I am a spy, and that it is considered a discreditable
station —though it must be filled by somebodyv; but this gentleman is no spy, and why should he so demean himself as to
make himself one?"'
"I play my Ace, Mr. Barsad," said Carton, taking the answer on himself, and looking at his watch, " without ally scruple,
in a very few minutes."
" I should have hoped, gentlemen both," said the spy, always
striving to hook MIr. Lorry into the discussion, "that your
respect for my sister
" I could not better testify my respect for your sister than
by finally relieving her of her brother," said Sydney Carton.
"You think not, sir?"
"I have thoroughly made up my mind about it."
The smooth manner of the spy, curiously in dissonance with
his ostentatiously rough dress, and probably with his usual
demeanor, received such a check from the inscrutability of
Carton,-who was a mystery to wiser and honester men than
he-that it faltered here and failed him.  Wrhile he was at a
loss, Carton said, resuming his former air of contemplating
cards:
"And indeed, now I think again, I have a strong impression
that I have another good card here, not yet enumerated.
That friend and fellow-sheep, who spoke of himself as pasturing
in the country prisons; who was he?"
"French.  You don't know him," said the spy, quickly.
"French, eh?" repeated Carton, musing, and not appearing
to notice him at all, though he echoed his word.  "Well; he
may be."
"Is, I assure you," said the spy, " though it's not important."
"Though it's not important," repeated Carton in the same
mechanical way —" though it's not important    No, it's not
important. No. Yet I know the face."
"I think not.  I am sure not.  It can't be," said the spy."




A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                  339
"It-can't —be,"  muttered Sydney Carton, retrospectively,
and filling his glass (which fortunately was a small one) again.
"Can't —be.  Spoke good French.  Yet like a foreigner, I
thought?"
"Provincial,"' said the spy.'"No.  Foreign?" cried Carton, striking his open hand on
the table, as a light broke clearly on his mind.  "Cly! Disguised, but the same man.  We had that man before us at the
Old Bailey."
" Now, there you are hasty, sir," said Barsad, with a smile
that gave his aquiline nose an extra inclination to one side;
"there you really give me an advantage over you. Cly (who
I will unreservedly admit, at this distance of time, was a partner
of mine) has been dead several years.  I attended him in his
last illness.  He was buried in London, at the church of Saint
Pancras-in-the-fields.  His unpopularity with the blackguard
multitude at the moment, prevented my following his remains,
but I helped to lay him in his coffin."
Here Mr. Lorry became aware, from where he sat, of a most
remarkable goblin shadow on the wall. Tracing it to its source,
he discovered it to be caused by a sudden extraordinary rising
and stiffening of all the risen and stiff hair on Mr. Cruncher's
head.
" Let us be reasonable," said the spy, " and let us be fair.
To show you how mistaken you are, and what an unfounded
assumption yours is, I will lay before you a certificate of Cly's
burial, which I happen to have carried in my pocket-book,"
(with a hurried hand he produced and opened it,) " ever since.
There it is.  Oh, look at it, look at it! You may take it in
your hand; it's no forgery."
Here Mr. Lorry perceived the reflection on the wall to elongate, and Mr. Cruncher rose and stepped forward.  His hair
could not have been more violently on end, if it had been that
moment dressed by the cow with the crumpled horn in the
house that Jack built.
Unseen by the spy, Mr. Cruncher stood at his side, and
touched him on the shoulder like a ghostly bailiff.
"That there Roger Cly, master," said Mr. Cruncher, with a
taciturn and iron-bound visage.  "So you put him  in his
coffin?"




340           A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.
"I did."
"Who took him out of it?"
Barsad leaned back in his chair, and stammered, " What do
you mean?"
"I mean," said Mr. Cruncher, "that he warn't never in it.
No! Not he! I'll have my head took off, if he was ever
in it."
The spy looked round at the two gentlemen; they both
looked in unspeakable astonishment at Jerry.
"I tell you," said Jerry, "that you buried paving-stones
and earth in that there coffin.  Don't go and tell me that you
buried Cly.  It was a take in.  Me and two more knows it."
" How do you know it?"
"What's that to you? Ecod!" growled Mr. Cruncher, "it's
you I have got a old grudge again, is it, with your shameful
impositions upon tradesmen! I'd catch hold of your throat
and choke you for half a guinea."
Sydney Carton, who, with Mr. Lorry, had been lost in
amazement at this turn of the business, here requested Mr.
Cruncher to moderate and explain himself.
"At another tine, sir," lie returned, evasively, "the present
time is ill-conwenient for explainin'.  What I stand to, is,
that he knows well wot that there Clv was never in that there
coffin. Let him say he was, in so much as a word of one
syllable, and I'll either catch hold of his throat and choke him
for a half guinea;"  Mr. Cruncher dwelt upon this as quite a
liberal offer; " or I'll out and announce him."
"I umph! I see one thing," said Carton.  "I hold another
card, Mr. Barsad.  Impossible, here in raging Paris, with suspicion filling the air, for you to outlive denunciation, when you
are in communication with another aristocratic spy of the same
antecedents as yourself, who, moreover, has the mystery about
him of having feigneld death and come to life again! A plot
in the prisons, of the foreigners against the Republic.  A
strong card-a certain Guillotine card! Do you play?,"
" No!" returned the spy.  " I thlrow up.  I confess that we
were so unpopular with the outrageous mob, that I only got
away from England at the risk of being ducked to death, and
that Cly was so ferreted up and down, that he never would




A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                 341
have got away at all but for that sham.  Though how this man
knows it was a sham, is a wonder of wonders to me."
"Never you trouble your head about this man," retorted
the contentious Mr. Cruncher; "you'll have trouble enough
with giving your attention to that gentleman.  And look here I
Once more!" -Mr. Cruncher could not be restrained fromn
mnalking rather an ostentatious parade of his liberality —" I'd
catch hold of your throat and choke you for half a guinea."
The Sheep of the prisons turned from him to Sydney Carton
and said, with more decision, "It has come to a point.  I go
on duty soon, and can't overstay my time.  You told me you
had a proposal; what is it? Now, it is of no use asking too
much of me. Ask me to do any thing in my office, putting my
head in great extra danger, and I had better trust my life to
the chances of refusal than the chances of consent.  In short,
I should make that choice. You talk of desperation.  We
are all desperate here. Renember I I may denounce you if
I think proper, and I can swear my way through stone walls,
and so can others.  Now, what do you want with me?"
"Not very much.  You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie?"
" I tell you once for all, there is no such thing as an escape
possible," said the spy, firmly.
" Why need you tell me what I have not asked? You are
a turnkey at the Conciergerie?"
"I am, sometimes."
"You can be when you choose?"
"I can pass in and out when I choose."
Sydney Carton filled another glass with brandy, poured it
slowly out upon the hearth, and watched it as it dropped. It
being all spent, he said, rising:
" So far, we have spoken before these two, because it was
as well that the merits of the cards should not rest solely
between you and me. Come into the dark room here and let
us have one final word alone."




CHAPTER IX.
THEI GAMIE MADE.'WHILE Sydney Carton and the Sheep of the prisons were in
the adjoining dark room, speaking so low that not a sound
was heard, Mr. Lorry looked at Jerry in considerable doubt
and mistrust.  That honest tradesman's manner of receiving
the look, did not inspire confidence; he changed the leg on
which he rested, as often as if he had fifty of those limbs, and
were trying them all; he examined his finger-nails with a very
questionable closeness of attention; and whenever Mr. Lorry's
eye caught his, he was taken with that peculiar kind of short
cough requiring the hollow of a hand before it, which is seldom,
if ever, known to be an infirmity attendant on perfect openness
of character.
" Jerry," said Mr. Lorry.  "Come here."
Mr. Cruncher came forward sideways, with one of his shoulders in advance of him.
" ArWhat have you been besides a messenger?"
After some cogitation, accompanied with an intent look at
his patron, MIr. Cruncher conceived the luminous idea of
replying, "Agricultooral character."
M"y mind misgives me'much," said Mr. Lorry, angrily
shaking a forefinger at him, "that you have used the respectable and great house of Tellson's as a blind, and that you have
had an unlawful occupation of an infamous description. If you
have, don't expect me to befriend you, when you get back to
England. If you have, don't expect me to keep your secret.
Tellson's shall not be imposed upon."
"I hope, sir," pleaded the abashed Mr. Cruncher, "that a
gentleman like yourself, wot I've had the honor of odd-jobbing
till I'm gray at it, would think twice about harming of me, even
if it wos so-I don't say it is, but even if it wos. And which
(342)




A TALE  OF TWVO  CITIES.                   343
it is to be toolk ito account that if it wos, it wouldn't, even then,
be all o' one side.  TIhere'd be two sides to it.  There rmight
b:e mnedical doctors at the present hour, a picking up their
guineas where a honest tradesman don't pick up his fardensfardens! no, nor yet his half fardens-half fardens! no, nor yet
his quarter-a banking away like smoke at l'ellson's, and a
cocking their medical eyes at that tradesman on the sly, a
going in and going out to their own carriages-ah! equally
like smoke, if not more so.  lWell, that'ud be imposing, too,
on Tellson's.  For you cannot sarse the goose and not the
gander.  And here's Mrs. Cruncher, or leastways wos in the
Old England times, and would be to-morrow, if cause given, a
floppin' agin the business to that degree as is ruinating —stark
ruinating!    Whereas them medical doctors' wives don't flopcatch'em at it i Or, if they flop, their floppings goes in favor
of more patients, anrid how can you rightly have one without
the tother?  Then, wot with undertakers, and wot with parish
clerks, and wot with sextons, and wot with private watchmen
(all awaricious, and all in it), a man wouldn't get much by it,
even if it wos so.  And wot little a man did get, would never
prosper with him, Mr. Lorry.  He'd never have no good of it;
he'd want all along to be out of the line, if lie could see his
way out, being once in-even if it wos so."
"Ugh!" cried Air. Lorry, rather relenting, nevertheless.
"I am shocked at the sight of you."
"Now, what I would humbly offer to you, sir," pursued AMr.
Cruncher, " even if it wos so, which I don't say it is —"
" Don't prevaricate," said Mr. Lorry.
"INo, I       will 2ot, sir," returned IMr. Cruncher, as if nothing
were further from  his thoughts or practice-" which I don't
say it is-wot I would humbly offer to you, sir, would be this.
Upon that there stool, at that there Bar, sets that there boy
of mine, brought up and growed up to be a man, wot will
errand you, message you, general-light-job you, till your heels
is where your head is, if such should be your wishes.  If it
wos so, which I still don't say it is (for I will not prewaricate
to you, sir), let that there boy keep his father's place, and take
care of his mother; don't blow upon that boy's father —do not
do it, sir-and let that father go into the line of the reg'lar
42




344          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
diggin', and make amends for what he would have un-dug-if
it wos so-by dig-gin' of'ecm in with a will, and with conwictions
respectin' the fixture keepin' of'em safe.  That, Mr. Lorry,"
said 1Mr. Cruncher, wiping his forehead with his arm, a.s an
announcement that he had arrived at the peroration of his
discourse, "is weot I would respectfully offer to you, sir.  A
man don't see all this here a goin' on dreadful round him, in
the way of Subjects without heads, dear me, plentiful enough
fur to bring the price down to porterage and hardly that
without havin' his serious thoughts of things.  Andcl these here
would be mine, if it wos so, entreatina of you fur to bear in
mind that wot I said just now, I up and said in the good cause
when I might have kep' it back."
"That at least is true," said nMr. Lorry.  "Say no more
now.  It may be that I shall yet stand your friend, if you deserve it, and repent in action-not in words.  I want no more
words. "
Mr. Cruncher knuckled his forehead, as Sydney Carton and
the spy returned from the dark room.  "Adieu, Mr. Barsad!"
said the former; "our arrangement thus made, you have
nothing to fear from me."
He sat down in a chair on the hearth, over against nMr.
Lorry.  When they were alone, Mr. Lorry asked him what he
had done?
"Not much.  If it should go ill with the prisoner, I have
ensured access to hini, once."
Mr. Lorry's countenance fell.
" It is all I could do," said Carton. " To propose too much,
would be to put this man's head under {he axe, and, as he
himself said, nothing worse could happen to him if he were
denounced.  It was obviously the weakness of the position.
There is no help for it."
"But access to him," said Mr. Lorry, "if it should go ill
before the tribunal, will not save him."
"1 never said it would."
Mr. Lorry's eyes gradually sought the fire; his sympathy
with his darling, and the heavy disappointment of this second
arrest, gradually weakened them; he was an old man now,
overborne with anxiety of late, and his tears fell.




A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                   345
"You are a good man and a true friend," said Carton, in
an altered voice. " Forgive me if I notice that you are affected.
I could not see my father weep, and sit by, careless.  And I
could not respect your sorrow more, if you were my father.
You are free from that misfortune, however."
Though he said the last words, with a slip into his usual
manner, there was a true feeling and respect both in his tone
and in his touch, that Mr. Lorry, who had never seen the better
side of him, was wholly unprepared for.  He gave him his
hand, and Carton gently pressed it.
" To return to poor Darnay," said Carton.  "Don't tell Her
of this interview, or this arrangement.  It would not enable
Her to go to see him. She might think it was contrived, in
case of the worst, to convey to him the means of anticipating
the sentence."
Mr. Lorry had not thought of that, and he looked quickly
at Carton to see if it were in his mind.  It seemed to be; he
returned the look, and evidently understood it.
" She might think a thousand things," he said, " and any of
them would only add to her trouble. Don't speak of me to
her. As I said to you when I first came, I had better not see
her.  I can put my hand out to do any little helpful work for
her that my hand can find to do, without that.  You are going
to her, I hope?  She must be very desolate to-night."
"I am going now, directly."
" I am glad of that.  She has such a strong attachment to
you and reliance on you.  How does she look?"
"Anxious and unhappy, but very beautiful."
it Ah I"
It was along, grieving sound, like a sigh-almost like a sob.
It attracted AMr. Lorry's eyes to Carton's face, which was
turned to the fire.  A light, or a shade (the old gentleman
could not have said which), passed from it as swiftly as a
change will sweep over a hill-side on a wild, bright day, and
he lifted his foot to put back one of the little faing logs,
which was tumbling, forward.  ITe wore the white ridinog-coat
antd top-boots, then in vogue, and the light of the fire touching
their light surfaces made him look very pale, with his long,
brown hair, all untrimmed, hanging loose about him. His in



346           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
difference to fire was sufficiently remarkable to elicit a word of
remonstrance from AMr. Lorry; his boot was still upon the hot
embers of the flaming log, when it had broken under the
weight of his foot.
"I forgot it," he said.
lMr. Lorry's eyes were again attracted to his face.  Taking
note of the wasted air which clouded the naturally handsome
features, and having the expression of prisoners' faces fresh in
his mind, he was strongly reminded of that expression.
"And your duties here have drawn to an end, sir?" said
Carton, turning to him.
"Yes. As I was telling you last night, when Lucie came in
so unexpectedly, I have at length done all that I can do here.
I hoped to have left them in perfect safety, and then to have
quitted Paris.  I have my Leave to Pass.  I was ready to go."
They were both silent.
"Yours is a long life to look back upon, sir?" said Carton,
wistfully.
"I am in my seventy-eighth year."
"You have been useful all your life; steadily and constantly
occupied; trusted, respected, and looked up to?"
"I have been a man of business, ever since I have been a
man.  Indeed, I may say that I was a man of business when a
boy."
" See what a place you fill at seventy-eight.  Ilow many
people will miss you, when you leave it empty!"
"A solitary old bachelor," answered Mr. Lorry, shaking his
head.  " There is nobody to weep for nze."
" How can you say that?  WTouldn't She weep for you?
W7ouldn't her child?"
"Yes, yes, thank God.  I didn't quite mean what I said."
"It is a thing to thank God for; is it not?!"
"Surely, surely."
" If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart,
to-night,'I have secured to myself the love and attachlment,
the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have won
myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing good
or serviceable to be remembered by!' your seventy-eight years
would be seventy-eight heavy curses; would they not?"




