A Tale of Two Cities..........................................................................................................................................1

Charles Dickens.......................................................................................................................................1

There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king

with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than

crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.

It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventyfive. Spiritual revelations were

conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her

fiveandtwentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the

sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and

Westminster. Even the Cocklane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its

messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs.

Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a

congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human

race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cocklane brood.

France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with

exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian

pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his

hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down

in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some

fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing

trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn

into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely

enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered

from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in

by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. But that

Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went

about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be

In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring

burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were

publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses for

security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged

by his fellow tradesman whom he stopped in his character of "the Captain," gallantly shot him through the

head and rode away; the mall was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot

dead himself by the other four, "in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:" after which the mall was

robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on

Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue;

prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses

in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of

noble lords at Court drawingrooms; musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search for contraband goods, and

the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these

occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than

useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a

housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by

the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; today, taking the life of an atrocious

murderer, and tomorrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of sixpence.

All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand

seven hundred and seventyfive. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded,

those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and

carried their divine rights with a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventyfive

conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creaturesthe creatures of this chronicle among the

It was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late in November, before the first of the persons with whom

this history has business. The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond the Dover mail, as it lumbered up Shooter's

Hill. He walked up hill in the mire by the side of the mail, as the rest of the passengers did; not because they

had the least relish for walking exercise, under the circumstances, but because the hill, and the harness, and

the mud, and the mail, were all so heavy, that the horses had three times already come to a stop, besides once

drawing the coach across the road, with the mutinous intent of taking it back to Blackheath. Reins and whip

and coachman and guard, however, in combination, had read that article of war which forbade a purpose

otherwise strongly in favour of the argument, that some brute animals are endued with Reason; and the team

With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their way through the thick mud, floundering and

stumbling between whiles, as if they were falling to pieces at the larger joints. As often as the driver rested

them and brought them to a stand, with a wary "Woho! soho then!" the near leader violently shook his

head and everything upon itlike an unusually emphatic horse, denying that the coach could be got up the

hill. Whenever the leader made this rattle, the passenger started, as a nervous passenger might, and was

There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamed in its forlornness up the hill, like an evil

spirit, seeking rest and finding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made its slow way through the air

in ripples that visibly followed and overspread one another, as the waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It

was dense enough to shut out everything from the light of the coachlamps but these its own workings, and a

few yards of road; and the reek of the labouring horses steamed into it, as if they had made it all.

Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the hill by the side of the mail. All three were

wrapped to the cheekbones and over the ears, and wore jackboots. Not one of the three could have said,

from anything he saw, what either of the other two was like; and each was hidden under almost as many

wrappers from the eyes of the mind, as from the eyes of the body, of his two companions. In those days,

travellers were very shy of being confidential on a short notice, for anybody on the road might be a robber or

in league with robbers. As to the latter, when every postinghouse and alehouse could produce somebody in

"the Captain's" pay, ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable nondescript, it was the likeliest thing

upon the cards. So the guard of the Dover mail thought to himself, that Friday night in November, one

thousand seven hundred and seventyfive, lumbering up Shooter's Hill, as he stood on his own particular

perch behind the mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the armchest before him, where a

loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horsepistols, deposited on a substratum of cutlass.

The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guard suspected the passengers, the passengers

suspected one another and the guard, they all suspected everybody else, and the coachman was sure of

nothing but the horses; as to which cattle he could with a clear conscience have taken his oath on the two

"Woho!" said the coachman. "So, then! One more pull and you're at the top and be damned to you, for I

"My blood!" ejaculated the vexed coachman, "and not atop of Shooter's yet! Tst! Yah! Get on with you! "

The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided negative, made a decided scramble for it, and the

three other horses followed suit. Once more, the Dover mail struggled on, with the jackboots of its

passengers squashing along by its side. They had stopped when the coach stopped, and they kept close

company with it. If any one of the three had had the hardihood to propose to another to walk on a little ahead

into the mist and darkness, he would have put himself in a fair way of getting shot instantly as a highwayman.

The last burst carried the mail to the summit of the hill. The horses stopped to breathe again, and the guard

got down to skid the wheel for the descent, and open the coachdoor to let the passengers in.

"_I_ say a horse at a gallop, Tom," returned the guard, leaving his hold of the door, and mounting nimbly to

With this hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, and stood on the offensive.

The passenger booked by this history, was on the coachstep, getting in; the two other passengers were close

behind him, and about to follow. He remained on the step, half in the coach and half out of; they remained

in the road below him. They all looked from the coachman to the guard, and from the guard to the coachman,

and listened. The coachman looked back and the guard looked back, and even the emphatic leader pricked up

The stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling and and labouring of the coach, added to the

stillness of the night, made it very quiet indeed. The panting of the horses communicated a tremulous motion

to the coach, as if it were in a state of agitation. The hearts of the passengers beat loud enough perhaps to be

heard; but at any rate, the quiet pause was audibly expressive of people out of breath, and holding the breath,

"Soho!" the guard sang out, as loud as he could roar. "Yo there! Stand! I shall fire!"

The pace was suddenly checked, and, with much splashing and floundering, a man's voice called from the

Our booked passenger showed in a moment that it was his name. The guard, the coachman, and the two other

"Keep where you are," the guard called to the voice in the mist, "because, if I should make a mistake, it could

never be set right in your lifetime. Gentleman of the name of Lorry answer straight."

"What is the matter?" asked the passenger, then, with mildly quavering speech. "Who wants me? Is it Jerry?"

("I don't like Jerry's voice, if it is Jerry," growled the guard to himself. "He's hoarser than suits me, is Jerry.")

"I know this messenger, guard," said Mr. Lorry, getting down into the roadassisted from behind more

swiftly than politely by the other two passengers, who immediately scrambled into the coach, shut the door,

"I hope there ain't, but I can't make so 'Nation sure of that," said the guard, in gruff soliloquy. "Hallo you!"

"Come on at a footpace! d'ye mind me? And if you've got holsters to that saddle o' yourn, don't let me see

your hand go nigh 'em. For I'm a devil at a quick mistake, and when I make one it takes the form of Lead. So

The figures of a horse and rider came slowly through the eddying mist, and came to the side of the mail,

where the passenger stood. The rider stooped, and, casting up his eyes at the guard, handed the passenger a

small folded paper. The rider's horse was blown, and both horse and rider were covered with mud, from the

The watchful guard, with his right hand at the stock of his raised blunderbuss, his left at the barrel, and his

"There is nothing to apprehend. I belong to Tellson's Bank. You must know Tellson's Bank in London. I am

He opened it in the light of the coachlamp on that side, and readfirst to himself and then aloud: "`Wait at

Dover for Mam'selle.' It's not long, you see, guard. Jerry, say that my answer was, RECALLED TO LIFE."

Jerry started in his saddle. "That's a Blazing strange answer, too," said he, at his hoarsest.

"Take that message back, and they will know that I received this, as well as if I wrote. Make the best of your

With those words the passenger opened the coachdoor and got in; not at all assisted by his

fellowpassengers, who had expeditiously secreted their watches and purses in their boots, and were now

making a general pretence of being asleep. With no more definite purpose than to escape the hazard of

The coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist closing round it as it began the descent. The

guard soon replaced his blunderbuss in his armchest, and, having looked to the rest of its contents, and

having looked to the supplementary pistols that he wore in his belt, looked to a smaller chest beneath his seat,

in which there were a few smith's tools, a couple of torches, and a tinderbox. For he was furnished with that

completeness that if the coachlamps had been blown and stormed out, which did occasionally happen, he

had only to shut himself up inside, keep the flint and steel sparks well off the straw, and get a light with

"That's a coincidence, too," the guard mused, "for I made the same of it myself."

Jerry, left alone in the mist and darkness, dismounted meanwhile, not only to ease his spent horse, but to wipe

the mud from his face, and shake the wet out of his hatbrim, which might be capable of holding about half a

gallon. After standing with the bridle over his heavilysplashed arm, until the wheels of the mail were no

longer within hearing and the night was quite still again, he turned to walk down the hill.

"After that there gallop from Temple Bar, old lady, I won't trust your forelegs till I get you on the level,"

said this hoarse messenger, glancing at his mare. "`Recalled to life.' That's a Blazing strange message. Much

of that wouldn't do for you, Jerry! I say, Jerry! You'd be in a Blazing bad way, if recalling to life was to come

A Wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and

mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those

darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret;

that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to

the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn

the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the

depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of

buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a a spring, for

ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal

frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my

neighbour is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and

perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life's

end. In any of the burialplaces of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its

busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?

As to this, his natural and not to be alienated inheritance, the messenger on horseback had exactly the same

possessions as the King, the first Minister of State, or the richest merchant in London. So with the three

passengers shut up in the narrow compass of one lumbering old mail coach; they were mysteries to one

another, as complete as if each had been in his own coach and six, or his own coach and sixty, with the

The messenger rode back at an easy trot, stopping pretty often at alehouses by the way to drink, but

evincing a tendency to keep his own counsel, and to keep his hat cocked over his eyes. He had eyes that

assorted very well with that decoration, being of a surface black, with no depth in the colour or form, and

much too near togetheras if they were afraid of being found out in something, singly, if they kept too far

apart. They had a sinister expression, under an old cockedhat like a threecornered spittoon, and over a

great muffler for the chin and throat, which descended nearly to the wearer's knees. When he stopped for

drink, he moved this muffler with his left hand, only while he poured his liquor in with his right; as soon as

"No, Jerry, no!" said the messenger, harping on one theme as he rode. "It wouldn't do for you, Jerry. Jerry,

you honest tradesman, it wouldn't suit YOUR line of business! Recalled! Bust me if I don't think he'd been

His message perplexed his mind to that degree that he was fain, several times, to take off his hat to scratch his

head. Except on the crown, which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing jaggedly all over it,

and growing down hill almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was so like Smith's work, so much more like the top

of a strongly spiked wall than a head of hair, that the best of players at leapfrog might have declined him, as

While he trotted back with the message he was to deliver to the night watchman in his box at the door of

Tellson's Bank, by Temple Bar, who was to deliver it to greater authorities within, the shadows of the night

took such shapes to him as arose out of the message, and took such shapes to the mare as arose out of HER

private topics of uneasiness. They seemed to be numerous, for she shied at every shadow on the road.

What time, the mailcoach lumbered, jolted, rattled, and bumped upon its tedious way, with its three

fellowinscrutables inside. To whom, likewise, the shadows of the night revealed themselves, in the forms

Tellson's Bank had a run upon it in the mail. As the bank passenger with an arm drawn through the

leathern strap, which did what lay in it to keep him from pounding against the next passenger, and driving

him into his corner, whenever the coach got a special joltnodded in his place, with halfshut eyes, the little

coachwindows, and the coachlamp dimly gleaming through them, and the bulky bundle of opposite

passenger, became the bank, and did a great stroke of business. The rattle of the harness was the chink of

money, and more drafts were honoured in five minutes than even Tellson's, with all its foreign and home

connection, ever paid in thrice the time. Then the strongrooms underground, at Tellson's, with such of their

valuable stores and secrets as were known to the passenger (and it was not a little that he knew about them),

opened before him, and he went in among them with the great keys and the feeblyburning candle, and found

But, though the bank was almost always with him, and though the coach (in a confused way, like the

presence of pain under an opiate) was always with him, there was another current of impression that never

ceased to run, all through the night. He was on his way to dig some one out of a grave.

Now, which of the multitude of faces that showed themselves before him was the true face of the buried

person, the shadows of the night did not indicate; but they were all the faces of a man of fiveand forty by

years, and they differed principally in the passions they expressed, and in the ghastliness of their worn and

wasted state. Pride, contempt, defiance, stubbornness, submission, lamentation, succeeded one another; so did

varieties of sunken cheek, cadaverous colour, emaciated hands and figures. But the face was in the main one

face, and every head was prematurely white. A hundred times the dozing passenger inquired of this spectre:

The answers to this question were various and contradictory. Sometimes the broken reply was, "Wait! It

would kill me if I saw her too soon." Sometimes, it was given in a tender rain of tears, and then it was, "Take

me to her." Sometimes it was staring and bewildered, and then it was, "I don't know her. I don't understand."

After such imaginary discourse, the passenger in his fancy would dig, and dig, dignow with a spade, now

with a great key, now with his handsto dig this wretched creature out. Got out at last, with earth hanging

about his face and hair, he would suddenly fan away to dust. The passenger would then start to himself, and

Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, on the moving patch of light from the lamps, and

the hedge at the roadside retreating by jerks, the night shadows outside the coach would fall into the train of

the night shadows within. The real Bankinghouse by Temple Bar, the real business of the past day, the real

strong rooms, the real express sent after him, and the real message returned, would all be there. Out of the

Digdigdiguntil an impatient movement from one of the two passengers would admonish him to pull

up the window, draw his arm securely through the leathern strap, and speculate upon the two slumbering

forms, until his mind lost its hold of them, and they again slid away into the bank and the grave.

The words were still in his hearing as just spokendistinctly in his hearing as ever spoken words had been in

his lifewhen the weary passenger started to the consciousness of daylight, and found that the shadows of

He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. There was a ridge of ploughed land, with a plough

upon it where it had been left last night when the horses were unyoked; beyond, a quiet coppicewood, in

which many leaves of burning red and golden yellow still remained upon the trees. Though the earth was cold

"Eighteen years!" said the passenger, looking at the sun. "Gracious Creator of day! To be buried alive for

When the mail got successfully to Dover, in the course of the forenoon, the head drawer at the Royal George

Hotel opened the coachdoor as his custom was. He did it with some flourish of ceremony, for a mail journey

from London in winter was an achievement to congratulate an adventurous traveller upon.

By that time, there was only one adventurous traveller left be congratulated: for the two others had been set

down at their respective roadside destinations. The mildewy inside of the coach, with its damp and dirty

straw, its disageeable smell, and its obscurity, was rather like a larger dogkennel. Mr. Lorry, the passenger,

shaking himself out of it in chains of straw, a tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddy legs, was

"Yes, sir, if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerable fair. The tide will serve pretty nicely at about two in

"And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if you please. Show Concord! Gentleman's valise and hot

water to Concord. Pull off gentleman's boots in Concord. (You will find a fine seacoal fire, sir.) Fetch

The Concord bedchamber being always assigned to a passenger by the mail, and passengers by the mail

being always heavily wrapped up from bead to foot, the room had the odd interest for the establishment of the

Royal George, that although but one kind of man was seen to go into it, all kinds and varieties of men came

out of it. Consequently, another drawer, and two porters, and several maids and the landlady, were all

loitering by accident at various points of the road between the Concord and the coffeeroom, when a

gentleman of sixty, formally dressed in a brown suit of clothes, pretty well worn, but very well kept, with

large square cuffs and large flaps to the pockets, passed along on his way to his breakfast.

The coffeeroom had no other occupant, that forenoon, than the gentleman in brown. His breakfasttable was

drawn before the fire, and as he sat, with its light shining on him, waiting for the meal, he sat so still, that he

Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on each knee, and a loud watch ticking a sonorous

sermon under his flapped waistcoat, as though it pitted its gravity and longevity against the levity and

evanescence of the brisk fire. He had a good leg, and was a little vain of it, for his brown stockings fitted

sleek and close, and were of a fine texture; his shoes and buckles, too, though plain, were trim. He wore an

odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting very close to his head: which wig, it is to be presumed, was made of

hair, but which looked far more as though it were spun from filaments of silk or glass. His linen, though not

of a fineness in accordance with his stockings, was as white as the tops of the waves that broke upon the

neighbouring beach, or the specks of sail that glinted in the sunlight far at sea. A face habitually suppressed

and quieted, was still lighted up under the quaint wig by a pair of moist bright eyes that it must have cost

their owner, in years gone by, some pains to drill to the composed and reserved expression of Tellson's Bank.

He had a healthy colour in his cheeks, and his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. But, perhaps the

confidential bachelor clerks in Tellson's Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people; and

Completing his resemblance to a man who was sitting for his portrait, Mr. Lorry dropped off to sleep. The

arrival of his breakfast roused him, and he said to the drawer, as he moved his chair to it:

"I wish accommodation prepared for a young lady who may come here at any time today. She may ask for

Mr. Jarvis Lorry, or she may only ask for a gentleman from Tellson's Bank. Please to let me know."

"Yes, sir. We have oftentimes the honour to entertain your gentlemen in their travelling backwards and

forwards betwixt London and Paris, sir. A vast deal of travelling, sir, in Tellson and Company's House."

"Indeed, sir? That was before my time here, sir. Before our people's time here, sir. The George was in other

"But I would hold a pretty wager, sir, that a House like Tellson and Company was flourishing, a matter of

"You might treble that, and say a hundred and fifty, yet not be far from the truth."

Rounding his mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped backward from the table, the waiter shifted his napkin

from his right arm to his left, dropped into a comfortable attitude, and stood surveying the guest while he ate

and drank, as from an observatory or watchtower. According to the immemorial usage of waiters in all ages.

When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for a stroll on the beach. The little narrow, crooked

town of Dover hid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marine ostrich. The

beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumbling wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it

liked was destruction. It thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and brought the coast down,

madly. The air among the houses was of so strong a piscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fish

went up to be dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea. A little fishing was done in the

port, and a quantity of strolling about by night, and looking seaward: particularly at those times when the tide

made, and was near flood. Small tradesmen, who did no business whatever, sometimes unaccountably

realised large fortunes, and it was remarkable that nobody in the neighbourhood could endure a lamplighter.

As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which had been at intervals clear enough to allow the

French coast to be seen, became again charged with mist and vapour, Mr. Lorry's thoughts seemed to cloud

too. When it was dark, and he sat before the coffeeroom fire, awaiting his dinner as he had awaited his

breakfast, his mind was busily digging, digging, digging, in the live red coals.

A bottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in the red coals no harm, otherwise than as it has a tendency

to throw him out of work. Mr. Lorry had been idle a long time, and had just poured out his last glassful of

wine with as complete an appearance of satisfaction as is ever to be found in an elderly gentleman of a fresh

complexion who has got to the end of a bottle, when a rattling of wheels came up the narrow street, and

In a very few minutes the waiter came in to announce that Miss Manette had arrived from London, and would

Miss Manette had taken some refreshment on the road, and required none then, and was extremely anxious to

see the gentleman from Tellson's immediately, if it suited his pleasure and convenience.

The gentleman from Tellson's had nothing left for it but to empty his glass with an air of stolid desperation,

settle his odd little flaxen wig at the ears, and follow the waiter to Miss Manette's apartment. It was a large,

dark room, furnished in a funereal manner with black horsehair, and loaded with heavy dark tables. These

had been oiled and oiled, until the two tall candles on the table in the middle of the room were gloomily

reflected on every leaf; as if THEY were buried, in deep graves of black mahogany, and no light to speak of

The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr. Lorry, picking his way over the wellworn Turkey carpet,

Miss Manette to be, for the moment, in some adjacent room, until, having got past the two tall candles, he

saw standing to receive him by the table between them and the fire, a young lady of not more than seventeen,

in a ridingcloak, and still holding her straw travelling hat by its ribbon in her hand. As his eyes rested on a

short, slight, pretty figure, a quantity of golden hair, a pair of blue eyes that met his own with an inquiring

look, and a forehead with a singular capacity (remembering how young and smooth it was), of rifting and

knitting itself into an expression that was not quite one of perplexity, or wonder, or alarm, or merely of a

bright fixed attention, though it included all the four expressionsas his eyes rested on these things, a sudden

vivid likeness passed before him, of a child whom he had held in his arms on the passage across that very

Channel, one cold time, when the hail drifted heavily and the sea ran high. The likeness passed away, like a

breath along the surface of the gaunt pierglass behind her, on the frame of which, a hospital procession of

negro cupids, several headless and all cripples, were offering black baskets of Dead Sea fruit to black

"Pray take a seat, sir." In a very clear and pleasant young voice; a little foreign in its accent, but a very little

"I kiss your hand, miss," said Mr. Lorry, with the manners of an earlier date, as he made his formal bow

"I received a letter from the Bank, sir, yesterday, informing me that some intelligenceor discovery"

Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and cast a troubled look towards the hospital procession of negro cupids. As if

"rendered it necessary that I should go to Paris, there to communicate with a gentleman of the Bank, so

She curtseyed to him (young ladies made curtseys in those days), with a pretty desire to convey to him that

"I replied to the Bank, sir, that as it was considered necessary, by those who know, and who are so kind as to

advise me, that I should go to France, and that as I am an orphan and have no friend who could go with me, I

should esteem it highly if I might be permitted to place myself, during the journey, under that worthy

gentleman's protection. The gentleman had left London, but I think a messenger was sent after him to beg the

"I was happy," said Mr. Lorry, "to be entrusted with the charge. I shall be more happy to execute it."

"Sir, I thank you indeed. I thank you very gratefully. It was told me by the Bank that the gentleman would

explain to me the details of the business, and that I must prepare myself to find them of a surprising nature. I

have done my best to prepare myself, and I naturally have a strong and eager interest to know what they are."

After a pause, he added, again settling the crisp flaxen wig at the ears, "It is very difficult to begin."

He did not begin, but, in his indecision, met her glance. The young forehead lifted itself into that singular

expressionbut it was pretty and characteristic, besides being singularand she raised her hand, as if with

"Am I not?" Mr. Lorry opened his hands, and extended them outwards with an argumentative smile.

Between the eyebrows and just over the little feminine nose, the line of which was as delicate and fine as it

was possible to be, the expression deepened itself as she took her seat thoughtfully in the chair by which she

had hitherto remained standing. He watched her as she mused, and the moment she raised her eyes again,

"In your adopted country, I presume, I cannot do better than address you as a young English lady, Miss

"Miss Manette, I am a man of business. I have a business charge to acquit myself of. In your reception of it,

don't heed me any more than if I was a speaking machinetruly, I am not much else. I will, with your leave,

He seemed wilfully to mistake the word she had repeated, when he added, in a hurry, "Yes, customers; in the

banking business we usually call our connection our customers. He was a French gentleman; a scientific

"Why, yes, of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the gentleman was of Beauvais. Like Monsieur

Manette, your father, the gentleman was of repute in Paris. I had the honour of knowing him there. Our

relations were business relations, but confidential. I was at that time in our French House, and had beenoh!

"I speak, miss, of twenty years ago. He marriedan English ladyand I was one of the trustees. His affairs,

like the affairs of many other French gentlemen and French families, were entirely in Tellson's hands. In a

similar way I am, or I have been, trustee of one kind or other for scores of our customers. These are mere

business relations, miss; there is no friendship in them, no particular interest, nothing like sentiment. I have

passed from one to another, in the course of my business life, just as I pass from one of our customers to

another in the course of my business day; in short, I have no feelings; I am a mere machine. To go on"

"But this is my father's story, sir; and I begin to think" the curiously roughened forehead was very intent

upon him"that when I was left an orphan through my mother's surviving my father only two years, it was

Mr. Lorry took the hesitating little hand that confidingly advanced to take his, and he put it with some

ceremony to his lips. He then conducted the young lady straightway to her chair again, and, holding the

chairback with his left hand, and using his right by turns to rub his chin, pull his wig at the ears, or point

what he said, stood looking down into her face while she sat looking up into his.

