doubt in them, and then astonishment. He pressed the work-worn
hunger-worn young fingers, and touched his lips.
“Are you dying for him?” she whispered.
“And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.”
“O 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
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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?”
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?”
Greatly too much for him.
“Hah! Many suffer with it. Lucie. His daughter. French. Which
is she?”
This is she.
“Apparently it must be. Lucie, the wife of Evremonde; is it
not?”
It is.
“Hah! Evremonde has an assignation elsewhere. Lucie, her
child. English. This is she?”
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.
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“Is that all? It is not a great deal that! 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 country-people hanging
about, press nearer to the coach doors and greedily stare in; a little
child, carried by its mother, has its short arm held out for it, that it
may touch the wife of an aristocrat who has gone to the Guillotine.
“Behold your papers, Jarvis Lorry, counter-signed.”
“One can depart, citizen?”
“One can depart. Forward, my postilions! 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 traveller.
“Are we not going too slowly? Can they not be induced to go
faster?” asks Lucie, clinging to the old m an.
“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, ruinous
buildings, dye-works, tanneries, and the like. open country,
avenues of leafless trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us,
the soft deep mud is on either side. Sometimes, we strike into the
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skirting mud. to avoid the stones that clatter us and shake us;
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 anything 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 postilions follow,
sucking and plaiting the lashes of their whips; leisurely, the old
postilions count their money, 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 postilions 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 postilions
exchange speech with animated gesticulations, 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.”
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“At the last post. How many to the Guillotine today?”
“Fifty-two.”
“I said so! A brave number! My fellow-citizen here would have
it forty-two; ten more heads are worth having. The Guillotine goes
handsomely. I love it. Hi forward. Whoop!”
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.
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
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Chapter XLIV
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 Jacques 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
towards 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
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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 charming
when Samson held them up.” Ogre that he was, he spoke like an
epicure.
Madame 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 night, 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,
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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 Madame Defarge,
letting her eyes turn to him with a gloomy smile.
“Rely upon the patriotic Jury, dear citizeness. I answer for my
fellow-Jurymen.”
“Now, let me see,” said Madame Defarge, pondering again. “Yet
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 dead,” 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
marvellous of witnesses. The little citizen, not to be outdone,
declared her to be a celestial witness.
“He 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 today executed.—You?”
The question was addressed to the wood-sawyer. who hurriedly
replied in the affirmative: seizing the occasion to add that he was
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the most ardent of Republicans, and that he would be in effect the
most desolate of Republicans, if anything 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 tonight—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:
“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!” 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
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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 seems to strike into others an instinctive
recognition of those qualities; the troubled time would have
heaved her up, under any circumstances. But, 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.
It was nothing 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 daughter an
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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
tomorrow, 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.