A TALE OF TWVO  CITIES.                  347
"You say truly, Mr. Carton; I think they would be."
Sydney turned his eyes again upon the fire, and, after a
silence of a few momlents, said:
"I should like to ask you: Does your childhood seem far
off?  Do the days when you sat at your mother's knee, seem
days of very long ago?"
Iesponding to his softened manner, Mr. Lorry answered:
"Twenty years back, yes; at this time of my life, no. For,
as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle,
nearer and nearer to the beginning.  It seems to be one of the
kind smoothings and preparings of the way.  My heart is
touched now, by many remembrances that had long fallen
asleep, of my pretty young mother (and I so old!), and by
many associations of the days when what we call the WTorld
was not so real with me, and my faults were not confirmed in
me. "
"I understand  the feeling!" exclaimed Carton, with a
bright flush.  "And you are the better for it?"
"I hope so."
Carton terminated the conversation here, by rising to help
him on with his outer coat; " but you," said Mr. Lorry, reverting to the theme, "you are young."
"Yes,'; said Carton.  "I am not old, but my young way
was never the way to age.  Enough of me."
"And of me, I am sure," said -Mr. Lorry. "Are you going
out?"
" I'll walk with you to her gate.  You know my vagabond
and restless habits. If I should prowl about the streets a long
time, don't be uneasy; I shall reappear in the morning. You
go to the Court to-morrow?"
"Yes, unhappily."
"I shall be there, but only as one of the crowd.  My spy
will find a place for me.  Take my arm, sir."
AMr. Lorry did so, and they went down stairs and out in the
streets.  A few minutes brought them to Mr. Lorry's destination.  Carton left himn there; but lingered at a little distance,
and turned back to the gate again when it was shut, and
touched it.  lIe had heard of her going to the prison every
day.  "She came out here," he said, looking about him,




348          A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.
"turned this way, must have trod on these stones often.  Let
me follow in her steps."
It was ten o'clock at night when he stood before the prison
of La Force, where she had stood hundreds of times. A little
wood-sawyer, having closed his shop, was smoking his pipe at
his shop-door."
"Good-night, citizen," said Sydney Carton, pausing in going
by; for, the man eyed him inqusitively.
" Good-night, citizen."
" How goes the Republic?"
"You mean the Guillotine.  Not ill.  Sixty-three to-day.
W\Te shall mount to a hundred soon.  Samson and his men
complain, sometimes, of being exhausted. Ha, ha, ha! He is
so droll, that Samson.  Such a Barber!"
"Do you often go to see him --
"Shave? Always. Every day. What a barber I You have
seen him at work?"
"Never. "
" Go and see him when he has a good batch. Figure this
to yourself, citizen; he shaved the sixty-three to-day, in less
than two pipes! Less than two pipes.  Word of honor!"
As the grinninning little man held out the pipe he was smoking, to explain how he timed the executioner, Carton was so
sensible of a rising desire to strike the life out of him, that he
turned away.
"But you are not English," said the wood-sawyer, "though
you wear English dress?"
"Yes,"  said Carton, pausing again, and answering over his
shoulder.
" You speak like a Frenchman."
"I am an old student here."
"Aha, a perfect Frenchman! Good-night, Englishman."
"Good-night, citizen. "
"But go and see that droll dog," the little man persisted,
calling after him.  "And take a pipe with you!"
Sydney had not gone far out of sight, when he stopped
in the middle of the street under a glimmering lamp, and wrote
with his pencil on a scrap of paper. Then, traversing with the
decided step of one who remembered the way well, several dark




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                  349
and dirty streets-much dirtier than usual, for the best public
thoroughfares remained uncleansed in those times of terrorhe stopped at a chemist's shop, which the owner was closing
with his own hands. A small, dim, crooked shop, kept in a
tortuous, up-hill thoroughfare, by a small, dim, crooked man.
Giving this citizen, too, good-night, as he confronted him at
his counter, he laid the scrap of paper before him. "Whew!'9
the chemist whistled softly as he read it.  " Hi hi! hi hi!"
Sydney Carton took no heed, and the chemist said:
" For you, citizen?"
(" For me. "
" You will be careful to keep them separate, citizen? You
know the consequences of mixing them?"
1" Perfectly."
Certain small packets were made and given to him. He
put them, one by one, in the breast of his inner coat, counted
out the money for them, and deliberately left the shop.
" There is nothing more to do," said he, glancing upward at
the moon, "until to-morrow. I can't sleep."
It was not a reckless manner, the manner in which he said
these words aloud under the fast-sailing clouds, nor was it
more expressive of negligence than defiance.  It was the settled manner of a tired man, who had wandered and struggled
and got lost, but who at length had struck into his road and
saw its end.
Long ago, wheni he had been famous among his earliest competitors as a youth of great promise, he had followed his father
to the grave. His mother had died, years before. These solemn
words, which had been read at his father's grave, arose in his
mind as he went down the dark streets, among the heavy
shadows, with the moon and the clouds sailing on high above
him.  "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."
In a city dominated by the axe, alone at night, with natural sorrow rising in him for the sixty-three who had been
that day put to death, and for to-morrow's victims then awaiting their doom in the prisons, and still of to-morrow's and
to-morrow's, the chain of association that brought the words




350           A  TALE OF TWO CITIES.
home, like a rusty old ship's anchor from the deep, might have
been easily found. He did not seek it, but repeated them and
went on.
With a solemn interest in the lighted windows where the
people were going to rest, forgetful through a few calm hours
of the horrors surrounding them; in the towers of the
churches, where no prayers were said, for the popular revulsion had even traveled that length of self-destruction from
years of priestly impostors, plunderers, and profligates; in the
distant burial-places, reserved, as they wrote upon the gates,
for Eternal Sleep; in the abounding gaols; and in the streets
along which the sixties rolled to a death which had become so
common and material, that no sorrowful story of a haunting
Spirit ever arose among the people out of all the working of
the Guillotine; with a solemn interest in the whole life and
death of the city settling down to its short, nightly pause in
fury; Sydney Carton crossed the Seine again for the lighter
streets.
Few coaches were abroad, for riders in coaches were liable
to be suspected, and gentility hid its head in red nightcaps,
and put on heavy shoes, and trudged. But, the theatres were
all well filled, and the people poured cheerfully out as he
passed, and went chatting home. At one of the theatre doors,
there was a little girl with a mother, looking for a way across
the street through the mud. He carried the child over, and before the timid arm was loosed from his neck, asked her for a
kiss.
"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and
whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die."
Now, that the streets were quiet, and the night wore on, the
words were in the echoes of his feet, and were in the air.
Perfectly calm and steady, he sometimes repeated them to himself as he walked; but, he heard them always.
The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listening to the water as it splashed the river-walls of the Island of
Paris, where the picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral
shone bright in the light of the moon, the day came coldly,
looking like a dead face out of the sky. Then, the night, with




A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                  351
the moon and the stars, turned pale and died, and for a little
while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to Death's
dominion.  But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those
words, that burden of the night, straight and warm to his heart
in its long, bright rays.  And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared to span the air
between him and the sun, while the river sparkled under it.
The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and certain, was like a
congenial friend, in the morning stillness.  He walked by the
stream, far from the houses, and in the light and warmth of
the sun, fell asleep on the bank.  When he awoke and was
afoot again, he lingered there yet a little longer, watching an
eddy that turned and turned purposeless, until the stream absorbed it, and carried it on to the sea.  "Like me!"
A trading-boat, with a sail of the softened color of a dead
leaf, then glided into his view, floated by him, and died away.
As its silent track in the water disappeared, the prayer that
had broken up out of his heart for a merciful consideration of
all his poor blindnesses and errors, ended in the words, "I am
the resurrection and the life."
Mr. Lorry was already out when he got back, and it was
easy to surmise where the good old man was gone. Sydney
Carton drank nothing but a little coffee, ate some bread,
and, having washed and changed to refresh himself, went out
to the place of trial.
The court was all astir and abuzz, when the black sheepwhom many fell away from in dread —pressed him into an obscure corner among the crowd. Mr. Lorry was there, and
Doctor Manette was there.  She was there, sitting beside her
father.
When her husband was brought in, she turned a look upon
him, so sustaining, so encouraging, so full of admiring love
and pitying tenderness, yet so courageous for his sake, that it
called the healthy blood into his face, brightened his glance,
and animated his heart. If there had been any eyes to notice
the influence of her look, on Sydney Carton, it would have been
seen to be the same influence exactly.
Before that unjust Tribunal, there was little or no order of
procedure, insuring to any accused person any reasonable hear43




352          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
ing. There could have been no such Revolution, if all laws,
forms, and ceremonies, had not first been so monstrously
abused, that the suicidal vengeance of the Revolution was to
scatter them all to the winds.
Every eye was turned to the jury. The same determined
patriots and good republicans as yesterday and the day before,
and to-morrow and the day after. Eager and prominent
among them, one man with a craving face, and his fingers perpetually hovering about his lips, whose appearance gave great
satisfaction to the spectators.  A life-thirsting, cannibal-looking, bloody-minded juryman, the Jacques Three of Saint Antoine. The whole jury, as a jury of dogs impannelled to try
the deer.
Every eye then turned to the five judges and the public
prosecutor. ]No favorable leaning in that quarter, to-day. A
fell, uncompromising, murderous business-meaning there. Every
eye then sought some other eye in the crowd, and gleamed at
it approvingly; and heads nodded at one another, before bending forward with a strained attention.
Charles Evremonde, called Darnay. Released yesterday. Reaccused and retaken yesterday.  Indictment delivered to him
last night. Suspected and Denounced enemy of the Republic,
Aristocrat, one of a family of tyrants, one of a race proscribed,
for that they had used their abolished privileges to the infamous oppression of the people. Charles Evremonde, called
Darnay, in right of such proscription, absolutely Dead in Law.
To this effect, in as few or fewer words, the Public Prosecutor.
The President asked, was the accused openly denounced or
secretly?
" Openly, President."
"By whom?"
"Three voices. Ernest Defarge, wine-vendor of Saint Antoine. "
"Good."
"Therese Defarge, his wife."
"Good."
"Alexandre Manette, Physician."
A great uproar took place in the court, and in the midst of




A TALE OF TWO  CITfES.                 353
it, Doctor Manette was seen, pale and trembling, standing
where he had been seated.
"President, I indignantly protest to You that this is a forgery and a fraud. You know the accused to be the husband
of my daughter.  My daughter, and those dear to her, are far
dearer to me than my life. Who and where is the false
conspirator who says that I denounce the husband of my
child?"
" Citizen Manette, be tranquil. To fail in submission to the
authority of the Tribunal, would be to put yourself out of
Law. As to what is dearer to you than life, nothing can be
so dear to a good citizen as the Republic."
Loud acclamations hailed this rebuke. The President rang
his bell, and with warmth resumed.
"If the Republic should demand of you the sacrifice of
your child herself, you would have no duty but to sacrifice
her. Listen to what is to follow. In the meanwhile, be
silent!"
Frantic acclamations were again raised. Doctor Manette
sat down, with his eyes looking around, and his lips trembling;
his daughter drew closer to him. The craving man on the
jury rubbed his hands together, and restored the usual hand
to his mouth.
Defarge was produced, when the Court was quiet enough to
admit of his being heard, and rapidly expounded the story of
the imprisonment, and of his having been a mere boy in the
Doctor's service, and of the release, and of the state of the
prisoner when released and delivered to him. This short
examination followed, for the court was quick with its work.
"You did good service at the taking of Bastille, citizen?"
"I believe so."
Here an excited woman screeched from the crowd:  "You
were one of the best patriots there. Why not say so? You
were a cannonier that day there, and you were among the first
to enter the accursed fortress when it fell. Patriots, I speak
the truth!"
It was The Vengeance who, amidst the warm commendations
of the audience, thus assisted the proceedings. The President
rang his bell; but, The Vengeance, warming with encourage22




354          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
ment, shrieked, "I defy that bell!" wherein she was likewise
much commended.
" Inform the Tribunal of what you did that day within the
Bastille, citizen."
"I kneV,%" said Defarge, looking down at his wife, who
stood at the bottom of the steps on which he was raised, looking steadily up at him; " I knew that this prisoner, of whom I
speak, had been confined in a cell known as One Hundred
and Five, North Tower.  I knew it from himself.  He knew
himself by no other name than One Hundred and Five, North
Tower, when he made shoes under my care. As I serve my
gun that day, I resolve, when the place shall fall, to examine
that cell. It falls. I mount to the cell, with a fellow-citizen
who is one of the Jury, directed by a gaoler. I examine it,
very closely. In a hole in the chimney, where a stone has been
worked out and replaced, I find a written paper.  This is
that written paper. I have made it my business to examine
some specimens of the writing of Doctor Manette. This is
the writing of Dr. Manette.  I confide this paper, in the
writing of Doctor Manette, to the hands of the President."
"Let it be read."
In a dead silence and stillness-the prisoner under trial looking lovingly at his wife, his wife only looking from him to look
with solicitude at her father, Doctor Manette keeping his eyes
fixed on the reader, Madame Defarge never taking hers from
the prisoner, Defarge never taking his from his feasting wife,
and all the other eyes there intent upon the Doctor, who saw
none of them-the paper was read, as follows.




I...UI
"IIT                WIEP R"A               3
"THIS IS THAWT WRITTEN PAPER.11-PAGE 354.








CHAPTER X.
THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHIADOW.
" 1, ALEXANDRE iMANETTE, unfortunate physician, native of
Beauvais and afterward resident in Paris, write this melancholy
paper in my doleful cell in the Bastille, during the last month
of the year 1767.  I write it at stolen intervals, under every
difficulty. I design to secrete it in the wall of the chimney,
where I have slowly and laboriously made a place of concealment for it.  Some pitying hand may find it there when I and
my sorrows are dust.
" These words are formed by the rusty iron point with which
I write with difficulty in scrapings of soot and charcoal from
the chimney, mixed with blood, in the last month of the tenth
year of my captivity. Hope has quite departed from my
breast.  I know from terrible warnings I have noted in myself
that my reason will not long remain unimpaired; but I solemnly
declare that I am at this time in the possession of my right
mind-that my memory is exact and circumstantial-and that
I write the truth as I shall answer for these, my last recorded
words, whether they be ever read by men or not, at the Eternal
Judgment seat.
" One cloudy moonlight night, in the third week of December
(I think the twenty-second of the month), in the year 1757, 1
was walking on a retired part of the quay by the Seine for the
refreshment of the frosty air, at an hour's distance from my
place of residence in the Street of the School of Medicine, when
a carriage came along behind me, driven very fast.  As I stood
aside to let that carriage pass, apprehensive that it might
otherwise run me down, a head was put out at the window,
and a voice called to the driver to stop.
" The carriage stopped as soon as the driver could rein in
his horses, and the same voice called to me by my name.  I
(355)




356          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
answered. The carriage was then so far in advance of me that
two gentlemen had time to open the door and alight before I
came up with it. I observed that they were both wrapped in
cloaks, and appeared to conceal themselves. As they stood
side by side near the carriage-door, I also observed that they
both looked of about my own age, or rather younger, and that
they were greatly alike, in stature, manner, voice, and (as far
as I could see) face too.
"' You are Doctor Manette?' said one.
"'I am.'
"'Doctor Manette, formerly of Beauvais,' said the other;'the young physician, originally an expert surgeon, who, within
the last year or two has made a rising reputation in Paris?'
"'G entlemen,' I returned,' I am Doctor Manette, of whom
you speak so graciously.'
"' We have been to your residence,' said the first,' and not
being so fortunate as to find you there, and being informed
that you were probably walking in this direction, we followed,
in the hope of overtaking you. Will you please to enter the
carriage?'
"The manner of both was imperious, and they both moved,
as these words were spoken, so as to place me between themselves and the carriage-door. They were armed. I was not.
"'Gentlemen,' said I,'pardon me; but I usually inquire
who does me the honor to seek my assistance, and what is the
nature of the case to which I am summoned.'
" The reply to this was made by him who had spoken second.'Doctor, your clients are people of condition. As to the nature
of the case, our confidence in your skill assures us that you will
ascertain it for yourself better than we can describe it. Enough.
Will you please to enter the carriage?'
"I could do nothing but comply, and I entered in silence.
They both entered after me-the last springing in after putting
up the steps. The carriage turned about and drove on at its
former speed.
" I repeat this conversation exactly as it occurred.  I have
no doubt that it is, word for word, the same.  I describe every
thing exactly as it took place, constraining my mind not to
wander from the task.  Where I make the broken marks that




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                  357
follow here, I leave off for the time, and put my paper in its
hiding-place...
" The carriage left the streets behind, passed the North Barrier, and emerged upon the country road.  At two-thirds of a
league from the Barrier-I did not estimate the distance at
that time, but afterward when I traversed it-it struck out of
the main avenue, and presently stopped at a solitary house. We
all three alighted, and walked, by a damp, soft foot-path, in a
garden where a neglected fountain had overflowed, to the door
of the house. It was not opened immediately, in answer to
the ringing of the bell, and one of my two conductors struck
the man who opened it with his heavy riding-glove across the
face.
"There was nothing in this action to attract my particular
attention, for I had seen common people struck more commonly
than dogs. But the other of the two, being angry likewise,
struck the man in like manner with his arm; the look and bearing of the brothers were then so exactly alike, that I then first
perceived them to be twin brothers.
" From the time of our alighting at the outer gate (which
we found locked, and which one of the brothers had opened
to admit us, and had relocked) I had heard cries proceeding
from an upper chamber. I was conducted to this chamber
straight, the cries growing louder as we ascended the stairs,
and I found a patient in a high fever of the brain, lying on a
bed.
" The patient was a woman of great beauty, and young;
assuredly not much past twenty. Her hair was torn and ragged,
and her arms were bound to her sides with sashes and handkerchiefs.  I noticed that these bonds were all portions of a
gentleman's dress. On one of them, which was a fringed scarf
for a dress of ceremony, I saw the armorial bearing of a Noble,
and the letter E.
" I saw this within the first minute of my contemplation of
the patient; for in her restless strivings she had turned over
on her face on the edge of the bed, had drawn the end of the
scarf into her mouth, and was in danger of suffocation. My
first act was to put out my hand to relieve her breathing, and
in moving the scarf aside, the embroidery in the corner caught
my sight.




