“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. Evrémonde. 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!

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.

CHAPTER XII.

Darkness

Sydney Carton paused in the street, not quite decided where to go. “At

Tellson’s banking-house at nine,” he said, with a musing face. “Shall I

do well, in the mean time, to show myself? I think so. It is best that

these people should know there is such a man as I here; it is a sound

precaution, and may be a necessary preparation. But care, care, care!

Let me think it out!”

Checking his steps which had begun to tend towards an object, he took a

turn or two in the already darkening street, and traced the thought

in his mind to its possible consequences. His first impression was

confirmed. “It is best,” he said, finally resolved, “that these people

should know there is such a man as I here.” And he turned his face

towards Saint Antoine.

Defarge had described himself, that day, as the keeper of a wine-shop in

the Saint Antoine suburb. It was not difficult for one who knew the city

well, to find his house without asking any question. Having ascertained

its situation, Carton came out of those closer streets again, and dined

at a place of refreshment and fell sound asleep after dinner. For the

first time in many years, he had no strong drink. Since last night he

had taken nothing but a little light thin wine, and last night he had

dropped the brandy slowly down on Mr. Lorry’s hearth like a man who had

done with it.

It was as late as seven o’clock when he awoke refreshed, and went out

into the streets again. As he passed along towards Saint Antoine, he

stopped at a shop-window where there was a mirror, and slightly altered

the disordered arrangement of his loose cravat, and his coat-collar, and

his wild hair. This done, he went on direct to Defarge’s, and went in.

There happened to be no customer in the shop but Jacques Three, of the

restless fingers and the croaking voice. This man, whom he had seen upon

the Jury, stood drinking at the little counter, in conversation with the

Defarges, man and wife. The Vengeance assisted in the conversation, like

a regular member of the establishment.

As Carton walked in, took his seat and asked (in very indifferent

French) for a small measure of wine, Madame Defarge cast a careless

glance at him, and then a keener, and then a keener, and then advanced

to him herself, and asked him what it was he had ordered.

He repeated what he had already said.

“English?” asked Madame Defarge, inquisitively raising her dark

eyebrows.

After looking at her, as if the sound of even a single French word were

slow to express itself to him, he answered, in his former strong foreign

accent. “Yes, madame, yes. I am English!”

Madame Defarge returned to her counter to get the wine, and, as he

took up a Jacobin journal and feigned to pore over it puzzling out its

meaning, he heard her say, “I swear to you, like Evrémonde!”

Defarge brought him the wine, and gave him Good Evening.

“How?”

“Good evening.”

“Oh! Good evening, citizen,” filling his glass. “Ah! and good wine. I

drink to the Republic.”

Defarge went back to the counter, and said, “Certainly, a little like.”

Madame sternly retorted, “I tell you a good deal like.” Jacques Three

pacifically remarked, “He is so much in your mind, see you, madame.”

The amiable Vengeance added, with a laugh, “Yes, my faith! And you

are looking forward with so much pleasure to seeing him once more

to-morrow!”

Carton followed the lines and words of his paper, with a slow

forefinger, and with a studious and absorbed face. They were all leaning

their arms on the counter close together, speaking low. After a silence

of a few moments, during which they all looked towards him without

disturbing his outward attention from the Jacobin editor, they resumed

their conversation.

“It is true what madame says,” observed Jacques Three. “Why stop? There

is great force in that. Why stop?”

“Well, well,” reasoned Defarge, “but one must stop somewhere. After all,

the question is still where?”

“At extermination,” said madame.

“Magnificent!” croaked Jacques Three. The Vengeance, also, highly

approved.

“Extermination is good doctrine, my wife,” said Defarge, rather

troubled; “in general, I say nothing against it. But this Doctor has

suffered much; you have seen him to-day; you have observed his face when

the paper was read.”

“I have observed his face!” repeated madame, contemptuously and angrily.

“Yes. I have observed his face. I have observed his face to be not the

face of a true friend of the Republic. Let him take care of his face!”

“And you have observed, my wife,” said Defarge, in a deprecatory manner,

“the anguish of his daughter, which must be a dreadful anguish to him!”

“I have observed his daughter,” repeated madame; “yes, I have observed

his daughter, more times than one. I have observed her to-day, and I

have observed her other days. I have observed her in the court, and

I have observed her in the street by the prison. Let me but lift my

finger--!” She seemed to raise it (the listener’s eyes were always on

his paper), and to let it fall with a rattle on the ledge before her, as

if the axe had dropped.

“The citizeness is superb!” croaked the Juryman.

“She is an Angel!” said The Vengeance, and embraced her.

“As to thee,” pursued madame, implacably, addressing her husband, “if it

depended on thee--which, happily, it does not--thou wouldst rescue this

man even now.”

“No!” protested Defarge. “Not if to lift this glass would do it! But I

would leave the matter there. I say, stop there.”

“See you then, Jacques,” said Madame Defarge, wrathfully; “and see you,

too, my little Vengeance; see you both! Listen! For other crimes as

tyrants and oppressors, I have this race a long time on my register,

doomed to destruction and extermination. Ask my husband, is that so.”

“It is so,” assented Defarge, without being asked.

“In the beginning of the great days, when the Bastille falls, he finds

this paper of to-day, and he brings it home, and in the middle of the

night when this place is clear and shut, we read it, here on this spot,

by the light of this lamp. Ask him, is that so.”

“It is so,” assented Defarge.

“That night, I tell him, when the paper is read through, and the lamp is

burnt out, and the day is gleaming in above those shutters and between

those iron bars, that I have now a secret to communicate. Ask him, is

that so.”

“It is so,” assented Defarge again.

“I communicate to him that secret. I smite this bosom with these two

hands as I smite it now, and I tell him, ‘Defarge, I was brought up

among the fishermen of the sea-shore, and that peasant family so injured

by the two Evrémonde brothers, as that Bastille paper describes, is my

family. Defarge, that sister of the mortally wounded boy upon the ground

was my sister, that husband was my sister’s husband, that unborn child

was their child, that brother was my brother, that father was my father,

those dead are my dead, and that summons to answer for those things

descends to me!’ Ask him, is that so.”

“It is so,” assented Defarge once more.

“Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop,” returned madame; “but don’t

tell me.”

Both her hearers derived a horrible enjoyment from the deadly nature

of her wrath--the listener could feel how white she was, without seeing

her--and both highly commended it. Defarge, a weak minority, interposed

a few words for the memory of the compassionate wife of the Marquis; but

only elicited from his own wife a repetition of her last reply. “Tell

the Wind and the Fire where to stop; not me!”

Customers entered, and the group was broken up. The English customer

paid for what he had had, perplexedly counted his change, and asked, as

a stranger, to be directed towards the National Palace. Madame Defarge

took him to the door, and put her arm on his, in pointing out the road.

The English customer was not without his reflections then, that it might

be a good deed to seize that arm, lift it, and strike under it sharp and

deep.

But, he went his way, and was soon swallowed up in the shadow of the

prison wall. At the appointed hour, he emerged from it to present

himself in Mr. Lorry’s room again, where he found the old gentleman

walking to and fro in restless anxiety. He said he had been with Lucie

until just now, and had only left her for a few minutes, to come and

keep his appointment. Her father had not been seen, since he quitted the

banking-house towards four o’clock. She had some faint hopes that his

mediation might save Charles, but they were very slight. He had been

more than five hours gone: where could he be?

Mr. Lorry waited until ten; but, Doctor Manette not returning, and

he being unwilling to leave Lucie any longer, it was arranged that he

should go back to her, and come to the banking-house again at midnight.

In the meanwhile, Carton would wait alone by the fire for the Doctor.

He waited and waited, and the clock struck twelve; but Doctor Manette

did not come back. Mr. Lorry returned, and found no tidings of him, and

brought none. Where could he be?

They were discussing this question, and were almost building up some

weak structure of hope on his prolonged absence, when they heard him on

the stairs. The instant he entered the room, it was plain that all was

lost.

Whether he had really been to any one, or whether he had been all that

time traversing the streets, was never known. As he stood staring at

them, they asked him no question, for his face told them everything.