"Miss Manette, it WAS I. And you will see how truly I spoke of myself just now, in saying I had no feelings,

and that all the relations I hold with my fellowcreatures are mere business relations, when you reflect that I

have never seen you since. No; you have been the ward of Tellson's House since, and I have been busy with

the other business of Tellson's House since. Feelings! I have no time for them, no chance of them. I pass my

After this odd description of his daily routine of employment, Mr. Lorry flattened his flaxen wig upon his

head with both hands (which was most unnecessary, for nothing could be flatter than its shining surface was

"So far, miss (as you have remarked), this is the story of your gretted father. Now comes the difference. If

"Pray," said Mr. Lorry, in a soothing tone, bringing his left hand from the back of the chair to lay it on the

supplicatory fingers that clasped him in so violent a tremble: "pray control your agitation a matter of

"As I was saying; if Monsieur Manette had not died; if he had suddenly and silently disappeared; if he had

been spirited away; if it had not been difficult to guess to what dreadful place, though no art could trace him;

if he had an enemy in some compatriot who could exercise a privilege that I in my own time have known the

boldest people afraid to speak of in a whisper, across the water there; for instance, the privilege of filling up

blank forms for the consignment of any one to the oblivion of a prison for any length of time; if his wife had

implored the king, the queen, the court, the clergy, for any tidings of him, and all quite in vain;then the

history of your father would have been the history of this unfortunate gentleman, the Doctor of Beauvais."

"You speak collectedly, and youARE collected. That's good!" (Though his manner was less satisfied than

his words.) "A matter of business. Regard it as a matter of businessbusiness that must be done. Now if this

doctor's wife, though a lady of great courage and spirit, had suffered so intensely from this cause before her

"A daughter. Aamatter of businessdon't be distressed. Miss, if the poor lady had suffered so intensely

before her little child was born, that she came to the determination of sparing the poor child the inheritance of

any part of the agony she had known the pains of, by rearing her in the belief that her father was dead No,

"Aa matter of business. You confuse me, and how can I transact business if I am confused? Let us be

clearheaded. If you could kindly mention now, for instance, what nine times ninepence are, or how many

shillings in twenty guineas, it would be so encouraging. I should be so much more at my ease about your state

Without directly answering to this appeal, she sat so still when he had very gently raised her, and the hands

that had not ceased to clasp his wrists were so much more steady than they had been, that she communicated

"That's right, that's right. Courage! Business! You have business before you; useful business. Miss Manette,

your mother took this course with you. And when she diedI believe brokenhearted having never

slackened her unavailing search for your father, she left you, at two years old, to grow to be blooming,

beautiful, and happy, without the dark cloud upon you of living in uncertainty whether your father soon wore

As he said the words he looked down, with an admiring pity, on the flowing golden hair; as if he pictured to

"You know that your parents had no great possession, and that what they had was secured to your mother and

to you. There has been no new discovery, of money, or of any other property; but"

He felt his wrist held closer, and he stopped. The expression in the forehead, which had so particularly

attracted his notice, and which was now immovable, had deepened into one of pain and horror.

"But he has beenbeen found. He is alive. Greatly changed, it is too probable; almost a wreck, it is possible;

though we will hope the best. Still, alive. Your father has been taken to the house of an old servant in Paris,

and we are going there: I, to identify him if I can: you, to restore him to life, love, duty, rest, comfort."

A shiver ran through her frame, and from it through his. She said, in a low, distinct, awestricken voice, as if

Mr. Lorry quietly chafed the hands that held his arm. "There, there, there! See now, see now! The best and

the worst are known to you, now. You are well on your way to the poor wronged gentleman, and, with a fair

She repeated in the same tone, sunk to a whisper, "I have been free, I have been happy, yet his Ghost has

"Only one thing more," said Mr. Lorry, laying stress upon it as a wholesome means of enforcing her

attention: "he has been found under another name; his own, long forgotten or long concealed. It would be

worse than useless now to inquire which; worse than useless to seek to know whether he has been for years

overlooked, or always designedly held prisoner. It would be worse than useless now to make any inquiries,

because it would be dangerous. Better not to mention the subject, anywhere or in any way, and to remove

himfor a while at all events out of France. Even I, safe as an Englishman, and even Tellson's, important

as they are to French credit, avoid all naming of the matter. I carry about me, not a scrap of writing openly

referring to it. This is a secret service altogether. My credentials, entries, and memoranda, are all

comprehended in the one line, `Recalled to Life;' which may mean anything. But what is the matter! She

Perfectly still and silent, and not even fallen back in her chair, she sat under his hand, utterly insensible; with

her eyes open and fixed upon him, and with that last expression looking as if it were carved or branded into

her forehead. So close was her hold upon his arm, that he feared to detach himself lest he should hurt her;

A wildlooking woman, whom even in his agitation, Mr. Lorry observed to be all of a red colour, and to have

red hair, and to be dressed in some extraordinary tightfitting fashion, and to have on her head a most

wonderful bonnet like a Grenadier wooden measure, and good measure too, or a great Stilton cheese, came

running into the room in advance of the inn servants, and soon settled the question of his detachment from the

poor young lady, by laying a brawny hand upon his chest, and sending him flying back against the nearest

("I really think this must be a man!" was Mr. Lorry's breathless reflection, simultaneously with his coming

"Why, look at you all!" bawled this figure, addressing the inn servants. "Why don't you go and fetch things,

instead of standing there staring at me? I am not so much to look at, am I? Why don't you go and fetch

things? I'll let you know, if you don't bring smellingsalts, cold water, and vinegar, quick, I will."

There was an immediate dispersal for these restoratives, and she softly laid the patient on a sofa, and tended

her with great skill and gentleness: calling her "my precious!" and "my bird!" and spreading her golden hair

"And you in brown!" she said, indignantly turning to Mr. Lorry; couldn't you tell her what you had to tell her,

without frightening her to death? Look at her, with her pretty pale face and her cold hands. Do you call

Mr. Lorry was so exceedingly disconcerted by a question so hard to answer, that he could only look on, at a

distance, with much feebler sympathy and humility, while the strong woman, having banished the inn

servants under the mysterious penalty of "letting them know" something not mentioned if they stayed there,

staring, recovered her charge by a regular series of gradations, and coaxed her to lay her drooping head upon

"I hope," said Mr. Lorry, after another pause of feeble sympathy and humility, "that you accompany Miss

"A likely thing, too!" replied the strong woman. "If it was ever intended that I should go across salt water, do

This being another question hard to answer, Mr. Jarvis Lorry withdrew to consider it.

A large cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. The accident had happened in getting it out

of a cart; the cask had tumbled out with a run, the hoops had burst, and it lay on the stones just outside the

All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the

wine. The rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might have thought,

expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them, had dammed it into little pools; these were

surrounded, each by its own jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, made

scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip,

before the wine had all run out between their fingers. Others, men and women, dipped in the puddles with

little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women's heads, which were squeezed

dry into infants' mouths; others made small mud embankments, to stem the wine as it ran; others, directed

by lookerson up at high windows, darted here and there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in

new directions; others devoted themselves to the sodden and leedyed pieces of the cask, licking, and even

champing the moister winerotted fragments with eager relish. There was no drainage to carry off the wine,

and not only did it all get taken up, but so much mud got taken up along with it, that there might have been a

scavenger in the street, if anybody acquainted with it could have believed in such a miraculous presence.

A shrill sound of laughter and of amused voicesvoices of men, women, and childrenresounded in the

street while this wine game lasted. There was little roughness in the sport, and much playfulness. There was a

special companionship in it, an observable inclination on the part of every one to join some other one, which

led, especially among the luckier or lighterhearted, to frolicsome embraces, drinking of healths, shaking of

hands, and even joining of hands and dancing, a dozen together. When the wine was gone, and the places

where it had been most abundant were raked into a gridironpattern by fingers, these demonstrations ceased,

as suddenly as they had broken out. The man who had left his saw sticking in the firewood he was cutting, set

it in motion again; the women who had left on a doorstep the little pot of hot ashes, at which she had been

trying to soften the pain in her own starved fingers and toes, or in those of her child, returned to it; men with

bare arms, matted locks, and cadaverous faces, who had emerged into the winter light from cellars, moved

away, to descend again; and a gloom gathered on the scene that appeared more natural to it than sunshine.

The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in

Paris, where it was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many

wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of

the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again.

Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and

one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a

The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the streetstones, and when the stain of it

And now that the cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a momentary gleam had driven from his sacred

countenance, the darkness of it was heavycold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want, were the lords in waiting

on the saintly presencenobles of great power all of them; but, most especially the last. Samples of a people

that had undergone a terrible grinding and regrinding in the mill, and certainly not in the fabulous mill which

ground old people young, shivered at every corner, passed in and out at every doorway, looked from every

window, fluttered in every vestige of a garment that the wind shook. The mill which had worked them down,

was the mill that grinds young people old; the children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them,

and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sigh,

Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that

hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper; Hunger

was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared

down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse,

of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker's shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty

stock of bad bread; at the sausageshop, in every deaddog preparation that was offered for sale. Hunger

rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into atomics in

every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil.

Its abiding place was in all things fitted to it. A narrow winding street, full of offence and stench, with other

narrow winding streets diverging, all peopled by rags and nightcaps, and all smelling of rags and nightcaps,

and all visible things with a brooding look upon them that looked ill. In the hunted air of the people there was

yet some wildbeast thought of the possibility of turning at bay. Depressed and slinking though they were,

eyes of fire were not wanting among them; nor compressed lips, white with what they suppressed; nor

foreheads knitted into the likeness of the gallowsrope they mused about enduring, or inflicting. The trade

signs (and they were almost as many as the shops) were, all, grim illustrations of Want. The butcher and the

porkman painted up, only the leanest scrags of meat; the baker, the coarsest of meagre loaves. The people

rudely pictured as drinking in the wineshops, croaked over their scanty measures of thin wine and beer, and

were gloweringly confidential together. Nothing was represented in a flourishing condition, save tools and

weapons; but, the cutler's knives and axes were sharp and bright, the smith's hammers were heavy, and the

gunmaker's stock was murderous. The crippling stones of the pavement, with their many little reservoirs of

mud and water, had no footways, but broke off abruptly at the doors. The kennel, to make amends, ran down

the middle of the streetwhen it ran at all: which was only after heavy rains, and then it ran, by many

eccentric fits, into the houses. Across the streets, at wide intervals, one clumsy lamp was slung by a rope and

pulley; at night, when the lamplighter had let these down, and lighted, and hoisted them again, a feeble grove

of dim wicks swung in a sickly manner overhead, as if they were at sea. Indeed they were at sea, and the ship

For, the time was to come, when the gaunt scarecrows of that region should have watched the lamplighter, in

their idleness and hunger, so long, as to conceive the idea of improving on his method, and hauling up men

by those ropes and pulleys, to flare upon the darkness of their condition. But, the time was not come yet; and

every wind that blew over France shook the rags of the scarecrows in vain, for the birds, fine of song and

The wineshop was a corner shop, better than most others in its appearance and degree, and the master of the

wineshop had stood outside it, in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches, looking on at the struggle for the

lost wine. "It's not my affair," said he, with a final shrug of the shoulders. "The people from the market did it.

There, his eyes happening to catch the tall joker writing up his joke, he called to him across the way:

The fellow pointed to his joke with immense significance, as is often the way with his tribe. It missed its

"What now? Are you a subject for the mad hospital?" said the wineshop keeper, crossing the road, and

obliterating the jest with a handful of mud, picked up for the purpose, and smeared over it. "Why do you

write in the public streets? Is theretell me thouis there no other place to write such words in?"

In his expostulation he dropped his cleaner hand (perhaps accidentally, perhaps not) upon the joker's heart.

The joker rapped it with his own, took a nimble spring upward, and came down in a fantastic dancing

attitude, with one of his stained shoes jerked off his foot into his hand, and held out. A joker of an extremely,

"Put it on, put it on," said the other. "Call wine, wine; and finish there." With that advice, he wiped his soiled

hand upon the joker's dress, such as it wasquite deliberately, as having dirtied the hand on his account; and

This wineshop keeper was a bullnecked, martiallooking man of thirty, and he should have been of a hot

temperament, for, although it was a bitter day, he wore no coat, but carried one slung over his shoulder. His

shirtsleeves were rolled up, too, and his brown arms were bare to the elbows. Neither did he wear anything

more on his head than his own crisplycurling short dark hair. He was a dark man altogether, with good eyes

and a good bold breadth between them. Goodhumoured looking on the whole, but implacablelooking, too;

evidently a man of a strong resolution and a set purpose; a man not desirable to be met, rushing down a

Madame Defarge, his wife, sat in the shop behind the counter as he came in. Madame Defarge was a stout

woman of about his own age, with a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look at anything, a large hand

heavily ringed, a steady face, strong features, and great composure of manner. There was a character about

Madame Defarge, from which one might have predicated that she did not often make mistakes against herself

in any of the reckonings over which she presided. Madame Defarge being sensitive to cold, was wrapped in

fur, and had a quantity of bright shawl twined about her head, though not to the concealment of her large

earrings. Her knitting was before her, but she had laid it down to pick her teeth with a toothpick. Thus

engaged, with her right elbow supported by her left hand, Madame Defarge said nothing when her lord came

in, but coughed just one grain of cough. This, in combination with the lifting of her darkly defined eyebrows

over her toothpick by the breadth of a line, suggested to her husband that he would do well to look round the

shop among the customers, for any new customer who had dropped in while he stepped over the way.

The wineshop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, until they rested upon an elderly gentleman and a

young lady, who were seated in a corner. Other company were there: two playing cards, two playing

dominoes, three standing by the counter lengthening out a short supply of wine. As he passed behind the

counter, he took notice that the elderly gentleman said in a look to the young lady, "This is our man."

"What the devil do YOU do in that galley there?" said Monsieur Defarge to himself; "I don't know you."

But, he feigned not to notice the two strangers, and fell into discourse with the triumvirate of customers who

"How goes it, Jacques?" said one of these three to Monsieur Defarge. "Is all the spilt wine swallowed?"

When this interchange of Christian name was effected, Madame Defarge, picking her teeth with her

toothpick, coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line.

"It is not often," said the second of the three, addressing Monsieur Defarge, "that many of these miserable

beasts know the taste of wine, or of anything but black bread and death. Is it not so, Jacques?"

At this second interchange of the Christian name, Madame Defarge, still using her toothpick with profound

composure, coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line.

The last of the three now said his say, as he put down his empty drinking vessel and smacked his lips.

"Ah! So much the worse! A bitter taste it is that such poor cattle always have in their mouths, and hard lives

This third interchange of the Christian name was completed at the moment when Madame Defarge put her

The three customers pulled off their hats to Madame Defarge, with three flourishes. She acknowledged their

homage by bending her head, and giving them a quick look. Then she glanced in a casual manner round the

wineshop, took up her knitting with great apparent calmness and repose of spirit, and became absorbed in it.

"Gentlemen," said her husband, who had kept his bright eye observantly upon her, "good day. The chamber,

furnished bachelor fashion, that you wished to see, and were inquiring for when I stepped out, is on the fifth

floor. The doorway of the staircase gives on the little courtyard close to the left here," pointing with his hand,

"near to the window of my establishment. But, now that I remember, one of you has already been there, and

They paid for their wine, and left the place. The eyes of Monsieur Defarge were studying his wife at her

knitting when the elderly gentleman advanced from his corner, and begged the favour of a word.

"Willingly, sir," said Monsieur Defarge, and quietly stepped with him to the door.

Their conference was very short, but very decided. Almost at the first word, Monsieur Defarge started and

became deeply attentive. It had not lasted a minute, when he nodded and went out. The gentleman then

beckoned to the young lady, and they, too, went out. Madame Defarge knitted with nimble fingers and steady

Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette, emerging from the wineshop thus, joined Monsieur Defarge in the

doorway to which he had directed his own company just before. It opened from a stinking little black

courtyard, and was the general public entrance to a great pile of houses, inhabited by a great number of

people. In the gloomy tile paved entry to the gloomy tilepaved staircase, Monsieur Defarge bent down on

one knee to the child of his old master, and put her hand to his lips. It was a gentle action, but not at all gently

done; a very remarkable transformation had come over him in a few seconds. He had no goodhumour in his

face, nor any openness of aspect left, but had become a secret, angry, dangerous man.

"It is very high; it is a little difficult. Better to begin slowly." Thus, Monsieur Defarge, in a stem voice, to Mr.

"Alone! God help him, who should be with him!" said the other, in the same low voice.

"Of his own necessity. As he was, when I first saw him after they found me and demanded to know if I would

The keeper of the wineshop stopped to strike the wall with his hand, and mutter a tremendous curse. No

direct answer could have been half so forcible. Mr. Lorry's spirits grew heavier and heavier, as he and his two

Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more crowded parts of Paris, would be bad enough

now; but, at that time, it was vile indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses. Every little habitation

within the great foul nest of one high buildingthat is to say, the room or rooms within every door that

opened on the general staircaseleft its own heap of refuse on its own landing, besides flinging other refuse

from its own windows. The uncontrollable and hopeless mass of decomposition so engendered, would have

polluted the air, even if poverty and deprivation had not loaded it with their intangible impurities; the two bad

sources combined made it almost insupportable. Through such an atmosphere, by a steep dark shaft of dirt

and poison, the way lay. Yielding to his own disturbance of mind, and to his young companion's agitation,

which became greater every instant, Mr. Jarvis Lorry twice stopped to rest. Each of these stoppages was

made at a doleful grating, by which any languishing good airs that were left uncorrupted, seemed to escape,

and all spoilt and sickly vapours seemed to crawl in. Through the rusted bars, tastes, rather than glimpses,

were caught of the jumbled neighbourhood; and nothing within range, nearer or lower than the summits of

the two great towers of NotreDame, had any promise on it of healthy life or wholesome aspirations.

At last, the top of the staircase was gained, and they stopped for the third time. There was yet an upper

staircase, of a steeper inclination and of contracted dimensions, to be ascended, before the garret story was

reached. The keeper of the wineshop, always going a little in advance, and always going on the side which

Mr. Lorry took, as though he dreaded to be asked any question by the young lady, turned himself about here,

and, carefully feeling in the pockets of the coat he carried over his shoulder, took out a key.

"I think it necessary to turn the key." Monsieur Defarge whispered it closer in his ear, and frowned heavily.

"Why! Because he has lived so long, locked up, that he would be frightenedravetear himself to

"Is it possible!" repeated Defarge, bitterly. "Yes. And a beautiful world we live in, when it IS possible, and

when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but donedone, see you!under that sky

This dialogue had been held in so very low a whisper, that not a word of it had reached the young lady's ears.

But, by this time she trembled under such strong emotion, and her face expressed such deep anxiety, and,

above all, such dread and terror, that Mr. Lorry felt it incumbent on him to speak a word or two of

"Courage, dear miss! Courage! Business! The worst will be over in a moment; it is but passing the

roomdoor, and the worst is over. Then, all the good you bring to him, all the relief, all the happiness you

bring to him, begin. Let our good friend here, assist you on that side. That's well, friend Defarge. Come, now.

They went up slowly and softly. The staircase was short, and they were soon at the top. There, as it had an

abrupt turn in it, they came all at once in sight of three men, whose heads were bent down close together at

the side of a door, and who were intently looking into the room to which the door belonged, through some

chinks or holes in the wall. On hearing footsteps close at hand, these three turned, and rose, and showed

"I forgot them in the surprise of your visit," explained Monsieur Defarge. "Leave us, good boys; we have

There appearing to be no other door on that floor, and the keeper of the wineshop going straight to this one

when they were left alone, Mr. Lorry asked him in a whisper, with a little anger:

"I choose them as real men, of my nameJacques is my nameto whom the sight is likely to do good.

Enough; you are English; that is another thing. Stay there, if you please, a little moment."

With an admonitory gesture to keep them back, he stooped, and looked in through the crevice in the wall.

Soon raising his head again, he struck twice or thrice upon the doorevidently with no other object than to

make a noise there. With the same intention, he drew the key across it, three or four times, before he put it

The door slowly opened inward under his hand, and he looked into the room and said something. A faint

voice answered something. Little more than a single syllable could have been spoken on either side.

He looked back over his shoulder, and beckoned them to enter. Mr. Lorry got his arm securely round the

"Aaabusiness, business!" he urged, with a moisture that was not of business shining on his cheek. "Come

Rendered in a manner desperate, by her state and by the beckoning of their conductor, he drew over his neck

the arm that shook upon his shoulder, lifted her a little, and hurried her into the room. He sat her down just

Defarge drew out the key, closed the door, locked it on the inside, took out the key again, and held it in his

hand. All this he did, methodically, and with as loud and harsh an accompaniment of noise as he could make.

Finally, he walked across the room with a measured tread to where the window was. He stopped there, and

The garret, built to be a depository for firewood and the like, was dim and dark: for, the window of dormer

shape, was in truth a door in the roof, with a little crane over it for the hoisting up of stores from the street:

unglazed, and closing up the middle in two pieces, like any other door of French construction. To exclude the

cold, one half of this door was fast closed, and the other was opened but a very little way. Such a scanty

portion of light was admitted through these means, that it was difficult, on first coming in, to see anything;

and long habit alone could have slowly formed in any one, the ability to do any work requiring nicety in such

obscurity. Yet, work of that kind was being done in the garret; for, with his back towards the door, and his

face towards the window where the keeper of the wineshop stood looking at him, a whitehaired man sat on

"Good day!" said Monsieur Defarge, looking down at the white head that bent low over the shoemaking.

It was raised for a moment, and a very faint voice responded to the salutation, as if it were at a distance:

After a long silence, the head was lifted for another moment, and the voice replied, "YesI am working."

This time, a pair of haggard eyes had looked at the questioner, before the face had dropped again.

The faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful. It was not the faintness of physical weakness, though

confinement and hard fare no doubt had their part in it. Its deplorable peculiarity was, that it was the faintness

of solitude and disuse. It was like the last feeble echo of a sound made long and long ago. So entirely had it

lost the life and resonance of the human voice, that it affected the senses like a once beautiful colour faded

away into a poor weak stain. So sunken and suppressed it was, that it was like a voice underground. So

expressive it was, of a hopeless and lost creature, that a famished traveller, wearied out by lonely wandering

in a wilderness, would have remembered home and friends in such a tone before lying down to die.