358          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
"I turned her gently over, placed my hands upon her breast
to calm her and keep her down, and looked into her face.
Hier eyes were dilated and wild, and she constantly uttered
piercing shrieks, and repeated the words,'~My husband, my
father, and my brother!' and then counted up to twelve, and
said,' Hush!' For an instant, and no more, she would pause
to listen, and then the piercing shrieks would begin again, and
she would repeat the cry,'SMy husband, my father, and my
brother!' and would count up to twelve, and say,' Hush I'
There was no variation in the order or the manner.  There was
no cessation, but the regular moment's pause, in the utterance
of these sounds.
"' How long,' I asked,' has this lasted?'
" To distinguish the brothers, I will call them the elder and
the younger; by the elder, I mean him who exercised the most
authority. It was the elder who replied,' Since about this
hour last night.'
"'She has a husband, a father, and a brother?'
"'A brother.'
"'I do not address her brother?'
"He answered with great contempt,'No.'
"'She has some recent association with the number twelve?'
" The younger brother impatiently rejoined,' With twelve
o'clock?'
"'See, gentlemen,' said I, still keeping my hands upon her
breast,'how useless I am, as you have brought me! If I had
known what I was coming to see, I could have come provided.
As it is, time must be lost.  There are no medicines to be obtained in this lonely place.'
" The elder brother looked to the younger, who said haughtily,' There is a case of medicines here;' and brought it from
a closet, and put it on the table....
"I opened some of the bottles, smelled them, and put the
stoppers to my lips. If I had wanted to use any thing save
narcotic medicines that were poisons in themselves, I would
not have administered any of those.
"'Do you doubt them?' asked the younger brother.
"'You see, monsieur, I am going to use them,' I replied,
and said no more.




A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                  359
"I made the patient swallow, with great difficulty, and
after many efforts, the dose that I desired to give.  As I
intended to repeat it after a while, and as it was necessary
to watch its influence, I then sat down by the side of the bed.
There was a timid and suppressed woman in attendance (wife
of the man down stairs), who had retreated into a corner.
The house was damp and decayed, indifferently furnished —
evidently recently occupied and temporarily used. Some thick,
old hangings had been nailed up before the windows to deaden
the sound of the shrieks.  They continued to be uttered in
their regular succession, with the cry,'My husband, my father,
and my brother!' the counting up to twelve, and'I-lush!'
The frenzy was so violent that I had not unfastened the bandlages restraining the arms; but I had looked to them to see
that they were not painful.  The only spark of encouragement
in the case was that my hand upon the sufferer's breast had this
much soothing influence, that for a few minutes at a time it
tranquillized the figure.  It had no effect upon the cries; no
pendulum could be more regular.
" For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), I
had sat by the side of the bed for hblf an hour, with the two
brothers looking on, before the elder said:
"' There is another patient.'
"I was startled, and asked,' Is it a pressing case?'
"' You had better see,' he carelessly answered; and took up
a light.....
"The other patient lay in a back room across a second staircase which was a species of loft over a stable.  There was a
low, plastered ceiling to a part of it; the rest was open, to the
ridge of the tiled roof, and there were beams across.  IIa y and
straw were stored in that portion of the place, fagots for firing,
and a heap of apples in sand.  I had to pass through that part
to get at the other.  My memory is circumstantial and unshaken. I try it with these details, and I see them all, in this
my cell in the Bastille, near the close of the tenth year of my
captivity, as I saw them all that night.
" On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under
his head, lay a handsome peasant boy-a boy of not more than
seventeen at the most. lie lay on his back, with his teeth set,
44




360           A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.
his right hand clenched on his breast, and his glaring eyes
looking straight upward.  I could not see where his wound
was as I kneeled on one knee over him; but I could see that
lie was dying of a wound from a sharp point.
"' I am a doctor, my poor fellow,' said I.'Let me examine
it.'
"'I do not want it examined,' he answered;'let it be.'
"It was under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move
his hand away.  It was a sword thrust, received from twenty
to twenty-four hours before, but no skill could have saved him
if it had been looked to without delay.  Ile was then dying
fast.  As I turned my eyes to the elder brother, I saw him
looking down at this handsome boy, whose life was ebbing out,
as if he were a wounded bird, or hare, or rabbit; not at all as
if he were a fellow-creature.
"' How has this been done, monsieur?' said I.
"'A crazed young common dog! a serf! forced my brother
to draw upon him, and has fallen by my brother's sword-like
a gentleman!'
" There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity
in this answer.  The speaker seemed to acknowledge that it
was inconvenient to have that different order of creature dying
there, and that it would have been better if he had died in the
usual obscure routine of his vermin kind.  He was quite incapable of any compassionate feeling about the boy, or about
his fate.
"The boy's eyes had slowly moved to him as he had spoken,
and they now slowly moved to me.
"' Doctor, they are very proud, these Nobles; but we common dogs are proud too, sometimes. They plunder us, outrage us, beat us, kill us; but we have a little pride left, sometimes.  She-   Have you seen her?'
"The shrieks and the cries were audible there, though subdued by the distance.  He referred to them, as if she were
lying in our presence.
"I said,' I have seen her.'
" She is my sister, Doctor.  They have had their shameful
rights, these Nobles, in the modesty and virtue of our sisters,
many years, but we have had good girls among us.  I know




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                   361
it, and have heard my father say so.  She was a good girl.
She was betrothed to a good young man, too-a tenant of his.
AVe were all tenants of his-that man's who stands there. The
other is his brother, the worst of a bad race.'
"1It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered
bodily force to speak; but his spirit spoke with a dreadful
emphasis.
"' WTe were so robbed by that man who stands there, as all
we common dogs are by those superior Beings —taxed by him
without mercy, obliged to work for him without pay, obliged
to grind our corn at his mill, obliged to feed scores of his tame
birds on our wretched crops, and forbidden for our lives to
keep a single tame bird of our own, pillaged and plundered to
that degree that when we chanced to have a bit of meat we
ate it in fear, with the door barred and the shutters closed, that
his people should not see it and take it from us —I say, we
were so robbed and hunted, and were made so poor, that our
father told us it was a dreadful thing to bring a child into the
world, and that what we should most pray for was, that our
women might be barren and our miserable race die out!'
"I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed
-bursting forth like a fire. I had supposed that it mnust be
latent in the people somewhere; but I had never seen it break
out until I saw it in the dying boy.
"'Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married.  I-He was ailing
at that time, poor fellow, and she married her lover that she
might tend and comfort him in our cottage-our dog hut, as
that man would call it.  She had not been married many weeks
when that man's brother saw her and admired her, and asked
that man to lend her to him-for what are husbands among
us! He was willing enough, but my sister was good and
virtuous, and hated his brother with a hatred as strong as mine.
What did the two then, to persuade her husband to use his influence with her to make her willing?'
" The boy's eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly turned
-;o the looker-on, and I saw in the two faces that all he said
was true.  The two opposing kinds of pride confronting one:.;nother I can see even in this Bastille; the gentleman's, all
Ineolient indifference; the peasant's, all trodden-down sentimeat and passionate revenge.




362          A TALE  OF TWO CITIES.
"' You know, Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these
Nobles to harness us common dogs to carts, and drive us.
They so harnessed him and drove him. You know that it is
among their Rights to keep us in their grounds all night,
quieting the frogs, in order that their noble sleep may not be
disturbed. They kept him out in the unwholesome mists at
night, and ordered him back into his harness in the day.  But
he was not persuaded.  No! Taken out of harness one day
at noon to feed —if he could find food-li-he sobbed twelve times,
once for every stroke of the bell, and died on her bosom.'
"Nothing human could have held life in the boy but his determination to tell all his wrong. lie forced back the gathering
shadows of death, as lie forced his clenched right hand to remain clenched, and to cover his wound.
"'Then, with that man's permission, and even with his aid,
his brother took her away; in spite of what I know she must
have told his brother-and what that is will not be long unknown to you, Doctor, if it is now-his brother took her away
— for his pleasure and diversion, for a little while.  I saw her
pass me on the road.  When I took the tidings home our
father's heart burst; he never spoke one of the words that filled
it.  I took my young sister (for I have another) to a place
beyond the reach of this man, and where, at least, she will never
be his vassal.  Then I tracked the brother here, anid last night
climbed in —a common dog, but sword in lrand. —Where is the
loft window?  It was somewhere here.'
T" he room was darkening to his sight; the world was narrowing around him.  I glanced about me, and saw that thq
hay and straw were trampled over the floor, as if there had
been a struggle.
"' She heard me and ran in.  I told her not to come near
us till he was dead.  He came in and first tossed me some
pieces of money; then struck at me with a whip.  But I, though
a coinmmon dog, so struck at him as to make him draw.  Let
him break into as many pieces as he will the sword that he
stained with my common blood; he drew to defend himselfthrust at me with all his skill for his life.'
"M3ly glance had fallen but a few moments before on the
fragments of a broken sword, lying among the hay.  That




Ju       ".
"I  MARK  TI
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~,,.
~I MARK  THIS  CROSS  OF BLOOD  UPON HIM~ AS A. SIGN  THAT I DO ]T?~ —-PAGE  363.~~~~~~~~~~i 








A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                    363
weapon was a gentleman's.  In another place lay an old sword
that seemed to have been a soldier's.
"' Now lift me up, Doctor; lift me up.  Where is he?'
"I' ie is not here,' I said, supporting the boy, and thinking
that he referred to the brother.
"' Hie    Proud as these nobles are, he is afraid to see me.
Where is the man who was here?  Turn my face to him.'
"I did so, raising the boy's head against my knee.  But,
invested for the moment with extraordinary power, he raised
himself completely: obliging me to rise too, or I could not have
still supported him.
"' Mlarquis,' said the boy, turning to him with his eyes opened
wide and his right hand raised,'in the days when all these
things are to be answered for, I summon you and yours, to
the last of your bad race, to answer for them.  I mark this
cross of blood upon you, as a sign that I do it.  In the days
when all these things are to be answered for, I summon your
brother, the worst of the bad race, to answer for them separately.
I mark this cross of blood upon him, as a sign that I do it.'
" Twice he put his hand to the wound in his breast, and with
his forefinger drew a cross in the air.  He stood for an instant
With the finger yet raised, and, as it dropped, he dropped with
it, and I laid him dowin dead.....
"When I returned to the bedside of the young woman I
found her raving in precisely the same order and continuity.
I knew that this might last for many hours, and that it would
probably end in the silence of the grave.
"I repeated the niedicines I had given her, and I sat at the
side of the bed until the night was far advanced.  She never
abated the piercing quality of her shrieks, never stumbled in
the distinctness or the order of her words.  They were always,' My husband, my father, and my brother! One, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.  Hush!'
"'This lasted twenty-six hours from the time when I first saw
her.  I had come and gone twice, and was again sitting by her,
when she began to falter.  I did what little could be done to
assist that opportunity, and by-and-by she sank into a lethargy,
and lay like the dead.
"It was as if the wind and rain had lulled at last, after a




364          A TALE  OF TWVO  CITIES.
long and fearful storm.  I released her arms, and called the
woman to assist me to compose her figure and the dress she
had torn.  It was then that I knew her condition to be that
of one in whom the first expectations of being a mother have
arisen; and it was then that I lost the little hope I had had
of her.
"' Is she dead?' asked the AMarquis, whom I will still describe
as the elder brother, coming booted into the room from his
horse.
"' Not dead,' said I;'but like to die.'
"' What strength there is in these common bodies!' he said,
looking down at her with some curiosity.
"' There is prodigious strength,' I answered him,'in sorrow
and despair.'
"He first laughed at my words, and then frowned at them.
He moved a chair with his foot near to mine, ordered the
woman away, and said, in a subdued voice:
":'Doctor, finding my brother in this difficulty with these
hinds, I recommended that your aid should be invited.  Your
reputation is high, and, as a young man with your fortune to
make, you are probably mindful of your interest. The things
that you see here are things to be seen and not spoken of.'
"I listened to the patient's breathing, and avoided answering.
"'Do you honor me with your attention, Doctor?'
"'Monsieur,' said I,'in my profession the communications
of patients are always received in confidence.' I was guarded
in my answer, for I was troubled in my mind by what I had
beard and seen.
"Her breathing was so difficult to trace that I carefully
tried the pulse and the heart. There was life, and no more.
Looking round as I resumed my seat, I found both the brothers
intent upon me........
"I write with so much difficulty, the cold is so severe, I am
so fearful of being detected and consigned to an under-ground
cell and total darkness, that I must abridge this narrative.
There is no confusion or failure in my memory; it can recall,
and could detail, every word that was ever spoken between me
and those brothers.
"She lingered for a week.  Toward the last I could under



A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                  365)
stand some few syllables that she said to me by placing my ear
close to her lips.  She asked nme where she was, and I told
her; who I was, and I told her.  It was in vain that I asked
her for her family name.  She faintly shook her head upon the
pillow, and kept her secret, as the boy had done.
"I had no opportunity of asking her any question until I had
told the brothers she was sinking fast, and could not live another day.  Until then, though no one was ever presented to
her consciousness save the woman and myself, one or other
of them had always jealously sat behind the curtain at the head
of the bed when I was there.  But when it came to that, they
seemed careless what communication I might hold with her;
as if-the thought passed through my mind-I were dying too.
"I always observed that their pride bitterly resented the
younger brother's (as I call him) having crossed swords with
a peasant, and that peasant a boy.  The only consideration
that appeared really to affect the mind of either of them was
the consideration that this was highly degrading to the family,
and was ridiculous.  As often as I caught the younger brother's
eyes, their expression reminded me that he disliked me deeply
for knowing what I knew from the boy  Ile was smoother
and more polite to me than the elder; but I saw this.  I also
saw that I was an incumbrance in the mind of the elder too.
"My patient died two hours before midnight-at a time, by
my watch, answering almost to the minute when I had first
seen her.  I was alone with her when her forlorn young head
drooped gently on one side, and all her earthly wrongs and
sorrows ended.
"The brothers were waiting in a room down stairs, impatient to ride away.  I had heard them, alone at the bedside,
striking their boots with their riding-whips, and loitering up
and down.
"'At last she is dead?' said the elder, when I went in.
"' She is dead,' said I.
"'I congratulate you, my brother,' were his words as he
turned round.
" Ile had before offered me money, which I had postponed
taking.  He now gave me a rouleau of gold.  I took it from
his hand, but laid it on the table.  I had considered the question,
and had resolved to accept nothing.




