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  • Book the Third: The Track of a Storm 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.

  • Woe 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 Antiquity, 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; 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 customers 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 a 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 the 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 anything 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?"

  • "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?"

  • 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.

  • He said not a word, however, and Miss Pross, exploring the depths of her reticule

  • through her tears with great difficulty paid for her 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.

  • Confound it! There," said Solomon, making a dab at Miss

  • 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 me 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 makings 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, by my own sister.

  • Just as I am getting on!" "The gracious and merciful Heavens forbid!"

  • cried Miss Pross.

  • "Far rather would I never see you again, dear Solomon, though I have ever loved you

  • truly, and ever shall.

  • Say 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 in

  • Soho, that this precious brother had spent her money and left her!

  • He was saying the affectionate word, however, with a far more grudging

  • condescension and patronage than he could have shown 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 favour?

  • As to whether your name is John Solomon, or Solomon John?"

  • The official turned towards him with 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?"

  • "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!" cried Jerry.

  • The speaker who struck in, was Sydney Carton.

  • He had his hands behind him under the skirts of his riding-coat, and 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 Pross.

  • 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 a 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 rumour

  • 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 favour 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 he had in his secret mind, and with such a man as he had

  • to do with.

  • His practised 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. Barsad!" 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 afterwards, 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 Royal 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?" repeated the old gentleman, "Barsad?

  • I have an association with the name--and with the face."

  • "I told you you had a remarkable face, Mr. Barsad," observed Carton, coolly.

  • "Pray sit down."

  • As he took a chair himself, he 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 recognised 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 we remember how identified

  • he is with his son-in-law."

  • "That's true," Mr. Lorry acknowledged, with his troubled hand at his chin, and his

  • troubled eyes on Carton.

  • "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 tomorrow.

  • 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.

  • "Mr. Barsad," he went on, in the tone of one who really was looking over a hand at

  • cards: "Sheep of the prisons, emissary 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 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 denunciation of him. Seeing it, he poured out and drank another

  • glassful.

  • "Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad. Take time."

  • It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr. Barsad saw losing cards in it that

  • Sydney Carton knew nothing of.

  • Thrown out of his honourable 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

  • Manette's imprisonment, release, and history, as should serve him for an

  • introduction to familiar conversation with the Defarges; and tried them on Madame

  • Defarge, and had broken down with them signally.

  • He always remembered with fear and trembling, that that terrible woman had

  • 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

  • fatal 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?"

  • "I think, sir," said the spy, in the meanest manner, as he turned to Mr. 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 circumstances 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 somebody; 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 any scruple, in a very few minutes."

  • "I should have hoped, gentlemen both," said the spy, always striving to hook Mr. 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 demeanour, 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.

  • While 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.

  • "It-can't-be," muttered Sydney Carton, retrospectively, and idling 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 happened 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?"

  • "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 time, sir," he returned, evasively, "the present time is ill-

  • conwenient for explainin'.

  • What I stand to, is, that he knows well wot that there Cly 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 half a guinea;" Mr. Cruncher dwelt upon this as

  • quite a liberal offer; "or I'll out and announce him."

  • "Humph! 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 feigned death and come to life

  • again! A plot in the prisons, of the foreigner

  • against the Republic.

  • A strong card--a certain Guillotine card! Do you play?"

  • "No!" returned the spy. "I throw 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 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!

  • Once more!"--Mr. Cruncher could not be restrained from making 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 anything in my office, putting my head in great extra danger, and I had

  • better trust my life to the chances of a refusal than the chances of consent.

  • In short, I should make that choice.

  • You talk of desperation. We are all desperate here.

  • Remember!

  • 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."

  • >

  • Book the Third: The Track of a Storm Chapter IX.

  • The Game 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.

  • "What have you been, besides a messenger?"

  • After some cogitation, accompanied with an intent look at his patron, Mr. Cruncher

  • conceived the luminous idea of replying, "Agicultooral character."

  • "My 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 honour of odd jobbing till I'm grey 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 it is to be took into account that if it wos, it wouldn't, even then, be

  • all o' one side.

  • There'd be two sides to it.

  • There might be medical doctors at the present hour, a picking up their guineas

  • where a honest tradesman don't pick up his fardens--fardens! no, nor yet his half

  • fardens--half fardens! no, nor yet his

  • quarter--a banking away like smoke at Tellson'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.

  • Well, 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' again the business to that degree as is

  • ruinating--stark ruinating!

  • Whereas them medical doctors' wives don't flop--catch 'em at it!

  • Or, if they flop, their floppings goes in favour of more patients, and how can you

  • rightly have one without t'other?

  • 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 he,

  • could see his way out, being once in--even if it wos so."

  • "Ugh!" cried Mr. Lorry, rather relenting, nevertheless, "I am shocked at the sight of

  • you."

  • "Now, what I would humbly offer to you, sir," pursued Mr. Cruncher, "even if it wos

  • so, which I don't say it is--" "Don't prevaricate," said Mr. Lorry.