Some minutes of silent work had passed: and the haggard eyes had looked up again: not with any interest or

curiosity, but with a dull mechanical perception, beforehand, that the spot where the only visitor they were

"I want," said Defarge, who had not removed his gaze from the shoemaker, "to let in a little more light here.

The shoemaker stopped his work; looked with a vacant air of listening, at the floor on one side of him; then

"I must bear it, if you let it in." (Laying the palest shadow of a stress upon the second word.)

The opened halfdoor was opened a little further, and secured at that angle for the time. A broad ray of light

fell into the garret, and showed the workman with an unfinished shoe upon his lap, pausing in his labour. His

few common tools and various scraps of leather were at his feet and on his bench. He had a white beard,

raggedly cut, but not very long, a hollow face, and exceedingly bright eyes. The hollowness and thinness of

his face would have caused them to look large, under his yet dark eyebrows and his confused white hair,

though they had been really otherwise; but, they were naturally large, and looked unnaturally so. His yellow

rags of shirt lay open at the throat, and showed his body to be withered and worn. He, and his old canvas

frock, and his loose stockings, and all his poor tatters of clothes, had, in a long seclusion from direct light and

air, faded down to such a dull uniformity of parchmentyellow, that it would have been hard to say which

He had put up a hand between his eyes and the light, and the very bones of it seemed transparent. So he sat,

with a steadfastly vacant gaze, pausing in his work. He never looked at the figure before him, without first

looking down on this side of himself, then on that, as if he had lost the habit of associating place with sound;

he never spoke, without first wandering in this manner, and forgetting to speak.

"Are you going to finish that pair of shoes today?" asked Defarge, motioning to Mr. Lorry to come forward.

Mr. Lorry came silently forward, leaving the daughter by the door. When he had stood, for a minute or two,

by the side of Defarge, the shoemaker looked up. He showed no surprise at seeing another figure, but the

unsteady fingers of one of his hands strayed to his lips as he looked at it (his lips and his nails were of the

same pale lead colour), and then the hand dropped to his work, and he once more bent over the shoe. The

"Come!" said Defarge. "Here is monsieur, who knows a wellmade shoe when he sees one. Show him that

"It is a lady's shoe. It is a young lady's walkingshoe. It is in the present mode. I never saw the mode. I have

had a pattern in my hand." He glanced at the shoe with some little passing touch of pride.

Now that he had no work to hold, he laid the knuckles of the right hand in the hollow of the left, and then the

knuckles of the left hand in the hollow of the right, and then passed a hand across his bearded chin, and so on

in regular changes, without a moment's intermission. The task of recalling him from the vagrancy into which

he always sank when he had spoken, was like recalling some very weak person from a swoon, or

endeavouring, in the hope of some disclosure, to stay the spirit of a fastdying man.

With a weary sound that was not a sigh, nor a groan, he bent to work again, until the silence was again

His haggard eyes turned to Defarge as if he would have transferred the question to him: but as no help came

from that quarter, they turned back on the questioner when they had sought the ground.

"I am not a shoemaker by trade? No, I was not a shoemaker by trade. II learnt it here. I taught myself. I

He lapsed away, even for minutes, ringing those measured changes on his hands the whole time. His eyes

came slowly back, at last, to the face from which they had wandered; when they rested on it, he started, and

resumed, in the manner of a sleeper that moment awake, reverting to a subject of last night.

"I asked leave to teach myself, and I got it with much difficulty after a long while, and I have made shoes

As he held out his hand for the shoe that had been taken from him, Mr. Lorry said, still looking steadfastly in

"Monsieur Manette"; Mr. Lorry laid his hand upon Defarge's arm; "do you remember nothing of this man?

Look at him. Look at me. Is there no old banker, no old business, no old servant, no old time, rising in your

As the captive of many years sat looking fixedly, by turns, at Mr. Lorry and at Defarge, some long obliterated

marks of an actively intent intelligence in the middle of the forehead, gradually forced themselves through the

black mist that had fallen on him. They were overclouded again, they were fainter, they were gone; but they

had been there. And so exactly was the expression repeated on the fair young face of her who had crept along

the wall to a point where she could see him, and where she now stood looking at him, with hands which at

first had been only raised in frightened compassion, if not even to keep him off and shut out the sight of him,

but which were now extending towards him, trembling with eagerness to lay the spectral face upon her warm

young breast, and love it back to life and hopeso exactly was the expression repeated (though in stronger

characters) on her fair young face, that it looked as though it had passed like a moving light, from him to her.

Darkness had fatten on him in its place. He looked at the two, less and less attentively, and his eyes in

gloomy abstraction sought the ground and looked about him in the old way. Finally, with a deep long sigh, he

"Yes; for a moment. At first I thought it quite hopeless, but I have unquestionably seen, for a single moment,

She had moved from the wall of the garret, very near to the bench on which he sat. There was something

awful in his unconsciousness of the figure that could have put out its hand and touched him as he stooped

Not a word was spoken, not a sound was made. She stood, like a spirit, beside him, and he bent over his

It happened, at length, that he had occasion to change the instrument in his hand, for his shoemaker's knife. It

lay on that side of him which was not the side on which she stood. He had taken it up, and was stooping to

work again, when his eyes caught the skirt of her dress. He raised them, and saw her face. The two spectators

started forward, but she stayed them with a motion of her hand. She had no fear of his striking at her with the

He stared at her with a fearful look, and after a while his lips began to form some words, though no sound

proceeded from them. By degrees, in the pauses of his quick and laboured breathing, he was heard to say:

With the tears streaming down her face, she put her two hands to her lips, and kissed them to him; then

Not yet trusting the tones of her voice, she sat down on the bench beside him. He recoiled, but she laid her

hand upon his arm. A strange thrill struck him when she did so, and visibly passed over his frame; he laid the

Her golden hair, which she wore in long curls, had been hurriedly pushed aside, and fell down over her neck.

Advancing his hand by little and little, he took it up and looked at it. In the midst of the action he went astray,

But not for long. Releasing his arm, she laid her hand upon his shoulder. After looking doubtfully at it, two or

three times, as if to be sure that it was really there, he laid down his work, put his hand to his neck, and took

off a blackened string with a scrap of folded rag attached to it. He opened this, carefully, on his knee, and it

contained a very little quantity of hair: not more than one or two long golden hairs, which he had, in some old

He took her hair into his hand again, and looked closely at it. "It is the same. How can it be! When was it!

As the concentrated expression returned to his forehead, he seemed to become conscious that it was in hers

"She had laid her head upon my shoulder, that night when I was summoned outshe had a fear of my going,

though I had noneand when I was brought to the North Tower they found these upon my sleeve. 'You will

leave me them? They can never help me to escape in the body, though they may in the spirit.' Those were the

He formed this speech with his lips many times before he could utter it. But when he did find spoken words

Once more, the two spectators started, as he turned upon her with a frightful suddenness. But she sat perfectly

still in his grasp, and only said, in a low voice, "I entreat you, good gentlemen, do not come near us, do not

His hands released her as he uttered this cry, and went up to his white hair, which they tore in a frenzy. It died

out, as everything but his shoemaking did die out of him, and he refolded his little packet and tried to secure

"No, no, no; you are too young, too blooming. It can't be. See what the prisoner is. These are not the hands

she knew, this is not the face she knew, this is not a voice she ever heard. No, no. She wasand He

wasbefore the slow years of the North Towerages ago. What is your name, my gentle angel?"

Hailing his softened tone and manner, his daughter fell upon her knees before him, with her appealing hands

"O, sir, at another time you shall know my name, and who my mother was, and who my father, and how I

never knew their hard, hard history. But I cannot tell you at this time, and I cannot tell you here. All that I

may tell you, here and now, is, that I pray to you to touch me and to bless me. Kiss me, kiss me! O my dear,

His cold white head mingled with her radiant hair, which warmed and lighted it as though it were the light of

"If you hear in my voiceI don't know that it is so, but I hope it isif you hear in my voice any

resemblance to a voice that once was sweet music in your ears, weep for it, weep for it! If you touch, in

touching my hair, anything that recalls a beloved head that lay on your breast when you were young and free,

weep for it, weep for it! If, when I hint to you of a Home that is before us, where I will be true to you with all

my duty and with all my faithful service, I bring back the remembrance of a Home long desolate, while your

"If, when I tell you, dearest dear, that your agony is over, and that I have come here to take you from it, and

that we go to England to be at peace and at rest, I cause you to think of your useful life laid waste, and of our

native France so wicked to you, weep for it, weep for it! And if, when I shall tell you of my name, and of my

father who is living, and of my mother who is dead, you learn that I have to kneel to my honoured father, and

implore his pardon for having never for his sake striven all day and lain awake and wept all night, because the

love of my poor mother hid his torture from me, weep for it, weep for it! Weep for her, then, and for me!

Good gentlemen, thank God! I feel his sacred tears upon my face, and his sobs strike against my heart. O,

He had sunk in her arms, and his face dropped on her breast: a sight so touching, yet so terrible in the

tremendous wrong and suffering which had gone before it, that the two beholders covered their faces.

When the quiet of the garret had been long undisturbed, and his heaving breast and shaken form had long

yielded to the calm that must follow all stormsemblem to humanity, of the rest and silence into which the

storm called Life must hush at lastthey came forward to raise the father and daughter from the ground. He

had gradually dropped to the floor, and lay there in a lethargy, worn out. She had nestled down with him, that

his head might lie upon her arm; and her hair drooping over him curtained him from the light.

"If, without disturbing him," she said, raising her hand to Mr. Lorry as he stooped over them, after repeated

blowings of his nose, "all could be arranged for our leaving Paris at once, so that, from the, very door, he

"It is true," said Defarge, who was kneeling to look on and hear. "More than that; Monsieur Manette is, for all

"That's business," said Mr. Lorry, resuming on the shortest notice his methodical manners; "and if business is

"Then be so kind," urged Miss Manette, "as to leave us here. You see how composed he has become, and you

cannot be afraid to leave him with me now. Why should you be? If you will lock the door to secure us from

interruption, I do not doubt that you will find him, when you come back, as quiet as you leave him. In any

case, I will take care of him until you return, and then we will remove him straight."

Both Mr. Lorry and Defarge were rather disinclined to this course, and in favour of one of them remaining.

But, as there were not only carriage and horses to be seen to, but travelling papers; and as time pressed, for

the day was drawing to an end, it came at last to their hastily dividing the business that was necessary to be

Then, as the darkness closed in, the daughter laid her head down on the hard ground close at the father's side,

and watched him. The darkness deepened and deepened, and they both lay quiet, until a light gleamed

Mr. Lorry and Monsieur Defarge had made all ready for the journey, and had brought with them, besides

travelling cloaks and wrappers, bread and meat, wine, and hot coffee. Monsieur Defarge put this provender,

and the lamp he carried, on the shoemaker's bench (there was nothing else in the garret but a pallet bed), and

No human intelligence could have read the mysteries of his mind, in the scared blank wonder of his face.

Whether he knew what had happened, whether he recollected what they had said to him, whether he knew

that he was free, were questions which no sagacity could have solved. They tried speaking to him; but, he

was so confused, and so very slow to answer, that they took fright at his bewilderment, and agreed for the

time to tamper with him no more. He had a wild, lost manner of occasionally clasping his head in his hands,

that had not been seen in him before; yet, he had some pleasure in the mere sound of his daughter's voice, and

In the submissive way of one long accustomed to obey under coercion, he ate and drank what they gave him

to eat and drink, and put on the cloak and other wrappings, that they gave him to wear. He readily responded

to his daughter's drawing her arm through his, and tookand kepther hand in both his own.

They began to descend; Monsieur Defarge going first with the lamp, Mr. Lorry closing the little procession.

They had not traversed many steps of the long main staircase when he stopped, and stared at the roof and

But, before she could repeat the question, he murmured an answer as if she had repeated it.

That he had no recollection whatever of his having been brought from his prison to that house, was apparent

to them. They heard him mutter, "One Hundred and Five, North Tower;" and when he looked about him, it

evidently was for the strong fortresswalls which had long encompassed him. On their reaching the courtyard

he instinctively altered his tread, as being in expectation of a drawbridge; and when there was no drawbridge,

and he saw the carriage waiting in the open street, he dropped his daughter's hand and clasped his head again.

No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible at any of the many windows; not even a chance

passerby was in the street. An unnatural silence and desertion reigned there. Only one soul was to be seen,

and that was Madame Defargewho leaned against the doorpost, knitting, and saw nothing.

The prisoner had got into a coach, and his daughter had followed him, when Mr. Lorry's feet were arrested on

the step by his asking, miserably, for his shoemaking tools and the unfinished shoes. Madame Defarge

immediately called to her husband that she would get them, and went, knitting, out of the lamplight, through

the courtyard. She quickly brought them down and handed them in;and immediately afterwards leaned

Defarge got upon the box, and gave the word "To the Barrier!" The postilion cracked his whip, and they

Under the overswinging lampsswinging ever brighter in the better streets, and ever dimmer in the

worseand by lighted shops, gay crowds, illuminated coffeehouses, and theatredoors, to one of the city

gates. Soldiers with lanterns, at the guardhouse there. "Your papers, travellers!" "See here then, Monsieur

the Officer," said Defarge, getting down, and taking him gravely apart, "these are the papers of monsieur

inside, with the white head. They were consigned to me, with him, at the" He dropped his voice, there was

a flutter among the military lanterns, and one of them being handed into the coach by an arm in uniform, the

eyes connected with the arm looked, not an every day or an every night look, at monsieur with the white

head. "It is well. Forward!" from the uniform. "Adieu!" from Defarge. And so, under a short grove of feebler

Beneath that arch of unmoved and eternal lights; some, so remote from this little earth that the learned tell us

it is doubtful whether their rays have even yet discovered it, as a point in space where anything is suffered or

done: the shadows of the night were broad and black. All through the cold and restless interval, until dawn,

they once more whispered in the ears of Mr. Jarvis Lorrysitting opposite the buried man who had been dug

out, and wondering what subtle powers were for ever lost to him, and what were capable of restorationthe

Tellson's Bank by Temple Bar was an oldfashioned place, even in the year one thousand seven hundred and

eighty. It was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious. It was an oldfashioned place, moreover,

in the moral attribute that the partners in the House were proud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, proud

of its ugliness, proud of its incommodiousness. They were even boastful of its eminence in those particulars,

and were fired by an express conviction that, if it were less objectionable, it would be less respectable. This

was no passive belief, but an active weapon which they flashed at more convenient places of business.

Tellson's (they said) wanted no elbowroom, Tellson's wanted no light, Tellson's wanted no embellishment.

Any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on the question of rebuilding Tellson's. In this

respect the House was much on a par with the Country; which did very often disinherit its sons for suggesting

improvements in laws and customs that had long been highly objectionable, but were only the more

Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson's was the triumphant perfection of inconvenience. After bursting open

a door of idiotic obstinacy with a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson's down two steps, and came to

your senses in a miserable little shop, with two little counters, where the oldest of men made your cheque

shake as if the wind rustled it, while they examined the signature by the dingiest of windows, which were

always under a showerbath of mud from Fleetstreet, and which were made the dingier by their own iron

bars proper, and the heavy shadow of Temple Bar. If your business necessitated your seeing "the House," you

were put into a species of Condemned Hold at the back, where you meditated on a misspent life, until the

House came with its bands in its pockets, and you could hardly blink at it in the dismal twilight. Your money

came out of, or went into, wormy old wooden drawers, particles of which flew up your nose and down your

throat when they were opened and shut. Your banknotes had a musty odour, as if they were fast

decomposing into rags again. Your plate was stowed away among the neighbouring cesspools, and evil

communications corrupted its good polish in a day or two. Your deeds got into extemporised strongrooms

made of kitchens and sculleries, and fretted all the fat out of their parchments into the bankinghouse air.

Your lighter boxes of family papers went upstairs into a Barmecide room, that always had a great

diningtable in it and never had a dinner, and where, even in the year one thousand seven hundred and

eighty, the first letters written to you by your old love, or by your little children, were but newly released

from the horror of being ogled through the windows, by the heads exposed on Temple Bar with an insensate

But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in vogue with all trades and professions, and not

least of all with Tellson's. Death is Nature's remedy for all things, and why not Legislation's? Accordingly,

the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad note was put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put

to Death; the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder of a horse at Tellson's

door, who made off with it, was put to Death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death; the sounders of

threefourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were put to Death. Not that it did the least good in

the way of preventionit might almost have been worth remarking that the fact was exactly the

reversebut, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble of each particular case, and left nothing else

connected with it to be looked after. Thus, Tellson's, in its day, like greater places of business, its

contemporaries, had taken so many lives, that, if the heads laid low before it had been ranged on Temple Bar

instead of being privately disposed of, they would probably have excluded what little light the ground floor

Cramped in all kinds of dun cupboards and hutches at Tellson's, the oldest of men carried on the business

gravely. When they took a young man into Tellson's London house, they hid him somewhere till he was old.

They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour and bluemould upon him.

Then only was he permitted to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breeches and

Outside Tellson'snever by any means in it, unless called inwas an oddjobman, an occasional porter

and messenger, who served as the live sign of the house. He was never absent during business hours, unless

upon an errand, and then he was represented by his son: a grisly urchin of twelve, who was his express image.

People understood that Tellson's, in a stately way, tolerated the oddjobman. The house had always

tolerated some person in that capacity, and time and tide had drifted this person to the post. His surname was

Cruncher, and on the youthful occasion of his renouncing by proxy the works of darkness, in the easterly

The scene was Mr. Cruncher's private lodging in Hangingswordalley, Whitefriars: the time, halfpast

seven of the clock on a windy March morning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and eighty. (Mr. Cruncher

himself always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently under the impression that the

Christian era dated from the invention of a popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it.)

Mr. Cruncher's apartments were not in a savoury neighbourhood, and were but two in number, even if a

closet with a single pane of glass in it might be counted as one. But they were very decently kept. Early as it

was, on the windy March morning, the room in which he lay abed was already scrubbed throughout; and

between the cups and saucers arranged for breakfast, and the lumbering deal table, a very clean white cloth

Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like a Harlequin at home. At fast, he slept heavily, but,

by degrees, began to roll and surge in bed, until he rose above the surface, with his spiky hair looking as if it

must tear the sheets to ribbons. At which juncture, he exclaimed, in a voice of dire exasperation:

A woman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from her knees in a corner, with sufficient haste and

"What!" said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot. "You're at it agin, are you?"

After hailing the mom with this second salutation, he threw a boot at the woman as a third. It was a very

muddy boot, and may introduce the odd circumstance connected with Mr. Cruncher's domestic economy,

that, whereas he often came home after banking hours with clean boots, he often got up next morning to find

"What," said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after missing his mark"what are you up to,

"Saying your prayers! You're a nice woman! What do you mean by flopping yourself down and praying agin

"You weren't. And if you were, I won't be took the liberty with. Here! your mother's a nice woman, young

Jerry, going a praying agin your father's prosperity. You've got a dutiful mother, you have, my son. You've

got a religious mother, you have, my boy: going and flopping herself down, and praying that the

Master Cruncher (who was in his shirt) took this very ill, and, turning to his mother, strongly deprecated any

"And what do you suppose, you conceited female," said Mr. Cruncher, with unconscious inconsistency, "that

"Worth no more than that," repeated Mr. Cruncher. "They ain't worth much, then. Whether or no, I won't be

prayed agin, I tell you. I can't afford it. I'm not a going to be made unlucky by YOUR sneaking. If you must

go flopping yourself down, flop in favour of your husband and child, and not in opposition to 'em. If I had

had any but a unnat'ral wife, and this poor boy had had any but a unnat'ral mother, I might have made some

money last week instead of being counterprayed and countermined and religiously circumwented into the

worst of luck. Buuust me!" said Mr. Cruncher, who all this time had been putting on his clothes, "if I

ain't, what with piety and one blowed thing and another, been choused this last week into as bad luck as ever

a poor devil of a honest tradesman met with! Young Jerry, dress yourself, my boy, and while I clean my boots

keep a eye upon your mother now and then, and if you see any signs of more flopping, give me a call. For, I

tell you," here he addressed his wife once more, "I won't be gone agin, in this manner. I am as rickety as a

hackneycoach, I'm as sleepy as laudanum, my lines is strained to that degree that I shouldn't know, if it

wasn't for the pain in 'em, which was me and which somebody else, yet I'm none the better for it in pocket;

and it's my suspicion that you've been at it from morning to night to prevent me from being the better for it in

Growling, in addition, such phrases as "Ah! yes! You're religious, too. You wouldn't put yourself in

opposition to the interests of your husband and child, would you? Not you!" and throwing off other sarcastic

sparks from the whirling grindstone of his indignation, Mr. Cruncher betook himself to his bootcleaning and

his general preparation for business. In the meantime, his son, whose head was garnished with tenderer

spikes, and whose young eyes stood close by one another, as his father's did, kept the required watch upon his

mother. He greatly disturbed that poor woman at intervals, by darting out of his sleeping closet, where he

made his toilet, with a suppressed cry of "You are going to flop, mother. Halloa, father!" and, after raising

Mr. Cruncher's temper was not at all improved when he came to his breakfast. He resented Mrs. Cruncher's

"Don't do it!" said Mr. Crunches looking about, as if he rather expected to see the loaf disappear under the

efficacy of his wife's petitions. "I ain't a going to be blest out of house and home. I won't have my wittles

Exceedingly redeyed and grim, as if he had been up all night at a party which had taken anything but a

convivial turn, Jerry Cruncher worried his breakfast rather than ate it, growling over it like any fourfooted

inmate of a menagerie. Towards nine o'clock he smoothed his ruffled aspect, and, presenting as respectable

and businesslike an exterior as he could overlay his natural self with, issued forth to the occupation of the

It could scarcely be called a trade, in spite of his favourite description of himself as "a honest tradesman." His

stock consisted of a wooden stool, made out of a brokenbacked chair cut down, which stool, young Jerry,

walking at his father's side, carried every morning to beneath the bankinghouse window that was nearest

Temple Bar: where, with the addition of the first handful of straw that could be gleaned from any passing

vehicle to keep the cold and wet from the oddjobman's feet, it formed the encampment for the day. On this

post of his, Mr. Cruncher was as well known to Fleetstreet and the Temple, as the Bar itself,and was

Encamped at a quarter before nine, in good time to touch his three cornered hat to the oldest of men as they

passed in to Tellson's, Jerry took up his station on this windy March morning, with young Jerry standing by

him, when not engaged in making forays through the Bar, to inflict bodily and mental injuries of an acute

description on passing boys who were small enough for his amiable purpose. Father and son, extremely like

each other, looking silently on at the morning traffic in Fleetstreet, with their two heads as near to one

another as the two eyes of each were, bore a considerable resemblance to a pair of monkeys. The resemblance

was not lessened by the accidental circumstance, that the mature Jerry bit and spat out straw, while the

twinkling eyes of the youthful Jerry were as restlessly watchful of him as of everything else in Fleetstreet.

