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 the 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 encouragement,
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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 knew,” 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. That 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
Doctor Manette. I confide this paper, in the writing of Doctor
Manette, to the hands of the President.”
“Let it be read.”
In the 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.
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
A Tale of Two Cities
Chapter XL
THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW
“I Alexandre Manette, unfortunate physician, native of
Beauvais, and afterwards 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, I 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
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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 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?’
“‘Gentlemen,’ I returned, ‘I am that 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 honour 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
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assures us that you will ascertain it for yourself better than we can
describe it. Enough. Will you please enter the carriage?’ “I could
do nothing but comply, and I entered it 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 everything
exactly as it took place, constraining my mind not to wander from
the task. When I make the broken marks that 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
afterwards 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 footpath 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
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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 ceremony, I saw the armorial bearings 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.
“I turned her gently over, placed my hands upon her breast to
calm her and keep her down, and looked into her face. Her 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, ‘My
husband, my father, and my brother!’ and would count up to
twelve, and say ‘Hush!’ 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
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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, smelt them, and put the stoppers
to my lips. If I had wanted to use anything 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.
“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
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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 ‘Hush!’ The frenzy was so violent, that I had not
unfastened the bandages 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 minutes at a time
it tranquilised 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 half 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. Hay and straw were stored in
that portion of the place, faggots 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
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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. He lay on his back, with his teeth set, 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 he 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.
The wound 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. He 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.
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“‘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, Doctor?’
“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 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. We were all tenants of his—that
man’s who stands there. The other is his brother, the worst of a
bad race.’
“It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered bodily
force to speak; but, his spirit spoke with a dreadful emphasis.
“‘We 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
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die out!’ “I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed,