366          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
"'Pray excuse me,' said I.'Under the circumstances, no.'
" They exchanged looks, but bent their heads to me as I bent
mine to them, and we parted without another word on either
side......
" I am weary, weary, weary-worn down by misery. I cannot read what I have written with this gaunt hand.
" Early in the morning the rouleau of gold was left at my
door in a little box, with my name on the outside.  From the
first I had anxiously considered what I ought to do. I decided
that day to write privately to the Minister, stating the nature
of the two cases to which I had been summoned, and the place
to which I had gone: in effect, stating all the circumstances.
I knew what Court influence was, and what the immunities of
the Nobles were, and I expected that the matter would never
be heard of; but I wished to relieve my own mind. I had kept
the matter a profound secret even from my wife; -and this, too,
I resolved to state in my letter.  I had no apprehension whatever of my real danger; but I was conscious that there might
be danger for others, if others were compromised by possessing
the knowledge that I possessed.
" I was much engaged tlat day, and could not complete my
letter that night. I rose long before my usual time next morning to finish it. It was the last day of the year.  The letter
was lying before me just completed when I was told that a
lady waited, who wished to see me......
" I am growing more and more unequal to the task I have
set myself. It is so cold, so dark, my senses are so benumbed,
and the gloom upon me is so dreadful.
"The lady was young, engaging, and handsome, but not
marked for long life.  She was in great agitation.  She presented herself to me as the wife of the Marquis St. Evremonde.
I connected the title by which the boy had addressed the elder
brother, with the initial letter embroidered on the scarf, and
had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that I had seen
that nobleman very lately.
"My memory is still accurate, but I cannot write the
words of our conversation.  I suspect that I am watched more
closely than I was, and I know not at what times I may be
watched.  She had in part suspected, and in part discovered,




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                 367
the main facts of the cruel story, of her husband's share in it,
and my being resorted to. She did not know that the girl
was dead.  Her hope had been, she said in great distress, to
show her, in secret, a woman's sympathy. Her hope had been
to avert the wrath of Heaven from a House that had long been
hateful to the suffering many.
"She had reasons for believing that there was a young sister
living, and her greatest desire was to help that sister. I could
tell her nothing but that there was such a sister; beyond that,
I knew nothing. Her inducement to come to me, relying on
my confidence, had been the hope that I could tell her the name
and place of abode. Whereas to this wretched hour I am ignorant of both......
"These scraps of paper fail me.  One was taken from me,
with a warning, yesterday. I must finish my record to-day.
" She was a good, compassionate lady, and not happy in her
marriage. How could she be I The brother distrusted and
disliked her, and his influence was all opposed to her; she stood
in dread of him, and in dread of her husband too. When I
handed her down to the door, there was a child, a pretty boy
from two to three years old, in her carriage.
"' For his sake, Doctor,' she said, pointing to him in tears,'I would do all I can to make what poor amends I can. Ite
will never prosper in his inheritance otherwise. I have a presentiment that if no other innocent atonement is made for
this, it will one day be required of him. What I have left to
call my own-it is little beyond the worth of a few jewels-I
will make it the first charge of his life to bestow, with the compassion and lamentation of his dead mother, on this injured
family, if the sister can be discovered.'
"She kissed the boy, and said, caressing him,'It is for thine
own dear sake. Thou wilt be faithful, little Charles?' The
child answered her bravely,'Yes!' I kissed her hand, and
she took him in her arms, and went away caressing him. I
never saw her more.
" As she had mentioned her husband's name in the faith that
I knew it, I added no mention of it to my letter. I sealed my
letter, and, not trusting it out of my own hands, delivered it
myself that day.
45




368          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
"That night, the last night of the year, toward nine o'clock,
a man in a black dress rang at my gate, demanded to see me,
and softly followed my servant, Ernest Defarge, a youth, up
stairs.  When my servant came into the room where I sat with
my wife-oh my wife, beloved of my heart! My fair, young,
English wife! —we saw the man, who was supposed to be at
the gate, standing silent behind him.
" An urgent case in the Rue St. Honore, he said. It would
not detain me; he had a coach in waiting.
"It brought me here, it brought me to my grave. When I
was clear of the house a black muffler was drawn tightly over
my mouth from behind, and my arms were pinioned. The two
brothers crossed the road from a dark corner, and identified
me with a single gesture.  The Marquis took from his pocket
the letter I had written, showed it me, burned it in the light
of a lantern that was held, and extinguished the ashes with his
foot. Not a word was spoken. I was brought here, I was
brought to my living grave.
" If it had pleased God to put it in the hard heart of either
of the brothers, in all these frightful years, to grant me any
tidings of my dearest wife-so much as to let me know by a
word whether alive or dead-I might have thought that He
had not quite abandoned them. But now I believe that the
mark of the red cross is fatal to them, and that they have no
part in His mercies. And them and their descendants, to the
last of their race, I, Alexandre Manette, unhappy prisoner, do,
this last night of the yc-ar 17(;7, in my unbearable agony, denounce to the timnes when all these things shall be answered for.
I denounce them to heaven and to earth."
A terrible sound arose when the reading of this document
was done. A sound of craving and eagerness that had nothing
articulate in it but blood.'the narrative called up the most
revengeful passions of the time, and there was not a head in
the nation but must have dropped before it.
Little need, in presence of that tribunal and that auditory,
to show how the Defarges had not made the paper public,
with the other captured Bastille memorials borne in procession,
and had kept it, biding their time. Little need to show that




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  369
this detested family name had long been anathematized by
Saint Antoine, and was wrought into the fatal register.  The
man never trod ground whose virtues and services would have
sustained him in that place that day, against such denunciation.
And all the worse for the doomed man that the denouncer
was a well-known citizen, his own attached friend, the father
of his wife.  One of the frenzied aspirations of the populace
was for imitations of the questionable public virtues of antiquity,
and for sacrifices and self-immolations on the people's altar.
Therefore, when the President said (else had his own head
quivered on his shoulders), that the good physician of the Republic would deserve better still of the Republic by rooting
out an obnoxious family of Aristocrats, and would doubtless
feel a sacred glow and joy in making his daughter a widow
and her child an orphan, there was wild excitement, patriotic
fervor, not a touch of human sympathy.
" Much influence around him has that Doctor!" murmured
Madame Defarge, smiling to The Vengeance.  "Save him now,
my Doctor, save him!"
At every juryman's vote there was a roar. Another and
another. Roar and roar.
Unanimously voted. At heart and by descent an Aristocrat,
an enemy of the Republic, a notorious oppressor of the People.
Back to the Conciergerie, and Death within four-and-twenty
hours!
23




CHAPTERI XI.
DUSK.
THE wretched wife of the innocent man thus doomed to die
fell under the sentence as if she had been mortally stricken.
But she uttered no sound; and so strong was the voice within
her, representing that it was she of all the world who must uphold him in his misery and not augment it, that it quickly raised
her, even from that shock.
The judges having to take part in a public demonstration
out of doors, the tribunal adjourned.  The quick noise and
movement of the court's emptying itself by many passages had
not ceased when Lucie stood stretching  out her arms toward
her husband, with nothing in her face but love and consolation.
"If I might touch him! If I might embrace him once!
Oh, good citizens, if you would have so much compassion
for us!"
There was but a jailer left, along with the two of the four
men who had taken him last night, and Barsad. The people
had all poured out to the show in the streets. Barsad proposed
to the rest, "Let her embrace him, then; it is but a moment."
It was silently acquiesced in, and they passed her over the seats
in the hall to a raised place, where he, by leaning over the dock,
could fold her in his arms.
"Farewell, dear darling of my soul.  My parting blessing
on my.love. We shall meet again, where the weary are at
rest!"
They were her husband's words, as he held her to his bosom.
"I can bear it, dear Charles. I am supported from above;
don't suffer for me.  A parting blessing for our child."
"I send it her by you.  I kiss her by you.  I say farewell
to her by you."
"Miy husband.  No! A moment!"  He was tearing him(370)




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                   371
self apart from her.  " We shall not be separated long.  I feel
that this will break my heart by-and-by; but I will do my duty
while I can, and when I leave her, God will raise up friends
for her as He did for me."
Her father had followed her, and would have fallen on his
knees to both of them, but that Darnay put out a hand and
seized him, crying:
" No, no! What have you done, what have you done, that
you should kneel to us I We know now what a struggle you
made of old. We know now what you underwent when you
suspected my descent, and when you knew it.  We know now
the natural antipathy you strove against, and conquered, for
her dear sake. We thank you with all our hearts, and all our
love and duty. Heaven be with you!"
Her father's only answer was to draw his hands through his
white hair, and wring them with a shriek of anguish.
" It could not be otherwise," said the prisoner. " All things
have worked together as they have fallen out. It was the
always vain endeavor to discharge my poor mother's trust that
first brought my fatal presence near you.  Good could never
come of such evil, a happier end was not in nature to so unhappy a beginning.  Be comforted, and forgive me.  Heaven
bless you!"
As he was drawn away his wife released him, and stood looking after him with her hands touching one another in the attitude of prayer, and with a radiant look upon her face, in which
there was even a comforting smile. As he went out at the
prisoners' door she turned, laid her head lovingly on her father's
breast, tried to speak to him, and fell at his feet.
Then, issuing from the obscure corner from which he had
never moved, Sydney Carton came and took her up. Only her
father and Mr. Lorry were with her. Ihis arm trembled as it
raised her, and supported her head. Yet there was an air about
him that was not all pity-that had a flush of pride in it.
"Shall I take her to a coach?  I shall never feel her weight."
He carried her lightly to the door, and laid her tenderly
down in a coach.  Her father and their old friend got into it,
and he took his seat beside the driver.
When they arrived at the gateway where he had paused in




372           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
the dark not many hours before, to picture to himself on which
of the rough stones of the street her feet had trodden, he lifted
her again, and carried her up the staircase to their rooms.
There he laid her down on a couch, where her child and MIiss
Pross wept over her.
"Don't recall her to herself," he said, softly, to the latter;
" she is better so; don't revive her to consciousness while she
only faints."
"Oh, Carton, Carton, dear Carton!" cried little Lucie,
springing up and throwing her arms passionately round him,
in a burst of grief.  " Now that you have come, I think you
will do something to help mamma, something to save papa I
Oh, look at her, dear Cartonll!  Can you, of all the people
who love her, bear to see her so?"
He bent over the child, and laid her blooming cheek against
his face.  He put her gently from him, and looked at her unconscious mother.
"Before I go," he said, and paused, " I may kiss her?"
It was remembered afterward that when he bent down and
touched her face with his lips he murmured some words.  The
child, who was nearest to him, told them afterward, and told
her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she
heard him say, "A life you love."
When he had gone out into the next room  he turned suddenly on Mr. Lorry and her father, who were following, and
said to the latter:
" You had great influence but yesterday, Doctor Manette;
let it, at least, be tried. These judges, and all the men in
power, are very friendly to you, and very recognizant of your
services; are they not?"
"Nothing connected with Charles was concealed from me.
I had the strongest assurances that I should save him; and I
did." IHe returned the answer in great trouble, and very slowly.
"Try them again.  The hours between this and to-morrow
afternoon are few and short, but try."
"I intend to try. I will not rest a moment."
"That's well.  I have known such energy as yours do great
things before now-though never," lie added, with a smile and
a sigh together, "such great things as this.  But try!  Of




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                   373
little worth as life is when we misuse it, it is worth that effort.
It would cost nothing to lay down if it were not."
"I will go," said Doctor Manette, "to the Prosecutor and
the President straight, and I will go to others whom it is better
not to name. I will write, too, and- But stay! There is a
celebration in the streets, and no one will be accessible until
dark."
" That's true.  Well! It is a forlorn hope at the best, and
not much the forlorner for being delayed till dark. I should
like to know how you speed; though, mind! I expect nothing!
When are you likely to have seen these dread powers, Doctor
Mallette?"
" Immediately after dark, I should hope. Within an hour
or two from this."
" It will be dark soon after four. Let us stretch the hour or
two.  If I go to Mr. Lorry's at nine, shall I hear what you
have done, either from our friend or from yourself!"
I" Yes. "
" May you prosper!"
Mr. Lorry followed Sydney to the outer door, and touching
him on the shoulder as he was going away, caused him to turn.
"I have no hope," said Mr. Lorry, in a low and sorrowful
whisper.
" Nor have I."
"If any of these men, or all of these men, were disposed to
spare him-which is a large supposition; for what is his life, or
any man's to them!-I doubt if they durst spare him after the
demonstration in the Court."
" And so do I. I heard the fall of the axe in that sound."
Mr. Lorry leaned his arm upon the door-post, and bowed
his face upon it.
"Don't despona,' said Carton, very gently; "don't grieve.
I encouraged Doctor Nlanette in this idea, because I felt that
it might one day be consolatory to her.  Otherwise, she might
think'his life was wantonly thrown away or wasted,' and that
might trouble her."
"Yes, yes, yes," returned Mr. Lorry, drying his eyes, "you
are right.  But lie will perish; there is no real hope."
"Yes.  He will perish; there is no real hope," echoed
Carton; and walked with a settled step down stairs.




