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 Evremonde!"

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 Evremonde 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.





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, Evremonde," 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, Evremonde!" 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 Evremonde," 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 Evremonde, 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 Evremonde. 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 Evremonde. I hoped it was true?"

"It was. But, I was again taken and condemned."

"If I may ride with you, Citizen Evremonde, 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 Evremonde; is it not?"

It is.

"Hah! Evremonde has an assignation elsewhere. Lucie, her child. English.
This is she?"

She and no other.

"Kiss me, child of Evremonde. Now, thou hast kissed a good Republican;
something new in thy family; remember it! Sydney Carton. Advocate.
English. Which is he?"

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

"Apparently the English advocate is in a swoon?"

It is hoped he will recover in the fresher air. It is represented that
he is not in strong health, and has separated sadly from a friend who is
under the displeasure of the Republic.

"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.





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 Evremonde 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 Evremonde;
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 Evremonde! Child of Evremonde! 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.





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 Evremonde?" says a man behind him.

"That. At the back there."

"With his hand in the girl's?"

"Yes."

The man cries, "Down, Evremonde! To the Guillotine all aristocrats!
Down, Evremonde!"

"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, Evremonde!" the face of
Evremonde is for a moment turned towards him. Evremonde 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.

"Therese!" she cries, in her shrill tones. "Who has seen her? Therese
Defarge!"

"She never missed before," says a knitting-woman of the sisterhood.

"No; nor will she miss now," cries The Vengeance, petulantly. "Therese."

"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 Evremonde 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 Evremonde 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."

 With several hours to spare, Carton goes to the Defarge's wine shop with the purpose of making his face known to the revolutionaries. At the shop, he pretends to be unfamiliar with the French language and Madame Defarge closely examines his appearance. He overhears the Defarge's commenting on his likeness to Darnay and also overhears Monsieur Defarge meekly suggest to his wife that Lucie and her daughter's life should be spared in order to please the doctor who has suffered much in the cause of the revolution. Madame Defarge and her compatriots scoff at the idea and Madame reminds her husband that she is the younger daughter of the girl who died so horribly in the doctor's manuscript. Madame Defarge is without mercy and has sworn to wipe out the Evremonde race in its entirety. Carton returns to Mr. Lorry's apartment and waits for the doctor. When Doctor Manette returns soon after midnight it is not only apparent that Charles is doomed but that the Doctor's senses have become deranged. The doctor pitifully begs for his shoemaking tools. Before Mr. Lorry leaves to take the doctor to Lucie, Carton demands that the banker follow his instructions exactly. Mr. Lorry is to hold on to Carton's letters of transit and is to hold the similar papers of the doctor, Lucie and her daughter. He tells Mr. Lorry that Lucie and little Lucie are in grave danger and it is imperative that the family flees the city the next day before the transit papers can be rescinded. Mr. Lorry is to be ready to leave with the family at exactly 2pm the next day but he is not to depart until Carton has rejoined them after visiting Charles in his cell. That night Carton walks outside of Lucie's apartment for the last time. That same night in prison Charles Darnay composes his mind and resolves himself to accept the death that certainly awaits him. He writes letters to Lucie, Doctor Manette and Mr. Lorry but never once thinks of Carton. Eventually he falls into an uneasy sleep and dreams of the happiness of their Soho home. He awakes and knows instantly that on that day, a day marked for 52 executions, he will die. As a church bell tolls the hours he counts each one that he will never see again until it tolls one o'clock and he hears footsteps approaching his cell. Sydney Carton enters and with quick dialogue and forceful appeals he convinces Darnay to change clothing with him one article at a time. Darnay believes that Carton wants to break him out of jail and knowing this to be impossible begs him not to perish in the attempt. Carton denies this plan and orders Darnay to begin writing as he dictates. As Darnay writes Carton prepares a chemical mixture and then forcibly applies it to Darnay, rendering the latter unconscious. Although Barsad fears that Carton will betray himself before the Guillotine falls, and endanger the spy as well, he yields to Carton's assurances and takes the still comatose Darnay out in his place. At two o'clock Carton is taken to a room where the other fifty-two victims wait. A young girl, a seamstress who knew Darnay from his prior imprisonment, approaches Carton, and after some dialogue in which she expresses her fears of death she realizes it is a different man. He motions for her to keep his secret and she implores him "O you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?" He promises to do so until the last. The narrator looks forward in time and observes that the carriage bearing the still unconscious Darnay, his family and Mr. Lorry proceeds safely from the city and slowly but surely makes its way to the coast. At the same time that Sydney Carton is awaiting execution in Darnay's place, Madame Defarge, the Vengeance and Jacques Three hold a meeting in the woodsawyer's shed. Madame Defarge expresses her sadness that her husband lacks the resolve to see the Evremonde clan completely exterminated and she asserts that she must ensure that Evremonde's wife and daughter do not escape the Guillotine. Furthermore, Madame Defarge asserts that the doctor must also fall before the blade. To her compatriot's joy, Madame Defarge announces that she will go to the doctor's apartment and confront Lucie. She agrees to meet the others at the execution site before the blade falls. She carries with her a loaded pistol and a dagger. At the apartment Miss Pross and Jerry Cruncher are waiting to leave in a lighter carriage that will overtake and join the one that recently departed containing the family. They know that Carton has traded places with Darnay and that every moment counts. Jerry is so emotional that he proclaims to Miss Pross that he will never do "It" any more, and that he will never again forbid Mrs. Cruncher from "flopping." Miss Pross understands neither of these allusions but passionately signifies that she has heard him. Miss Pross expresses her belief that it would be best if the second carriage did not depart from the apartment and raise suspicions. She sends Jerry to intercept their carriage and await her at a certain Cathedral door familiar to them both. After Jerry departs, Miss Pross is washing her face when she is surprised to see that Madame Defarge has entered the apartment. Madame Defarge demands to know the family's whereabouts. Miss Pross does not understand French and Madame Defarge speaks no English but the two women immediately understand that they are at cross-purposes. Madame Defarge inspects all the rooms but the one that Miss Pross blocks and the two women struggle and the pistol explodes and kills Madame Defarge. Miss Pross composes herself and then locks the apartment and flees. On her way to meet Jerry she drops the key in the river. When she meets Jerry he realizes that the poor woman has become deaf though he cannot understand why. The tumbrels carrying those to be executed roll through the Paris streets. The doomed display varying countenances, from resolved to insane. John Barsad sees Sydney Carton holding the hand of a young girl and prays that he will not betray him. The Vengeance asks her friends in vain if they have seen Madame Defarge. As the Guillotine begins its work upon the fifty-two condemned to die, Sydney Carton and the seamstress hold hands and express their belief that God has sent them each other at this moment. They kiss each other's lips before they are parted. She is executed before him. Sydney Carton looks peaceful and sublime as he is led to the blade. Before he dies his thoughts are of the family that will live long and peacefully in England because of his sacrifice. He imagines that a son is born to them that is named for him and, as the blade falls, he says to himself, "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."