“I cannot find it,” said he, “and I must have it. Where is it?”

His head and throat were bare, and, as he spoke with a helpless look

straying all around, he took his coat off, and let it drop on the floor.

“Where is my bench? I have been looking everywhere for my bench, and I

can’t find it. What have they done with my work? Time presses: I must

finish those shoes.”

They looked at one another, and their hearts died within them.

“Come, come!” said he, in a whimpering miserable way; “let me get to

work. Give me my work.”

Receiving no answer, he tore his hair, and beat his feet upon the

ground, like a distracted child.

“Don’t torture a poor forlorn wretch,” he implored them, with a dreadful

cry; “but give me my work! What is to become of us, if those shoes are

not done to-night?”

Lost, utterly lost!

It was so clearly beyond hope to reason with him, or try to restore him,

that--as if by agreement--they each put a hand upon his shoulder, and

soothed him to sit down before the fire, with a promise that he should

have his work presently. He sank into the chair, and brooded over the

embers, and shed tears. As if all that had happened since the garret

time were a momentary fancy, or a dream, Mr. Lorry saw him shrink into

the exact figure that Defarge had had in keeping.

Affected, and impressed with terror as they both were, by this spectacle

of ruin, it was not a time to yield to such emotions. His lonely

daughter, bereft of her final hope and reliance, appealed to them both

too strongly. Again, as if by agreement, they looked at one another with

one meaning in their faces. Carton was the first to speak:

“The last chance is gone: it was not much. Yes; he had better be taken

to her. But, before you go, will you, for a moment, steadily attend to

me? Don’t ask me why I make the stipulations I am going to make, and

exact the promise I am going to exact; I have a reason--a good one.”

“I do not doubt it,” answered Mr. Lorry. “Say on.”

The figure in the chair between them, was all the time monotonously

rocking itself to and fro, and moaning. They spoke in such a tone as

they would have used if they had been watching by a sick-bed in the

night.

Carton stooped to pick up the coat, which lay almost entangling his

feet. As he did so, a small case in which the Doctor was accustomed to

carry the lists of his day’s duties, fell lightly on the floor. Carton

took it up, and there was a folded paper in it. “We should look

at this!” he said. Mr. Lorry nodded his consent. He opened it, and

exclaimed, “Thank _God!_”

“What is it?” asked Mr. Lorry, eagerly.

“A moment! Let me speak of it in its place. First,” he put his hand in

his coat, and took another paper from it, “that is the certificate which

enables me to pass out of this city. Look at it. You see--Sydney Carton,

an Englishman?”

Mr. Lorry held it open in his hand, gazing in his earnest face.

“Keep it for me until to-morrow. I shall see him to-morrow, you

remember, and I had better not take it into the prison.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know; I prefer not to do so. Now, take this paper that Doctor

Manette has carried about him. It is a similar certificate, enabling him

and his daughter and her child, at any time, to pass the barrier and the

frontier! You see?”

“Yes!”

“Perhaps he obtained it as his last and utmost precaution against evil,

yesterday. When is it dated? But no matter; don’t stay to look; put it

up carefully with mine and your own. Now, observe! I never doubted until

within this hour or two, that he had, or could have such a paper. It is

good, until recalled. But it may be soon recalled, and, I have reason to

think, will be.”

“They are not in danger?”

“They are in great danger. They are in danger of denunciation by Madame

Defarge. I know it from her own lips. I have overheard words of that

woman’s, to-night, which have presented their danger to me in strong

colours. I have lost no time, and since then, I have seen the spy. He

confirms me. He knows that a wood-sawyer, living by the prison wall,

is under the control of the Defarges, and has been rehearsed by

Madame Defarge as to his having seen Her”--he never mentioned Lucie’s

name--“making signs and signals to prisoners. It is easy to foresee that

the pretence will be the common one, a prison plot, and that it will

involve her life--and perhaps her child’s--and perhaps her father’s--for

both have been seen with her at that place. Don’t look so horrified. You

will save them all.”

“Heaven grant I may, Carton! But how?”

“I am going to tell you how. It will depend on you, and it could depend

on no better man. This new denunciation will certainly not take place

until after to-morrow; probably not until two or three days afterwards;

more probably a week afterwards. You know it is a capital crime, to

mourn for, or sympathise with, a victim of the Guillotine. She and her

father would unquestionably be guilty of this crime, and this woman (the

inveteracy of whose pursuit cannot be described) would wait to add that

strength to her case, and make herself doubly sure. You follow me?”

“So attentively, and with so much confidence in what you say, that for

the moment I lose sight,” touching the back of the Doctor’s chair, “even

of this distress.”

“You have money, and can buy the means of travelling to the seacoast

as quickly as the journey can be made. Your preparations have been

completed for some days, to return to England. Early to-morrow have your

horses ready, so that they may be in starting trim at two o’clock in the

afternoon.”

“It shall be done!”

His manner was so fervent and inspiring, that Mr. Lorry caught the

flame, and was as quick as youth.

“You are a noble heart. Did I say we could depend upon no better man?

Tell her, to-night, what you know of her danger as involving her child

and her father. Dwell upon that, for she would lay her own fair head

beside her husband’s cheerfully.” He faltered for an instant; then went

on as before. “For the sake of her child and her father, press upon her

the necessity of leaving Paris, with them and you, at that hour. Tell

her that it was her husband’s last arrangement. Tell her that more

depends upon it than she dare believe, or hope. You think that her

father, even in this sad state, will submit himself to her; do you not?”

“I am sure of it.”

“I thought so. Quietly and steadily have all these arrangements made in

the courtyard here, even to the taking of your own seat in the carriage.

The moment I come to you, take me in, and drive away.”

“I understand that I wait for you under all circumstances?”

“You have my certificate in your hand with the rest, you know, and will

reserve my place. Wait for nothing but to have my place occupied, and

then for England!”

“Why, then,” said Mr. Lorry, grasping his eager but so firm and steady

hand, “it does not all depend on one old man, but I shall have a young

and ardent man at my side.”

“By the help of Heaven you shall! Promise me solemnly that nothing will

influence you to alter the course on which we now stand pledged to one

another.”

“Nothing, Carton.”

“Remember these words to-morrow: change the course, or delay in it--for

any reason--and no life can possibly be saved, and many lives must

inevitably be sacrificed.”

“I will remember them. I hope to do my part faithfully.”

“And I hope to do mine. Now, good bye!”

Though he said it with a grave smile of earnestness, and though he even

put the old man’s hand to his lips, he did not part from him then. He

helped him so far to arouse the rocking figure before the dying embers,

as to get a cloak and hat put upon it, and to tempt it forth to find

where the bench and work were hidden that it still moaningly besought

to have. He walked on the other side of it and protected it to the

courtyard of the house where the afflicted heart--so happy in

the memorable time when he had revealed his own desolate heart to

it--outwatched the awful night. He entered the courtyard and remained

there for a few moments alone, looking up at the light in the window of

her room. Before he went away, he breathed a blessing towards it, and a

Farewell.

CHAPTER XIII.

Fifty-two

In the black prison of the Conciergerie, the doomed of the day awaited

their fate. They were in number as the weeks of the year. Fifty-two were

to roll that afternoon on the life-tide of the city to the boundless

everlasting sea. Before their cells were quit of them, new occupants

were appointed; before their blood ran into the blood spilled yesterday,

the blood that was to mingle with theirs to-morrow was already set

apart.

Two score and twelve were told off. From the farmer-general of seventy,

whose riches could not buy his life, to the seamstress of twenty, whose

poverty and obscurity could not save her. Physical diseases, engendered

in the vices and neglects of men, will seize on victims of all degrees;

and the frightful moral disorder, born of unspeakable suffering,

intolerable oppression, and heartless indifference, smote equally

without distinction.

Charles Darnay, alone in a cell, had sustained himself with no

flattering delusion since he came to it from the Tribunal. In every line

of the narrative he had heard, he had heard his condemnation. He had

fully comprehended that no personal influence could possibly save him,

that he was virtually sentenced by the millions, and that units could

avail him nothing.