CHAPTER XII.
DARKNESS.
SYDNEY CARTON paused in the street, not quite decided where
to go.  " At Tellson's banking-house at nine," he said, with a
musing face. " Shall I do well, in the mean time, to show myself? I think so. It is best that these people should know
there is such a man as I here; it is a sound precaution, and
may be a necessary preparation. But care, care, care! Let
me think it out."
Checking his steps, which had begun to tend toward an object,
he took a turn or two in the already darkening street, and
traced the thought in his mind to its possible consequences.
Hiis first impression was confirmed.  "It is best," he said,
finally resolved, "that these people should know there is such
a man as I here."  And he turned his face toward Saint
Antoine.
Defarge had described himself that day as the keeper of a
wine-shop in the Saint Antoine suburb.  It was not difficult
for one who knew the city well to find his house without asking
any question.  Having ascertained its situation, Carton came
out of those closer streets again, and dined at a place of refreshment, and fell sound asleep after dinner.  For the first time in
many years he had no strong drink.  Since last night he had
taken nothing but a little light thin wine, and last night he
had dropped the brandy slowly down on Mr. Lorry's hearth
like a man who had done with it.
It was as late as seven o'clock when he awoke, refreshed,
and went out into the streets again. As he passed along
toward Saint Antoine he stopped at a shop-window where there
was a mirror, and slightly altered the disordered arrangement
of his loose cravat, and his coat-collar, and his wild hair. This
done, he went on direct to Defarge's, and went in.
(3'4)




I-               I/ /j1I      I                iij    I         r; ili
IN 
I1 u I. 
WEA  TYO, LIK  EYEMNE!"~P                                 35








A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                   375
There happened to be no customer in the shop but Jacques
Three, of the restless fingers and the croaking voice.  This
man, whom he had seen upon the Jury, stood drinking at the
little counter, in conversation with the Defarges, man and wife.
The Vengeance assisted in the conversation, like a regular
member of the establishment.
As Carton walked in, took his seat, and asked (in very indifferent French) for a small measure of wine, Madame Defarge
cast a careless glance at him, and then a keener, and then a
keener, and then advanced to him herself, and asked him what
it was he had ordered.
IIHe repeated what he had already said.
"English?" asked Miadame Defarge, inquisitively raising
her dark eyebrows.
After looking at her, as if the sound of even a single French
word were slow to express itself to him, he answered, in his
former strong foreign accent, "Yes, madame, yes. I am
English!"
Madame Defarge returned to her counter to get the wine,
and as he took up a Jacobin journal and feigned to pore over
it, puzzling out its meaning, he heard her say, " I swear to you,
like Evremonde!"
Defarge brought him the wine, and gave him Good-evening.
" How?"
"Good-evening."
" Oh! Good-evening, citizen," filling his glass.  " Ah! and
good wine.  I drink to the Republic."
Defarge went back to the counter and said, "Certainly, a
little like."  Madame sternly retorted, "1 tell you a good deal
like."  Jacques Three pacifically remarked, " Ile is so much in
your mind, see you, madame."  The amiable Vengeance added,
with a laugh, "Yes, my faith! And you are looking forward
with so much pleasure to seeing him once more to-morrow!"
Carton followed the lines and words of his paper with a slow
forefinger and with a studious and absorbed face. They were
all leaning their arms on the counter close together, speaking
low. After a silence of a few moments, during which they had
all looked toward him without disturbing his outward attention
from the Jacobin editor, they resumed their conversation.
46



376           A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.
"It is true what madame says," observed Jacques Three.
" Why stop?  There is great force in that.  Why stop?"
"Well, well," reasoned Defarge, "but one must stop somewhere. After all, the question is still, where?"
"At extermination," said madame.
"Mlagnificent!" croaked Jacques Three.  The Vengeance
also highly approved.
"Extermination is good doctrine, my wife," said Defarge,
rather troubled; "in general, I say nothing against it. But
this Doctor has suffered much; you have seen him to-day; you
have observed his face when the paper was read."
"I have observed his face!" repeated madame, contemptuously and angrily.  "Yes, I have observed his face.  I have
observed his face to be not the face of a true friend of the Republic.  Let him take care of his face!"
"And you have observed, my wife," said Defarge, in a deprecatory manner, " the anguish of his daughter, which must
be dreadful anguish to him.
"I have observed his daughter!" repeated madame; "yes, I
have observed his daughter more times than one.  I have observed her to-day, and I have observed her other days.  I have
observed her in the court, and I have observed her in the street
by the prison.  Let me but lift my finger-!"  She seemed to
raise it (the listener's eyes were always on his paper), and to
let it fall with a rattle on the ledge before her, as if the axe
had dropped.
"The citizeness is superb!" croaked the Juryman.
" She is an Angel?" said the Vengeance, and embraced her.
"As to thee," pursued madame, implacably, addressing her
husband, " if it depended on thee-which, happily it does not,
thou wouldst rescue this man even now."
" No!" protested Defarge.  " Not if to lift this glass would
do it! But I would leave the matter there.  I say, stop
there."
" See you then, Jacques," said Madame Defarge, wrathfully;
"and see you too, my Little Vengeance; see you both! Listen!
For other crimes as tyrants and oppressors I have this race a
long time on my register, doomed to destruction and extermination.  Ask my husband is that so."




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                    377
"It is so," assented Defarge, without being asked.
"In the beginning of the great days, when the 1Bastille falls,
he finds this paper of to-day, and he brings it home, and in the
middle of the night, when this place is clear and shut, we read
it, here on this spot, by the light of this lamp.  Ask him is
that so."
"It is so," assented Defarge.
"That night I tell him, when the paper is read through, and
the lamp is burned out, and the day is gleaming in above those
shutters and between those iron bars, that I have now a secret
to communicate.  Ask him is that so."
" It is so," assented Doefarge again.
"I communicate to himl that secret.  I smite this bosom
with these two hands as I smite- it now, and I tell him,'Defarge, I was brought up among the fishermen of the sea-shore,
and that injured family is mine.  Defarge, that sister was my
sister, that husband was my sister's husband, that unborn child
was their child, that brother was my brother, that father was
my father, those dead are my dead, and that summons to
answer for those things descends to me!' Ask him is that
so."
"It is so," assented Defarge once more.
" Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop," returned madame,
"but don't tell me."
Both her hearers derived a horrible enjoyment from  the
deadly nature of her wrath-the listener could feel how white
she was, without seeing her-and both highly commended it.
Defarge, a weak minority, interposed a few words for the
memory of the compassionate wife of the Marquis; but only
elicited from his own wife a repetition of her last reply. " Tell
the Wind and Fire where to stop; not me!"
Customers entered, and the group was broken up. The
English customer paid for what he had had, perplexedly counted
his change, and asked, as a stranger, to be directed toward the
National Palace.  Madame Defarge took him to the door and
put her arm on his in pointing out the road.  The English
customer was not without his reflections then that it might be
a good deed to seize that arm, lift it, and strike under it sharp
and deep.




378          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
But he went on his way and was soon swallowed up in the
shadow of the prison wall. At the appointed hour he emerged
from it to present himself in Mr. Lorry's room again, where he
found the old gentleman walking to and fro in restless anxiety.
He said he had been with Lucie until just now, and had only
left her for a few minutes to come and keep his appointment.
Hier father had not been seen since he quitted the bankinghouse toward four o'clock.  She had some faint hopes that his
mediation might save Charles, but they were very slight.  He
had been more than five hours gole: where could he be?
Mr. Lorry waited until ten; but Doctor Manette not
returning, and he being unwilling to leave Lucie any longer, it
was arranged that he should go back to her and come to the
banking-house again at midnight. In the meanwhile, Carton
would wait alone by the fire for the Doctor.
He waited and waited, and the clock struck twelve; but
Doctor Manette did not come back. Mr. Lorry returned and
found no tidings of him, and brought none. Where could he
be?
They were discussing this question, and were almost building
up some weak structure of hope on his prolonged absence,
when they heard him on the stairs. The instant he entered the
room, it was plain that all was lost.
Whether he bad really been to any one, or whether he had
been all that time traversing the streets, was never known. As
he stood staring at them they asked him no question, for his
face told them every thing.
" I cannot find it," said he, "and I must have it. Where is
it?"
His head and throat were bare, and as he spoke, with a
helpless look straying all around, he took his coat off and let
it drop on the floor.
" Where is my bench? I have been looking everywhere for
my bench, and I can't find it.  What have they done with my
work?  Time presses: I must finish those shoes."
They looked at onle another, and their hearts died within
them.
" Come, come!" said he, in a whimpering, miserable way;
"let me get to work. Give me my work."




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                   379
Receiving no answer, he tore his hair and beat his feet upon
the ground like a distracted child.
"Don't torture a poor, forlorn wretch," he implored them,
with a dreadful cry; "but give me my work! What is to become of us if those shoes are not done to-night?"
Lost, utterly lost!
It was so clearly beyond hope to reason with him or try to
restore him, that-as if by agreement-they each put a hand
upon his shoulder and soothed him to sit down before the fire,
with a promise that he should have his work presently.  He
sank into the chair and brooded over the embers and shed
tears.  As if all that had happened since the garret time were
a momentary fancy or a dream, Mr. Lorry saw him shrink into
the exact figure that Defarge had had in keeping.
Affected and impressed with terror as they both were by this
spectacle of ruin, it was not a time to yield to such emotions.
His lonely daughter, bereft of her final hope and reliance, appealed to them both too strongly.  Again, as if by agreement,
they looked at one another with one meaning in their faces.
Carton was the first to speak:
" The last chance is gone: it was not much. Yes; he had
better be taken to her. But before you go, will you for a mo.
ment, steadily attend to me? Don't ask me why I make the
stipulations I am going to make, and exact the promise I am
going to exact; I have a reason-a good one."
"I do not doubt it," answered Mr. Lorry.  " Say on."
The figure in the chair between them was all the time monotonously rocking itself to and fro, and moaning. They spoke
in such a tone as they would have used if they had been watching by a sick bed in the night.
Carton stooped to pick up the coat which lay almost entangling his feet. As he did so, a small case in which the Doctor
was accustomed to carry the list of his day's duties, fell lightly
on the floor. Carton took it up and there was a folded paper
in it. " We should look at this?" he said. Mr. Lorry nodded
his consent.  He opened it, and exclaimed, "Thank God!"
"What is it?" asked Mr. Lorry, eagerly.
"A  moment! Let me speak of it in its place. First,"
he put his hand in his coat and took another paper from it,




380          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
"that is the certificate which enables me to pass out of this
city.  Look at it.  You see —Sydney Carton, all Englishman?"
Mr. Lorry held it open in his hand, gazing in his earnest
face.
"Keep it for me until to-morrow.  I shall see him  tomorrow, you remember, and I had better not take it into the
prison. "
"Why not?"
" I don't know: I prefer not to do so. Now take this paper
that Doctor Manette has carried about him.  It is a similar
certificate, enabling him and his daughter and her child at any
time to pass the barrier and the frontier?  You see?"
" Yes I"
"Perhaps he obtained it as his last and utmost precaution
against evil, yesterday.  When is it dated? But no matter;
don't stay to look; put it up carefully with mine and your own.
Now, observe! I never doubted until within this hour or two
that he had, or could have, such a paper. It is good until
recalled. But it may be soon recalled, and I have reason to
think will be."
" They are not in danger?"
"They are in great danger.  They are in danger of denunciation by Madame Defarge.  I know it from her own lips.  I
have overheard words of that woman's to-night which have
presented their danger to me in strong colors.  I have lost no
time, and since then I have seen the spy. Ile confirms me.
Hie knows that a wood-sawyer, living by the prison-wall, is
under the control of the Defarges, and has been rehearsed by
Madame Defarge as to his having seen Her"-he never mentioned Lucie's name-" making signs and signals to prisoners.
It is easy to foresee that the pretense will be the common one,
a prison plot, and that it will involve her life-and perhaps
her child's-and perhaps her father's-for both have been seen
with her at that place.  Don't look so horrified.  You will
save them all."
"Heaven grant I may, Carton! But how?"
"I am going to tell you how. It will depend on you, and
it could depend on no better man. This new denunciation will




A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                 381
certainly not take place until after to-morrow; probably not
until two or three days afterward: more probably a week afterward. You know it is a capital crime to mourn for, or sympathize with, a victim of the guillotine.  She and her father
would unquestionably be guilty of this crime, and this woman
(the inveteracy of whose pursuit cannot be described) would
wait to add that strength to her case, and make herself doubly
sure.  You follow me?7'
"So attentively, and with so much confidence in what you
say, that for the moment I lose sight," touching the back of
the Doctor's chair, "even of this distress."
"You have money, and can buy the means of traveling to
the sea-coast'as quickly as the journey can be made. Your
preparations have been completed for some days to return to
England. Early to-morrow have your horses ready, so that
they may be in starting trim at two o'clock in the afternoon."
"It shall be clone!"'
His manner was so fervent and inspiring, that Mr. Lorry
caught the flame, and was quick as youth.
"You are a noble heart.  Did I say we could depend upon
no better man?  Tell her to-night what you know of her
danger as involving her child and her father. Dwell upon that,
for she would lay her own fair head beside her husband's cheerfully."  He faltered for an instant; then went on as before.
" For the sake of her child and her father, press upon her the
necessity of leaving Paris, with them and you, at that hour.
Tell her that it was her husband's last arrangement.  Tell her
that more depends upon it than she dare believe, or hope.
You think that her father, even in this sad state, will submit
himself to her; do you not?"
"I am sure of it."
"I thought so. Quietly and steadily have all these arrangements made in the court-yard here, even to the taking of your
own seat in the carriage. The moment I come to you take me
in, and drive away."
"I understand that I wait for you under all circumstances?"
You have my certificate in your hand with the rest, yot
know, and will reserve my place. WVait for nothing but to
have my place occupied, and then for England!"




382          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
"Why, then," said Mr. Lorry, grasping his eager but so
firm and steady hand, " it does not all depend on one old man,
but I shall have a young and ardent man at my side."
" By the help of Heaven you shall! Promise me solemnly
that nothing will influence you to alter the course on which we
now stand pledged to one another."
"Nothing, Carton. "
" Remember these words to-morrow: change the course, or
delay in it-for any reason-and no life can possibly be saved,
and many lives must inevitably be sacrificed."
"I will remember them.  I hope to do my part faithfully."
"And I hope to do mine. Now, good-by!"
Though he said it with a grave smile of earnestness, and
though he even put the old man's hand to his lips, he did not
part from him then.  He helped him so far to arouse the rocking figure before the dying embers as to get a cloak and hat
put upon it, and to tempt it forth to find where the bench and
work were hidden that it still moaningly besought to have.
Ile walked on the other side of it, and protected it to the
court-yard of the house where the afflicted heart-so happy in
the memorable time when he had revealed his own desolate
heart to it-outwatched the awful night.  I-e entered the
court-yard and remained there for a few moments alone, looking up at the light in the window of her room. Before he
went away he breathed a blessing toward it, and a farewell.




CHAPTER XIII.
FIFTY-TWO.
IN the black prison of the Conciergerie the doomed of the
day awaited their fate.  They were in number as the weeks
of the year.  Fifty-two were to roll that afternoon on the lifetide of the city to the boundless, everlasting sea.  Before their
cells were quit of them, new occupants were appointed; before
their blood ran into the blood spilled yesterday, the blood that
was to mingle with theirs to-morrow was already set apart.
Two score and twelve were told off.  From the farmergeneral of seventy, whose riches could not buy his life, to the
seamstress of twenty, whose poverty and obscurity could not
save her.  Physical diseases, engendered in the vices and
neglects of men, will seize on victims of all degrees; and the
frightful moral disorder, born of unspeakable suffering, intolerable oppression, and heartless indifference, smote equally without distinction.
Charles Darnay, alone in a cell, had sustained himself with
no flattering delusion since he came to it from the Tribunal.
In every line of the narrative he had heard read, he had heard his
condemnation.  lie had fully comprehended that no personal
influence could possibly save him —that he was virtually sentenced by the millions, and that units could avail him nothing.
Nevertheless, it was not easy, with the face of his beloved
wife fresh before him, to compose his mind to what it must
bear.  His hold on life was strong, and it was very, very hard
to loosen; by gradual efforts and degrees unclosed a little here,
it clenched the tighter there, and when he brought his strength
to bear on that hand and it yielded, this was closed again.
There was a hurry, too, in all his thoughts, a turbulent and
heated working of his heart, that contended against resignation.
If, for a moment, he did feel resigned, thene his wife and child,
(383)




o384         A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
who had to live after him, seemed to protest and to make it a
selfish thing.
But all this was at first. Before long the consideration that
there was no disgrace in the fate he must meet, and that numbers went the same road wrongfully, and trod it firmly, every
day, sprang up to stimulate him.  Next followed the thought
that much of the future peace of mind enjoyable by the dear
ones depended on his quiet fortitude.  So by degrees he calmed
into the better state when he could raise his thoughts much
higher, and draw comfort down.
Before it had set in dark on the night of his condemnation
he had traveled thus far on his last way. Being allowed to
purchase the means of writing, and a light, lhe sat down to
write until such time as the prison lamps should be extinguished.
He-I wrote a long letter to Lucie, showing her that he had
known nothing of her father's imprisonment until he had heard
of it from herself, and that he had been as ignorant as she of
his father's and uncle's responsibility for that misery until the
paper had been read.  Ile had already explained to her that
his concealment from herself of the name he had relinquished
was the one condition-fully intelligible now-that her father
had attached to their betrothal, and was the one promise he
had still exacted on the morning of their marriage. He entreated her, for her father's sake, never to seek to know
whether he had become oblivious of the existence of the paper,
or had had it recalled to him (for the moment, or for good),
by the story of the Tower, on that old Sunday under the dear
plane-tree in the garden. If he had preserved any definite
remembrance of it, there could be no doubt that he had supposed it destroyed with the Bastille, when he had found no
mention of it among the relics of prisoners which the populace
had discovered there, and which had been described to all the
world.  He besought her-though he added that he knew it
was needless-to console her father, by impressing him, through
every tender means she could think of, with the truth that he had
done nothing for which he could justly reproach himself, but had
uniformly forgotten himself for their joint sakes.  Next to her
preservation of his own last grateful love and blessing, and her