The head of one of the regular indoor messengers attached to Tellson's establishment was put through the

Having thus given his parent God speed, young Jerry seated himself on the stool, entered on his reversionary

"Always rusty! His fingers is always rusty!" muttered young Jerry. "Where does my father get all that iron

"You know the Old Bailey, well, no doubt?" said one of the oldest of clerks to Jerry the messenger.

"Yees, sir," returned Jerry, in something of a dogged manner. "I DO know the Bailey."

"I know Mr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Much better," said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant

witness at the establishment in question, "than I, as a honest tradesman, wish to know the Bailey."

"Very well. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and show the doorkeeper this note for Mr. Lorry. He

Mr. Cruncher's eyes seemed to get a little closer to one another, and to interchange the inquiry, "What do you

"I am going to tell you. The doorkeeper will pass the note to Mr. Lorry, and do you make any gesture that

will attract Mr. Lorry's attention, and show him where you stand. Then what you have to do, is, to remain

"That's all. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This is to tell him you are there."

As the ancient clerk deliberately folded and superscribed the note, Mr. Cruncher, after surveying him in

"It is the law," remarked the ancient clerk, turning his surprised spectacles upon him. "It is the law."

"It's hard in the law to spile a man, I think. Ifs hard enough to kill him, but it's wery hard to spile him, sir."

"Not at all," retained the ancient clerk. "Speak well of the law. Take care of your chest and voice, my good

"It's the damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice," said Jerry. "I leave you to judge what a damp way of

"WeB, well," said the old clerk; "we aa have our various ways of gaining a livelihood. Some of us have damp

Jerry took the letter, and, remarking to himself with less internal deference than he made an outward show of,

"You are a lean old one, too," made his bow, informed his son, in passing, of his destination, and went his

They hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside Newgate had not obtained one infamous notoriety

that has since attached to it. But, the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and villainy

were practised, and where dire diseases were bred, that came into court with the prisoners, and sometimes

rushed straight from the dock at my Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench. It had more

than once happened, that the Judge in the black cap pronounced his own doom as certainly as the prisoner's,

and even died before him. For the rest, the Old Bailey was famous as a kind of deadly innyard, from which

pale travellers set out continually, in carts and coaches, on a violent passage into the other world: traversing

some two miles and a half of public street and road, and shaming few good citizens, if any. So powerful is

use, and so desirable to be good use in the beginning. It was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old

institution, that inflicted a punishment of which no one could foresee the extent; also, for the whippingpost,

another dear old institution, very humanising and softening to behold in action; also, for extensive

transactions in bloodmoney, another fragment of ancestral wisdom, systematically leading to the most

frightful mercenary crimes that could be committed under Heaven. Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date,

was a choice illustration of the precept, that "Whatever is is right;" an aphorism that would be as final as it is

lazy, did it not include the troublesome consequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong.

Making his way through the tainted crowd, dispersed up and down this hideous scene of action, with the skill

of a man accustomed to make his way quietly, the messenger found out the door he sought, and handed in his

letter through a trap in it. For, people then paid to see the play at the Old Bailey, just as they paid to see the

play in Bedlamonly the former entertainment was much the dearer. Therefore, all the Old Bailey doors

were well guardedexcept, indeed, the social doors by which the criminals got there, and those were always

After some delay and demur, the door grudgingly turned on its hinges a very little way, and allowed Mr. Jerry

"Ah!" returned the man, with a relish; "he'll be drawn on a hurdle to be half hanged, and then he'll be taken

down and sliced before his own face, and then his inside will be taken out and burnt while he looks on, and

then his head will be chopped off, and he'll be cut into quarters. That's the sentence."

Mr. Cruncher's attention was here diverted to the doorkeeper, whom he saw making his way to Mr. Lorry,

with the note in his hand. Mr. Lorry sat at a table, among the gentlemen in wigs: not far from a wigged

gentleman, the prisoner's counsel, who had a great bundle of papers before him: and nearly opposite another

wigged gentleman with his hands in his pockets, whose whole attention, when Mr. Cruncher looked at him

then or afterwards, seemed to be concentrated on the ceiling of the court. After some gruff coughing and

rubbing of his chin and signing with his hand, Jerry attracted the notice of Mr. Lorry, who had stood up to

The entrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and settling down in the court, stopped the dialogue.

Presently, the dock became the central point of interest. Two gaolers, who had been standing there, wont out,

Everybody present, except the one wigged gentleman who looked at the ceiling, stared at him. All the human

breath in the place, rolled at him, like a sea, or a wind, or a fire. Eager faces strained round pillars and

corners, to get a sight of him; spectators in back rows stood up, not to miss a hair of him; people on the floor

of the court, laid their hands on the shoulders of the people before them, to help themselves, at anybody's

cost, to a view of himstood atiptoe, got upon ledges, stood upon next to nothing, to see every inch of him.

Conspicuous among these latter, like an animated bit of the spiked wall of Newgate, Jerry stood: aiming at

the prisoner the beery breath of a whet he had taken as he came along, and discharging it to mingle with the

waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, and coffee, and what not, that flowed at him, and already broke upon

The object of all this staring and blaring, was a young man of about fiveandtwenty, wellgrown and

welllooking, with a sunburnt cheek and a dark eye. His condition was that of a young gentleman. He was

plainly dressed in black, or very dark grey, and his hair, which was long and dark, was gathered in a ribbon at

the back of his neck; more to be out of his way than for ornament. As an emotion of the mind will express

itself through any covering of the body, so the paleness which his situation engendered came through the

brown upon his cheek, showing the soul to be stronger than the sun. He was otherwise quite selfpossessed,

The sort of interest with which this man was stared and breathed at, was not a sort that elevated humanity.

Had he stood in peril of a less horrible sentencehad there been a chance of any one of its savage details

being sparedby just so much would he have lost in his fascination. The form that was to be doomed to be

so shamefully mangled, was the sight; the immortal creature that was to be so butchered and torn asunder,

yielded the sensation. Whatever gloss the various spectators put upon the interest, according to their several

Silence in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded Not Guilty to an indictment denouncing him

(with infinite jingle and jangle) for that he was a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth,

prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers occasions, and by divers means and ways,

assisted Lewis, the French King, in his wars against our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth; that

was to say, by coming and going, between the dominions of our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so

forth, and those of the said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, and otherwise

eviladverbiously, revealing to the said French Lewis what forces our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and

so forth, had in preparation to send to Canada and North America. This much, Jerry, with his head becoming

more and more spiky as the law terms bristled it, made out with huge satisfaction, and so arrived circuitously

at the understanding that the aforesaid, and over and over again aforesaid, Charles Darnay, stood there before

him upon his trial; that the jury were swearing in; and that Mr. AttorneyGeneral was making ready to speak.

The accused, who was (and who knew he was) being mentally hanged, beheaded, and quartered, by

everybody there, neither flinched from the situation, nor assumed any theatrical air in it. He was quiet and

attentive; watched the opening proceedings with a grave interest; and stood with his hands resting on the slab

of wood before him, so composedly, that they had not displaced a leaf of the herbs with which it was strewn.

The court was all bestrewn with herbs and sprinkled with vinegar, as a precaution against gaol air and gaol

Over the prisoner's head there was a mirror, to throw the light down upon him. Crowds of the wicked and the

wretched had been reflected in it, and had passed from its surface and this earth's together. Haunted in a most

ghastly manner that abominable place would have been, if the glass could ever have rendered back its

reflections, as the ocean is one day to give up its dead. Some passing thought of the infamy and disgrace for

which it had been reserved, may have struck the prisoner's mind. Be that as it may, a change in his position

making him conscious of a bar of light across his face, he looked up; and when he saw the glass his face

It happened, that the action turned his face to that side of the court which was on his left. About on a level

with his eyes, there sat, in that corner of the Judge's bench, two persons upon whom his look immediately

rested; so immediately, and so much to the changing of his aspect, that all the eyes that were tamed upon him,

The spectators saw in the two figures, a young lady of little more than twenty, and a gentleman who was

evidently her father; a man of a very remarkable appearance in respect of the absolute whiteness of his hair,

and a certain indescribable intensity of face: not of an active kind, but pondering and selfcommuning. When

this expression was upon him, he looked as if he were old; but when it was stirred and broken upas it was

now, in a moment, on his speaking to his daughterhe became a handsome man, not past the prime of life.

His daughter had one of her hands drawn through his arm, as she sat by him, and the other pressed upon it.

She had drawn close to him, in her dread of the scene, and in her pity for the prisoner. Her forehead had been

strikingly expressive of an engrossing terror and compassion that saw nothing but the peril of the accused.

This had been so very noticeable, so very powerfully and naturally shown, that starers who had had no pity

Jerry, the messenger, who had made his own observations, in his own manner, and who had been sucking the

rust off his fingers in his absorption, stretched his neck to hear who they were. The crowd about him had

pressed and passed the inquiry on to the nearest attendant, and from him it had been more slowly pressed and

The Judge, whose eyes had gone in the general direction, recalled them, leaned back in his seat, and looked

steadily at the man whose life was in his hand, as Mr. AttorneyGeneral rose to spin the rope, grind the axe,

Mr. AttorneyGeneral had to inform the jury, that the prisoner before them, though young in years, was old

in the treasonable practices which claimed the forfeit of his life. That this correspondence with the public

enemy was not a correspondence of today, or of yesterday, or even of last year, or of the year before. That,

it was certain the prisoner had, for longer than that, been in the habit of passing and repassing between France

and England, on secret business of which he could give no honest account. That, if it were in the nature of

traitorous ways to thrive (which happily it never was), the real wickedness and guilt of his business might

have remained undiscovered. That Providence, however, had put it into the heart of a person who was beyond

fear and beyond reproach, to ferret out the nature of the prisoner's schemes, and, struck with horror, to

disclose them to his Majesty's Chief Secretary of State and most honourable Privy Council. That, this patriot

would be produced before them. That, his position and attitude were, on the whole, sublime. That, he had

been the prisoner's friend, but, at once in an auspicious and an evil hour detecting his infamy, had resolved to

immolate the traitor he could no longer cherish in his bosom, on the sacred altar of his country. That, if

statues were decreed in Britain, as in ancient Greece and Rome, to public benefactors, this shining citizen

would assuredly have had one. That, as they were not so decreed, he probably would not have one. That,

Virtue, as had been observed by the poets (in many passages which he well knew the jury would have, word

for word, at the tips of their tongues; whereat the jury's countenances displayed a guilty consciousness that

they knew nothing about the passages), was in a manner contagious; more especially the bright virtue known

as patriotism, or love of country. That, the lofty example of this immaculate and unimpeachable witness for

the Crown, to refer to whom however unworthily was an honour, had communicated itself to the prisoner's

servant, and had engendered in him a holy determination to examine his master's tabledrawers and pockets,

and secrete his papers. That, he (Mr. AttorneyGeneral) was prepared to hear some disparagement attempted

of this admirable servant; but that, in a general way, he preferred him to his (Mr. AttorneyGeneral's)

brothers and sisters, and honoured him more than his (Mr. AttorneyGeneral's) father and mother. That, he

called with confidence on the jury to come and do likewise. That, the evidence of these two witnesses,

coupled with the documents of their discovering that would be produced, would show the prisoner to have

been furnished with lists of his Majesty's forces, and of their disposition and preparation, both by sea and

land, and would leave no doubt that he had habitually conveyed such information to a hostile power. That,

these lists could not be proved to be in the prisoner's handwriting; but that it was all the same; that, indeed, it

was rather the better for the prosecution, as showing the prisoner to be artful in his precautions. That, the

proof would go back five years, and would show the prisoner already engaged in these pernicious missions,

within a few weeks before the date of the very first action fought between the British troops and the

Americans. That, for these reasons, the jury, being a loyal jury (as he knew they were), and being a

responsible jury (as THEY knew they were), must positively find the prisoner Guilty, and make an end of

him, whether they liked it or not. That, they never could lay their heads upon their pillows; that, they never

could tolerate the idea of their wives laying their heads upon their pillows; that, they never could endure the

notion of their children laying their heads upon their pillows; in short, that there never more could be, for

them or theirs, any laying of heads upon pillows at all, unless the prisoner's head was taken off. That head

Mr. AttorneyGeneral concluded by demanding of them, in the name of everything he could think of with a

round turn in it, and on the faith of his solemn asseveration that he already considered the prisoner as good as

When the AttorneyGeneral ceased, a buzz arose in the court as if a cloud of great blueflies were swarming

about the prisoner, in anticipation of what he was soon to become. When toned down again, the

Mr. SolicitorGeneral then, following his leader's lead, examined the patriot: John Barsad, gentleman, by

name. The story of his pure soul was exactly what Mr. AttorneyGeneral had described it to be perhaps, if

it had a fault, a little too exactly. Having released his noble bosom of its burden, he would have modestly

withdrawn himself, but that the wigged gentleman with the papers before him, sitting not far from Mr. Lorry,

begged to ask him a few questions. The wigged gentleman sitting opposite, still looking at the ceiling of the

Had he ever been a spy himself? No, he scorned the base insinuation. What did he live upon? His property.

Where was his property? He didn't precisely remember where it was. What was it? No business of anybody's.

Had he inherited it? Yes, he had. From whom? Distant relation. Very distant? Rather. Ever been in prison?

Certainly not. Never in a debtors' prison? Didn't see what that had to do with it. Never in a debtors'

prison?Come, once again. Never? Yes. How many times? Two or three times. Not five or six? Perhaps. Of

what profession? Gentleman. Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked downstairs?

Decidedly not; once received a kick on the top of a staircase, and fell downstairs of his own accord. Kicked

on that occasion for cheating at dice? Something to that effect was said by the intoxicated liar who committed

the assault, but it was not true. Swear it was not true? Positively. Ever live by cheating at play? Never. Ever

live by play? Not more than other gentlemen do. Ever borrow money of the prisoner? Yes. Ever pay him?

No. Was not this intimacy with the prisoner, in reality a very slight one, forced upon the prisoner in coaches,

inns, and packets? No. Sure he saw the prisoner with these lists? Certain. Knew no more about the lists? No.

Had not procured them himself, for instance? No. Expect to get anything by this evidence? No. Not in regular

government pay and employment, to lay traps? Oh dear no. Or to do anything? Oh dear no. Swear that? Over

The virtuous servant, Roger Cly, swore his way through the case at a great rate. He had taken service with the

prisoner, in good faith and simplicity, four years ago. He had asked the prisoner, aboard the Calais packet, if

he wanted a handy fellow, and the prisoner had engaged him. He had not asked the prisoner to take the handy

fellow as an act of charitynever thought of such a thing. He began to have suspicions of the prisoner, and

to keep an eye upon him, soon afterwards. In arranging his clothes, while travelling, he had seen similar lists

to these in the prisoner's pockets, over and over again. He had taken these lists from the drawer of the

prisoner's desk. He had not put them there first. He had seen the prisoner show these identical lists to French

gentlemen at Calais, and similar lists to French gentlemen, both at Calais and Boulogne. He loved his

country, and couldn't bear it, and had given information. He had never been suspected of stealing a silver

teapot; he had been maligned respecting a mustardpot, but it turned out to be only a plated one. He had

known the last witness seven or eight years; that was merely a coincidence. He didn't call it a particularly

curious coincidence; most coincidences were curious. Neither did he call it a curious coincidence that true

patriotism was HIS only motive too. He was a true Briton, and hoped there were many like him.

"On a certain Friday night in November one thousand seven hundred and seventyfive, did business occasion

"Both were so wrapped up, and the night was so dark, and we were all so reserved, that I cannot undertake to

"Mr. Lorry, look again upon the prisoner. Supposing him wrapped up as those two passengers were, is there

anything in his bulk and stature to render it unlikely that he was one of them?"

"Yes. Except that I remember them both to have beenlike myself timorous of highwaymen, and the

"Mr. Lorry, look once more upon the prisoner. Have you seen him, to your certain knowledge, before?"

"I was returning from France a few days afterwards, and, at Calais, the prisoner came on board the

"In the dead of the night. Was he the only passenger who came on board at that untimely hour?"

"Never mind about `happening,' Mr. Lorry. He was the only passenger who came on board in the dead of the

"Hardly any. The weather was stormy, and the passage long and rough, and I lay on a sofa, almost from shore

The young lady, to whom all eyes had been turned before, and were now turned again, stood up where she

To be confronted with such pity, and such earnest youth and beauty, was far more trying to the accused than

to be confronted with all the crowd. Standing, as it were, apart with her on the edge of his grave, not all the

staring curiosity that looked on, could, for the moment, nerve him to remain quite still. His hurried right hand

parcelled out the herbs before him into imaginary beds of flowers in a garden; and his efforts to control and

steady his breathing shook the lips from which the colour rushed to his heart. The buzz of the great flies was

"On board of the packetship just now referred to, sir, and on the same occasion."

The plaintive tone of her compassion merged into the less musical voice of the Judge, as he said something

"Miss Manette, had you any conversation with the prisoner on that passage across the Channel?"

In the midst of a profound stillness, she faintly began: "When the gentleman came on board"

"When the prisoner came on board, he noticed that my father," turning her eyes lovingly to him as he stood

beside her, "was much fatigued and in a very weak state of health. My father was so reduced that I was afraid

to take him out of the air, and I had made a bed for him on the deck near the cabin steps, and I sat on the deck

at his side to take care of him. There were no other passengers that night, but we four. The prisoner was so

good as to beg permission to advise me how I could shelter my father from the wind and weather, better than

I had done. I had not known how to do it well, not understanding how the wind would set when we were out

of the harbour. He did it for me. He expressed great gentleness and kindness for my father's state, and I am

"They had conferred together until the last moment, when it was necessary for the French gentlemen to be

"Possibly, but indeed I don't know, although they stood whispering very near to me: because they stood at the

top of the cabin steps to have the light of the lamp that was hanging there; it was a dull lamp, and they spoke

very low, and I did not hear what they said, and saw only that they looked at papers."

"The prisoner was as open in his confidence with mewhich arose out of my helpless situationas he was

kind, and good, and useful to my father. I hope," bursting into tears, "I may not repay him by doing him harm

"Miss Manette, if the prisoner does not perfectly understand that you give the evidence which it is your duty

to givewhich you must give and which you cannot escape from givingwith great unwillingness, he is

"He told me that he was travelling on business of a delicate and difficult nature, which might get people into

trouble, and that he was therefore travelling under an assumed name. He said that this business had, within a

few days, taken him to France, and might, at intervals, take him backwards and forwards between France and

"He tried to explain to me how that quarrel had arisen, and he said that, so far as he could judge, it was a

wrong and foolish one on England's part. He added, in a jesting way, that perhaps George Washington might

gain almost as great a name in history as George the Third. But there was no harm in his way of saying this: it

Any strongly marked expression of face on the part of a chief actor in a scene of great interest to whom many

eyes are directed, will be unconsciously imitated by the spectators. Her forehead was painfully anxious and

intent as she gave this evidence, and, in the pauses when she stopped for the Judge to write it down, watched

its effect upon the counsel for and against. Among the lookerson there was the same expression in all

quarters of the court; insomuch, that a great majority of the foreheads there, might have been mirrors

reflecting the witness, when the Judge looked up from his notes to glare at that tremendous heresy about

Mr. AttorneyGeneral now signified to my Lord, that he deemed it necessary, as a matter of precaution and

form, to call the young lady's father, Doctor Manette. Who was called accordingly.

"Once. When he caged at my lodgings in London. Some three years, or three years and a half ago."

"Can you identify him as your fellowpassenger on board the packet, or speak to his conversation with your

"Is there any particular and special reason for your being unable to do either?"

"Has it been your misfortune to undergo a long imprisonment, without trial, or even accusation, in your

"None. My mind is a blank, from some timeI cannot even say what time when I employed myself, in

my captivity, in making shoes, to the time when I found myself living in London with my dear daughter here.

She had become familiar to me, when a gracious God restored my faculties; but, I am quite unable even to

A singular circumstance then arose in the case. The object in hand being to show that the prisoner went down,

with some fellowplotter untracked, in the Dover mail on that Friday night in November five years ago, and

got out of the mail in the night, as a blind, at a place where he did not remain, but from which he travelled

back some dozen miles or more, to a garrison and dockyard, and there collected information; a witness was

called to identify him as having been at the precise time required, in the coffeeroom of an hotel in that

garrisonanddockyard town, waiting for another person. The prisoner's counsel was crossexamining this

witness with no result, except that he had never seen the prisoner on any other occasion, when the wigged

gentleman who had all this time been looking at the ceiling of the court, wrote a word or two on a little piece

of paper, screwed it up, and tossed it to him. Opening this piece of paper in the next pause, the counsel looked

"Look well upon that gentleman, my learned friend there," pointing to him who had tossed the paper over,

"and then look well upon the prisoner. How say you? Are they very like each other?"

Allowing for my learned friend's appearance being careless and slovenly if not debauched, they were

sufficiently like each other to surprise, not only the witness, but everybody present, when they were thus

brought into comparison. My Lord being prayed to bid my learned friend lay aside his wig, and giving no

very gracious consent, the likeness became much more remarkable. My Lord inquired of Mr. Stryver (the

prisoner's counsel), whether they were next to try Mr. Carton (name of my learned friend) for treason? But,

Mr. Stryver replied to my Lord, no; but he would ask the witness to tell him whether what happened once,

might happen twice; whether he would have been so confident if he had seen this illustration of his rashness

sooner, whether he would be so confident, having seen it; and more. The upshot of which, was, to smash this

witness like a crockery vessel, and shiver his part of the case to useless lumber.