Nevertheless, it was not easy, with the face of his beloved wife fresh

before him, to compose his mind to what it must bear. His hold on life

was strong, and it was very, very hard, to loosen; by gradual efforts

and degrees unclosed a little here, it clenched the tighter there; and

when he brought his strength to bear on that hand and it yielded,

this was closed again. There was a hurry, too, in all his thoughts,

a turbulent and heated working of his heart, that contended against

resignation. If, for a moment, he did feel resigned, then his wife and

child who had to live after him, seemed to protest and to make it a

selfish thing.

But, all this was at first. Before long, the consideration that there

was no disgrace in the fate he must meet, and that numbers went the same

road wrongfully, and trod it firmly every day, sprang up to stimulate

him. Next followed the thought that much of the future peace of mind

enjoyable by the dear ones, depended on his quiet fortitude. So,

by degrees he calmed into the better state, when he could raise his

thoughts much higher, and draw comfort down.

Before it had set in dark on the night of his condemnation, he had

travelled thus far on his last way. Being allowed to purchase the means

of writing, and a light, he sat down to write until such time as the

prison lamps should be extinguished.

He wrote a long letter to Lucie, showing her that he had known nothing

of her father’s imprisonment, until he had heard of it from herself,

and that he had been as ignorant as she of his father’s and uncle’s

responsibility for that misery, until the paper had been read. He had

already explained to her that his concealment from herself of the name

he had relinquished, was the one condition--fully intelligible now--that

her father had attached to their betrothal, and was the one promise he

had still exacted on the morning of their marriage. He entreated her,

for her father’s sake, never to seek to know whether her father had

become oblivious of the existence of the paper, or had had it recalled

to him (for the moment, or for good), by the story of the Tower, on

that old Sunday under the dear old plane-tree in the garden. If he had

preserved any definite remembrance of it, there could be no doubt that

he had supposed it destroyed with the Bastille, when he had found no

mention of it among the relics of prisoners which the populace had

discovered there, and which had been described to all the world. He

besought her--though he added that he knew it was needless--to console

her father, by impressing him through every tender means she could think

of, with the truth that he had done nothing for which he could justly

reproach himself, but had uniformly forgotten himself for their joint

sakes. Next to her preservation of his own last grateful love and

blessing, and her overcoming of her sorrow, to devote herself to their

dear child, he adjured her, as they would meet in Heaven, to comfort her

father.

To her father himself, he wrote in the same strain; but, he told her

father that he expressly confided his wife and child to his care. And

he told him this, very strongly, with the hope of rousing him from any

despondency or dangerous retrospect towards which he foresaw he might be

tending.

To Mr. Lorry, he commended them all, and explained his worldly affairs.

That done, with many added sentences of grateful friendship and warm

attachment, all was done. He never thought of Carton. His mind was so

full of the others, that he never once thought of him.

He had time to finish these letters before the lights were put out. When

he lay down on his straw bed, he thought he had done with this world.

But, it beckoned him back in his sleep, and showed itself in shining

forms. Free and happy, back in the old house in Soho (though it had

nothing in it like the real house), unaccountably released and light of

heart, he was with Lucie again, and she told him it was all a dream, and

he had never gone away. A pause of forgetfulness, and then he had even

suffered, and had come back to her, dead and at peace, and yet there

was no difference in him. Another pause of oblivion, and he awoke in the

sombre morning, unconscious where he was or what had happened, until it

flashed upon his mind, “this is the day of my death!”

Thus, had he come through the hours, to the day when the fifty-two heads

were to fall. And now, while he was composed, and hoped that he could

meet the end with quiet heroism, a new action began in his waking

thoughts, which was very difficult to master.

He had never seen the instrument that was to terminate his life. How

high it was from the ground, how many steps it had, where he would be

stood, how he would be touched, whether the touching hands would be dyed

red, which way his face would be turned, whether he would be the first,

or might be the last: these and many similar questions, in nowise

directed by his will, obtruded themselves over and over again, countless

times. Neither were they connected with fear: he was conscious of no

fear. Rather, they originated in a strange besetting desire to know what

to do when the time came; a desire gigantically disproportionate to the

few swift moments to which it referred; a wondering that was more like

the wondering of some other spirit within his, than his own.

The hours went on as he walked to and fro, and the clocks struck the

numbers he would never hear again. Nine gone for ever, ten gone for

ever, eleven gone for ever, twelve coming on to pass away. After a hard

contest with that eccentric action of thought which had last perplexed

him, he had got the better of it. He walked up and down, softly

repeating their names to himself. The worst of the strife was over.

He could walk up and down, free from distracting fancies, praying for

himself and for them.

Twelve gone for ever.

He had been apprised that the final hour was Three, and he knew he would

be summoned some time earlier, inasmuch as the tumbrils jolted heavily

and slowly through the streets. Therefore, he resolved to keep Two

before his mind, as the hour, and so to strengthen himself in the

interval that he might be able, after that time, to strengthen others.

Walking regularly to and fro with his arms folded on his breast, a very

different man from the prisoner, who had walked to and fro at La Force,

he heard One struck away from him, without surprise. The hour had

measured like most other hours. Devoutly thankful to Heaven for his

recovered self-possession, he thought, “There is but another now,” and

turned to walk again.

Footsteps in the stone passage outside the door. He stopped.

The key was put in the lock, and turned. Before the door was opened, or

as it opened, a man said in a low voice, in English: “He has never seen

me here; I have kept out of his way. Go you in alone; I wait near. Lose

no time!”

The door was quickly opened and closed, and there stood before him

face to face, quiet, intent upon him, with the light of a smile on his

features, and a cautionary finger on his lip, Sydney Carton.

There was something so bright and remarkable in his look, that, for the

first moment, the prisoner misdoubted him to be an apparition of his own

imagining. But, he spoke, and it was his voice; he took the prisoner’s

hand, and it was his real grasp.

“Of all the people upon earth, you least expected to see me?” he said.

“I could not believe it to be you. I can scarcely believe it now. You

are not”--the apprehension came suddenly into his mind--“a prisoner?”

“No. I am accidentally possessed of a power over one of the keepers

here, and in virtue of it I stand before you. I come from her--your

wife, dear Darnay.”

The prisoner wrung his hand.

“I bring you a request from her.”

“What is it?”

“A most earnest, pressing, and emphatic entreaty, addressed to you

in the most pathetic tones of the voice so dear to you, that you well

remember.”

The prisoner turned his face partly aside.

“You have no time to ask me why I bring it, or what it means; I have

no time to tell you. You must comply with it--take off those boots you

wear, and draw on these of mine.”

There was a chair against the wall of the cell, behind the prisoner.

Carton, pressing forward, had already, with the speed of lightning, got

him down into it, and stood over him, barefoot.

“Draw on these boots of mine. Put your hands to them; put your will to

them. Quick!”

“Carton, there is no escaping from this place; it never can be done. You

will only die with me. It is madness.”

“It would be madness if I asked you to escape; but do I? When I ask you

to pass out at that door, tell me it is madness and remain here. Change

that cravat for this of mine, that coat for this of mine. While you do

it, let me take this ribbon from your hair, and shake out your hair like

this of mine!”

With wonderful quickness, and with a strength both of will and action,

that appeared quite supernatural, he forced all these changes upon him.

The prisoner was like a young child in his hands.

“Carton! Dear Carton! It is madness. It cannot be accomplished, it never

can be done, it has been attempted, and has always failed. I implore you

not to add your death to the bitterness of mine.”

“Do I ask you, my dear Darnay, to pass the door? When I ask that,

refuse. There are pen and ink and paper on this table. Is your hand

steady enough to write?”

“It was when you came in.”

“Steady it again, and write what I shall dictate. Quick, friend, quick!”

Pressing his hand to his bewildered head, Darnay sat down at the table.

Carton, with his right hand in his breast, stood close beside him.

“Write exactly as I speak.”

“To whom do I address it?”

“To no one.” Carton still had his hand in his breast.

“Do I date it?”

“No.”

The prisoner looked up, at each question. Carton, standing over him with

his hand in his breast, looked down.