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.'                385'
overcoming of her sorrow to devote herself to their dear child,
he adjured her, as they would meet in Heaven, to comfort her
father.
To her father himself he wrote in the same strain; but he
told her father that he expressly confided his wife and child to
his care.  And he told him this, very strongly, with the hope
of rousing him from any despondency or dangerous retrospect
toward which he foresaw he might be tending.
To Mr. Lorry he commended them all, and explained his
worldly affairs.  That done, with many added sentences of
grateful friendship and warm attachment, all was done. He
never thought of Carton. His mind was so full of the others,
that he never once thought of him.
He had time to finish these letters before the lights were put
out. When he lay down on his straw bed he thought he had
done with this world.
But it beckoned him back in his sleep, and showed itself in
shining forms. Free and happy, back in the old house in Soho
(though it had nothing in it like the real house), unaccountably
released and light of heart, he was with Lucie again, and she
told him it was all a dream, and he had never gone away. A
pause of forgetfulness, and then he had even suffered, and had
come back to her, dead and at peace, and yet there was no
difference in him. Another pause of oblivion, and he awoke
in the sombre morning, unconscious where he was or what had
happened, until it flashed upon his mind, "This is the day of
my death!"
Thus had he come through the hours to the day when the
fifty-two heads were to fall. And now, while he was composed and hoped that he could meet the end with quiet heroism,
a new action began in his waking thoughts, which was very
difficult to master.
He had never seen the instrument that was to terminate his
life. How high it was from the ground, how many steps it
had, where he would be stood, how he would be touched,
whether the touching hands would be dyed red, which way his
face would be turned, whether he would be the first, or might
be the last: these and many similar questions, in no wise
directed by his will, obtruded themselves over and over again
2' t




386          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
countless times.  Neither were they connected with fear; he
was conscious of no fear. Rather they originated in a strange
besetting desire to know what to do when the time came; a
desire gigantically disproportionate to the few swift moments
to which it referred; a wondering that was more like tile
wondering of some other spirit within his than his own.
The hours went on as he walked to and fro, and the clocks
struck the numbers he would never hear again. Nine gone forever, ten gone forever, eleven gone forever, twelve coming on
to pass away. After a hard contest with that eccentric action
of thought which had last perplexed him, he had got the better
of it.  H-e walked up and down, softly repeating their names
to himself.  The worst of the strife was over. He could walk
up and down, free from distracting fancies, praying for himself and for them.
Twelve gone forever.
lie had been apprised that the final hour was Three, and he
knew he would be summoned some time earlier, inasmuch as
the tumbrils jolted heavily and slowly through the streets.
Therefore he resolved to keep Two before his mind as the
hour, and so to strengthen himself in the interval that he
might be able, after that time, to strengthen others.
Walking regularly to and fro with his arms folded on his
breast, a very different man from the prisoner who had walked
to and fro at La Force, he heard One struck away from him
without surprise. The hour had measured like most other
hours. Devoutly thankful to Heaven for his recovered selfpossession, he thought, "There is but another now," and
turned to walk again.
Footsteps in the stone passage, outside the door. He
stopped.
The key, was put in the lock, and turned. Before the door
was opened, or as it opened, a man said in a low voice, in
English: "He has never seen me here; I have kept out of
his way. Go you in alone; I wait near.  Lose no time."
The door was quickly opened and closed, and there stood
before him, face to face, quiet, intent upon him, with the light
of a smile on his features, and a cautionary finger on his lip,
Sydney Carton.




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                 387
There was something so bright and remarkable in his look,
that, for the first moment, the prisoner misdoubted him to be
an apparition of his own imagining. But he spoke, and it was
his voice; he took the prisoner's hand, and it was his real
grasp.
"Of all the people upon earth, you least expected to see
me!" he said.
" I could not believe it to be you. I can scarcely believe it
now. You are not" —the apprehension came suddenly into
his mind-" a prisoner?"
" No. I am accidentally possessed of a power over one of
the keepers here, and in virtue of it I stand before you.  I
come from her-your wife, dear Darnay."
The prisoner wrung his hand.
"I bring you a request from her."
"What is it?,"
" A most earnest, pressing, and emphatic entreaty, addressed
to you in the most pathetic tones of the voice so dear to you,
that you well remember."
The prisoner turned his face partly aside.
" You have no time to ask me why I bring it, or what it
means; I have no time to tell you. You must comply with it
-take off those boots you wear, and draw on these of mine."
There was a chair against the wall of the cell, behind the
prisoner. Carton, pressing forward, had already, with the
speed of lightning, got him down into it, and stood over him
barefoot.
" Draw on these boots of mine. Put your hands to them;
put your will to them. Quick!"
" Carton, there is no escaping from this place; it never can
be done. You will only die with me. It is madness."
"It would be madness if I asked you to escape; but do I?
When I ask you to pass out at that door, tell me it is madness
and remain here.  Change that cravat for this of mine, that
coat for this of mine. While you do it, let me take this ribbon
from your hair, and shake out your hair like mine!"
With wonderful quickness, and with a strength, both of will
and action, that appeared quite supernatural, he forced all
these changes upon him. The prisoner was like a young child
in his hands.




388          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
"Carton! Dear Carton! It is madness.  It cannot be
accomplished.  It never can be done, it has been attempted,
and has always failed. I implore you not to add your death
to the bitterness of mine."
"Do I ask you, my dear Darnay, to pass the door?  When
I ask that, refuse.  There are pen and ink and paper on this
table. Is your hand steady enough to write?"
"It was, when you came in."
" Steady it again, and write what I shall dictate. Quick,
friend, quick!"
Pressing his hand to his bewildered head, Darnay sat down
at the table.  Carton, with his right hand in his breast, stood
close beside him.
"Write exactly as I speak."
" To whom do I address it?"
"To no one."  Carton still had his hand in his breast.
" Do I date it?"1
", No. "
The prisoner looked up at each question.  Carton, standing
over him, with his hand in his breast, looked down.
"' If you remember,' " said Carton, dictating, "'the words
that passed between us, long ago, you will readily comprehend
this when you see it. You do remember them, I know. It is
not in your nature to forget them.' "
He was drawing his hand from his breast; the prisoner
chancing to look up in his hurried wonder as he wrote, the
hand stopped, closing upon something.
"Have you written'forget them?' " Carton asked.
"I have. Is that a weapon in your hand?"
"No; I am not armed."
" What is it in your hand?"
"You shall know directly.  Write on; there are but a few
words more."  He dictated again.  "' I am thankful that the
time has come when I can prove them.  That I do so, is no
subject for regret or grief"'   As he said these words with his
eyes fixed on the writer, his hand slowly and softly moved
down close to the writer's face.
The pen dropped from Darnay's fingers on the table, and he
looked about him vacantly.




~i             Iii~ i I             M
"WRITE EXACTLY AS I SPEAK" lyPAGE 388.








A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                  389
"What vapor is that?" he asked.
"Vapor?"
"Something that crossed me?"
"I am conscious of nothing; there can be nothing here.
Take up the pen and finish.  Hurry, hurry 1"
As if his memory were impaired, or his faculties disordered,
the prisoner made an effort to rally his attention.  As he
looked at Carton with clouded eyes and with an altered manner of breathing, Carton-his hand again in his breastlooked steadily at him.
" Hurry, hurry!"
The prisoner bent over the paper once more.
"' If it had been otherwise;'" Carton's hand was again
watchfiully and softly stealing down; "'I never should have
used the longer opportunity.  If it had been otherwise;"' the
hand was at the prisoner's face; "' I should but have had so
much the more to answer for. If it had been otherwise-"'"
Carton looked at the pen and saw that it was trailing off into
unintelligible signs.
Carton's hand moved back to his breast no more. The
prisoner sprang up with a reproachful look, but Carton's hand
was close and firm at his nostrils, and Carton's left arm caught
him round the waist. For a few seconds he faintly struggled
with the man who had come to lay down his life for him; but
within a minute or so he was stretched insensible on the
ground.
Quickly, but with hands as true to the purpose as his heart
was, Carton dressed himself in the clothes the prisoner had
laid aside, combed back his hair, and tied it with the ribbon the
prisoner had worn.  Then he softly called, "Enter there 
Come in!" and the spy presented himself.
" You see?" said Carton, looking i1p at him, as he kneeled
on one knee beside the insensible figure, putting the paper in
the breast: "is your hazard very great?"
"Mr. Carton," the Spy answered, with a timid snap of his
fingers, " my hazard is not that, in the thick of business here,
if you are true to the whole of your bargain."
"Don't fear me. I will be true to the death."
"You must be, Mr. Carton, if the tale of fifty-two is to be




390          A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.
right. Being made right by you in that dress, I shall have no
fear. "
" Have no fear! I shall soon be out of the way of harming
you, and the rest will soon be far from here, please God I
Now get assistance and take me to the coach."
"You?" said the Spy, nervously.
" Him, man, with whom I have exchanged.  You go out at
the gate by which you brought me in?"
" Of course."
"I was weak and faint when you brought me in, and I am
fainter now you take me out. The parting interview has overpowered me. Such a thing has happened here often, and too
often. Your life is in your own hands. Quick! Call assistance!"
"You swear not to betray me?" said the trembling Spy, as
he paused for a last moment.
" Man, man!" returned Carton, stamping his foot; "have I
sworn by no solemn vow already to go through with this that
you waste the precious moments now? Take him yourself to
the court-yard you know of, place him yourself in the carriage,
show him yourself to Mr. Lorry, tell him yourself to give him
no restorative but air, and to remember my words of last night,
and his promise of last night, and drive away!"
The spy withdrew, and Carton seated himself at the table,
resting his forehead on his hands. The Spy returned immediately, with two men.
"How, then?" said one of them, contemplating the fallen
figure. " So afflicted to find that his friend has drawn a prize
in the lottery of Saint Guillotine?"
" A good patriot," said the other, "could hardly have been
more afflicted if the Aristocrat had drawn a blank!7"
They raised the unconscious figure, placed it on a litter they
had brought to the door, and bent to carry it away.
"The time is short, Evremonde," said the Spy, in a warning
voice.
"I know it well," answered Carton.  "Be careful of my
friend, I entreat you, and leave me."
"Come, then; my children!" said Barsad.
"Lift him, and come away!"




A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                  391
The door closed, and Carton was left alone.  Straining his
powers of listening to the utmost, he listened for any sound
that might denote suspicion or alarm. There was none. Keys
turned, doors clashed, footsteps passed along distant passages:
no cry was raised, or hurry made, that seemed unusual. Breathing more freely in a little while, he sat down at the table, and
listened again until the clocks struck Two.
Sounds that he was not afraid of, for he divined their meaning, then began to be audible.  Several doors were opened in
succession, and finally his own. A jailer, with a list in his
hand, looked in, merely saying, "Follow me, Evremonde!'"
and he followed into a large dark room at a distance.  It was
a dark winter day, and what with the shadows within, and
what with the shadows without, he could but dimly discern the
others who were brought there to have their arms bound.
Some were standing; some seated.  Some were lamenting, and
in restless motion; but these were few.  The great majority
were silent and still, looking fixedly at the ground.
As he stood by the wall in a dim corner, while some of the
fifty-two were brought in after him, one man stopped, in passing,
to embrace him, as having a knowledge of him.  It thrilled
him with a great dread of discovery; but the man went on.
A very few moments after that a young woman, with a slight
girlish form, a sweet spare face in which there was no vestige
of color, and large, widely-opened, patient eyes, rose from the
seat where he had observed her sitting, and came to speak to
him.
" Citizen Evremonde," she said, touching him with her cold
hand, "I am a poor little seamstress who was with you in La
Force."
He murmured for answer, " True. I forget what you were
accused of?"
"Plots.  Though the just Heaven knows I am innocent of
any. Is it likely? Who would think of plotting with a poor
little weak creature like me?"
The forlorn smile with which she said it so touched him that
tears started from his eyes.
" I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evremonde, but I have done
nothing! I am not unwilling to die, if the Republic, which is
48




392          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
to do so much good to us poor, will profit by my death; but I
do not know how that can be, Citizen Evremonde.  Such a
poor weak little creature!"
As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and
soften to, it warmed and softened to this pitiable girl.
"I heard you were released, Citizen Evremonde.  I hoped
it was true?"
"It was. But I was again taken and condemned."
" If I may ride with you, Citizen Evremonde, will you let
me hold your hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and
weak, and it will give me more courage."
As the patient eyes were lifted to his face he saw a sudden
doubt in them, and then astonishment. He pressed the workworn, hunger-worn young fingers, and touched his lips.
"Are you dying for him?" she whispered.
"And his wife and child.  Hush i Yes. "
"Oh, you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?"
"Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last."
The same shadows that are falling on the prison are falling,
in that same hour of the early afternoon, on the Barrier with
the crowd about it, when a coach going out of Paris drives up
to be examined.
" Who goes here?  Whom have we within?  Papers!"
The papers are handed out, and read.
"Alexandre Manette.  Physician. French. Which is he?"7
This is he; this helpless, inarticulately-murmuring, wandering old man pointed out.
" Apparently the Citizen-Doctor is not in his right mind?
The Revolution-fever will have been too much for him I"
Greatly too much for him.
"Hah! Many  suffer with  it.  Lucie.  His daughter.
English. Which is she?"
This is she.
" Apparently it must be.  Lucie, the wife of Evremonde; is
it not?7"
It is.
"Hah  Evremonde has an assignation elsewhere.  Lucie,
her child.  English.  This is she?"




A  TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                   393
She, and no other.
"Kiss me, child of Evremonde.  Now, thou hast kissed a
good Republican; something new in thy family; remember it!
Sydney Carton.  Advocate.  English.  Which is he?"
He lies here, in this corner of the carriage. He, too, is
pointed out.
"Apparently the English advocate is in a swoon?"
It is hoped he will recover in the fresher air.  It is represented that he is not in strong health, and has separated sadly
from a friend who is under the displeasure of the Republic.
"Is that all? It is not a great deal, that I Many are under the displeasure of the Republic, and must look out at the
little window.  Jarvis Lorry.  Banker.  English.  Which is
he?"
" I am he. Necessarily being the last."
It is Jarvis Lorry who has replied to all the previous questions.  It is Jarvis Lorry who has alighted and stands with his
hand on the coach-door, replying to a group of officials.  They
leisurely walk round the carriage and leisurely mount the box,
to look at what little luggage it carries on the roof; the countrypeople hanging about press nearer to the coach-doors, and
greedily stare in; a little child, carried by its mother, has its
short arms held out for it, that it may touch the wife of an
aristocrat who has gone to the Guillotine.
"Behold your papers, Jarvis Lorry, countersigned."
"One can depart, citizen?"
"One can depart.  Forward, my postillions I A good journey!"
" I salute you, citizens.-And the first danger passed!"
These are again the words of Jarvis Lorry, as he clasps his
hands, and looks upward.  There is terror in the carriage, there
is weeping, there is the heavy breathing of the insensible traveler.
"Are we not going too slowly?  Can they not be induced
to go faster?" asks Lucie, clinging to the old man.
"It would seem like flight, my darling.  I must not urge
them too much: it would rouse suspicion."
"Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued!"
"The road is clear, my dearest.  So far, we are not pursued."
Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruin



394           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
ous buildings, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, open country,
avenues of leafless trees.  The hard uneven pavement is under
us, the soft cteep mud is on either side.  Sometimes we strike
into the skirting mud, to avoid the stones that clatter us and
slhake us, and sometimes we stick in ruts and sloughs there..
The agony of our impatience is then so great that, in our wild
alarm and hurry, we are for getting out and running-hiding
-doing any thing but stopping.
Out of the open country, in again among ruinous buildings,
solitary farms, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, cottages in
twos and threes, avenues of leafless trees.  Have these men
deceived us, and taken us back by another road? Is not this
the same place twice over? Thank Heaven, no. A village.
Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued! Hush;
the posting house.
Leisurely our four horses are taken out; leisurely the coach
stands in the little street, bereft of horses, and with no likelihood upon it of ever moving again; leisurely the new horses
come into visible existence, one by one; leisurely the new
postillions follow, sucking and plaiting the lashes of their whips;
leisurely the old postillions count their money into their hats,
make wrong additions, and arrive at dissatisfied results.  All
the time, our overfraught hearts are beating at a rate that
would far outstrip the fastest gallop of the fastest horses ever
foaled.
At length the new postillions are in their saddles, and the old
are left behind. We are through the village, up the hill, and
down the hill, and on the low watery grounds. Suddenly the
postillions exchange speech with animated gesticulation, and
the horses are pulled up, almost on their haunches.  We are
pursued.
"Ho! Within the carriage there! Speak, then!';
"What is it?" asks Mr. Lorry, looking out at window.
"How many did they say?"
"I do not understand you."
"-At the last post.  How many to the Guillotine to-day?"
" Fifty-two. "
"I said so! A  brave number!  My fellow-citizen here
would have it forty-two; ten more heads are worth having.