Mr. Cruncher had by this time taken quite a lunch of rust off his fingers in his following of the evidence. He

had now to attend while Mr. Stryver fitted the prisoner's case on the jury, like a compact suit of clothes;

showing them how the patriot, Barsad, was a hired spy and traitor, an unblushing trafficker in blood, and one

of the greatest scoundrels upon earth since accursed Judaswhich he certainly did look rather like. How the

virtuous servant, Cly, was his friend and partner, and was worthy to be; how the watchful eyes of those

forgers and false swearers had rested on the prisoner as a victim, because some family affairs in France, he

being of French extraction, did require his making those passages across the Channelthough what those

affairs were, a consideration for others who were near and dear to him, forbade him, even for his life, to

disclose. How the evidence that had been warped and wrested from the young lady, whose anguish in giving

it they had witnessed, came to nothing, involving the mere little innocent gallantries and politenesses likely to

pass between any young gentleman and young lady so thrown together;with the exception of that reference

to George Washington, which was altogether too extravagant and impossible to be regarded in any other light

than as a monstrous joke. How it would be a weakness in the government to break down in this attempt to

practise for popularity on the lowest national antipathies and fears, and therefore Mr. AttorneyGeneral had

made the most of it; how, nevertheless, it rested upon nothing, save that vile and infamous character of

evidence too often disfiguring such cases, and of which the State Trials of this country were full. But, there

my Lord interposed (with as grave a face as if it had not been true), saying that he could not sit upon that

Mr. Stryver then called his few witnesses, and Mr. Cruncher had next to attend while Mr. AttorneyGeneral

turned the whole suit of clothes Mr. Stryver had fitted on the jury, inside out; showing how Barsad and Cly

were even a hundred times better than he had thought them, and the prisoner a hundred times worse. Lastly,

came my Lord himself, turning the suit of clothes, now inside out, now outside in, but on the whole decidedly

Mr. Carton, who had so long sat looking at the ceiling of the court, changed neither his place nor his attitude,

even in this excitement. While his teamed friend, Mr. Stryver, massing his papers before him, whispered with

those who sat near, and from time to time glanced anxiously at the jury; while all the spectators moved more

or less, and grouped themselves anew; while even my Lord himself arose from his seat, and slowly paced up

and down his platform, not unattended by a suspicion in the minds of the audience that his state was feverish;

this one man sat leaning back, with his torn gown half off him, his untidy wig put on just as it had happened

to fight on his head after its removal, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the ceiling as they had been all

day. Something especially reckless in his demeanour, not only gave him a disreputable look, but so

diminished the strong resemblance he undoubtedly bore to the prisoner (which his momentary earnestness,

when they were compared together, had strengthened), that many of the lookerson, taking note of him now,

said to one another they would hardly have thought the two were so alike. Mr. Cruncher made the

observation to his next neighbour, and added, "I'd hold half a guinea that HE don't get no lawwork to do.

Yet, this Mr. Carton took in more of the details of the scene than he appeared to take in; for now, when Miss

Manette's head dropped upon her father's breast, he was the first to see it, and to say audibly: "Officer! look

to that young lady. Help the gentleman to take her out. Don't you see she will fall!"

There was much commiseration for her as she was removed, and much sympathy with her father. It had

evidently been a great distress to him, to have the days of his imprisonment recalled. He had shown strong

internal agitation when he was questioned, and that pondering or brooding look which made him old, had

been upon him, like a heavy cloud, ever since. As he passed out, the jury, who had turned back and paused a

They were not agreed, and wished to retire. My Lord (perhaps with George Washington on his mind) showed

some surprise that they were not agreed, but signified his pleasure that they should retire under watch and

ward, and retired himself. The trial had lasted all day, and the lamps in the court were now being lighted. It

began to be rumoured that the jury would be out a long while. The spectators dropped off to get refreshment,

Mr. Lorry, who had gone out when the young lady and her father went out, now reappeared, and beckoned to

"Jerry, if you wish to take something to eat, you can. But, keep in the way. You will be sure to hear when the

jury come in. Don't be a moment behind them, for I want you to take the verdict back to the bank. You are the

Jerry had just enough forehead to knuckle, and he knuckled it in acknowedgment of this communication and

"She is greatly distressed; but her father is comforting her, and she feels the better for being out of court."

"I'll tell the prisoner so. It won't do for a respectable bank gentleman like you, to be seen speaking to him

Mr. Lorry reddened as if he were conscious of having debated the point in his mind, and Mr. Carton made his

way to the outside of the bar. The way out of court lay in that direction, and Jerry followed him, all eyes, ears,

"You will naturally be anxious to hear of the witness, Miss Manette. She will do very well. You have seen the

"I am deeply sorry to have been the cause of it. Could you tell her so for me, with my fervent

Mr. Carton's manner was so careless as to be almost insolent. He stood, half turned from the prisoner,

"What," said Carton, still only half turned towards him, "do you expect, Mr. Darnay?"

"It's the wisest thing to expect, and the likeliest. But I think their withdrawing is in your favour."

Loitering on the way out of court not being allowed, Jerry heard no more: but left themso like each other

in feature, so unlike each other in mannerstanding side by side, both reflected in the glass above them.

An hour and a half limped heavily away in the thiefandrascal crowded passages below, even though

assisted off with mutton pies and ale. The hoarse messenger, uncomfortably seated on a form after taking that

refection, had dropped into a doze, when a loud murmur and a rapid tide of people setting up the stairs that

"If you had sent the message, `Recalled to Life,' again," muttered Jerry, as he turned, "I should have known

He had no opportunity of saying, or so much as thinking, anything else, until he was clear of the Old Bailey;

for, the crowd came pouring out with a vehemence that nearly took him off his legs, and a loud buzz swept

into the street as if the baffled blueflies were dispersing in search of other carrion.

From the dimlylighted passages of the court, the last sediment of the human stew that had been boiling there

all day, was straining off, when Doctor Manette, Lucie Manette, his daughter, Mr. Lorry, the solicitor for the

defence, and its counsel, Mr. Stryver, stood gathered round Mr. Charles Darnayjust

It would have been difficult by a far brighter light, to recognise in Doctor Manette, intellectual of face and

upright of bearing, the shoemaker of the garret in Paris. Yet, no one could have looked at him twice, without

looking again: even though the opportunity of observation had not extended to the mournful cadence of his

low grave voice, and to the abstraction that overclouded him fitfully, without any apparent reason. While one

external cause, and that a reference to his long lingering agony, would alwaysas on the trialevoke this

condition from the depths of his soul, it was also in its nature to arise of itself, and to draw a gloom over him,

as incomprehensible to those unacquainted with his story as if they had seen the shadow of the actual Bastille

thrown upon him by a summer sun, when the substance was three hundred miles away.

Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from his mind. She was the golden thread

that united him to a Past beyond his misery, and to a Present beyond his misery: and the sound of her voice,

the light of her face, the touch of her hand, had a strong beneficial influence with him almost always. Not

absolutely always, for she could recall some occasions on which her power had failed; but they were few and

Mr. Darnay had kissed her hand fervently and gratefully, and had turned to Mr. Stryver, whom he warmly

thanked. Mr. Stryver, a man of little more than thirty, but looking twenty years older than he was, stout, loud,

red, bluff, and free from any drawback of delicacy, had a pushing way of shouldering himself (morally and

physically) into companies and conversations, that argued well for his shouldering his way up in life.

He still had his wig and gown on, and he said, squaring himself at his late client to that degree that he

squeezed the innocent Mr. Lorry clean out of the group: "I am glad to have brought you off with honour, Mr.

Darnay. It was an infamous prosecution, grossly infamous; but not the less likely to succeed on that account."

"You have laid me under an obligation to you for lifein two senses," said his late client, taking his hand.

"I have done my best for you, Mr. Darnay; and my best is as good as another man's, I believe."

It clearly being incumbent on some one to say, "Much better," Mr. Lorry said it; perhaps not quite

disinterestedly, but with the interested object of squeezing himself back again.

"You think so?" said Mr. Stryver. "Well! you have been present all day, and you ought to know. You are a

"And as such," quoth Mr. Lorry, whom the counsel learned in the law had now shouldered back into the

group, just as he had previously shouldered him out of it"as such I will appeal to Doctor Manette, to break

up this conference and order us all to our homes. Miss Lucie looks ill, Mr. Darnay has had a terrible day, we

"Speak for yourself, Mr. Lorry," said Stryver; "I have a night's work to do yet. Speak for yourself."

"I speak for myself," answered Mr. Lorry, "and for Mr. Darnay, and for Miss Lucie, andMiss Lucie, do

you not think I may speak for us all?" He asked her the question pointedly, and with a glance at her father.

His face had become frozen, as it were, in a very curious look at Darnay: an intent look, deepening into a

frown of dislike and distrust, not even unmixed with fear. With this strange expression on him his thoughts

The friends of the acquitted prisoner had dispersed, under the impressionwhich he himself had

originatedthat he would not be released that night. The lights were nearly all extinguished in the passages,

the iron gates were being closed with a jar and a rattle, and the dismal place was deserted until tomorrow

morning's interest of gallows, pillory, whippingpost, and brandingiron, should repeople it. Walking

between her father and Mr. Darnay, Lucie Manette passed into the open air. A hackneycoach was called,

Mr. Stryver had left them in the passages, to shoulder his way back to the robingroom. Another person, who

had not joined the group, or interchanged a word with any one of them, but who had been leaning against the

wall where its shadow was darkest, had silently strolled out after the rest, and had looked on until the coach

drove away. He now stepped up to where Mr. Lorry and Mr. Darnay stood upon the pavement.

Nobody had made any acknowledgment of Mr. Carton's part in the day's proceedings; nobody had known of

"If you knew what a conflict goes on in the business mind, when the business mind is divided between

Mr. Lorry reddened, and said, warmly, "You have mentioned that before, sir. We men of business, who serve

a House, are not our own masters. We have to think of the House more than ourselves."

"_I_ know, _I_ know," rejoined Mr. Carton, carelessly. "Don't be nettled, Mr. Lorry. You are as good as

"And indeed, sir," pursued Mr. Lorry, not minding him, "I really don't know what you have to do with the

matter. If you'll excuse me, as very much your elder, for saying so, I really don't know that it is your

"Well, sir!" cried Mr. Lorry, thoroughly heated by his indifference, "business is a very good thing, and a very

respectable thing. And, sir, if business imposes its restraints and its silences and impediments, Mr. Darnay as

a young gentleman of generosity knows how to make allowance for that circumstance. Mr. Darnay, good

night, God bless you, sir! I hope you have been this day preserved for a prosperous and happy life.Chair

Perhaps a little angry with himself, as well as with the barrister, Mr. Lorry bustled into the chair, and was

carried off to Tellson's. Carton, who smelt of port wine, and did not appear to be quite sober, laughed then,

"This is a strange chance that throws you and me together. This must be a strange night to you, standing alone

"I don't wonder at it; it's not so long since you were pretty far advanced on your way to another. You speak

"Then why the devil don't you dine? I dined, myself, while those numskulls were deliberating which world

you should belong tothis, or some other. Let me show you the nearest tavern to dine well at."

Drawing his arm through his own, he took him down Ludgatehill to Fleetstreet, and so, up a covered way,

into a tavern. Here, they were shown into a little room, where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting his

strength with a good plain dinner and good wine: while Carton sat opposite to him at the same table, with his

"Do you feel, yet, that you belong to this terrestrial scheme again, Mr. Darnay?"

"I am frightfully confused regarding time and place; but I am so far mended as to feel that."

"As to me, the greatest desire I have, is to forget that I belong to it. It has no good in it for meexcept wine

like thisnor I for it. So we are not much alike in that particular. Indeed, I begin to think we are not much

Confused by the emotion of the day, and feeling his being there with this Double of coarse deportment, to be

like a dream, Charles Darnay was at a loss how to answer; finally, answered not at all.

"Now your dinner is done," Carton presently said, "why don't you call a health, Mr. Darnay; why don't you

"Why, it's on the tip of your tongue. It ought to be, it must be, I'll swear it's there."

Looking his companion full in the face while he drank the toast, Carton flung his glass over his shoulder

against the wall, where it shivered to pieces; then, rang the bell, and ordered in another.

"That's a fair young lady to hand to a coach in the dark, Mr. Darnay!" he said, ruing his new goblet.

"That's a fair young lady to be pitied by and wept for by! How does it feel? Is it worth being tried for one's

"She was mightily pleased to have your message, when I gave it her. Not that she showed she was pleased,

The allusion served as a timely reminder to Darnay that this disagreeable companion had, of his own free

will, assisted him in the strait of the day. He turned the dialogue to that point, and thanked him for it.

"I neither want any thanks, nor merit any," was the careless rejoinder. "It was nothing to do, in the first place;

and I don't know why I did it, in the second. Mr. Darnay, let me ask you a question."

"Really, Mr. Carton," returned the other, oddly disconcerted, "I have not asked myself the question."

"_I_ don't think I do," said Carton. "I begin to have a very good opinion of your understanding."

"Nevertheless," pursued Darnay, rising to ring the bell, "there is nothing in that, I hope, to prevent my calling

Carton rejoining, "Nothing in life!" Darnay rang. "Do you call the whole reckoning?" said Carton. On his

answering in the affirmative, "Then bring me another pint of this same wine, drawer, and come and wake me

The bill being paid, Charles Darnay rose and wished him good night. Without returning the wish, Carton rose

too, with something of a threat of defiance in his manner, and said, "A last word, Mr. Darnay: you think I am

"Then you shall likewise know why. I am a disappointed drudge, sir. I care for no man on earth, and no man

"May be so, Mr. Darnay; may be not. Don't let your sober face elate you, however; you don't know what it

When he was left alone, this strange being took up a candle, went to a glass that hung against the wall, and

"Do you particularly like the man?" he muttered, at his own image; "why should you particularly like a man

who resembles you? There is nothing in you to like; you know that. Ah, confound you! What a change you

have made in yourself! A good reason for taking to a man, that he shows you what you have fallen away

from, and what you might have been! Change places with him, and would you have been looked at by those

blue eyes as he was, and commiserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and have it out in plain

He resorted to his pint of wine for consolation, drank it all in a few minutes, and fell asleep on his arms, with

his hair straggling over the table, and a long windingsheet in the candle dripping down upon him.

Those were drinking days, and most men drank hard. So very great is the improvement Time has brought

about in such habits, that a moderate statement of the quantity of wine and punch which one man would

swallow in the course of a night, without any detriment to his reputation as a perfect gentleman, would seem,

in these days, a ridiculous exaggeration. The learned profession of the law was certainly not behind any other

learned profession in its Bacchanalian propensities; neither was Mr. Stryver, already fast shouldering his way

to a large and lucrative practice, behind his compeers in this particular, any more than in the drier parts of the

A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the Sessions, Mr. Stryver had begun cautiously to hew away the

lower staves of the ladder on which he mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey had now to summon their favourite,

specially, to their longing arms; and shouldering itself towards the visage of the Lord Chief Justice in the

Court of King's Bench, the florid countenance of Mr. Stryver might be daily seen, bursting out of the bed of

wigs, like a great sunflower pushing its way at the sun from among a rank gardenfull of flaring companions.

It had once been noted at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryver was a glib man, and an unscrupulous, and a ready,

and a bold, he had not that faculty of extracting the essence from a heap of statements, which is among the

most striking and necessary of the advocate's accomplishments. But, a remarkable improvement came upon

him as to this. The more business he got, the greater his power seemed to grow of getting at its pith and

marrow; and however late at night he sat carousing with Sydney Carton, he always had his points at his

Sydney Carton, idlest and most unpromising of men, was Stryver's great ally. What the two drank together,

between Hilary Term and Michaelmas, might have floated a king's ship. Stryver never had a case in hand,

anywhere, but Carton was there, with his hands in his pockets, staring at the ceiling of the court; they went

the same Circuit, and even there they prolonged their usual orgies late into the night, and Carton was

rumoured to be seen at broad day, going home stealthily and unsteadily to his lodgings, like a dissipated cat.

At last, it began to get about, among such as were interested in the matter, that although Sydney Carton

would never be a lion, he was an amazingly good jackal, and that he rendered suit and service to Stryver in

"Ten o'clock, sir," said the man at the tavern, whom he had charged to wake him"ten o'clock, sir."

After a few dull efforts to get to sleep again, which the man dexterously combated by stirring the fire

continuously for five minutes, he got up, tossed his hat on, and walked out. He turned into the Temple, and,

having revived himself by twice pacing the pavements of King's Benchwalk and Paperbuildings, turned

The Stryver clerk, who never assisted at these conferences, had gone home, and the Stryver principal opened

the door. He had his slippers on, and a loose bedgown, and his throat was bare for his greater ease. He had

that rather wild, strained, seared marking about the eyes, which may be observed in all free livers of his class,

from the portrait of Jeffries downward, and which can be traced, under various disguises of Art, through the

They went into a dingy room lined with books and littered with papers, where there was a blazing fire. A

kettle steamed upon the hob, and in the midst of the wreck of papers a table shone, with plenty of wine upon

"Two tonight, I think. I have been dining with the day's client; or seeing him dineit's all one!"

"That was a rare point, Sydney, that you brought to bear upon the identification. How did you come by it?

"I thought he was rather a handsome fellow, and I thought I should have been much the same sort of fellow,

Sullenly enough, the jackal loosened his dress, went into an adjoining room, and came back with a large jug

of cold water, a basin, and a towel or two. Steeping the towels in the water, and partially wringing them out,

he folded them on his head in a manner hideous to behold, sat down at the table, and said, "Now I am ready!"

"Not much boiling down to be done tonight, Memory," said Mr. Stryver, gaily, as he looked among his

The lion then composed himself on his back on a sofa on one side of the drinkingtable, while the jackal sat

at his own paperbestrewn table proper, on the other side of it, with the bottles and glasses ready to his hand.

Both resorted to the drinkingtable without stint, but each in a different way; the lion for the most part

reclining with his hands in his waistband, looking at the fire, or occasionally flirting with some lighter

document; the jackal, with knitted brows and intent face, so deep in his task, that his eyes did not even follow

the hand he stretched out for his glasswhich often groped about, for a minute or more, before it found the

glass for his lips. Two or three times, the matter in hand became so knotty, that the jackal found it imperative

on him to get up, and steep his towels anew. From these pilgrimages to the jug and basin, he returned with

such eccentricities of damp headgear as no words can describe; which were made the more ludicrous by his

At length the jackal had got together a compact repast for the lion, and proceeded to offer it to him. The lion

took it with care and caution, made his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal assisted

both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion put his hands in his waistband again, and lay down to

mediate. The jackal then invigorated himself with a bum for his throttle, and a fresh application to his head,

and applied himself to the collection of a second meal; this was administered to the lion in the same manner,

The jackal removed the towels from his head, which had been steaming again, shook himself, yawned,

"You were very sound, Sydney, in the matter of those crown witnesses today. Every question told."

"I don't gainsay it. What has roughened your temper? Put some punch to it and smooth it again."

"The old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School," said Stryver, nodding his head over him as he reviewed

him in the present and the past, "the old seesaw Sydney. Up one minute and down the next; now in spirits and

"Ah!" returned the other, sighing: "yes! The same Sydney, with the same luck. Even then, I did exercises for

He sat, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out before him, looking at the fire.

"Carton," said his friend, squaring himself at him with a bullying air, as if the firegrate had been the furnace

in which sustained endeavour was forged, and the one delicate thing to be done for the old Sydney Carton of

old Shrewsbury School was to shoulder him into it, "your way is, and always was, a lame way. You summon

"Oh, botheration!" returned Sydney, with a lighter and more good humoured laugh, "don't YOU be moral!"

"Partly through paying me to help you, I suppose. But it's not worth your while to apostrophise me, or the air,

about it; what you want to do, you do. You were always in the front rank, and I was always behind."

"I was not present at the ceremony; but my opinion is you were," said Carton. At this, he laughed again, and

"Before Shrewsbury, and at Shrewsbury, and ever since Shrewsbury," pursued Carton, "you have fallen into

your rank, and I have fallen into mine. Even when we were fellowstudents in the StudentQuarter of Paris,

picking up French, and French law, and other French crumbs that we didn't get much good of, you were

"Upon my soul, I am not sure that it was not yours. You were always driving and riving and shouldering and

passing, to that restless degree that I had no chance for my life but in rust and repose. It's a gloomy thing,

however, to talk about one's own past, with the day breaking. Turn me in some other direction before I go."

"Well then! Pledge me to the pretty witness," said Stryver, holding up his glass. "Are you turned in a pleasant

"Pretty witness," he muttered, looking down into his glass. "I have had enough of witnesses today and

"Rot the admiration of the whole Court! Who made the Old Bailey a judge of beauty? She was a

"Do you know, Sydney," said Mr. Stryver, looking at him with sharp eyes, and slowly drawing a hand across

his florid face: "do you know, I rather thought, at the time, that you sympathised with the goldenhaired doll,

"Quick to see what happened! If a girl, doll or no doll, swoons within a yard or two of a man's nose, he can

see it without a perspectiveglass. I pledge you, but I deny the beauty. And now I'll have no more drink; I'll

When his host followed him out on the staircase with a candle, to light him down the stairs, the day was

coldly looking in through its grimy windows. When he got out of the house, the air was cold and sad, the dull

sky overcast, the river dark and dim, the whole scene like a lifeless desert. And wreaths of dust were spinning

round and round before the morning blast, as if the desertsand had risen far away, and the first spray of it in

Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man stood still on his way across a silent terrace, and

saw for a moment, lying in the wilderness before him, a mirage of honourable ambition, selfdenial, and

perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airy galleries from which the loves and graces looked

upon him, gardens in which the fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled in his sight. A

moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber in a well of houses, he threw himself down in his

Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions,

incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight

The quiet lodgings of Doctor Manette were in a quiet streetcorner not far from Sohosquare. On the

afternoon of a certain fine Sunday when the waves of four months had roiled over the trial for treason, and

carried it, as to the public interest and memory, far out to sea, Mr. Jarvis Lorry walked along the sunny streets

from Clerkenwell where he lived, on his way to dine with the Doctor. After several relapses into

businessabsorption, Mr. Lorry had become the Doctor's friend, and the quiet streetcorner was the sunny

On this certain fine Sunday, Mr. Lorry walked towards Soho, early in the afternoon, for three reasons of

habit. Firstly, because, on fine Sundays, he often walked out, before dinner, with the Doctor and Lucie;

secondly, because, on unfavourable Sundays, he was accustomed to be with them as the family friend,

talking, reading, looking out of window, and generally getting through the day; thirdly, because he happened

to have his own little shrewd doubts to solve, and knew how the ways of the Doctor's household pointed to

A quainter corner than the corner where the Doctor lived, was not to be found in London. There was no way

through it, and the front windows of the Doctor's lodgings commanded a pleasant little vista of street that had

a congenial air of retirement on it. There were few buildings then, north of the Oxfordroad, and foresttrees

flourished, and wild flowers grew, and the hawthorn blossomed, in the now vanished fields. As a

consequence, country airs circulated in Soho with vigorous freedom, instead of languishing into the parish

like stray paupers without a settlement; and there was many a good south wall, not far off, on which the

The summer light struck into the corner brilliantly in the earlier part of the day; but, when the streets grew

hot, the corner was in shadow, though not in shadow so remote but that you could see beyond it into a glare

of brightness. It was a cool spot, staid but cheerful, a wonderful place for echoes, and a very harbour from the

There ought to have been a tranquil bark in such an anchorage, and there was. The Doctor occupied two

floors of a large stiff house, where several callings purported to be pursued by day, but whereof little was

audible any day, and which was shunned by all of them at night. In a building at the back, attainable by a

courtyard where a planetree rustled its green leaves, churchorgans claimed to be made, and silver to be

chased, and likewise gold to be beaten by some mysterious giant who had a golden arm starting out of the

wall of the front hallas if he had beaten himself precious, and menaced a similar conversion of all visitors.