“‘If you remember,’” said Carton, dictating, “‘the words that passed

between us, long ago, you will readily comprehend this when you see it.

You do remember them, I know. It is not in your nature to forget them.’”

He was drawing his hand from his breast; the prisoner chancing to look

up in his hurried wonder as he wrote, the hand stopped, closing upon

something.

“Have you written ‘forget them’?” Carton asked.

“I have. Is that a weapon in your hand?”

“No; I am not armed.”

“What is it in your hand?”

“You shall know directly. Write on; there are but a few words more.” He

dictated again. “‘I am thankful that the time has come, when I can prove

them. That I do so is no subject for regret or grief.’” As he said these

words with his eyes fixed on the writer, his hand slowly and softly

moved down close to the writer’s face.

The pen dropped from Darnay’s fingers on the table, and he looked about

him vacantly.

“What vapour is that?” he asked.

“Vapour?”

“Something that crossed me?”

“I am conscious of nothing; there can be nothing here. Take up the pen

and finish. Hurry, hurry!”

As if his memory were impaired, or his faculties disordered, the

prisoner made an effort to rally his attention. As he looked at Carton

with clouded eyes and with an altered manner of breathing, Carton--his

hand again in his breast--looked steadily at him.

“Hurry, hurry!”

The prisoner bent over the paper, once more.

“‘If it had been otherwise;’” Carton’s hand was again watchfully and

softly stealing down; “‘I never should have used the longer opportunity.

If it had been otherwise;’” the hand was at the prisoner’s face; “‘I

should but have had so much the more to answer for. If it had been

otherwise--’” Carton looked at the pen and saw it was trailing off into

unintelligible signs.

Carton’s hand moved back to his breast no more. The prisoner sprang up

with a reproachful look, but Carton’s hand was close and firm at his

nostrils, and Carton’s left arm caught him round the waist. For a few

seconds he faintly struggled with the man who had come to lay down his

life for him; but, within a minute or so, he was stretched insensible on

the ground.

Quickly, but with hands as true to the purpose as his heart was, Carton

dressed himself in the clothes the prisoner had laid aside, combed back

his hair, and tied it with the ribbon the prisoner had worn. Then, he

softly called, “Enter there! Come in!” and the Spy presented himself.

“You see?” said Carton, looking up, as he kneeled on one knee beside the

insensible figure, putting the paper in the breast: “is your hazard very

great?”

“Mr. Carton,” the Spy answered, with a timid snap of his fingers, “my

hazard is not _that_, in the thick of business here, if you are true to

the whole of your bargain.”

“Don’t fear me. I will be true to the death.”

“You must be, Mr. Carton, if the tale of fifty-two is to be right. Being

made right by you in that dress, I shall have no fear.”

“Have no fear! I shall soon be out of the way of harming you, and the

rest will soon be far from here, please God! Now, get assistance and

take me to the coach.”

“You?” said the Spy nervously.

“Him, man, with whom I have exchanged. You go out at the gate by which

you brought me in?”

“Of course.”

“I was weak and faint when you brought me in, and I am fainter now you

take me out. The parting interview has overpowered me. Such a thing has

happened here, often, and too often. Your life is in your own hands.

Quick! Call assistance!”

“You swear not to betray me?” said the trembling Spy, as he paused for a

last moment.

“Man, man!” returned Carton, stamping his foot; “have I sworn by no

solemn vow already, to go through with this, that you waste the precious

moments now? Take him yourself to the courtyard you know of, place

him yourself in the carriage, show him yourself to Mr. Lorry, tell him

yourself to give him no restorative but air, and to remember my words of

last night, and his promise of last night, and drive away!”

The Spy withdrew, and Carton seated himself at the table, resting his

forehead on his hands. The Spy returned immediately, with two men.

“How, then?” said one of them, contemplating the fallen figure. “So

afflicted to find that his friend has drawn a prize in the lottery of

Sainte Guillotine?”

“A good patriot,” said the other, “could hardly have been more afflicted

if the Aristocrat had drawn a blank.”

They raised the unconscious figure, placed it on a litter they had

brought to the door, and bent to carry it away.

“The time is short, Evrémonde,” said the Spy, in a warning voice.

“I know it well,” answered Carton. “Be careful of my friend, I entreat

you, and leave me.”

“Come, then, my children,” said Barsad. “Lift him, and come away!”

The door closed, and Carton was left alone. Straining his powers of

listening to the utmost, he listened for any sound that might denote

suspicion or alarm. There was none. Keys turned, doors clashed,

footsteps passed along distant passages: no cry was raised, or hurry

made, that seemed unusual. Breathing more freely in a little while, he

sat down at the table, and listened again until the clock struck Two.

Sounds that he was not afraid of, for he divined their meaning, then

began to be audible. Several doors were opened in succession, and

finally his own. A gaoler, with a list in his hand, looked in, merely

saying, “Follow me, Evrémonde!” and he followed into a large dark room,

at a distance. It was a dark winter day, and what with the shadows

within, and what with the shadows without, he could but dimly discern

the others who were brought there to have their arms bound. Some were

standing; some seated. Some were lamenting, and in restless motion;

but, these were few. The great majority were silent and still, looking

fixedly at the ground.

As he stood by the wall in a dim corner, while some of the fifty-two

were brought in after him, one man stopped in passing, to embrace him,

as having a knowledge of him. It thrilled him with a great dread of

discovery; but the man went on. A very few moments after that, a young

woman, with a slight girlish form, a sweet spare face in which there was

no vestige of colour, and large widely opened patient eyes, rose from

the seat where he had observed her sitting, and came to speak to him.

“Citizen Evrémonde,” she said, touching him with her cold hand. “I am a

poor little seamstress, who was with you in La Force.”

He murmured for answer: “True. I forget what you were accused of?”

“Plots. Though the just Heaven knows that I am innocent of any. Is it

likely? Who would think of plotting with a poor little weak creature

like me?”

The forlorn smile with which she said it, so touched him, that tears

started from his eyes.

“I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evrémonde, but I have done nothing. I

am not unwilling to die, if the Republic which is to do so much good

to us poor, will profit by my death; but I do not know how that can be,

Citizen Evrémonde. Such a poor weak little creature!”

As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and soften to, it

warmed and softened to this pitiable girl.

“I heard you were released, Citizen Evrémonde. I hoped it was true?”

“It was. But, I was again taken and condemned.”

“If I may ride with you, Citizen Evrémonde, will you let me hold your

hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and weak, and it will give me

more courage.”

As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in

them, and then astonishment. He pressed the work-worn, hunger-worn young

fingers, and touched his lips.

“Are you dying for him?” she whispered.

“And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.”

“O you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?”

“Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last.”

*****

The same shadows that are falling on the prison, are falling, in that

same hour of the early afternoon, on the Barrier with the crowd about

it, when a coach going out of Paris drives up to be examined.

“Who goes here? Whom have we within? Papers!”

The papers are handed out, and read.

“Alexandre Manette. Physician. French. Which is he?”

This is he; this helpless, inarticulately murmuring, wandering old man

pointed out.

“Apparently the Citizen-Doctor is not in his right mind? The

Revolution-fever will have been too much for him?”

Greatly too much for him.

“Hah! Many suffer with it. Lucie. His daughter. French. Which is she?”

This is she.

“Apparently it must be. Lucie, the wife of Evrémonde; is it not?”

It is.

“Hah! Evrémonde has an assignation elsewhere. Lucie, her child. English.

This is she?”

She and no other.

“Kiss me, child of Evrémonde. Now, thou hast kissed a good Republican;

something new in thy family; remember it! Sydney Carton. Advocate.

English. Which is he?”

He lies here, in this corner of the carriage. He, too, is pointed out.

“Apparently the English advocate is in a swoon?”

It is hoped he will recover in the fresher air. It is represented that

he is not in strong health, and has separated sadly from a friend who is

under the displeasure of the Republic.

“Is that all? It is not a great deal, that! Many are under the

displeasure of the Republic, and must look out at the little window.

Jarvis Lorry. Banker. English. Which is he?”