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                 395
The Guillotine goes handsomely.  I love it.  Hi forward!
Whoop then!"
The night comes on dark. He moves more; he is beginning
to revive, and to speak intelligibly; he thinks they are still together; he asks him, by his name, what he has in his hand.
O pity us, kind Heaven, and help us! Look out, look out,
and see if we are pursued.
The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after
us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night
is in pursuit of us; but, so far, we are pursued by nothing else.




CHAPTER XIV.
THE KNITTING DONE.
IN that same juncture of time when the Fifty-Two awaited
their fate, Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council with
The Vengeance and Jacques Three of the Revolutionary Jury.
Not in the wine-shop did Madame Defarge confer with these
ministers, but in the shed of the wood-sawyer, erst a mender
of roads. The sawyer himself did not participate in the conference, but abided at a little distance, like an outer satellite,
who was not to speak until required, or to offer an opinion
until invited.
"But our Defarge," said Jaques Three, "is undoubtedly a
good Republican? Eh?"
"There is no' better," the voluble Vengeance protested in
her shrill notes, "in France."
"Peace, Little Vengeance," said Madame Defarge, laying
her hand with a slight frown on her lieutenant's lips, "hear
me speak.  My husband, fellow-citizen, is a good Republican
and a bold man; he has deserved well of the Republic, and
possesses its confidence. But my husband has his weaknesses,
and he is so weak as to relent toward this Doctor."
" It is a great pity," croaked Jacques Three, dubiously shaking his head, with his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth; "it
is not quite like a good citizen; it is a thing to regret."
" See you," said madame, "I care nothing for this Doctor, I.
He may wear his head or lose it for any interest I have in him;
it is all one to me. But the Evremonde people are to be exterminated, and the wife and child must follow the husband
and father."
"She has a fine head for it," croaked Jacques Three.  "I
have seen blue eyes and golden hair there, and they looked
(396)




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                   397
charming when Samson held them up."  Ogre that he was, he
spoke like an epicure.
iadame Defarge cast down her eyes, and reflected a little.
"The child also," observed Jacques Three, with a meditative enjoyment of his words, "has golden hair and blue eyes.
And we seldom have a child there.  It is a pretty sight.
"In a word," said Madame Defarge, coming out of her
short abstraction, " I cannot trust my husband in this matter.
Not only do I feel, since last fight, that I dare not confide to
him the details of my projects; but also I feel that if I delay
there is danger of his giving warning, and then they might
escape."
"That must never be," croaked Jacques Three; "no one
must escape.  We have not half enough as it is.  We ought
to have six score a day."
"In a word," Madame Defarge went on, "my husband has
not my reason for pursuing this family to annihilation, and I
have not his reason for regarding this Doctor with any sensibility.  I must act for myself, therefore.  Come hither, little
citizen. "
The wood-sawyer, who held her in the respect, and himself
in the submission, of mortal fear, advanced with his hand to
his red cap.
"Touching those signals, little citizen," said Madame Defarge, sternly, "that she made to the prisoners; you are ready
to bear witness to them this very day?"
"Ay, ay; why not?" cried the sawyer.  "Every day, in all
weathers, from two to four, always signalling, sometimes with
the little one, sometimes without.  I know what I know, I
have seen with my eyes."
He made all manner of gestures while he spoke, as if in
incidental imitation of some few of the great diversity of signals that he had never seen.
"Clearly plots," said Jacques Three.  "Transparently!"
"There is no doubt of the Jury?" inquired Mladame Defarge, letting her eyes turn to him with a gloomy smile.
"Rely upon the patriotic Jury, dear citizeness.  I answer
for my fellow-Jurymein."
"Now, let me see," said Madame Defarge, pondering atgain.




398          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
"Y' et once more! Can I spare this Doctor to my husband?
I have no feeling either way. Can I spare him?"
" He would count as one head," observed Jacques Three,
in a low voice.  " We really have not heads enough; it would
be a pity, I think."
"He was signalling with her when I saw her," argued Madame Defarge; "I cannot speak of one without the other;
and I must not be silent and trust the case wholly to him, this
little citizen here. For I am not a, bad witness."
The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with each other in
their fervent protestations that she was the most admirable
and marvelous of witnesses. The little citizen, not to be outdone, declared her to be a celestial witness.
"lHe must take his chance," said Madame Defarge.  "No;
I cannot spare him! You are engaged at three o'clock; you
are going to see the batch of to-day executed. You?"
This question was adcldressed to the wood-sawyer, who hurriedly replied in the affirmative: seizing the occasion to add
that he was the most ardent of Republicans, and that he would
be in effect the most desolate of Republicans, if any thing prevented him from enjoying the pleasure of smoking his afternoon pipe in the contemplation of the droll national barber.
He was so very demonstrative herein, that he might have been
suspected (perhaps was, by the dark eyes that looked contemptuously at him out of Madame Defarge's head) of having
his small individual fears for his own personal safety, every
hour in the day.
" I," said madame, " am equally engaged at the same place.
After it is over-say at eight to-night-come you to me in
Saint Antoine, and we will give information against these
people at my Section."
The wood-sawyer said he would be proud and flattered to
attend the citizeness.  The citizeness looking at him, he became embarrassed, evaded her glance as a small dog would
have done, retreated among his wood, and hid his confusion
over the handle of his saw.
Madame Defarge beckoned the Juryman and the Vengeance
a little nearer to the door, and there expounded her further
views to them thus:




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                  399
"She will now be at home, awaiting the moment of his
death.  She will be mourning and grieving.  She will be in
a state of mind to impeach the justice of the Republic.  She
will be full of sympathy with its enemies. I will go to her."
"What an admirable woman! What an adorable woman!"
exclaimed Jacques Three, rapturously. " Ah, my cherished I"
cried The Vengeance, and embraced her.
" Take you my knitting," said Madame Defarge, placing it
in her lieutenant's hands, " and have it ready for me in my
usual seat. Keep me my usual chair. Go you there, straight,
for there will probably be a greater concourse than usual today."
" I willingly obey the orders of my Chief," said The Vengeance, with alacrity, and kissing her cheek. "You will not
be late?"
" I shall be there before the commencement."
"And before the tumbrils arrive. Be sure you are there,
my soul," said The Vengeance, calling after her, for she had
already turned into the street, "before the tumbrils arrive!"
Madame Defarge slightly waved her hand to imply that she
heard, and might be relied upon to arrive in good time, and
so went through the mud, and round the corner of the prison
wall. The Vengeance and the Juryman, looking after her as
she walked away, were highly appreciative of her fine figure
and her superb moral endowments.
There were many women at that time upon whom the time
laid a dreadfully disfiguring hand: but there was not one
among them more to be dreaded than this ruthless woman,
now taking her way along the streets. Of a strong and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great determination, of that kind of beauty which not only seems to impart to its possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike into
others an instinctive recognition of those qualities; the troubled time would have heaved her up under any circumstances.
BIut imbued from her childhood with a brooding sense of
wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class, opportunity had
developed her into a tigress.  She was absolutely without
pity. If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone
out of her.
49




400          A TALX OF TWtO CITES.
It was nothincg to her that an innocent man was to die for
the sins of his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them. It
was nothing to her that his wife was to be made a widow and
his daugohter an orphan; that was insufficient punishment, because they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as such
had no right to live.  To appeal to her was made hopeless
by her having no sense of pity, even for herself.  If she had
been laid low in the streets, in any of the many encounters in
which she had been engaged, she would not have pitied herself; nor, if she had been ordered to the axe to-morrow, would
she have gone to it with any softer feeling than a fierce desire
to change places with the man who sent her there.
Such a heart Madame Defarge carried under her rough
robe.  Carelessly worn, it was a becoming robe enough in a
certain weird way, and her dark hair looked rich under her
coarse, red cap. Lying hidden in her bosom was a loaded
pistol.  Lying hidden at her waist was a sharpened dagger.
Thus accoutred, and walking with the confident tread of such
a character, and with the supple freedom of a woman who
had habitually walked in her girlhood barefoot and barelegged,
on the brown sea-sand, Madame Defarge took her way along
the streets.
Now when the journey of the traveling coach, at that very
moment waiting for the completion of its load, had been
planned out last night, the difficulty of taking Miss Pross in
it had much engaged Mr. Lorry's attention. It was not
merely desirable to avoid overloading the coach, but it was
of the highest importance that the time occupied in examining
it and its passengers should be reduced to the utmost, since
their escape might depend on the saving of only a few seconds
here and there. Finally, he had proposed, after anxious consideration, that Miss Pross and Jerry, who were at liberty to
leave the city, should leave it at three o'clock in the lightestwheeled conveyance known to that period.  Unencumbered
with luggage, they would soon overtake the coach, and, passing it and preceding it on the road, would order its horses in
advance, and greatly facilitate its progress during the precious
hours of the night, when delay was the most to lbe dreaded.
Seeing in this arrangement the hope of rendering real ser



A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  401
vice in that pressing emergency, Miss Pross hailed it with joy.
She and Jerry had beheld the coach start, had known who it
was that Solomon brought, had passed some ten minutes in
tortures of suspense, and were now concluding their arrangements to follow the coach, even as Madame Defarge, taking
her way through the streets, now drew nearer and nearer to
the else-deserted lodging in which they held their consultation.
"Now what do you think, Mr. Cruncher," said Miss Pross,
whose agitation was so great that she could hardly speak, or
stand, or move, or live; "what do you think of our not starting from this court-yard? Another carriage having already
gone from here to-day, it might awaken suspicion."
"My opinion, miss," returned Mr. Cruncher, "is as you're
right. Likewise wot. I'll stand by you, right or wrong."
" I am so distracted with fear and hope for our precious
creatures," said Miss Pross, wildly crying, "that I am incapable of forming any plan. Are you capable of forming any
plan, my dear, good Mr. Cruncher?"
"Respectin' a future spear o' life, miss," returned Mr.
Cruncher, " I hope so. Respectin' any present use o' this
here blessed old head o' mine, I think not.  Would you do me
the favor, miss, to take notice o' two promises and wows wot
it is my wishes fur to record in this here crisis."
" Oh, for gracious sake I" cried Miss Pross, still wildly crying, " record them at once, and get them out of the way, like
an excellent man."
"First," said Mr. Cruncher, who was all in a tremble, and
who spoke with an ashy and solemn visage, "them poor things
well out o' this, never no more will I do it, never no more 1"
"I am quite sure, Mr. Cruncher," returned Miss Pross,
"that you never will do it again, whatever it is, and I beg
you not to think it necessary to mention more particularly what
it is."
" No, miss," returned Jerry, "it shall not be named to you.
Second: them poor things well out o' this, and never no more
will I interfere with {Mrs. Cruncher's flopping, never no more "
"Whatever housekeeping arrangement that may be," said
Miss Pross, striving to dry her eyes and compose herself, "I
25




402          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
have no doubt it is best that Mrs. Cruncher should have it
entirely under her own superintendence.-O my poor darlings!"
"I go so far as to say, miss, moreover, proceeded Mr.
Cruncher, with a most alarming tendency to hold forth as from
a pulpit, " and let my words be took down and took to Mrs.
Cruncher through yourself-that wot my opinions respectin'
flopping has undergone a change, and that wot I only hope
with all my heart as Mrs. Cruncher may be a flopping at the
present time."
"There, there, there! I hope she is, my dear man," cried
the distracted Miss Pross, "and I hope she finds it answering
her expectations."
"Forbid it,"' proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with additional solemnity, additional slowness, and additional tendency to hold
forth and hold out, " as any thing wot I have ever said or done
should be wisited on my earnest wishes for them poor creeturs
now! Forbid it as we shouldn't all flop (if it was any ways
conwenient) to get'em out o' this here dismal risk I Forbid
it, miss I Wot I say, for-BID it 1" This was Mr. Cruncher's conclusion after a protracted but vain endeavor to find a
better one.
And still Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the
streets, came nearer and nearer.
"If we ever get back to our native land," said Miss Pross,
"you may rely upon my telling Mrs. Cruncher as much as I
may be able to remember and understand of what you have so
impressively said; and at all events you may be sure that I
shall bear witness to your being thoroughly in earnest at this
dreadful time. Now, pray let us think! My esteemed Mr.
Cruncher, let us think I"
Still, Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets,
came nearer and nearer.
" If you were to go before," said Miss Pross, " and stop the
vehicle and horses from coming here, and were to wait somewhere for me; wouldn't that be best?"
Mr. Cruncher thought it might be best.
" Where could you wait for me?" asked Miss Pross.
Mr. Cruncher was so bewildered that he could think of no
locality but Temple Bar.  Alas! Temple Bar was hundreds of




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  403
miles away, and Madame Defarge was drawing very near indeed.
"By the cathedral door," said Miss Pross.  "Would it be
much out of the way to take me in near the great cathedral
door between the two towers?"
"No, miss," answered Mr. Cruncher.
" Then, like the best of men," said Miss Pross, " go to the
post-house straight and make that change."
"I am doubtful," said Mr. Cruncher, hesitating and shaking
his head, "about leaving of you, you see. We don't know
what may happen."
" Heaven knows we don't," returned Miss Pross, " but have
no fear for me. Take me in at the cathedral at Three o'clock,
or as near it as you can, and I am sure it will be better than
our going from here. I feel certain of it. There! Bless you,
Mr. Cruncher! Think-not of me, but of the lives that may
depend on both of us I"
This exordium, and Miss Pross's two hands in quite agonized
entreaty clasping his, decided Mr. Cruncher.  With an encouraging nod or two he immediately went out to alter the
arrangements, and left her by herself to follow as she had proposed.
The having originated a precaution which was already in
course of execution, was a great relief to Miss Pross. The
necessity of composing her appearance so that it should attract no special notice in the streets was another relief.  She
looked at her watch, and it was twenty minutes past two.
She had no time to lose, but must get ready at once.
Afraid, in her extreme perturbation, of the loneliness of the
deserted rooms, and of half-imagined faces peeping from behind every open door in them, Miss Pross got a basin of
cold water and began laving her eyes, which were swollen and
red.  Haunted by her feverish apprehensions, she could not
bear to have her sight obscured for a minute at a time by the
dripping water, but constantly paused and looked round to see
that there was no one watching her. In one of those pauses
she recoiled and cried out, for she saw a figure standing in the
room.
The basin fell to the ground broken, and the water flowed




404          A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
to the feet of Madame Defarge.  By wild, wild ways, and
through much staining blood, those feet had come to meet
that water.
Madame Defarge looked coldly at her, and said, " The wife
of Evremonde; where is she?"
It flashed upon Miss Pross's mind that the doors were all
standing open, and would suggest the flight. Her first act was
to shut them.  There were four in the room, and she shut
them  all.  She then placed herself before the door of the
chamber which Lucy had occupied.
Madame Defarge's dark eyes followed her through this
rapid movement, and rested on her when it was finished.  Miss
Pross had nothing beautiful about her; years had not tamed
the wildness, or softened the grimness, of her appearance; but
she too was a determined woman in her different way, and she
measured Madame Defarge with her eyes, every inch.
" You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,"
said Miss Pross, in her breathing.  " Nevertheless, you shall
not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman."
Madame Defarge looked at her scornfully, but still with
something of Miss Pross's own perception that they two were
at bay. She saw a tight, hard, wiry woman before her, as Mr.
Lorry had seen in the same figure a woman with a strong hand,
in the years gone by.  She knew full well that Miss Pross was
the family's devoted friend; Miss Pross knew full well that
Madame Defarge was the family's malevolent enemy.
" On my way yonder," said Madame Defarge, with a slight
movement of her hand toward the fatal spot, " where they reserve my chair and my knitting for me, I am come to make
my compliments to her in passing. I wish to see her."
"I know that your intentions are evil," said Miss Pross,
"and you may depend upon it I'll hold my own against
them."
Each spoke in her own language; neither understood the
other's words; both were very watchful, and intent to deduce
from look and manner what the unintelligible words meant.
"It will do her no _ood to keel) herself concealed from me
at this moment," said Madame Defarge.  " Good patriots will
know what that means.  Let me see her. Gto tell her that I
wish to see her.  Do You hear?'