Very little of these trades, or of a lonely lodger rumoured to live upstairs, or of a dim coachtrimming

maker asserted to have a countinghouse below, was ever heard or seen. Occasionally, a stray workman

putting his coat on, traversed the hall, or a stranger peered about there, or a distant clink was heard across the

courtyard, or a thump from the golden giant. These, however, were only the exceptions required to prove the

rule that the sparrows in the planetree behind the house, and the echoes in the corner before it, had their own

Doctor Manette received such patients here as his old reputation, and its revival in the floating whispers of his

story, brought him. His scientific knowledge, and his vigilance and skill in conducting ingenious

experiments, brought him otherwise into moderate request, and he earned as much as he wanted.

These things were within Mr. Jarvis Lorry's knowledge, thoughts, and notice, when he rang the doorbell of

Possibly at home, but of a certainty impossible for handmaid to anticipate intentions of Miss Pross, as to

Although the Doctor's daughter had known nothing of the country of her birth, she appeared to have innately

derived from it that ability to make much of little means, which is one of its most useful and most agreeable

characteristics. Simple as the furniture was, it was set off by so many little adornments, of no value but for

their taste and fancy, that its effect was delightful. The disposition of everything in the rooms, from the

largest object to the least; the arrangement of colours, the elegant variety and contrast obtained by thrift in

trifles, by delicate hands, clear eyes, and good sense; were at once so pleasant in themselves, and so

expressive of their originator, that, as Mr. Lorry stood looking about him, the very chairs and tables seemed

to ask him, with something of that peculiar expression which he knew so well by this time, whether he

There were three rooms on a floor, and, the doors by which they communicated being put open that the air

might pass freely through them all, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of that fanciful resemblance which he

detected all around him, walked from one to another. The first was the best room, and in it were Lucie's birds,

and flowers, and books, and desk, and worktable, and box of watercolours; the second was the Doctor's

consultingroom, used also as the diningroom; the third, changingly speckled by the rustle of the planetree

in the yard, was the Doctor's bedroom, and there, in a corner, stood the disused shoemaker's bench and tray of

tools, much as it had stood on the fifth floor of the dismal house by the wineshop, in the suburb of Saint

"I wonder," said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his looking about, "that he keeps that reminder of his sufferings about

It proceeded from Miss Pross, the wild red woman, strong of hand, whose acquaintance he had first made at

"How do you do?" inquired that lady thensharply, and yet as if to express that she bore him no malice.

"I am pretty well, I thank you," answered Mr. Lorry, with meekness; "how are you?"

"For gracious sake say something else besides `indeed,' or you'll fidget me to death," said Miss Pross: whose

"Really, is bad enough," returned Miss Pross, "but better. Yes, I am very much put out."

"I don't want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of Ladybird, to come here looking after her," said

It was characteristic of this lady (as of some other people before her time and since) that whenever her

"I have lived with the darlingor the darling has lived with me, and paid me for it; which she certainly

should never have done, you may take your affidavit, if I could have afforded to keep either myself or her for

nothingsince she was ten years old. And it's really very hard," said Miss Pross.

Not seeing with precision what was very hard, Mr. Lorry shook his head; using that important part of himself

"All sorts of people who are not in the least degree worthy of the pet, are always turning up," said Miss Pross.

"It wasn't ending it, I suppose? I say, when you began it, it was hard enough; not that I have any fault to find

with Doctor Manette, except that he is not worthy of such a daughter, which is no imputation on him, for it

was not to be expected that anybody should be, under any circumstances. But it ready is doubly and trebly

hard to have crowds and multitudes of people turning up after him (I could have forgiven him), to take

Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew her by this time to be, beneath the service of

her eccentricity, one of those unselfish creaturesfound only among womenwho will, for pure love and

admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to youth when they have lost it, to beauty that they never had, to

accomplishments that they were never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never shone upon their

own sombre lives. He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful

service of the heart; so rendered and so free from any mercenary taint, he had such an exalted respect for it,

that in the retributive arrangements made by his own mindwe all make such arrangements, more or less

he stationed Miss Pross much nearer to the lower Angels than many ladies immeasurably better got up both

"There never was, nor will be, but one man worthy of Ladybird," said Miss Pross; "and that was my brother

Here again: Mr. Lorry's inquiries into Miss Pross's personal history had established the fact that her brother

Solomon was a heartless scoundrel who had stripped her of everything she possessed, as a stake to speculate

with, and had abandoned her in her poverty for evermore, with no touch of compunction. Miss Pross's fidelity

of belief in Solomon (deducting a mere trifle for this slight mistake) was quite a serious matter with Mr.

"As we happen to be alone for the moment, and are both people of business," he said, when they had got back

to the drawingroom and had sat down there in friendly relations, "let me ask youdoes the Doctor, in

"Ah!" returned Miss Pross, shaking her head. "But I don't say he don't refer to it within himself."

"Do you suppose," Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing twinkle in his bright eye, as it looked kindly at her,

"that Doctor Manette has any theory of his own, preserved through all those years, relative to the cause of his

"Now don't be angry at my asking all these questions; because I am a mere dull man of business, and you are

Rather wishing his modest adjective away, Mr. Lorry replied, "No, no, no. Surely not. To return to

business:Is it not remarkable that Doctor Manette, unquestionably innocent of any crane as we are all well

assured he is, should never touch upon that question? I will not say with me, though he had business relations

with me many years ago, and we are now intimate; I will say with the fair daughter to whom he is so

devotedly attached, and who is so devotedly attached to him? Believe me, Miss Pross, I don't approach the

"Well! To the best of my understanding, and bad's the best, you'll tell me," said Miss Pross, softened by the

"It's plain enough, I should think, why he may be. It's a dreadful remembrance. Besides that, his loss of

himself grew out of it. Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never feel

certain of not losing himself again. That alone wouldn't make the subject pleasant, I should think."

It was a profounder remark than Mr. Lorry had looked for. "True," said he, "and fearful to reflect upon. Yet, a

doubt lurks in my mind, Miss Pross, whether it is good for Doctor Manette to have that suppression always

shut up within him. Indeed, it is this doubt and the uneasiness it sometimes causes me that has led me to our

"Can't be helped," said Miss Pross, shaking her head. "Touch that string, and he instantly changes for the

worse. Better leave it alone. In short, must leave it alone, like or no like. Sometimes, he gets up in the dead of

the night, and will be heard, by us overhead there, walking up and down, walking up and down, in his room.

Ladybird has learnt to know then that his mind is walking up and down, walking up and down, in his old

prison. She hurries to him, and they go on together, walking up and down, walking up and down, until he is

composed. But he never says a word of the true reason of his restlessness, to her, and she finds it best not to

hint at it to him. In silence they go walking up and down together, walking up and down together, till her love

Notwithstanding Miss Pross's denial of her own imagination, there was a perception of the pain of being

monotonously haunted by one sad idea, in her repetition of the phrase, walking up and down, which testified

The corner has been mentioned as a wonderful corner for echoes; it had begun to echo so resoundingly to the

tread of coming feet, that it seemed as though the very mention of that weary pacing to and fro had set it

"Here they are!" said Miss Pross, rising to break up the conference; "and now we shall have hundreds of

It was such a curious corner in its acoustical properties, such a peculiar Ear of a place, that as Mr. Lorry stood

at the open window, looking for the father and daughter whose steps he heard, he fancied they would never

approach. Not only would the echoes die away, as though the steps had gone; but, echoes of other steps that

never came would be heard in their stead, and would die away for good when they seemed close at hand.

However, father and daughter did at last appear, and Miss Pross was ready at the street door to receive them.

Miss Pross was a pleasant sight, albeit wild, and red, and grim, taking off her darling's bonnet when she came

upstairs, and touching it up with the ends of her handkerchief, and blowing the dust off it, and folding her

mantle ready for laying by, and smoothing her rich hair with as much pride as she could possibly have taken

in her own hair if she had been the vainest and handsomest of women. Her darling was a pleasant sight too,

embracing her and thanking her, and protesting against her taking so much trouble for herwhich last she

only dared to do playfully, or Miss Pross, sorely hurt, would have retired to her own chamber and cried. The

Doctor was a pleasant sight too, looking on at them, and telling Miss Pross how she spoilt Lucie, in accents

and with eyes that had as much spoiling in them as Miss Pross had, and would have had more if it were

possible. Mr. Lorry was a pleasant sight too, beaming at all this in his little wig, and thanking his bachelor

stars for having lighted him in his declining years to a Home. But, no Hundreds of people came to see the

sights, and Mr. Lorry looked in vain for the fulfilment of Miss Pross's prediction.

Dinnertime, and still no Hundreds of people. In the arrangements of the little household, Miss Pross took

charge of the lower regions, and always acquitted herself marvellously. Her dinners, of a very modest quality,

were so well cooked and so well served, and so neat in their contrivances, half English and half French, that

nothing could be better. Miss Pross's friendship being of the thoroughly practical kind, she had ravaged Soho

and the adjacent provinces, in search of impoverished French, who, tempted by shillings and half crowns,

would impart culinary mysteries to her. From these decayed sons and daughters of Gaul, she had acquired

such wonderful arts, that the woman and girl who formed the staff of domestics regarded her as quite a

Sorceress, or Cinderella's Godmother: who would send out for a fowl, a rabbit, a vegetable or two from the

On Sundays, Miss Pross dined at the Doctor's table, but on other days persisted in taking her meals at

unknown periods, either in the lower regions, or in her own room on the second floora blue chamber, to

which no one but her Ladybird ever gained admittance. On this occasion, Miss Pross, responding to

Ladybird's pleasant face and pleasant efforts to please her, unbent exceedingly; so the dinner was very

It was an oppressive day, and, after dinner, Lucie proposed that the wine should be carried out under the

planetree, and they should sit there in the air. As everything turned upon her, and revolved about her, they

went out under the planetree, and she carried the wine down for the special benefit of Mr. Lorry. She had

installed herself, some time before, as Mr. Lorry's cupbearer; and while they sat under the planetree,

talking, she kept his glass replenished. Mysterious backs and ends of houses peeped at them as they talked,

Still, the Hundreds of people did not present themselves. Mr. Darnay presented himself while they were

Doctor Manette received him kindly, and so did Lucie. But, Miss Pross suddenly became afflicted with a

twitching in the head and body, and retired into the house. She was not unfrequently the victim of this

The Doctor was in his best condition, and looked specially young. The resemblance between him and Lucie

was very strong at such times, and as they sat side by side, she leaning on his shoulder, and he resting his arm

He had been talking all day, on many subjects, and with unusual vivacity. "Pray, Doctor Manette," said Mr.

Darnay, as they sat under the planetreeand he said it in the natural pursuit of the topic in hand, which

"Lucie and I have been there; but only casually. We have seen enough of it, to know that it teems with

"_I_ have been there, as you remember," said Darnay, with a smile, though reddening a little angrily, "in

another character, and not in a character that gives facilities for seeing much of it. They told me a curious

"In making some alterations, the workmen came upon an old dungeon, which had been, for many years, built

up and forgotten. Every stone of its inner wall was covered by inscriptions which had been carved by

prisonersdates, names, complaints, and prayers. Upon a corner stone in an angle of the wall, one prisoner,

who seemed to have gone to execution, had cut as his last work, three letters. They were done with some very

poor instrument, and hurriedly, with an unsteady hand. At first, they were read as D. I. C.; but, on being more

carefully examined, the last letter was found to be G. There was no record or legend of any prisoner with

those initials, and many fruitless guesses were made what the name could have been. At length, it was

suggested that the letters were not initials, but the complete word, DiG. The floor was examined very

carefully under the inscription, and, in the earth beneath a stone, or tile, or some fragment of paving, were

found the ashes of a paper, mingled with the ashes of a small leathern case or bag. What the unknown

prisoner had written will never be read, but he had written something, and hidden it away to keep it from the

He had suddenly started up, with his hand to his head. His manner and his look quite terrified them all.

"No, my dear, not ill. There are large drops of rain falling, and they made me start. We had better go in."

He recovered himself almost instantly. Rain was really falling in large drops, and he showed the back of his

hand with raindrops on it. But, he said not a single word in reference to the discovery that had been told of,

and, as they went into the house, the business eye of Mr. Lorry either detected, or fancied it detected, on his

face, as it turned towards Charles Darnay, the same singular look that had been upon it when it turned

He recovered himself so quickly, however, that Mr. Lorry had doubts of his business eye. The arm of the

golden giant in the hall was not more steady than he was, when he stopped under it to remark to them that he

was not yet proof against slight surprises (if he ever would be), and that the rain had startled him.

Teatime, and Miss Pross making tea, with another fit of the jerks upon her, and yet no Hundreds of people.

The night was so very sultry, that although they sat with doors and windows open, they were overpowered by

heat. When the teatable was done with, they all moved to one of the windows, and looked out into the heavy

twilight. Lucie sat by her father; Darnay sat beside her; Carton leaned against a window. The curtains were

long and white, and some of the thundergusts that whirled into the corner, caught them up to the ceiling, and

"The raindrops are still falling, large, heavy, and few," said Doctor Manette. "It comes slowly."

They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do; as people in a dark room, watching and waiting

There was a great hurry in the streets of people speeding away to get shelter before the storm broke; the

wonderful corner for echoes resounded with the echoes of footsteps coming and going, yet not a footstep was

"A multitude of people, and yet a solitude!" said Darnay, when they had listened for a while.

"Is it not impressive, Mr. Darnay?" asked Lucie. "Sometimes, I have sat here of an evening, until I have

fanciedbut even the shade of a foolish fancy makes me shudder tonight, when all is so black and

"It will seem nothing to you. Such whims are only impressive as we originate them, I think; they are not to be

communicated. I have sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made the echoes out to

"There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if that be so," Sydney Carton struck in, in his moody

The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became more and more rapid. The corner echoed and

reechoed with the tread of feet; some, as it seemed, under the windows; some, as it seemed, in the room;

some coming, some going, some breaking off, some stopping altogether; all in the distant streets, and not one

"Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss Manette, or are we to divide them among us?"

"I don't know, Mr. Darnay; I told you it was a foolish fancy, but you asked for it. When I have yielded myself

to it, I have been alone, and then I have imagined them the footsteps of the people who are to come into my

"I take them into mine!" said Carton. "_I_ ask no questions and make no stipulations. There is a great crowd

bearing down upon us, Miss Manette, and I see themby the Lightning." He added the last words, after

"And I hear them!" he added again, after a peal of thunder. "Here they come, fast, fierce, and furious!"

It was the rush and roar of rain that he typified, and it stopped him, for no voice could be heard in it. A

memorable storm of thunder and lightning broke with that sweep of water, and there was not a moment's

The great bell of Saint Paul's was striking one in the cleared air, when Mr. Lorry, escorted by Jerry,

highbooted and bearing a lantern, set forth on his returnpassage to Clerkenwell. There were solitary

patches of road on the way between Soho and Clerkenwell, and Mr. Lorry, mindful of footpads, always

retained Jerry for this service: though it was usually performed a good two hours earlier.

"What a night it has been! Almost a night, Jerry," said Mr. Lorry, "to bring the dead out of their graves."

"I never see the night myself, masternor yet I don't expect to what would do that," answered Jerry.

"Good night, Mr. Carton," said the man of business. "Good night, Mr. Darnay. Shall we ever see such a night

Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great crowd of people with its rush and roar, bearing down upon them, too.

Monseigneur, one of the great lords in power at the Court, held his fortnightly reception in his grand hotel in

Paris. Monseigneur was in his inner room, his sanctuary of sanctuaries, the Holiest of Holiests to the crowd of

worshippers in the suite of rooms without. Monseigneur was about to take his chocolate. Monseigneur could

swallow a great many things with ease, and was by some few sullen minds supposed to be rather rapidly

swallowing France; but, his morning's chocolate could not so much as get into the throat of Monseigneur,

Yes. It took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous decoration, and the Chief of them unable to exist with

fewer than two gold watches in his pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion set by Monseigneur, to

conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur's lips. One lacquey carried the chocolatepot into the sacred

presence; a second, milled and frothed the chocolate with the little instrument he bore for that function; a

third, presented the favoured napkin; a fourth (he of the two gold watches), poured the chocolate out. It was

impossible for Monseigneur to dispense with one of these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high place

under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have been the blot upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been

Monseigneur had been out at a little supper last night, where the Comedy and the Grand Opera were

charmingly represented. Monseigneur was out at a little supper most nights, with fascinating company. So

polite and so impressible was Monseigneur, that the Comedy and the Grand Opera had far more influence

with him in the tiresome articles of state affairs and state secrets, than the needs of all France. A happy

circumstance for France, as the like always is for all countries similarly favoured!always was for England

Monseigneur had one truly noble idea of general public business, which was, to let everything go on in its

own way; of particular public business, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea that it must all go his

waytend to his own power and pocket. Of his pleasures, general and particular, Monseigneur had the other

truly noble idea, that the world was made for them. The text of his order (altered from the original by only a

pronoun, which is not much) ran: "The earth and the fulness thereof are mine, saith Monseigneur."

Yet, Monseigneur had slowly found that vulgar embarrassments crept into his affairs, both private and public;

and he had, as to both classes of affairs, allied himself perforce with a FarmerGeneral. As to finances public,

because Monseigneur could not make anything at all of them, and must consequently let them out to

somebody who could; as to finances private, because FarmerGenerals were rich, and Monseigneur, after

generations of great luxury and expense, was growing poor. Hence Monseigneur had taken his sister from a

convent, while there was yet time to ward off the impending veil, the cheapest garment she could wear, and

had bestowed her as a prize upon a very rich FarmerGeneral, poor in family. Which FarmerGeneral,

carrying an appropriate cane with a golden apple on the top of it, was now among the company in the outer

rooms, much prostrated before by mankindalways excepting superior mankind of the blood of

Monseigneur, who, his own wife included, looked down upon him with the loftiest contempt.

A sumptuous man was the FarmerGeneral. Thirty horses stood in his stables, twentyfour male domestics

sat in his halls, six bodywomen waited on his wife. As one who pretended to do nothing but plunder and

forage where he could, the FarmerGeneralhowsoever his matrimonial relations conduced to social

moralitywas at least the greatest reality among the personages who attended at the hotel of Monseigneur

For, the rooms, though a beautiful scene to look at, and adorned with every device of decoration that the taste

and skill of the time could achieve, were, in truth, not a sound business; considered with any reference to the

scarecrows in the rags and nightcaps elsewhere (and not so far off, either, but that the watching towers of

Notre Dame, almost equidistant from the two extremes, could see them both), they would have been an

exceedingly uncomfortable businessif that could have been anybody's business, at the house of

Monseigneur. Military officers destitute of military knowledge; naval officers with no idea of a ship; civil

officers without a notion of affairs; brazen ecclesiastics, of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose

tongues, and looser lives; all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in pretending to belong

to them, but all nearly or remotely of the order of Monseigneur, and therefore foisted on all public

employments from which anything was to be got; these were to be told off by the score and the score. People

not immediately connected with Monseigneur or the State, yet equally unconnected with anything that was

real, or with lives passed in travelling by any straight road to any true earthly end, were no less abundant.

Doctors who made great fortunes out of dainty remedies for imaginary disorders that never existed, smiled

upon their courtly patients in the antechambers of Monseigneur. Projectors who had discovered every kind

of remedy for the little evils with which the State was touched, except the remedy of setting to work in

earnest to root out a single sin, poured their distracting babble into any ears they could lay hold of, at the

reception of Monseigneur. Unbelieving Philosophers who were remodelling the world with words, and

making cardtowers of Babel to scale the skies with, talked with Unbelieving Chemists who had an eye on

the transmutation of metals, at this wonderful gathering accumulated by Monseigneur. Exquisite gentlemen

of the finest breeding, which was at that remarkable timeand has been sinceto be known by its fruits of

indifference to every natural subject of human interest, were in the most exemplary state of exhaustion, at the

hotel of Monseigneur. Such homes had these various notabilities left behind them in the fine world of Paris,

that the spies among the assembled devotees of Monseigneurforming a goodly half of the polite

companywould have found it hard to discover among the angels of that sphere one solitary wife, who, in

her manners and appearance, owned to being a Mother. Indeed, except for the mere act of bringing a

troublesome creature into this world which does not go far towards the realisation of the name of

mother there was no such thing known to the fashion. Peasant women kept the unfashionable babies close,

and brought them up, and charming grandmammas of sixty dressed and supped as at twenty.

The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance upon Monseigneur. In the outermost

room were half a dozen exceptional people who had had, for a few years, some vague misgiving in them that

things in general were going rather wrong. As a promising way of setting them right, half of the halfdozen

had become members of a fantastic sect of Convulsionists, and were even then considering within themselves

whether they should foam, rage, roar, and turn cataleptic on the spotthereby setting up a highly intelligible

fingerpost to the Future, for Monseigneur's guidance. Besides these Dervishes, were other three who had

rushed into another sect, which mended matters with a jargon about "the Centre of Truth:" holding that Man

had got out of the Centre of Truthwhich did not need much demonstrationbut had not got out of the

Circumference, and that he was to be kept from flying out of the Circumference, and was even to be shoved

back into the Centre, by fasting and seeing of spirits. Among these, accordingly, much discoursing with

But, the comfort was, that all the company at the grand hotel of Monseigneur were perfectly dressed. If the

Day of Judgment had only been ascertained to be a dress day, everybody there would have been eternally

correct. Such frizzling and powdering and sticking up of hair, such delicate complexions artificially preserved

and mended, such gallant swords to look at, and such delicate honour to the sense of smell, would surely keep

anything going, for ever and ever. The exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding wore little pendent trinkets

that chinked as they languidly moved; these golden fetters rang like precious little bells; and what with that

ringing, and with the rustle of silk and brocade and fine linen, there was a flutter in the air that fanned Saint

Dress was the one unfailing talisman and charm used for keeping all things in their places. Everybody was

dressed for a Fancy Ball that was never to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, through Monseigneur

and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows),

the Fancy Ball descended to the Common Executioner: who, in pursuance of the charm, was required to

officiate "frizzled, powdered, in a goldlaced coat, pumps, and white silk stockings." At the gallows and the

wheelthe axe was a rarityMonsieur Paris, as it was the episcopal mode among his brother Professors of

the provinces, Monsieur Orleans, and the rest, to call him, presided in this dainty dress. And who among the

company at Monseigneur's reception in that seventeen hundred and eightieth year of our Lord, could possibly

doubt, that a system rooted in a frizzled hangman, powdered, goldlaced, pumped, and whitesilk

Monseigneur having eased his four men of their burdens and taken his chocolate, caused the doors of the

Holiest of Holiests to be thrown open, and issued forth. Then, what submission, what cringing and fawning,

what servility, what abject humiliation! As to bowing down in body and spirit, nothing in that way was left

for Heavenwhich may have been one among other reasons why the worshippers of Monseigneur never

Bestowing a word of promise here and a smile there, a whisper on one happy slave and a wave of the hand on

another, Monseigneur affably passed through his rooms to the remote region of the Circumference of Truth.