“I am he. Necessarily, being the last.”

It is Jarvis Lorry who has replied to all the previous questions. It

is Jarvis Lorry who has alighted and stands with his hand on the coach

door, replying to a group of officials. They leisurely walk round the

carriage and leisurely mount the box, to look at what little luggage it

carries on the roof; the country-people hanging about, press nearer to

the coach doors and greedily stare in; a little child, carried by its

mother, has its short arm held out for it, that it may touch the wife of

an aristocrat who has gone to the Guillotine.

“Behold your papers, Jarvis Lorry, countersigned.”

“One can depart, citizen?”

“One can depart. Forward, my postilions! A good journey!”

“I salute you, citizens.--And the first danger passed!”

These are again the words of Jarvis Lorry, as he clasps his hands, and

looks upward. There is terror in the carriage, there is weeping, there

is the heavy breathing of the insensible traveller.

“Are we not going too slowly? Can they not be induced to go faster?”

asks Lucie, clinging to the old man.

“It would seem like flight, my darling. I must not urge them too much;

it would rouse suspicion.”

“Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued!”

“The road is clear, my dearest. So far, we are not pursued.”

Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous buildings,

dye-works, tanneries, and the like, open country, avenues of leafless

trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us, the soft deep mud is on

either side. Sometimes, we strike into the skirting mud, to avoid the

stones that clatter us and shake us; sometimes, we stick in ruts and

sloughs there. The agony of our impatience is then so great, that in our

wild alarm and hurry we are for getting out and running--hiding--doing

anything but stopping.

Out of the open country, in again among ruinous buildings, solitary

farms, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, cottages in twos and threes,

avenues of leafless trees. Have these men deceived us, and taken us back

by another road? Is not this the same place twice over? Thank Heaven,

no. A village. Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued! Hush!

the posting-house.

Leisurely, our four horses are taken out; leisurely, the coach stands in

the little street, bereft of horses, and with no likelihood upon it

of ever moving again; leisurely, the new horses come into visible

existence, one by one; leisurely, the new postilions follow, sucking and

plaiting the lashes of their whips; leisurely, the old postilions count

their money, make wrong additions, and arrive at dissatisfied results.

All the time, our overfraught hearts are beating at a rate that would

far outstrip the fastest gallop of the fastest horses ever foaled.

At length the new postilions are in their saddles, and the old are left

behind. We are through the village, up the hill, and down the hill, and

on the low watery grounds. Suddenly, the postilions exchange speech with

animated gesticulation, and the horses are pulled up, almost on their

haunches. We are pursued?

“Ho! Within the carriage there. Speak then!”

“What is it?” asks Mr. Lorry, looking out at window.

“How many did they say?”

“I do not understand you.”

“--At the last post. How many to the Guillotine to-day?”

“Fifty-two.”

“I said so! A brave number! My fellow-citizen here would have it

forty-two; ten more heads are worth having. The Guillotine goes

handsomely. I love it. Hi forward. Whoop!”

The night comes on dark. He moves more; he is beginning to revive, and

to speak intelligibly; he thinks they are still together; he asks him,

by his name, what he has in his hand. O pity us, kind Heaven, and help

us! Look out, look out, and see if we are pursued.

The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and

the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of

us; but, so far, we are pursued by nothing else.

CHAPTER XIV.

The Knitting Done

In that same juncture of time when the Fifty-Two awaited their fate

Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council with The Vengeance and

Jacques Three of the Revolutionary Jury. Not in the wine-shop did Madame

Defarge confer with these ministers, but in the shed of the wood-sawyer,

erst a mender of roads. The sawyer himself did not participate in the

conference, but abided at a little distance, like an outer satellite who

was not to speak until required, or to offer an opinion until invited.

“But our Defarge,” said Jacques Three, “is undoubtedly a good

Republican? Eh?”

“There is no better,” the voluble Vengeance protested in her shrill

notes, “in France.”

“Peace, little Vengeance,” said Madame Defarge, laying her hand with

a slight frown on her lieutenant’s lips, “hear me speak. My husband,

fellow-citizen, is a good Republican and a bold man; he has deserved

well of the Republic, and possesses its confidence. But my husband has

his weaknesses, and he is so weak as to relent towards this Doctor.”

“It is a great pity,” croaked Jacques Three, dubiously shaking his head,

with his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth; “it is not quite like a good

citizen; it is a thing to regret.”

“See you,” said madame, “I care nothing for this Doctor, I. He may wear

his head or lose it, for any interest I have in him; it is all one to

me. But, the Evrémonde people are to be exterminated, and the wife and

child must follow the husband and father.”

“She has a fine head for it,” croaked Jacques Three. “I have seen blue

eyes and golden hair there, and they looked charming when Samson held

them up.” Ogre that he was, he spoke like an epicure.

Madame Defarge cast down her eyes, and reflected a little.

“The child also,” observed Jacques Three, with a meditative enjoyment

of his words, “has golden hair and blue eyes. And we seldom have a child

there. It is a pretty sight!”

“In a word,” said Madame Defarge, coming out of her short abstraction,

“I cannot trust my husband in this matter. Not only do I feel, since

last night, that I dare not confide to him the details of my projects;

but also I feel that if I delay, there is danger of his giving warning,

and then they might escape.”

“That must never be,” croaked Jacques Three; “no one must escape. We

have not half enough as it is. We ought to have six score a day.”

“In a word,” Madame Defarge went on, “my husband has not my reason for

pursuing this family to annihilation, and I have not his reason for

regarding this Doctor with any sensibility. I must act for myself,

therefore. Come hither, little citizen.”

The wood-sawyer, who held her in the respect, and himself in the

submission, of mortal fear, advanced with his hand to his red cap.

“Touching those signals, little citizen,” said Madame Defarge, sternly,

“that she made to the prisoners; you are ready to bear witness to them

this very day?”

“Ay, ay, why not!” cried the sawyer. “Every day, in all weathers, from

two to four, always signalling, sometimes with the little one, sometimes

without. I know what I know. I have seen with my eyes.”

He made all manner of gestures while he spoke, as if in incidental

imitation of some few of the great diversity of signals that he had

never seen.

“Clearly plots,” said Jacques Three. “Transparently!”

“There is no doubt of the Jury?” inquired Madame Defarge, letting her

eyes turn to him with a gloomy smile.

“Rely upon the patriotic Jury, dear citizeness. I answer for my

fellow-Jurymen.”

“Now, let me see,” said Madame Defarge, pondering again. “Yet once more!

Can I spare this Doctor to my husband? I have no feeling either way. Can

I spare him?”

“He would count as one head,” observed Jacques Three, in a low voice.

“We really have not heads enough; it would be a pity, I think.”

“He was signalling with her when I saw her,” argued Madame Defarge; “I

cannot speak of one without the other; and I must not be silent, and

trust the case wholly to him, this little citizen here. For, I am not a

bad witness.”

The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with each other in their fervent

protestations that she was the most admirable and marvellous of

witnesses. The little citizen, not to be outdone, declared her to be a

celestial witness.

“He must take his chance,” said Madame Defarge. “No, I cannot spare

him! You are engaged at three o’clock; you are going to see the batch of

to-day executed.--You?”

The question was addressed to the wood-sawyer, who hurriedly replied in

the affirmative: seizing the occasion to add that he was the most ardent

of Republicans, and that he would be in effect the most desolate of

Republicans, if anything prevented him from enjoying the pleasure of

smoking his afternoon pipe in the contemplation of the droll national

barber. He was so very demonstrative herein, that he might have been

suspected (perhaps was, by the dark eyes that looked contemptuously at

him out of Madame Defarge’s head) of having his small individual fears

for his own personal safety, every hour in the day.

“I,” said madame, “am equally engaged at the same place. After it is

over--say at eight to-night--come you to me, in Saint Antoine, and we

will give information against these people at my Section.”

The wood-sawyer said he would be proud and flattered to attend the

citizeness. The citizeness looking at him, he became embarrassed, evaded

her glance as a small dog would have done, retreated among his wood, and

hid his confusion over the handle of his saw.

