A Tale of Two Cities
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!
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ChapterXLI
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 towards her husband, with
nothing in her face but love and consolation.
“If I might touch him! If I might embrace him once! O, good
citizens, if you would have so much compassion for us!”
There was but a gaoler left, along with 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
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suffer for me. A parting blessing for our child.”
“I send it to her by you. I kiss her by you. I say farewell to her
by you.”
“My husband. No! A moment!” He was tearing himself 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! 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
endeavour 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
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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. His arm trembled as it raised her, and
supported her head. Yet, there was an air about him that was not
all of 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 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 Miss 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, dearCarton!” criedlittleLucie. 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! O, look at her, dear Carton!
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 afterwards that when he bent down and
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touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The
child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, 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 recognisant 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.” He
returned the answer in great trouble, and very slowly.
“Try them again. The hours between this and tomorrow
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,” he added. with a smile and a sigh
together, “such great things as this. But try! Of 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
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have seen these dread powers, Doctor Manette?”
“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?”
“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 one 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 despond,” said Carton, very gently; “don’t grieve. I
encouraged Doctor Manette 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 he will perish; there is no real hope.”
“Yes. He will perish: there is no real hope,” echoed Carton. And
he walked with a settled step, down-stairs.
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Chapter XLII
DARKNESS
S ydney 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 meantime, 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 towards an object,
he took a turn or two in the already darkening street, and traced
the thought in his mind to its possible consequences. His 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 towards 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 towards Saint
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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.
There happened to be no customers 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.
He repeated what he had already said.
“English?” asked Madame 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
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wine. I drink to the Republic.”
Defarge went back to the counter, and said, “Certainly, a little
like.” Madame sternly retorted, “I tell you a good deal like.”
Jacques Three pacifically remarked, “He 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 tomorrow!”
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 all looked
towards him without disturbing his outward attention from the
Jacobin editor, they resumed their conversation.
“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.
“Magnificent!” 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 today; 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
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deprecatory manner, “the anguish of his daughter, which must be
a 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
today, 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.”
“It is so,” assented Defarge, without being asked.
“In the beginning of the great days, when the Bastille falls, he
finds this paper of today, 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