There, Monseigneur turned, and came back again, and so in due course of time got himself shut up in his

The show being over, the flutter in the air became quite a little storm, and the precious little bells went

ringing downstairs. There was soon but one person left of all the crowd, and he, with his hat under his arm

"I devote you," said this person, stopping at the last door on his way, and turning in the direction of the

With that, he shook the snuff from his fingers as if he had shaken the dust from his feet, and quietly walked

He was a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty in manner, and with a face like a fine mask. A

face of a transparent paleness; every feature in it clearly defined; one set expression on it. The nose,

beautifully formed otherwise, was very slightly pinched at the top of each nostril. In those two compressions,

or dints, the only little change that the face ever showed, resided. They persisted in changing colour

sometimes, and they would be occasionally dilated and contracted by something like a faint pulsation; then,

they gave a look of treachery, and cruelty, to the whole countenance. Examined with attention, its capacity of

helping such a look was to be found in the line of the mouth, and the lines of the orbits of the eyes, being

much too horizontal and thin; still, in the effect of the face made, it was a handsome face, and a remarkable

Its owner went downstairs into the courtyard, got into his carriage, and drove away. Not many people had

talked with him at the reception; he had stood in a little space apart, and Monseigneur might have been

warmer in his manner. It appeared, under the circumstances, rather agreeable to him to see the common

people dispersed before his horses, and often barely escaping from being run down. His man drove as if he

were charging an enemy, and the furious recklessness of the man brought no check into the face, or to the

lips, of the master. The complaint had sometimes made itself audible, even in that deaf city and dumb age,

that, in the narrow streets without footways, the fierce patrician custom of hard driving endangered and

maimed the mere vulgar in a barbarous manner. But, few cared enough for that to think of it a second time,

and, in this matter, as in all others, the common wretches were left to get out of their difficulties as they

With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of consideration not easy to be understood in

these days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming before it, and

men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a

fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number of voices,

But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have stopped; carriages were often known

to drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry,

A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the

basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal.

"Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!" said a ragged and submissive man, "it is a child."

The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards

square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the

"Killed!" shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and

The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes

that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the

people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the

submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his

"It is extraordinary to me," said he, "that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or

the other of you is for ever in the, way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him

He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look

down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, "Dead!"

He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the

miserable creature fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, where some

women were stooping over the motionless bundle, and moving gently about it. They were as silent, however,

"I know all, I know all," said the last comer. "Be a brave man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little

plaything to die so, than to live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived an hour as

"You are a philosopher, you there," said the, Marquis, smiling. "How do they call you?"

"Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine," said the Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, "and

Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time, Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and

was just being driven away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally broke some common thing, and

had paid for it, and could afford to pay for it; when his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into his

He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood, a moment before; but the wretched father

was grovelling on his face on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood beside him was the figure of

"You dogs!" said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose:

"I would ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I knew which rascal

threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were sufficiently near it, he should be crushed under the wheels."

So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their experience of what such a man could do to them,

within the law and beyond it, that not a voice, or a hand, or even an eye was raised. Among the men, not one.

But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in the face. It was not for his

dignity to notice it; his contemptuous eyes passed over her, and over all the other rats; and he leaned back in

He was driven on, and other carriages came whirling by in quick succession; the Minister, the

StateProjector, the FarmerGeneral, the Doctor, the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the Grand Opera, the

Comedy, the whole Fancy Ball in a bright continuous flow, came whirling by. The rats had crept out of their

holes to look on, and they remained looking on for hours; soldiers and police often passing between them and

the spectacle, and making a barrier behind which they slunk, and through which they peeped. The father had

long ago taken up his bundle and bidden himself away with it, when the women who had tended the bundle

while it lay on the base of the fountain, sat there watching the running of the water and the rolling of the

Fancy Ballwhen the one woman who had stood conspicuous, knitting, still knitted on with the

steadfastness of Fate. The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening, so much life

in the city ran into death according to rule, time and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close

together in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at supper, all things ran their course.

A beautiful landscape, with the corn bright in it, but not abundant. Patches of poor rye where com should

have been, patches of poor peas and beans, patches of most coarse vegetable substitutes for wheat. On

inanimate nature, as on the men and women who cultivated it, a prevalent tendency towards an appearance of

Monsieur the Marquis in his travelling carriage (which might have been lighter), conducted by four

posthorses and two postilions, fagged up a steep hill. A blush on the countenance of Monsieur the Marquis

was no impeachment of his high breeding; it was not from within; it was occasioned by an external

The sunset struck so brilliantly into the travelling carriage when it gained the hilltop, that its occupant was

steeped in crimson. "It will die out," said Monsieur the Marquis, glancing at his hands, "directly."

In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment. When the heavy drag had been adjusted to the

wheel, and the carriage slid down hill, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of dust, the red glow departed

quickly; the sun and the Marquis going down together, there was no glow left when the drag was taken off.

But, there remained a broken country, bold and open, a little village at the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep

and rise beyond it, a church tower, a windmill, a forest for the chase, and a crag with a fortress on it used as

a prison. Round upon all these darkening objects as the night drew on, the Marquis looked, with the air of one

The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, poor tannery, poor tavern, poor stableyard for

relays of posthorses, poor fountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its poor people too. All its people

were poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions and the like for supper, while

many were at the fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings of the earth that could

be eaten. Expressive sips of what made them poor, were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the

church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be paid there, according to

solemn inscription in the little village, until the wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed.

Few children were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the men and women, their choice on earth was stated in the

prospectLife on the lowest terms that could sustain it, down in the little village under the mill; or captivity

Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of his postilions' whips, which twined snakelike

about their heads in the evening air, as if he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur the Marquis drew up in

his travelling carriage at the postinghouse gate. It was hard by the fountain, and the peasants suspended their

operations to look at him. He looked at them, and saw in them, without knowing it, the slow sure filing down

of miseryworn face and figure, that was to make the meagreness of Frenchmen an English superstition

Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive faces that drooped before him, as the like of himself

had drooped before Monseigneur of the Courtonly the difference was, that these faces drooped merely to

suffer and not to propitiatewhen a grizzled mender of the roads joined the group.

The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellows closed round to look and listen, in the manner of

He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed under the carriage. All his fellows stooped to look

"May the Devil carry away these idiots! How do you can the man? You know all the men of this part of the

"Your clemency, Monseigneur! He was not of this part of the country. Of all the days of my life, I never saw

"With your gracious permission, that was the wonder of it, Monseigneur. His head hanging overlike this!"

He turned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned back, with his face thrown up to the sky, and his head

"Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered with dust, white as a spectre, tall as a spectre!"

The picture produced an immense sensation in the little crowd; but all eyes, without comparing notes with

other eyes, looked at Monsieur the Marquis. Perhaps, to observe whether he had any spectre on his

"Truly, you did well," said the Marquis, felicitously sensible that such vermin were not to ruffle him, "to see

a thief accompanying my carriage, and not open that great mouth of yours. Bah! Put him aside, Monsieur

Monsieur Gabelle was the Postmaster, and some other taxing functionary united; he had come out with great

obsequiousness to assist at this examination, and had held the examined by the drapery of his arm in an

"Lay hands on this stranger if he seeks to lodge in your village tonight, and be sure that his business is

The accursed was already under the carriage with some halfdozen particular friends, pointing out the chain

with his blue cap. Some halfdozen other particular friends promptly hauled him out, and presented him

"Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hillside, head first, as a person plunges into the river."

The halfdozen who were peering at the chain were still among the wheels, like sheep; the wheels turned so

suddenly that they were lucky to save their skins and bones; they had very little else to save, or they might

The burst with which the carriage started out of the village and up the rise beyond, was soon checked by the

steepness of the hill. Gradually, it subsided to a foot pace, swinging and lumbering upward among the many

sweet scents of a summer night. The postilions, with a thousand gossamer gnats circling about them in lieu of

the Furies, quietly mended the points to the lashes of their whips; the valet walked by the horses; the courier

At the steepest point of the hill there was a little burialground, with a Cross and a new large figure of Our

Saviour on it; it was a poor figure in wood, done by some inexperienced rustic carver, but he had studied the

To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had long been growing worse, and was not at its worst, a

woman was kneeling. She turned her head as the carriage came up to her, rose quickly, and presented herself

With an exclamation of impatience, but with his unchangeable face, Monseigneur looked out.

"What of your husband, the forester? Always the same with you people. He cannot pay something?"

She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner was one of passionate grief; by turns she clasped her

veinous and knotted hands together with wild energy, and laid one of them on the carriagedoor tenderly,

caressingly, as if it had been a human breast, and could be expected to feel the appealing touch.

"Monseigneur, hear me! Monseigneur, hear my petition! My husband died of want; so many die of want; so

"Monseigneur, the good God knows; but I don't ask it. My petition is, that a morsel of stone or wood, with

my husband's name, may be placed over him to show where he lies. Otherwise, the place will be quickly

forgotten, it will never be found when I am dead of the same malady, I shall be laid under some other heap of

poor grass. Monseigneur, they are so many, they increase so fast, there is so much want. Monseigneur!

The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage had broken into a brisk trot, the postilions had

quickened the pace, she was left far behind, and Monseigneur, again escorted by the Furies, was rapidly

diminishing the league or two of distance that remained between him and his chateau.

The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, and rose, as the rain falls, impartially, on the

dusty, ragged, and toilworn group at the fountain not far away; to whom the mender of roads, with the aid of

the blue cap without which he was nothing, still enlarged upon his man like a spectre, as long as they could

bear it. By degrees, as they could bear no more, they dropped off one by one, and lights twinkled in little

casements; which lights, as the casements darkened, and more stars came out, seemed to have shot up into the

The shadow of a large highroofed house, and of many overhanging trees, was upon Monsieur the Marquis

by that time; and the shadow was exchanged for the light of a flambeau, as his carriage stopped, and the great

It was a heavy mass of building, that chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, with a large stone courtyard before it,

and two stone sweeps of staircase meeting in a stone terrace before the principal door. A stony business

altogether, with heavy stone balustrades, and stone urns, and stone flowers, and stone faces of men, and stone

heads of lions, in all directions. As if the Gorgon's head had surveyed it, when it was finished, two centuries

Up the broad flight of shallow steps, Monsieur the Marquis, flambeau preceded, went from his carriage,

sufficiently disturbing the darkness to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the roof of the great pile of

stable building away among the trees. All else was so quiet, that the flambeau carried up the steps, and the

other flambeau held at the great door, burnt as if they were in a close room of state, instead of being in the

open nightair. Other sound than the owl's voice there was none, save the failing of a fountain into its stone

basin; for, it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then heave a long

The great door clanged behind him, and Monsieur the Marquis crossed a hall grim with certain old

boarspears, swords, and knives of the chase; grimmer with certain heavy ridingrods and ridingwhips, of

which many a peasant, gone to his benefactor Death, had felt the weight when his lord was angry.

Avoiding the larger rooms, which were dark and made fast for the night, Monsieur the Marquis, with his

flambeaubearer going on before, went up the staircase to a door in a corridor. This thrown open, admitted

him to his own private apartment of three rooms: his bedchamber and two others. High vaulted rooms with

cool uncarpeted floors, great dogs upon the hearths for the burning of wood in winter time, and all luxuries

befitting the state of a marquis in a luxurious age and country. The fashion of the last Louis but one, of the

line that was never to break the fourteenth Louiswas conspicuous in their rich furniture; but, it was

diversified by many objects that were illustrations of old pages in the history of France.

A suppertable was laid for two, in the third of the rooms; a round room, in one of the chateau's four

extinguishertopped towers. A small lofty room, with its window wide open, and the wooden jalousieblinds

closed, so that the dark night only showed in slight horizontal lines of black, alternating with their broad lines

"My nephew," said the Marquis, glancing at the supper preparation; "they said he was not arrived."

"Ah! It is not probable he will arrive tonight; nevertheless, leave the table as it is. I shall be ready in a

In a quarter of an hour Monseigneur was ready, and sat down alone to his sumptuous and choice supper. His

chair was opposite to the window, and he had taken his soup, and was raising his glass of Bordeaux to his

"What is that?" he calmly asked, looking with attention at the horizontal lines of black and stone colour.

The servant who spoke, had thrown the blinds wide, had looked out into the vacant darkness, and stood with

That was done too, and the Marquis went on with his supper. He was half way through it, when he again

stopped with his glass in his hand, hearing the sound of wheels. It came on briskly, and came up to the front

It was the nephew of Monseigneur. He had been some few leagues behind Monseigneur, early in the

afternoon. He had diminished the distance rapidly, but not so rapidly as to come up with Monseigneur on the

He was to be told (said Monseigneur) that supper awaited him then and there, and that he was prayed to come

to it. In a little while he came. He had been known in England as Charles Darnay.

"You left Paris yesterday, sir?" he said to Monseigneur, as he took his seat at table.

"Pardon me! I mean, not a long time on the journey; a long time intending the journey."

"I have been detained by"the nephew stopped a moment in his answer"various business."

So long as a servant was present, no other words passed between them. When coffee had been served and

they were alone together, the nephew, looking at the uncle and meeting the eyes of the face that was like a

"I have come back, sir, as you anticipate, pursuing the object that took me away. It carried me into great and

unexpected peril; but it is a sacred object, and if it had carried me to death I hope it would have sustained

"I doubt, sir," returned the nephew, "whether, if it had carried me to the utmost brink of death, you would

The deepened marks in the nose, and the lengthening of the fine straight lines in the cruel face, looked

ominous as to that; the uncle made a graceful gesture of protest, which was so clearly a slight form of good

"Indeed, sir," pursued the nephew, "for anything I know, you may have expressly worked to give a more

"But, however that may be," resumed the nephew, glancing at him with deep distrust, "I know that your

"My friend, I told you so," said the uncle, with a fine pulsation in the two marks. "Do me the favour to recall

"In effect, sir," pursued the nephew, "I believe it to be at once your bad fortune, and my good fortune, that

"I do not quite understand," returned the uncle, sipping his coffee. "Dare I ask you to explain?"

"I believe that if you were not in disgrace with the Court, and had not been overshadowed by that cloud for

years past, a letter de cachet would have sent me to some fortress indefinitely."

"It is possible," said the uncle, with great calmness. "For the honour of the family, I could even resolve to

"I perceive that, happily for me, the Reception of the day before yesterday was, as usual, a cold one,"

"I would not say happily, my friend," returned the uncle, with refined politeness; "I would not be sure of that.

A good opportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude, might influence your destiny

to far greater advantage than you influence it for yourself. But it is useless to discuss the question. I am, as

you say, at a disadvantage. These little instruments of correction, these gentle aids to the power and honour of

families, these slight favours that might so incommode you, are only to be obtained now by interest and

importunity. They are sought by so many, and they are granted (comparatively) to so few! It used not to be

so, but France in all such things is changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held the right of life and

death over the surrounding vulgar. From this room, many such dogs have been taken out to be hanged; in the

next room (my bedroom), one fellow, to our knowledge, was poniarded on the spot for professing some

insolent delicacy respecting his daughterHIS daughter? We have lost many privileges; a new philosophy

has become the mode; and the assertion of our station, in these days, might (I do not go so far as to say

The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff, and shook his head; as elegantly despondent as he could

becomingly be of a country still containing himself, that great means of regeneration.

"We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and in the modern time also," said the nephew,

gloomily, "that I believe our name to be more detested than any name in France."

"Let us hope so," said the uncle. "Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low."

"There is not," pursued the nephew, in his former tone, "a face I can look at, in all this country round about

us, which looks at me with any deference on it but the dark deference of fear and slavery."

"A compliment," said the Marquis, "to the grandeur of the family, merited by the manner in which the family

has sustained its grandeur. Hah!" And he took another gentle little pinch of snuff, and lightly crossed his legs.

But, when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, covered his eyes thoughtfully and dejectedly with his

hand, the fine mask looked at him sideways with a stronger concentration of keenness, closeness, and dislike,

"Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend," observed the

Marquis, "will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof," looking up to it, "shuts out the sky."

That might not be so long as the Marquis supposed. If a picture of the chateau as it was to be a very few years

hence, and of fifty like it as they too were to be a very few years hence, could have been shown to him that

night, he might have been at a loss to claim his own from the ghastly, firecharred, plunderwrecked rains.

As for the roof he vaunted, he might have found THAT shutting out the sky in a new wayto wit, for ever,

from the eyes of the bodies into which its lead was fired, out of the barrels of a hundred thousand muskets.

"Meanwhile," said the Marquis, "I will preserve the honour and repose of the family, if you will not. But you

"Sir," said the nephew, "we have done wrong, and are reaping the fruits of wrong."

"WE have done wrong?" repeated the Marquis, with an inquiring smile, and delicately pointing, first to his

"Our family; our honourable family, whose honour is of so much account to both of us, in such different

ways. Even in my father's time, we did a world of wrong, injuring every human creature who came between

us and our pleasure, whatever it was. Why need I speak of my father's time, when it is equally yours? Can I

separate my father's twinbrother, joint inheritor, and next successor, from himself?"

"And has left me," answered the nephew, "bound to a system that is frightful to me, responsible for it, but

powerless in it; seeking to execute the last request of my dear mother's lips, and obey the last look of my dear

mother's eyes, which implored me to have mercy and to redress; and tortured by seeking assistance and

"Seeking them from me, my nephew," said the Marquis, touching him on the breast with his forefingerthey

were now standing by the hearth"you will for ever seek them in vain, be assured."

Every fine straight line in the clear whiteness of his face, was cruelly, craftily, and closely compressed, while

he stood looking quietly at his nephew, with his snuffbox in his hand. Once again he touched him on the

breast, as though his finger were the fine point of a small sword, with which, in delicate finesse, he ran him

When he had said it, he took a culminating pinch of snuff, and put his box in his pocket.

"Better to be a rational creature," he added then, after ringing a small bell on the table, "and accept your

"This property and France are lost to me," said the nephew, sadly; "I renounce them."

"Are they both yours to renounce? France may be, but is the property? It is scarcely worth mentioning; but, is

"I had no intention, in the words I used, to claim it yet. If it passed to me from you, tomorrow"

"You do me too much honour," said the Marquis; "still, I prefer that supposition."

"I would abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. It is little to relinquish. What is it but a wilderness

"To the eye it is fair enough, here; but seen in its integrity, under the sky, and by the daylight, it is a

crumbling tower of waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression, hunger, nakedness, and

"If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands better qualified to free it slowly (if such a thing is

possible) from the weight that drags it down, so that the miserable people who cannot leave it and who have

been long wrung to the last point of endurance, may, in another generation, suffer less; but it is not for me.

"And you?" said the uncle. "Forgive my curiosity; do you, under your new philosophy, graciously intend to

"I must do, to live, what others of my countrymen, even with nobility at their backs, may have to do some

"Yes. The family honour, sir, is safe from me in this country. The family name can suffer from me in no

The ringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bedchamber to be lighted. It now shone brightly, through

the door of communication. The Marquis looked that way, and listened for the retreating step of his valet.

"England is very attractive to you, seeing how indifferently you have prospered there," he observed then,

"I have already said, that for my prospering there, I am sensible I may be indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it

"They say, those boastful English, that it is the Refuge of many. You know a compatriot who has found a

As he bent his head in his most courtly manner, there was a secrecy in his smiling face, and he conveyed an

air of mystery to those words, which struck the eyes and ears of his nephew forcibly. At the same time, the

thin straight lines of the setting of the eyes, and the thin straight lips, and the markings in the nose, curved

"Yes," repeated the Marquis. "A Doctor with a daughter. Yes. So commences the new philosophy! You are

It would have been of as much avail to interrogate any stone face outside the chateau as to interrogate that

"Good night!" said the uncle. "I look to the pleasure of seeing you again in the morning. Good repose! Light

Monsieur my nephew to his chamber there!And burn Monsieur my nephew in his bed, if you will," he

added to himself, before he rang his little ben again, and summoned his valet to his own bedroom.

The valet come and gone, Monsieur the Marquis walked to and fro in his loose chamberrobe, to prepare

himself gently for sleep, that hot still night. Rustling about the room, his softlyslippered feet making no

noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger:looked like some enchanted marquis of the impenitently

wicked sort, in story, whose periodical change into tiger form was either just going off, or just coming on.

He moved from end to end of his voluptuous bedroom, looking again at the scraps of the day's journey that

came unbidden into his mind; the slow toil up the hill at sunset, the setting sun, the descent, the mill, the

prison on the crag, the little village in the hollow, the peasants at the fountain, and the mender of roads with

his blue cap pointing out the chain under the carriage. That fountain suggested the Paris fountain, the little

bundle lying on the step, the women bending over it, and the tall man with his arms up, crying, "Dead!"

So, leaving only one light burning on the large hearth, he let his thin gauze curtains fa]J around him, and

heard the night break its silence with a long sigh as he composed himself to sleep.

The stone faces on the outer wails stared blindly at the black night for three heavy hours; for three heavy

hours, the horses in the stables rattled at their racks, the dogs barked, and the owl made a noise with very

little resemblance in it to the noise conventionally assigned to the owl by menpoets. But it is the obstinate

For three heavy hours, the stone faces of the chateau, lion and human, stared blindly at the night. Dead

darkness lay on all the landscape, dead darkness added its own hush to the hushing dust on all the roads. The

burialplace had got to the pass that its little heaps of poor grass were undistinguishable from one another;

the figure on the Cross might have come down, for anything that could be seen of it. In the village, taxers and

taxed were fast asleep. Dreaming, perhaps, of banquets, as the starved usually do, and of ease and rest, as the

driven slave and the yoked ox may, its lean inhabitants slept soundly, and were fed and freed.

The fountain in the village flowed unseen and unheard, and the fountain at the chateau dropped unseen and

unheardboth melting away, like the minutes that were falling from the spring of Time through three

dark hours. Then, the grey water of both began to be ghostly in the light, and the eyes of the stone faces of the

Lighter and lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops of the still trees, and poured its radiance over the hill.

In the glow, the water of the chateau fountain seemed to turn to blood, and the stone faces crimsoned. The

carol of the birds was loud and high, and, on the weatherbeaten sill of the great window of the bed

chamber of Monsieur the Marquis, one little bird sang its sweetest song with all its might. At this, the nearest

stone face seemed to stare amazed, and, with open mouth and dropped underjaw, looked awestricken.

Now, the sun was full up, and movement began in the village. Casement windows opened, crazy doors were

unbarred, and people came forth shiveringchilled, as yet, by the new sweet air. Then began the rarely

lightened toil of the day among the village population. Some, to the fountain; some, to the fields; men and

women here, to dig and delve; men and women there, to see to the poor live stock, and lead the bony cows

out, to such pasture as could be found by the roadside. In the church and at the Cross, a kneeling figure or

two; attendant on the latter prayers, the led cow, trying for a breakfast among the weeds at its foot.