Madame Defarge beckoned the Juryman and The Vengeance a little nearer to

the door, and there expounded her further views to them thus:

“She will now be at home, awaiting the moment of his death. She will

be mourning and grieving. She will be in a state of mind to impeach the

justice of the Republic. She will be full of sympathy with its enemies.

I will go to her.”

“What an admirable woman; what an adorable woman!” exclaimed Jacques

Three, rapturously. “Ah, my cherished!” cried The Vengeance; and

embraced her.

“Take you my knitting,” said Madame Defarge, placing it in her

lieutenant’s hands, “and have it ready for me in my usual seat. Keep

me my usual chair. Go you there, straight, for there will probably be a

greater concourse than usual, to-day.”

“I willingly obey the orders of my Chief,” said The Vengeance with

alacrity, and kissing her cheek. “You will not be late?”

“I shall be there before the commencement.”

“And before the tumbrils arrive. Be sure you are there, my soul,” said

The Vengeance, calling after her, for she had already turned into the

street, “before the tumbrils arrive!”

Madame Defarge slightly waved her hand, to imply that she heard, and

might be relied upon to arrive in good time, and so went through the

mud, and round the corner of the prison wall. The Vengeance and the

Juryman, looking after her as she walked away, were highly appreciative

of her fine figure, and her superb moral endowments.

There were many women at that time, upon whom the time laid a dreadfully

disfiguring hand; but, there was not one among them more to be dreaded

than this ruthless woman, now taking her way along the streets. Of a

strong and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great

determination, of that kind of beauty which not only seems to impart

to its possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike into others an

instinctive recognition of those qualities; the troubled time would have

heaved her up, under any circumstances. But, imbued from her childhood

with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class,

opportunity had developed her into a tigress. She was absolutely without

pity. If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone out of

her.

It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for the sins of

his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them. It was nothing to her, that

his wife was to be made a widow and his daughter an orphan; that was

insufficient punishment, because they were her natural enemies and

her prey, and as such had no right to live. To appeal to her, was made

hopeless by her having no sense of pity, even for herself. If she had

been laid low in the streets, in any of the many encounters in which

she had been engaged, she would not have pitied herself; nor, if she had

been ordered to the axe to-morrow, would she have gone to it with any

softer feeling than a fierce desire to change places with the man who

sent her there.

Such a heart Madame Defarge carried under her rough robe. Carelessly

worn, it was a becoming robe enough, in a certain weird way, and her

dark hair looked rich under her coarse red cap. Lying hidden in her

bosom, was a loaded pistol. Lying hidden at her waist, was a sharpened

dagger. Thus accoutred, and walking with the confident tread of such

a character, and with the supple freedom of a woman who had habitually

walked in her girlhood, bare-foot and bare-legged, on the brown

sea-sand, Madame Defarge took her way along the streets.

Now, when the journey of the travelling coach, at that very moment

waiting for the completion of its load, had been planned out last night,

the difficulty of taking Miss Pross in it had much engaged Mr. Lorry’s

attention. It was not merely desirable to avoid overloading the coach,

but it was of the highest importance that the time occupied in examining

it and its passengers, should be reduced to the utmost; since their

escape might depend on the saving of only a few seconds here and there.

Finally, he had proposed, after anxious consideration, that Miss Pross

and Jerry, who were at liberty to leave the city, should leave it at

three o’clock in the lightest-wheeled conveyance known to that period.

Unencumbered with luggage, they would soon overtake the coach, and,

passing it and preceding it on the road, would order its horses in

advance, and greatly facilitate its progress during the precious hours

of the night, when delay was the most to be dreaded.

Seeing in this arrangement the hope of rendering real service in that

pressing emergency, Miss Pross hailed it with joy. She and Jerry had

beheld the coach start, had known who it was that Solomon brought, had

passed some ten minutes in tortures of suspense, and were now concluding

their arrangements to follow the coach, even as Madame Defarge,

taking her way through the streets, now drew nearer and nearer to the

else-deserted lodging in which they held their consultation.

“Now what do you think, Mr. Cruncher,” said Miss Pross, whose agitation

was so great that she could hardly speak, or stand, or move, or live:

“what do you think of our not starting from this courtyard? Another

carriage having already gone from here to-day, it might awaken

suspicion.”

“My opinion, miss,” returned Mr. Cruncher, “is as you’re right. Likewise

wot I’ll stand by you, right or wrong.”

“I am so distracted with fear and hope for our precious creatures,” said

Miss Pross, wildly crying, “that I am incapable of forming any plan. Are

_you_ capable of forming any plan, my dear good Mr. Cruncher?”

“Respectin’ a future spear o’ life, miss,” returned Mr. Cruncher, “I

hope so. Respectin’ any present use o’ this here blessed old head o’

mine, I think not. Would you do me the favour, miss, to take notice o’

two promises and wows wot it is my wishes fur to record in this here

crisis?”

“Oh, for gracious sake!” cried Miss Pross, still wildly crying, “record

them at once, and get them out of the way, like an excellent man.”

“First,” said Mr. Cruncher, who was all in a tremble, and who spoke with

an ashy and solemn visage, “them poor things well out o’ this, never no

more will I do it, never no more!”

“I am quite sure, Mr. Cruncher,” returned Miss Pross, “that you

never will do it again, whatever it is, and I beg you not to think it

necessary to mention more particularly what it is.”

“No, miss,” returned Jerry, “it shall not be named to you. Second: them

poor things well out o’ this, and never no more will I interfere with

Mrs. Cruncher’s flopping, never no more!”

“Whatever housekeeping arrangement that may be,” said Miss Pross,

striving to dry her eyes and compose herself, “I have no doubt it

is best that Mrs. Cruncher should have it entirely under her own

superintendence.--O my poor darlings!”

“I go so far as to say, miss, moreover,” proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with a

most alarming tendency to hold forth as from a pulpit--“and let my words

be took down and took to Mrs. Cruncher through yourself--that wot my

opinions respectin’ flopping has undergone a change, and that wot I only

hope with all my heart as Mrs. Cruncher may be a flopping at the present

time.”

“There, there, there! I hope she is, my dear man,” cried the distracted

Miss Pross, “and I hope she finds it answering her expectations.”

“Forbid it,” proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with additional solemnity,

additional slowness, and additional tendency to hold forth and hold

out, “as anything wot I have ever said or done should be wisited on my

earnest wishes for them poor creeturs now! Forbid it as we shouldn’t all

flop (if it was anyways conwenient) to get ’em out o’ this here dismal

risk! Forbid it, miss! Wot I say, for-_bid_ it!” This was Mr. Cruncher’s

conclusion after a protracted but vain endeavour to find a better one.

And still Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came

nearer and nearer.

“If we ever get back to our native land,” said Miss Pross, “you may rely

upon my telling Mrs. Cruncher as much as I may be able to remember and

understand of what you have so impressively said; and at all events

you may be sure that I shall bear witness to your being thoroughly in

earnest at this dreadful time. Now, pray let us think! My esteemed Mr.

Cruncher, let us think!”

Still, Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came nearer

and nearer.

“If you were to go before,” said Miss Pross, “and stop the vehicle and

horses from coming here, and were to wait somewhere for me; wouldn’t

that be best?”

Mr. Cruncher thought it might be best.

“Where could you wait for me?” asked Miss Pross.

Mr. Cruncher was so bewildered that he could think of no locality but

Temple Bar. Alas! Temple Bar was hundreds of miles away, and Madame

Defarge was drawing very near indeed.

“By the cathedral door,” said Miss Pross. “Would it be much out of

the way, to take me in, near the great cathedral door between the two

towers?”

“No, miss,” answered Mr. Cruncher.

“Then, like the best of men,” said Miss Pross, “go to the posting-house

straight, and make that change.”

“I am doubtful,” said Mr. Cruncher, hesitating and shaking his head,

“about leaving of you, you see. We don’t know what may happen.”

“Heaven knows we don’t,” returned Miss Pross, “but have no fear for me.