A TALEB OF' TWO  CITIES.                405
"If those eye, of yours were bed-winches," returned Miss
Pross, "and I was an English four-poster, they shouldn't loose
a spliater of me.  No, you wicked foreign woman; I am your
match. "
Madame Defarge was not likely to follow these idiomatic
remarks in detail; but she so far understood them as to perceive that she was set at naught.
"Woman imbecile and pig-like!" said Madame Defarge,
frowning; "I take no answer from  you! I demand to see
her I Either tell her that I demand to see her, or stand out
of the way of the door and let me go to her I"  This with an
angry explanatory wave of her right arm.
"I little thought," said Miss Pross, "that I should ever
want to understand your nonsensical language; but I would
give all I have, to the very clothes I wear, to know whether
you suspect the truth, or any part of it."
Neither of them  for a single moment released the other's
eyes.  Madame Defarge had not moved from the spot where
she stood when Miss Pross first became aware of her; but she
now advanced one step.
"I am a Briton," said Miss Pross.  "I am desperate.  I
don't care an Euglish Twopence for myself.  I know that the
longer I keep you here, the greater hope there is for my Ladybird. I'll not leave a handful of that dark hair upon your
head, if you lay a finger on me I"
Thus Miss Pross, with a shake of her head and a flash of
her eyes between every rapid sentence, and every rapid sentence a whole breath.  Thus Miss Pross, who had never struck
a blow in her life.
But her courage was of that emotional nature that it brought
the irrepressible tears into her eyes.  This was a courage that
Madame Defarge so little comprehended, as to mistake for
weakness.  "Ha, ha!" she laughed, "you poor wretch I!
What are you worth! I address myself to that Doctor."
Then she raised her voice and called out, " Citizen Doctor I
mTife of Evremonde I Child of Evremonde I Any person but
this miserable fool, answer the Citizeness Defarge I"
Perhaps the following silence, perhaps some latent disclosure in the expression of Miss Pross's face, perhaps a sudden




406          A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
misgiving apart from either suggestion, whispered to Madame
D)efarge that they were gone.  Three of the doors she opened
swiftly, and looked in.
"Those rooms are all in disorder, there has been hurried
packing, there are odds and ends upon the ground.  There is
no one in that room behind you I Let me look."
" Never!" said Miss Pross, who understood the request as
perfectly as Madame Defarge understood the answer.
"If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be
pursued and brought back," said Madame Defarge to herself.
"As long as you don't know whether they are in that room
or not you are uncertain what to do," said Miss Pross to herself; "and you shall not know that, if I can prevent your
knowing it; and know that, or not know that, you shall not
leave here while I can hold you."
" I have been in the streets from the first, nothing has stopped
me, I will tear you to pieces but I will have you from that
door," said Madame Defarge.
" We are alone at the top of a high house in a solitary courtyard, we are not likely to be heard, and I pray for bodily
strength to keep you here, while every minute you are here is
worth a hundred thousand guineas to my darling," said Miss
Pross.
Madame Defarge made at the door.  Miss Pross, on the
instinct of the moment, seized her round the waist in both her
arms, and held her tight.  It was in vain for Madame Defarge
to struggle and to strike; Miss Pross, with the vigorous tenacity
of love, so much stronger than hate, clasped her tight, and even
lifted her from the floor in the struggle that they had.  The
two hands of Madame Defarge buffeted and tore at her face;
but Miss Pross, with her head down, held her round the waist,
and clung to her with more than the hold of a drowning woman.
Soon Madame Defarge's hands ceased to strike, and felt at
her encircled waist.  " It is under my arm," said Miss Pross,
in smothered tones; "you shall not draw it. I am stronger
than you; I bless Heaven for it. I'll hold you till one or other
of us faints or dies!"
MIhadame Defarge's hands were at her bosom.  Mliss Pross
looked up, saw what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash and
a crash, and stood alone-blinded with smoke.




A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.                  407
All this was in a second. As the smoke cleared, leaving an
awful stillness, it passed out on the air like the soul of the
furious woman whose body lay lifeless on the ground.
In the first fright and horror of her situation, Miss pross
passed the body as. far from it as she could, and ran down the
stairs to call for fruitless help.  Happily she bethought herself of the consequences of what she did in time to check herself and go back.  It was dreadful to go in at the door again;
but she did go in, and even went near it, to get the bonnet
and other things that she must wear.  These she put on, out
on the staircase, first shutting and locking the door, and taking
away the key. She then sat down on the stairs a few mowents, to breathe and cry, and then got up and hurried away.
By good fortune she had a vail on her bonnet, or she could
hardly have gone along the streets without being stopped.
By good fortune, too, she was naturally so peculiar in appearance as not to show disfigurement like any other woman. She
needed both advantages, for the marks of griping fingers were
deep in her face, and her hair was torn, and her dress (hastily
composed with unsteady hands) was clutched and dragged a
hundred ways.
In crossing the bridge she dropped the door-key in the river.
Arriving at the cathedral door some few minutes before her
escort, and waiting there, she thought, what if the key were
already taken in a net, what if it were identified, what if the
door were opened and the remains discovered, what if she were
stopped at the gate, and sent to prison, charged with murder! In the midst of these fluttering thoughts the escort appeared, took her in, aInd took her away.
"Is there any noise in the streets k?" she asked him.
"The usual noises," Mr. Cruncher replied; and looked surprised by the question and by her aspect.
" I don't hear you," said Miss Pross.  " What do you say?"
It was in vain for Mr. Cruncher to repeat what he said;
RMiss Pross could not hear him.  " So I'll nod my head,"
thougllht Mr. Cruncher, amazed; " at all events she'll see that."
And she did.
" Is there any noise in the streets now?" asked Miss Pross
again, presently.
50




408           A TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.
Again Mr. Cruncher nodded his head.
"I don't hear it."
"Gone deaf in an hour?" said Mr. Cruncher, ruminating,
with his mind much disturbed; " wot's come to her?"
"I feel," said iMiss Pross, "as if there had been a flash and
a crash, and that crash was thte last thing I should ever hear
in this life."
" Blest if she ain't in a queer condition I" said Mr. Cruncher,
more and more disturbed.  " Wot can she have been a takin',
to keep her courage up?  Hark!  There's the roll of them
dreadful carts! You can hear that, miss?"
" I can hear," said Miss Pross, seeing that he spoke to her,
"nothing.  Oh! my good man, there was first a great crash,
and then a great stillness, and that stillness seems to be fixed
and unchangeable, never to be broken any more as long as my
life lasts!"
" If she don't hear the roll of those dreadful carts, now very
nigh their journey's end," said Mr. Cruncher, glancing over
his shoulder, " it's my opinion that indeed she never will hear
any thing else in this world."
And indeed she never did




CHAPTER XV.
THE FOOTSTEPS DIE OUT FOREVER.
ALONG the Paris streets, the dead-carts rumble, hollow  and
harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine.
All the devouring and insatiate monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of
soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn,
which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than
those that have produced this horror.  Crush humanity out of
shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist
itself into the same tortured forms.  Sow the same seed of
rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely
yield the same fruit according to its kind.
Six tumbrils roll along the streets.  Change these back
again to what they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and
they shall be seen to be the carriages of absolute monarchs,
the equipages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels,
the churches that are not my father's house but dens of thieves,
the huts of millions of starving peasants! No; the great
magician who majestically works out the appointed order of
the Creator, never reverses his transformations.  "If thou be
changed into this shape by the will of God," say the seers to
the enchanted, in the wise Arabian stories, "then remain so I
But, if thou wear this form through mere passing conjuration,
then resume thy former aspect!" Changeless and hopeless,
the tumbrills roll along.
As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem
to plow up a long, crooked furrow among the populace in
the streets.  Ridges of faces are thrown to this side and to
that, and the plows go steadily onward. So used are the
regular inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle, that in many
(409)




410           A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.
windows there are no people, and in some the occupations of
the hands is not so much as suspended, while the eyes survey
the faces in the tumbrils.  Here and there, the inmate has
visitors to see the sight; then he points his finger, with something of the complacency of a curator or authorized exponent,
to this cart and to this, and seems to tell who sat here yesterday, and who sat there the day before.
Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things,
and all things on their last roadside, with an impassive stare;
others, with a lingering interest in the ways of life and men.
Some, seated with drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair;
again, there are some so heedful of their looks that they cast
upon the multitude such glances as they have seen in theatres,
and in pictures. Several close their eyes, and think, or try to
get their straying thoughts together. Only one, and he a
miserable creature of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and made
drunk by horror that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of
the whole number appeals, by look or gesture, to the pity of
the people.
There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the
tumbrils, and faces are often turned up to some of them and
they are asked some question. It would seem to be always
the same question, for, it is always followed by a press of
people toward the third cart.  The horsemen abreast of that
cart, frequently point out one man in it with their swords.
The leading curiosity is, to know which is he; he stands at the
back of the tumbril with his head bent down, to converse with
a mere girl who sits on the side of the cart, and holds his
hand.  He has no curiosity or care for the scene about him,
and always speaks to the girl.  Iere and there in the long
Street of St. Honore. cries are raised against him.  If they
move him at all, it is only to a quiet smile, as he shakes his
hair a little more loosely about his face.  He cannot easily
touch his face, his arms being bound.
On the steps of a church, awaiting the coming-up of the
tumbrils, stands the Spy and prison-sheep.  He looks into
the first of them: not there.  He looks into the second: not
there.  He already asks himself, " Has he sacrificed me?'
when his face clears as he looks into the third.




A TALE OF TWO CITIES.                  411
"Which is Evremonde?" says a man behind him.
"That.  At the back there."
"With his hand in the girl's?"
" Yes. "
The man cries "Down, Evremonde! To the Guillotine all
aristocrats! Down, Evremonde!"
" Hush, hush!" the Spy entreats him, timidly.
" And why not, citizen?"
"He is going to pay the forfeit; it will be paid in five
minutes more.  Let him be at peace."
But, the man continuing to exclaim, "Down, Evremonde!"
the face of Evremonde is for a moment turned toward him.
Evremonde then sees the Spy, and looks attentively at him,
and goes his way.
The clocks are on the stroke of three, and the furrow
plowed among the populace is turning round, to come on
into the place of execution, and end. The ridges thrown
to this side and to that, now crumble in and close behind the
last plow as it passes on, for all are following to the Guillotine.
In front of it, seated in chairs as in a garden of public diversion, are a number of women, busily knitting. On one of the
foremost Chairs, stands The Vengeance, looking about for her
friend.
" Therese!" she cries, in her shrill tones.  "Who has seen
her? Therese Defarge!"
"She never missed before," says a knitting-woman of the
sisterhood.
" No; nor will she miss now," cries The Vengeance, petulantly.  "Therese I"
"Louder!" the woman recommends.
Aye! Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still she will
scarcely hear thee.  Louder yet, Vengeance, with a little oath
or so added, and yet it will hardly bring her.  Send other women up and down to seek her, lingering somewhere; and yet,
although the messengers have done dread deeds, it is questionable whether of their own wills they will go far enough to find
her.
"Bad Fortune!"7 cries The Vengeance, stamping her foot in
the chair, "and here are the tumbrils! And Evremonde will




412          A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
be dispatched in a wink, and she not here! See her knitting
in my hand, and her empty chair ready for her. I cry with
vexation ald disappointment!"
As The Vengeance descends from her elevation to do it, the
tumbrils begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of
Saint Guillotine are robed and ready.  Crash!-A head is
held up, and the knitting-women, who scarcely lifted their eyes
to look at it a moment ago when it could think and speak,
count One.
The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes
up.  Crash!-and the knitting-women, never faltering or
pausing in their work, count Two.
The supposed Evremonde descends, and the seamstress is
lifted out next after him. He has not relinquished her patient
hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. He
gently places her with her back to the crashing engine that
constantly whirs up and falls, and she looks into his face and
thanks him.
"But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed,
for I am naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor
should I have been able to raise my thoughts to Him who was
put to death, that we might have hope and comfort here today. I think you were sent to me by Heaven."
"Or you to me," says Sydney Carton.  "Keep your eyes
upon me, dear child, and mind no other object."
"I mind nothing while I hold your hand, I shall mind
nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid."
" They will be rapid. Fear not i"'
The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but
they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice,
hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together
on the dark highway, to repair home together and to rest in her
bosom.
"Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one
last question? I am very ignorant, and it troubles me-just a
little."
"Tell me what it is."




/~~~~~~iijI   Ib   Ij
~ ~~~~~~j1           FiiiIII ~~i 
i II1i ifiI II(II/I~~r   /1
/j; jiijI iIjI'j                           K    K
i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 114'1'4
a~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 4
44/                   /  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~i'                                   IlK
/~~~~~~                         //,,n
4  1                                                                                      ", #     I~' 
"TH    TWO  STAND  IN  THE FAST-THINNING  THRONG  OF VICTIMS,' ETC.-FAGE 412.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~i








A TALE  OF TWO CITIES.                   413
"I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan like myself,
whom  I love very dearly.  She is five years younger than I,
and she lives in a farmer's house in the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows nothing of my fate-for I cannot write-and if could, how should I tell her! It is better
as it is."
" Yes, yes; better as it is."
" What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I
am still thinking now, as I look into your kind, strong face,
which gives me so much support, is this: —If the Republic
really does good to the poor, and they come to be less hungry,
and in all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time! she
may even live to be old."
W" What then, my gentle sister?"
"Do you think"-the uncomplaining eyes in which there is
so much endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little
more and tremble-" that it will seem long to me, while I wait
for her in the better land where I trust both you and I will be
mercifully sheltered?"
" It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there and no
trouble there."
"'You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to
kiss you now?  Is the moment come?"'
"Yes."
She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each
other.  The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it: nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient
face. She goes next before him-is gone; the knitting-women
count Twenty-two.
"I am  the Resurrection  and the Life, saith the Lord;
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he
live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never
die. "
The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many
faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the
crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave
of water, all flashes away.  Twenty-three.
They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the




414           A  TALE  OF TWO  CITIES.
peacefullest man's face ever beheld there.  Many added that
he looked sublime and prophetic.
One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe-a
woman —had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long
before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that were
inspiring her.  If he had given any utterance to his, and they
were prophetic, they would have been these:
"I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have
risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive
instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use.  I see
a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss,
and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and
defeats through long, long years to come, I see the evil of this
time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth,
gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.
" I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see
no more.  I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears
my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at
peace.  I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten
years' time, enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward.
"I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the
hearts of their descendants, generations hence.  I see her, an
old wonman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day.  I
see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side
in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more
honored and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the
souls of both.
"I see that child, who lay upon her bosom  and bore my
name, a man, winning his way up in that path of life wlich
once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name
is made illustrious there by the light of his.  I see the blots I
threw upon it, faded away.  I see him, foremost of just judges
and honored men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead
that I know and golden hair, to this place-then fair to look




A TALE OF TWO  CITIES.                  415
upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement-and I hear
him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering
voice.
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever
done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have
ever known."
THE END








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~ T. B PETERSON & BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS.
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T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS. 7
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f. B PETZITPSON & BO4TI{HEaS' PUBLICATIONb  9
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ia the bound volume




T. B. PETPERSON & BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS  13
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