  • "No, I will _not_, sir," returned Mr. Crunches 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 diggin', and make amends for what

  • he would have undug--if it wos so--by diggin' of 'em in with a will, and with

  • conwictions respectin' the futur' keepin' of 'em safe.

  • That, Mr. Lorry," said Mr. Cruncher, wiping his forehead with his arm, as an

  • announcement that he had arrived at the peroration of his discourse, "is wot 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.

  • And these here would be mine, if it wos so, entreatin' 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 Mr. 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 Mr. 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 him, 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 the 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." "I never said it would."

  • Mr. Lorry's eyes gradually sought the fire; his sympathy with his darling, and the

  • heavy disappointment of his second arrest, gradually weakened them; he was an old man

  • now, overborne with anxiety of late, and his tears fell.

  • "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 worse, 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," Carton 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."

  • "Ah!" It was a long, grieving sound, like a sigh--almost like a sob.

  • It attracted Mr. 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 flaming logs, which was tumbling forward.

  • He wore the white riding-coat and 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 indifference to fire was sufficiently remarkable to elicit a word of remonstrance

  • from Mr. 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. Mr. 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.

  • How 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 me."

  • "How can you say that? Wouldn't She weep for you?

  • Wouldn'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 attachment, 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?"

  • "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 moments,

  • 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?"

  • Responding 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 World 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."

  • Mr. 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 him there; but lingered at a little distance, and turned back to the

  • gate again when it was shut, and touched it.

  • He had heard of her going to the prison every day.

  • "She came out here," he said, looking about him, "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

  • inquisitively. "Good night, citizen."

  • "How goes the Republic?"

  • "You mean the Guillotine. Not ill.

  • Sixty-three to-day. We 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!

  • 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 honour!"

  • As the grinning 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 and dirty streets--much dirtier than usual, for the best public thoroughfares

  • remained uncleansed in those times of

  • terror--he 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!" the chemist whistled softly, as he

  • read it.

  • "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?" "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 struck into his road and saw its end.

  • Long ago, when 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 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 travelled 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 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 colour 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 a-buzz, when the black sheep--whom 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, ensuring

  • to any accused person any reasonable hearing.

  • 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 St.

  • Antoine. The whole jury, as a jury of dogs

  • empannelled to try the deer.

  • Every eye then turned to the five judges and the public prosecutor.

  • No favourable 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 St. Antoine."

  • "Good." "Therese Defarge, his wife."

  • "Good."

  • "Alexandre Manette, physician." A great uproar took place in the court, and

  • in the midst of 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 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,

  • 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. 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 Doctor 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.

  • >

  • Book the Third: The Track of a Storm Chapter X.

  • 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 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 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 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.

  • Where 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 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

  • 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 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 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 tranquillised

  • 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, 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.

  • 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.

  • "'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 die out!'

  • "I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed, bursting forth like a fire.

  • I had supposed that it must 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.

  • 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 to the looker-on, and I

  • saw in the two faces that all he said was true.

  • The two opposing kinds of pride confronting one another, I can see, even in this

  • Bastille; the gentleman's, all negligent indifference; the peasant's, all trodden-

  • down sentiment, and passionate revenge.

  • "'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--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.

  • He forced back the gathering shadows of death, as he 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, and last night climbed in--a common dog, but sword

  • in hand.--Where is the loft window? It was somewhere here?'

  • "The room was darkening to his sight; the world was narrowing around him.

  • I glanced about me, and saw that the 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 common 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 himself-- thrust at me with all his skill for his

  • life.'

  • "My glance had fallen, but a few moments before, on the fragments of a broken sword,

  • lying among the hay. That 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?'

  • "'He is not here,' I said, supporting the boy, and thinking that he referred to the

  • brother. "'He! 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.

  • "'Marquis,' said the boy, turned 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 down dead.

  • "When I returned to the bedside of the young woman, I found her raving in

  • precisely the same order of 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 medicines 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-bye she sank

  • into a lethargy, and lay like the dead.

  • "It was as if the wind and rain had lulled at last, after a 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 Marquis, 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 honour 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 with what I had heard

  • 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 underground 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.

  • Towards the last, I could understand some few syllables that she said to me, by

  • placing my ear close to her lips. She asked me 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 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.

  • He 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. "He 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.

  • "'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 that 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, 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!

  • 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. He 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

  • lamenting 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.

  • "That night, the last night of the year, towards 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--O 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, burnt 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 year 1767, in my unbearable agony, denounce

  • to the times 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 this detested family name had long been anathematised 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 fervour, 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!

  • >

  • Book the Third: The Track of a Storm Chapter 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 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 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-bye; 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 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, 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! 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 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 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," 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 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 walked with a settled step, down- stairs.

  • >

Book the Third: The Track of a Storm Chapter VIII.

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Part 7 - A Tale of Two Cities Audiobook by Charles Dickens (Book 03, Chs 08-11)

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