Take me in at the cathedral, at Three o’Clock, or as near it as you can,

and I am sure it will be better than our going from here. I feel certain

of it. There! Bless you, Mr. Cruncher! Think-not of me, but of the lives

that may depend on both of us!”

This exordium, and Miss Pross’s two hands in quite agonised entreaty

clasping his, decided Mr. Cruncher. With an encouraging nod or two, he

immediately went out to alter the arrangements, and left her by herself

to follow as she had proposed.

The having originated a precaution which was already in course of

execution, was a great relief to Miss Pross. The necessity of composing

her appearance so that it should attract no special notice in the

streets, was another relief. She looked at her watch, and it was twenty

minutes past two. She had no time to lose, but must get ready at once.

Afraid, in her extreme perturbation, of the loneliness of the deserted

rooms, and of half-imagined faces peeping from behind every open door

in them, Miss Pross got a basin of cold water and began laving her eyes,

which were swollen and red. Haunted by her feverish apprehensions, she

could not bear to have her sight obscured for a minute at a time by the

dripping water, but constantly paused and looked round to see that there

was no one watching her. In one of those pauses she recoiled and cried

out, for she saw a figure standing in the room.

The basin fell to the ground broken, and the water flowed to the feet of

Madame Defarge. By strange stern ways, and through much staining blood,

those feet had come to meet that water.

Madame Defarge looked coldly at her, and said, “The wife of Evrémonde;

where is she?”

It flashed upon Miss Pross’s mind that the doors were all standing open,

and would suggest the flight. Her first act was to shut them. There were

four in the room, and she shut them all. She then placed herself before

the door of the chamber which Lucie had occupied.

Madame Defarge’s dark eyes followed her through this rapid movement,

and rested on her when it was finished. Miss Pross had nothing beautiful

about her; years had not tamed the wildness, or softened the grimness,

of her appearance; but, she too was a determined woman in her different

way, and she measured Madame Defarge with her eyes, every inch.

“You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss

Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of

me. I am an Englishwoman.”

Madame Defarge looked at her scornfully, but still with something of

Miss Pross’s own perception that they two were at bay. She saw a tight,

hard, wiry woman before her, as Mr. Lorry had seen in the same figure a

woman with a strong hand, in the years gone by. She knew full well that

Miss Pross was the family’s devoted friend; Miss Pross knew full well

that Madame Defarge was the family’s malevolent enemy.

“On my way yonder,” said Madame Defarge, with a slight movement of

her hand towards the fatal spot, “where they reserve my chair and my

knitting for me, I am come to make my compliments to her in passing. I

wish to see her.”

“I know that your intentions are evil,” said Miss Pross, “and you may

depend upon it, I’ll hold my own against them.”

Each spoke in her own language; neither understood the other’s words;

both were very watchful, and intent to deduce from look and manner, what

the unintelligible words meant.

“It will do her no good to keep herself concealed from me at this

moment,” said Madame Defarge. “Good patriots will know what that means.

Let me see her. Go tell her that I wish to see her. Do you hear?”

“If those eyes of yours were bed-winches,” returned Miss Pross, “and I

was an English four-poster, they shouldn’t loose a splinter of me. No,

you wicked foreign woman; I am your match.”

Madame Defarge was not likely to follow these idiomatic remarks in

detail; but, she so far understood them as to perceive that she was set

at naught.

“Woman imbecile and pig-like!” said Madame Defarge, frowning. “I take no

answer from you. I demand to see her. Either tell her that I demand

to see her, or stand out of the way of the door and let me go to her!”

This, with an angry explanatory wave of her right arm.

“I little thought,” said Miss Pross, “that I should ever want to

understand your nonsensical language; but I would give all I have,

except the clothes I wear, to know whether you suspect the truth, or any

part of it.”

Neither of them for a single moment released the other’s eyes. Madame

Defarge had not moved from the spot where she stood when Miss Pross

first became aware of her; but, she now advanced one step.

“I am a Briton,” said Miss Pross, “I am desperate. I don’t care an

English Twopence for myself. I know that the longer I keep you here, the

greater hope there is for my Ladybird. I’ll not leave a handful of that

dark hair upon your head, if you lay a finger on me!”

Thus Miss Pross, with a shake of her head and a flash of her eyes

between every rapid sentence, and every rapid sentence a whole breath.

Thus Miss Pross, who had never struck a blow in her life.

But, her courage was of that emotional nature that it brought the

irrepressible tears into her eyes. This was a courage that Madame

Defarge so little comprehended as to mistake for weakness. “Ha, ha!” she

laughed, “you poor wretch! What are you worth! I address myself to that

Doctor.” Then she raised her voice and called out, “Citizen Doctor! Wife

of Evrémonde! Child of Evrémonde! Any person but this miserable fool,

answer the Citizeness Defarge!”

Perhaps the following silence, perhaps some latent disclosure in the

expression of Miss Pross’s face, perhaps a sudden misgiving apart from

either suggestion, whispered to Madame Defarge that they were gone.

Three of the doors she opened swiftly, and looked in.

“Those rooms are all in disorder, there has been hurried packing, there

are odds and ends upon the ground. There is no one in that room behind

you! Let me look.”

“Never!” said Miss Pross, who understood the request as perfectly as

Madame Defarge understood the answer.

“If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be pursued and

brought back,” said Madame Defarge to herself.

“As long as you don’t know whether they are in that room or not, you are

uncertain what to do,” said Miss Pross to herself; “and you shall not

know that, if I can prevent your knowing it; and know that, or not know

that, you shall not leave here while I can hold you.”

“I have been in the streets from the first, nothing has stopped me,

I will tear you to pieces, but I will have you from that door,” said

Madame Defarge.

“We are alone at the top of a high house in a solitary courtyard, we are

not likely to be heard, and I pray for bodily strength to keep you here,

while every minute you are here is worth a hundred thousand guineas to

my darling,” said Miss Pross.

Madame Defarge made at the door. Miss Pross, on the instinct of the

moment, seized her round the waist in both her arms, and held her tight.

It was in vain for Madame Defarge to struggle and to strike; Miss Pross,

with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate,

clasped her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle

that they had. The two hands of Madame Defarge buffeted and tore her

face; but, Miss Pross, with her head down, held her round the waist, and

clung to her with more than the hold of a drowning woman.

Soon, Madame Defarge’s hands ceased to strike, and felt at her encircled

waist. “It is under my arm,” said Miss Pross, in smothered tones, “you

shall not draw it. I am stronger than you, I bless Heaven for it. I hold

you till one or other of us faints or dies!”

Madame Defarge’s hands were at her bosom. Miss Pross looked up, saw

what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash and a crash, and stood

alone--blinded with smoke.

All this was in a second. As the smoke cleared, leaving an awful

stillness, it passed out on the air, like the soul of the furious woman

whose body lay lifeless on the ground.

In the first fright and horror of her situation, Miss Pross passed the

body as far from it as she could, and ran down the stairs to call for

fruitless help. Happily, she bethought herself of the consequences of

what she did, in time to check herself and go back. It was dreadful to

go in at the door again; but, she did go in, and even went near it, to

get the bonnet and other things that she must wear. These she put on,

out on the staircase, first shutting and locking the door and taking

away the key. She then sat down on the stairs a few moments to breathe

and to cry, and then got up and hurried away.

By good fortune she had a veil on her bonnet, or she could hardly have

gone along the streets without being stopped. By good fortune, too, she

was naturally so peculiar in appearance as not to show disfigurement

like any other woman. She needed both advantages, for the marks of

gripping fingers were deep in her face, and her hair was torn, and her

dress (hastily composed with unsteady hands) was clutched and dragged a

hundred ways.

In crossing the bridge, she dropped the door key in the river. Arriving

at the cathedral some few minutes before her escort, and waiting there,

she thought, what if the key were already taken in a net, what if

it were identified, what if the door were opened and the remains

discovered, what if she were stopped at the gate, sent to prison, and

charged with murder! In the midst of these fluttering thoughts, the

escort appeared, took her in, and took her away.

“Is there any noise in the streets?” she asked him.

“The usual noises,” Mr. Cruncher replied; and looked surprised by the

question and by her aspect.

“I don’t hear you,” said Miss Pross. “What do you say?”

It was in vain for Mr. Cruncher to repeat what he said; Miss Pross could

not hear him. “So I’ll nod my head,” thought Mr. Cruncher, amazed, “at

all events she’ll see that.” And she did.

“Is there any noise in the streets now?” asked Miss Pross again,

presently.

Again Mr. Cruncher nodded his head.

“I don’t hear it.”

“Gone deaf in an hour?” said Mr. Cruncher, ruminating, with his mind

much disturbed; “wot’s come to her?”

“I feel,” said Miss Pross, “as if there had been a flash and a crash,

and that crash was the last thing I should ever hear in this life.”

“Blest if she ain’t in a queer condition!” said Mr. Cruncher, more and

more disturbed. “Wot can she have been a takin’, to keep her courage up?

Hark! There’s the roll of them dreadful carts! You can hear that, miss?”

“I can hear,” said Miss Pross, seeing that he spoke to her, “nothing. O,

my good man, there was first a great crash, and then a great stillness,

and that stillness seems to be fixed and unchangeable, never to be

broken any more as long as my life lasts.”

“If she don’t hear the roll of those dreadful carts, now very nigh their

journey’s end,” said Mr. Cruncher, glancing over his shoulder, “it’s my

opinion that indeed she never will hear anything else in this world.”

And indeed she never did.

CHAPTER XV.

The Footsteps Die Out For Ever

Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six

tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and

insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself,

are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in

France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf,

a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under

conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush

humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will

twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of

rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield

the same fruit according to its kind.

Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again to what

they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be

the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the

toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches that are not my father’s

house but dens of thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants!

No; the great magician who majestically works out the appointed order

of the Creator, never reverses his transformations. “If thou be changed

into this shape by the will of God,” say the seers to the enchanted, in

the wise Arabian stories, “then remain so! But, if thou wear this

form through mere passing conjuration, then resume thy former aspect!”

Changeless and hopeless, the tumbrils roll along.

As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem to plough up

a long crooked furrow among the populace in the streets. Ridges of faces

are thrown to this side and to that, and the ploughs go steadily onward.

So used are the regular inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle, that

in many windows there are no people, and in some the occupation of the

hands is not so much as suspended, while the eyes survey the faces in

the tumbrils. Here and there, the inmate has visitors to see the sight;

then he points his finger, with something of the complacency of a

curator or authorised exponent, to this cart and to this, and seems to

tell who sat here yesterday, and who there the day before.

Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things, and all

things on their last roadside, with an impassive stare; others, with

a lingering interest in the ways of life and men. Some, seated with

drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair; again, there are some so

heedful of their looks that they cast upon the multitude such glances as

they have seen in theatres, and in pictures. Several close their eyes,

and think, or try to get their straying thoughts together. Only one, and

he a miserable creature, of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and made

drunk by horror, that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole

number appeals by look or gesture, to the pity of the people.

There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the tumbrils,

and faces are often turned up to some of them, and they are asked some

question. It would seem to be always the same question, for, it is

always followed by a press of people towards the third cart. The

horsemen abreast of that cart, frequently point out one man in it with

their swords. The leading curiosity is, to know which is he; he stands

at the back of the tumbril with his head bent down, to converse with a

mere girl who sits on the side of the cart, and holds his hand. He has

no curiosity or care for the scene about him, and always speaks to the

girl. Here and there in the long street of St. Honore, cries are raised

against him. If they move him at all, it is only to a quiet smile, as he

shakes his hair a little more loosely about his face. He cannot easily

touch his face, his arms being bound.

On the steps of a church, awaiting the coming-up of the tumbrils, stands

the Spy and prison-sheep. He looks into the first of them: not there.

He looks into the second: not there. He already asks himself, “Has he

sacrificed me?” when his face clears, as he looks into the third.

“Which is Evrémonde?” says a man behind him.

“That. At the back there.”

“With his hand in the girl’s?”

“Yes.”

The man cries, “Down, Evrémonde! To the Guillotine all aristocrats!

Down, Evrémonde!”

“Hush, hush!” the Spy entreats him, timidly.

“And why not, citizen?”

“He is going to pay the forfeit: it will be paid in five minutes more.

Let him be at peace.”

But the man continuing to exclaim, “Down, Evrémonde!” the face of

Evrémonde is for a moment turned towards him. Evrémonde then sees the

Spy, and looks attentively at him, and goes his way.

The clocks are on the stroke of three, and the furrow ploughed among the

populace is turning round, to come on into the place of execution, and

end. The ridges thrown to this side and to that, now crumble in and

close behind the last plough as it passes on, for all are following

to the Guillotine. In front of it, seated in chairs, as in a garden of

public diversion, are a number of women, busily knitting. On one of the

fore-most chairs, stands The Vengeance, looking about for her friend.

“Thérèse!” she cries, in her shrill tones. “Who has seen her? Thérèse

Defarge!”

“She never missed before,” says a knitting-woman of the sisterhood.

“No; nor will she miss now,” cries The Vengeance, petulantly. “Thérèse.”

“Louder,” the woman recommends.

Ay! Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still she will scarcely hear

thee. Louder yet, Vengeance, with a little oath or so added, and yet

it will hardly bring her. Send other women up and down to seek her,

lingering somewhere; and yet, although the messengers have done dread

deeds, it is questionable whether of their own wills they will go far

enough to find her!

“Bad Fortune!” cries The Vengeance, stamping her foot in the chair, “and

here are the tumbrils! And Evrémonde will be despatched in a wink, and

she not here! See her knitting in my hand, and her empty chair ready for

her. I cry with vexation and disappointment!”

As The Vengeance descends from her elevation to do it, the tumbrils

begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are

robed and ready. Crash!--A head is held up, and the knitting-women who

scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could

think and speak, count One.

The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes up. Crash!--And

the knitting-women, never faltering or pausing in their Work, count Two.

The supposed Evrémonde descends, and the seamstress is lifted out next

after him. He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but

still holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her back to the

crashing engine that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into

his face and thanks him.

“But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, for I am

naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor should I have been

able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that we might

have hope and comfort here to-day. I think you were sent to me by

Heaven.”

“Or you to me,” says Sydney Carton. “Keep your eyes upon me, dear child,

and mind no other object.”

“I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall mind nothing when I let

it go, if they are rapid.”

“They will be rapid. Fear not!”

The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as

if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to

heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart

and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home

together, and to rest in her bosom.

“Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last question? I

am very ignorant, and it troubles me--just a little.”

“Tell me what it is.”

“I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom I

love very dearly. She is five years younger than I, and she lives in a

farmer’s house in the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows

nothing of my fate--for I cannot write--and if I could, how should I

tell her! It is better as it is.”

“Yes, yes: better as it is.”

“What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still

thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face which gives me so

much support, is this:--If the Republic really does good to the poor,

and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, she may

live a long time: she may even live to be old.”

“What then, my gentle sister?”

“Do you think:” the uncomplaining eyes in which there is so much

endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little more and tremble:

“that it will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better land

where I trust both you and I will be mercifully sheltered?”

“It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no trouble there.”

“You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you now? Is the

moment come?”

“Yes.”

She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other.

The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than

a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before

him--is gone; the knitting-women count Twenty-Two.

“I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth

in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and

believeth in me shall never die.”

The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing

on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells

forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away.

Twenty-Three.

*****

They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the

peacefullest man’s face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked

sublime and prophetic.

One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe--a woman--had asked

at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to

write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given any

utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been these:

“I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge,

long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of

the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease

out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people

rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in

their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil

of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural

birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.

“I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful,

prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see

Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father,

aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his

healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their

friend, in ten years’ time enriching them with all he has, and passing

tranquilly to his reward.

“I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of

their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping

for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their

course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know

that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other’s soul,

than I was in the souls of both.

“I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man

winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him

winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the

light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him,

fore-most of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name,

with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place--then fair to

look upon, with not a trace of this day’s disfigurement--and I hear him

tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice.

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a

far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”