The chateau awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke gradually and surely. First, the lonely boarspears

and knives of the chase had been reddened as of old; then, had gleamed trenchant in the morning sunshine;

now, doors and windows were thrown open, horses in their stables looked round over their shoulders at the

light and freshness pouring in at doorways, leaves sparkled and rustled at irongrated windows, dogs pulled

All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life, and the return of morning. Surely, not so the ringing

of the great bell of the chateau, nor the running up and down the stairs; nor the hurried figures on the terrace;

nor the booting and tramping here and there and everywhere, nor the quick saddling of horses and riding

What winds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of roads, already at work on the hilltop beyond the

village, with his day's dinner (not much to carry) lying in a bundle that it was worth no crow's while to peck

at, on a heap of stones? Had the birds, carrying some grains of it to a distance, dropped one over him as they

sow chance seeds? Whether or no, the mender of roads ran, on the sultry morning, as if for his life, down the

All the people of the village were at the fountain, standing about in their depressed manner, and whispering

low, but showing no other emotions than grim curiosity and surprise. The led cows, hastily brought in and

tethered to anything that would hold them, were looking stupidly on, or lying down chewing the cud of

nothing particularly repaying their trouble, which they had picked up in their interrupted saunter. Some of the

people of the chateau, and some of those of the postinghouse, and all the taxing authorities, were armed

more or less, and were crowded on the other side of the little street in a purposeless way, that was highly

fraught with nothing. Already, the mender of roads had penetrated into the midst of a group of fifty particular

friends, and was smiting himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all this portend, and what

portended the swift hoistingup of Monsieur Gabelle behind a servant on horseback, and the conveying away

of the said Gabelle (doubleladen though the horse was), at a gallop, like a new version of the German ballad

The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, and had added the one stone face wanting; the stone

It lay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was like a fine mask, suddenly startled, made angry, and

petrified. Driven home into the heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife. Round its hilt was a frill of

More months, to the number of twelve, had come and gone, and Mr. Charles Darnay was established in

England as a higher teacher of the French language who was conversant with French literature. In this age, he

would have been a Professor; in that age, he was a Tutor. He read with young men who could find any leisure

and interest for the study of a living tongue spoken all over the world, and he cultivated a taste for its stores

of knowledge and fancy. He could write of them, besides, in sound English, and render them into sound

English. Such masters were not at that time easily found; Princes that had been, and Kings that were to be,

were not yet of the Teacher class, and no ruined nobility had dropped out of Tellson's ledgers, to turn cooks

and carpenters. As a tutor, whose attainments made the student's way unusually pleasant and profitable, and

as an elegant translator who brought something to his work besides mere dictionary knowledge, young Mr.

Darnay soon became known and encouraged. He was well acquainted, moreover, with the circumstances of

his country, and those were of evergrowing interest. So, with great perseverance and untiring industry, he

In London, he had expected neither to walk on pavements of gold, nor to lie on beds of roses; if he had had

any such exalted expectation, he would not have prospered. He had expected labour, and he found it, and did

A certain portion of his time was passed at Cambridge, where he read with undergraduates as a sort of

tolerated smuggler who drove a contraband trade in European languages, instead of conveying Greek and

Now, from the days when it was always summer in Eden, to these days when it is mostly winter in fallen

latitudes, the world of a man has invariably gone one wayCharles Darnay's waythe way of the love of a

He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. He had never heard a sound so sweet and dear as

the sound of her compassionate voice; he had never seen a face so tenderly beautiful, as hers when it was

confronted with his own on the edge of the grave that had been dug for him. But, he had not yet spoken to her

on the subject; the assassination at the deserted chateau far away beyond the heaving water and the long,

tong, dusty roadsthe solid stone chateau which had itself become the mere mist of a dreamhad been

done a year, and he had never yet, by so much as a single spoken word, disclosed to her the state of his heart.

That he had his reasons for this, he knew full well. It was again a summer day when, lately arrived in London

from his college occupation, he turned into the quiet corner in Soho, bent on seeking an opportunity of

opening his mind to Doctor Manette. It was the close of the summer day, and he knew Lucie to be out with

He found the Doctor reading in his armchair at a window. The energy which had at once supported him

under his old sufferings and aggravated their sharpness, had been gradually restored to him. He was now a

very energetic man indeed, with great firmness of purpose, strength of resolution, and vigour of action. In his

recovered energy he was sometimes a little fitful and sudden, as he had at first been in the exercise of his

other recovered faculties; but, this had never been frequently observable, and had grown more and more rare.

He studied much, slept little, sustained a great deal of fatigue with ease, and was equably cheerful. To him,

now entered Charles Darnay, at sight of whom he laid aside his book and held out his hand.

"Charles Darnay! I rejoice to see you. We have been counting on your return these three or four days past.

Mr. Stryver and Sydney Carton were both here yesterday, and both made you out to be more than due."

"I am obliged to them for their interest in the matter," he answered, a little coldly as to them, though very

"Is well," said the Doctor, as he stopped short, "and your return will delight us all. She has gone out on some

"Doctor Manette, I knew she was from home. I took the opportunity of her being from home, to beg to speak

"Yes?" said the Doctor, with evident constraint. "Bring your chair here, and speak on."

"I have had the happiness, Doctor Manette, of being so intimate here," so he at length began, "for some year

He was stayed by the Doctor's putting out his hand to stop him. When he had kept it so a little while, he said,

"It is hard for me to speak of her at any time. It is very hard for me to hear her spoken of in that tone of yours,

"It is a tone of fervent admiration, true homage, and deep love, Doctor Manette!" he said deferentially.

His constraint was so manifest, and it was so manifest, too, that it originated in an unwillingness to approach

"You anticipate what I would say, though you cannot know how earnestly I say it, how earnestly I feel it,

without knowing my secret heart, and the hopes and fears and anxieties with which it has long been laden.

Dear Doctor Manette, I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love

in the world, I love her. You have loved yourself; let your old love speak for me!"

The Doctor sat with his face turned away, and his eyes bent on the ground. At the last words, he stretched out

His cry was so like a cry of actual pain, that it rang in Charles Darnay's ears long after he had ceased. He

motioned with the hand he had extended, and it seemed to be an appeal to Darnay to pause. The latter so

"I ask your pardon," said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, after some moments. "I do not doubt your loving

He turned towards him in his chair, but did not look at him, or raise his eyes. His chin dropped upon his hand,

"It would be ungenerous to affect not to know that your selfdenial is to be referred to your consideration for

"I know," said Darnay, respectfully, "how can I fail to know, Doctor Manette, I who have seen you together

from day to day, that between you and Miss Manette there is an affection so unusual, so touching, so

belonging to the circumstances in which it has been nurtured, that it can have few parallels, even in the

tenderness between a father and child. I know, Doctor Manettehow can I fail to knowthat, mingled with

the affection and duty of a daughter who has become a woman, there is, in her heart, towards you, all the love

and reliance of infancy itself. I know that, as in her childhood she had no parent, so she is now devoted to you

with all the constancy and fervour of her present years and character, united to the trustfulness and

attachment of the early days in which you were lost to her. I know perfectly well that if you had been restored

to her from the world beyond this life, you could hardly be invested, in her sight, with a more sacred

character than that in which you are always with her. I know that when she is clinging to you, the hands of

baby, girl, and woman, all in one, are round your neck. I know that in loving you she sees and loves her

mother at her own age, sees and loves you at my age, loves her mother brokenhearted, loves you through

your dreadful trial and in your blessed restoration. I have known this, night and day, since I have known you

Her father sat silent, with his face bent down. His breathing was a little quickened; but he repressed all other

"Dear Doctor Manette, always knowing this, always seeing her and you with this hallowed light about you, I

have forborne, and forborne, as long as it was in the nature of man to do it. I have felt, and do even now feel,

that to bring my loveeven minebetween you, is to touch your history with something not quite so good

"I believe it," answered her father, mournfully. "I have thought so before now. I believe it."

"But, do not believe," said Darnay, upon whose ear the mournful voice struck with a reproachful sound, "that

if my fortune were so cast as that, being one day so happy as to make her my wife, I must at any time put any

separation between her and you, I could or would breathe a word of what I now say. Besides that I should

know it to be hopeless, I should know it to be a baseness. If I had any such possibility, even at a remote

distance of years, harboured in my thoughts, and hidden in my heartif it ever had been thereif it ever

"No, dear Doctor Manette. Like you, a voluntary exile from France; like you, driven from it by its

distractions, oppressions, and miseries; like you, striving to live away from it by my own exertions, and

trusting in a happier future; I look only to sharing your fortunes, sharing your life and home, and being

faithful to you to the death. Not to divide with Lucie her privilege as your child, companion, and friend; but

His touch still lingered on her father's hand. Answering the touch for a moment, but not coldly, her father

rested his hands upon the arms of his chair, and looked up for the first time since the beginning of the

conference. A struggle was evidently in his face; a struggle with that occasional look which had a tendency in

"You speak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay, that I thank you with all my heart, and will open

"Is it the immediate object of this confidence, that you may at once ascertain that, with my knowledge?"

"Not even so. I might not have the hopefulness to do it for weeks; I might (mistaken or not mistaken) have

"I ask none, sir. But I have thought it possible that you might have it in your power, if you should deem it

"I well understand that, without you, I could have no hope. I well understand that, even if Miss Manette held

me at this moment in her innocent heartdo not think I have the presumption to assume so much I could

"I understand equally well, that a word from her father in any suitor's favour, would outweigh herself and all

the world. For which reason, Doctor Manette," said Darnay, modestly but firmly, "I would not ask that word,

"I am sure of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of close love, as well as out of wide division; in the

former case, they are subtle and delicate, and difficult to penetrate. My daughter Lucie is, in this one respect,

"May I ask, sir, if you think she is" As he hesitated, her father supplied the rest.

"You have seen Mr. Carton here, yourself. Mr. Stryver is here too, occasionally. If it be at all, it can only be

"I had not thought of both; I should not think either, likely. You want a promise from me. Tell me what it is."

"It is, that if Miss Manette should bring to you at any time, on her own part, such a confidence as I have

ventured to lay before you, you will bear testimony to what I have said, and to your belief in it. I hope you

may be able to think so well of me, as to urge no influence against me. I say nothing more of my stake in this;

this is what I ask. The condition on which I ask it, and which you have an undoubted right to require, I will

"I give the promise," said the Doctor, "without any condition. I believe your object to be, purely and

truthfully, as you have stated it. I believe your intention is to perpetuate, and not to weaken, the ties between

me and my other and far dearer self. If she should ever tell me that you are essential to her perfect happiness,

The young man had taken his hand gratefully; their hands were joined as the Doctor spoke:

"any fancies, any reasons, any apprehensions, anything whatsoever, new or old, against the man she really

lovedthe direct responsibility thereof not lying on his headthey should all be obliterated for her sake.

She is everything to me; more to me than suffering, more to me than wrong, more to meWell! This is idle

So strange was the way in which he faded into silence, and so strange his fixed look when he had ceased to

speak, that Darnay felt his own hand turn cold in the hand that slowly released and dropped it.

"You said something to me," said Doctor Manette, breaking into a smile. "What was it you said to me?"

He was at a loss how to answer, until he remembered having spoken of a condition. Relieved as his mind

"Your confidence in me ought to be returned with full confidence on my part. My present name, though but

slightly changed from my mother's, is not, as you will remember, my own. I wish to tell you what that is, and

"I wish it, that I may the better deserve your confidence, and have no secret from you."

For an instant, the Doctor even had his two hands at his ears; for another instant, even had his two hands laid

"Tell me when I ask you, not now. If your suit should prosper, if Lucie should love you, you shall tell me on

"Give me your hand. She will be home directly, and it is better she should not see us together tonight. Go!

It was dark when Charles Darnay left him, and it was an hour later and darker when Lucie came home; she

hurried into the room alone for Miss Pross had gone straight upstairsand was surprised to find his

Nothing was said in answer, but she heard a low hammering sound in his bedroom. Passing lightly across the

intermediate room, she looked in at his door and came running back frightened, crying to herself, with her

Her uncertainty lasted but a moment; she hurried back, and tapped at his door, and softly called to him. The

noise ceased at the sound of her voice, and he presently came out to her, and they walked up and down

She came down from her bed, to look at him in his sleep that night. He slept heavily, and his tray of

"Sydney," said Mr. Stryver, on that selfsame night, or morning, to his jackal; "mix another bowl of punch; I

Sydney had been working double tides that night, and the night before, and the night before that, and a good

many nights in succession, making a grand clearance among Mr. Stryver's papers before the setting in of the

long vacation. The clearance was effected at last; the Stryver arrears were handsomely fetched up; everything

was got rid of until November should come with its fogs atmospheric, and fogs legal, and bring grist to the

Sydney was none the livelier and none the soberer for so much application. It had taken a deal of extra

wettowelling to pull him through the night; a correspondingly extra quantity of wine had preceded the

towelling; and he was in a very damaged condition, as he now pulled his turban off and threw it into the basin

"Are you mixing that other bowl of punch?" said Stryver the portly, with his hands in his waistband, glancing

"Now, look here! I am going to tell you something that will rather surprise you, and that perhaps will make

you think me not quite as shrewd as you usually do think me. I intend to marry."

"I am not going to guess, at five o'clock in the morning, with my brains frying and sputtering in my head. if

"Well then, I'll tell you, said Stryver, coming slowly into a sitting posture. "Sydney, I rather despair of

"And you," returned Sydney, busy concocting the punch, "are such a sensitive and poetical spirit"

"Come!" rejoined Stryver, laughing boastfully, "though I don't prefer any claim to being the soul of Romance

"Well! I'll say gallantry. My meaning is that I am a man," said Stryver, inflating himself at his friend as he

made the punch, "who cares more to be agreeable, who takes more pains to be agreeable, who knows better

"No; but before I go on," said Stryver, shaking his head in his bullying way, I'll have this out with you.

You've been at Doctor Manette's house as much as I have, or more than I have. Why, I have been ashamed of

your moroseness there! Your manners have been of that silent and sullen and hangdog kind, that, upon my

"It should be very beneficial to a man in your practice at the bar, to be ashamed of anything," returned

"You shall not get off in that way," rejoined Stryver, shouldering the rejoinder at him; "no, Sydney, it's my

duty to tell youand I tell you to your face to do you goodthat you are a devilish illconditioned fellow in

"Look at me!" said Stryver, squaring himself; "I have less need to make myself agreeable than you have,

"You don't get on with your account of your matrimonial intentions," answered Carton, with a careless air; "I

wish you would keep to that. As to mewill you never understand that I am incorrigible?"

"You have no business to be incorrigible," was his friend's answer, delivered in no very soothing tone.

"I have no business to be, at all, that I know of," said Sydney Carton. "Who is the lady?"

"Now, don't let my announcement of the name make you uncomfortable, Sydney," said Mr. Stryver,

preparing him with ostentatious friendliness for the disclosure he was about to make, "because I know you

don't mean half you say; and if you meant it all, it would be of no importance. I make this little preface,

Sydney Carton looked at his punch and looked at his complacent friend; drank his punch and looked at his

"You made mention of the young lady as a goldenhaired doll. The young lady is Miss Manette. If you had

been a fellow of any sensitiveness or delicacy of feeling in that kind of way, Sydney, I might have been a

little resentful of your employing such a designation; but you are not. You want that sense altogether;

therefore I am no more annoyed when I think of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a man's opinion

of a picture of mine, who had no eye for pictures: or of a piece of music of mine, who had no ear for music."

Sydney Carton drank the punch at a great rate; drank it by bumpers, looking at his friend.

"Now you know all about it, Syd," said Mr. Stryver. "I don't care about fortune: she is a charming creature,

and I have made up my mind to please myself: on the whole, I think I can afford to please myself. She will

have in me a man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man, and a man of some distinction: it is a piece

of good fortune for her, but she is worthy of good fortune. Are you astonished?"

"Well!" said his friend Stryver, "you take it more easily than I fancied you would, and are less mercenary on

my behalf than I thought you would be; though, to be sure, you know well enough by this time that your

ancient chum is a man of a pretty strong will. Yes, Sydney, I have had enough of this style of life, with no

other as a change from it; I feel that it is a pleasant thing for a man to have a home when he feels inclined to

go to it (when he doesn't, he can stay away), and I feel that Miss Manette will tell well in any station, and will

always do me credit. So I have made up my mind. And now, Sydney, old boy, I want to say a word to YOU

about YOUR prospects. You are in a bad way, you know; you really are in a bad way. You don't know the

value of money, you Eve hard, you'll knock up one of these days, and be ill and poor; you really ought to

The prosperous patronage with which he said it, made him look twice as big as he was, and four times as

"Now, let me recommend you," pursued Stryver, "to look it in the face. I have looked it in the face, in my

different way; look it in the face, you, in your different way. Marry. Provide somebody to take care of you.

Never mind your having no enjoyment of women's society, nor understanding of it, nor tact for it. Find out

somebody. Find out some respectable woman with a little propertysomebody in the landlady way, or

lodgingletting wayand marry her, against a rainy day. That's the kind of thing for YOU. Now think of it,

Mr. Stryver having made up his mind to that magnanimous bestowal of good fortune on the Doctor's

daughter, resolved to make her happiness known to her before he left town for the Long Vacation. After some

mental debating of the point, he came to the conclusion that it would be as well to get all the preliminaries

done with, and they could then arrange at their leisure whether he should give her his hand a week or two

before Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christmas vacation between it and Hilary.

As to the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, but clearly saw his way to the verdict. Argued with

the jury on substantial worldly groundsthe only grounds ever worth taking into account it was a plain

case, and had not a weak spot in it. He called himself for the plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence,

the counsel for the defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn to consider. After trying it,

Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a formal proposal to take Miss Manette to

Vauxhall Gardens; that failing, to Ranelagh; that unaccountably failing too, it behoved him to present himself

Towards Soho, therefore, Mr. Stryver shouldered his way from the Temple, while the bloom of the Long

Vacation's infancy was still upon it. Anybody who had seen him projecting himself into Soho while he was

yet on Saint Dunstan's side of Temple Bar, bursting in his fullblown way along the pavement, to the

His way taking him past Tellson's, and he both banking at Tellson's and knowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate

friend of the Manettes, it entered Mr. Stryver's mind to enter the bank, and reveal to Mr. Lorry the brightness

of the Soho horizon. So, he pushed open the door with the weak rattle in its throat, stumbled down the two

steps, got past the two ancient cashiers, and shouldered himself into the musty back closet where Mr. Lorry

sat at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron bars to his window as if that were ruled for

It was Stryver's grand peculiarity that he always seemed too big for any place, or space. He was so much too

big for Tellson's, that old clerks in distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance, as though he

squeezed them against the wall. The House itself, magnificently reading the paper quite in the faroff

perspective, lowered displeased, as if the Stryver head had been butted into its responsible waistcoat.

The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he would recommend under the circumstances,

"How do you do, Mr. Stryver? How do you do, sir?" and shook hands. There was a peculiarity in his manner

of shaking hands, always to be seen in any clerk at Tellson's who shook hands with a customer when the

House pervaded the air. He shook in a selfabnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson and Co.

"Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver?" asked Mr. Lorry, in his business character.

"Why, no, thank you; this is a private visit to yourself, Mr. Lorry; I have come for a private word."

"Oh indeed!" said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while his eye strayed to the House afar off.

"I am going," said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidentially on the desk: whereupon, although it was a

large double one, there appeared to be not half desk enough for him: "I am going to make an offer of myself

"Oh dear me!" cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and looking at his visitor dubiously.

"Oh dear me, sir?" repeated Stryver, drawing back. "Oh dear you, sir? What may your meaning be, Mr.

"My meaning," answered the man of business, "is, of course, friendly and appreciative, and that it does you

the greatest credit, and in short, my meaning is everything you could desire. Butreally, you know, Mr.

Stryver" Mr. Lorry paused, and shook his head at him in the oddest manner, as if he were compelled

against his will to add, internally, "you know there really is so much too much of you!"

"Well!" said Stryver, slapping the desk with his contentious hand, opening his eyes wider, and taking a long

Mr. Lorry adjusted his little wig at both ears as a means towards that end, and bit the feather of a pen.

"Oh dear yes! Yes. Oh yes, you're eligible!" said Mr. Lorry. "If you say eligible, you are eligible."

"If you come to advancing you know," said Mr. Lorry, delighted to be able to make another admission,

"Then what on earth is your meaning, Mr. Lorry?" demanded Stryver, perceptibly crestfallen.

"Why?" said Stryver. "Now, I'll put you in a corner," forensically shaking a forefinger at him. "You are a man

of business and bound to have a reason. State your reason. Why wouldn't you go?"

"Because," said Mr. Lorry, "I wouldn't go on such an object without having some cause to believe that I

"Here's a man of businessa man of yearsa man of experience IN a Bank," said Stryver; "and having

summed up three leading reasons for complete success, he says there's no reason at all! Says it with his head

on!" Mr. Stryver remarked upon the peculiarity as if it would have been infinitely less remarkable if he had

"When I speak of success, I speak of success with the young lady; and when I speak of causes and reasons to

make success probable, I speak of causes and reasons that will tell as such with the young lady. The young

lady, my good sir," said Mr. Lorry, mildly tapping the Stryver arm, "the young lady. The young lady goes

"Then you mean to tell me, Mr. Lorry," said Stryver, squaring his elbows, "that it is your deliberate opinion

"Not exactly so. I mean to tell you, Mr. Stryver," said Mr. Lorry, reddening, "that I will hear no disrespectful

word of that young lady from any lips; and that if I knew any manwhich I hope I do not whose taste was

so coarse, and whose temper was so overbearing, that he could not restrain himself from speaking

disrespectfully of that young lady at this desk, not even Tellson's should prevent my giving him a piece of my

The necessity of being angry in a suppressed tone had put Mr. Stryver's bloodvessels into a dangerous state

when it was his turn to be angry; Mr. Lorry's veins, methodical as their courses could usually be, were in no

"That is what I mean to tell you, sir," said Mr. Lorry. "Pray let there be no mistake about it."

Mr. Stryver sucked the end of a ruler for a little while, and then stood hitting a tune out of his teeth with it,

"This is something new to me, Mr. Lorry. You deliberately advise me not to go up to Soho and offer

"And all I can say of it is," laughed Stryver with a vexed laugh, "that thisha, ha!beats everything past,

"Now understand me," pursued Mr. Lorry. "As a man of business, I am not justified in saying anything about

this matter, for, as a man of business, I know nothing of it. But, as an old fellow, who has carried Miss

Manette in his arms, who is the trusted friend of Miss Manette and of her father too, and who has a great

affection for them both, I have spoken. The confidence is not of my seeking, recollect. Now, you think I may

"Not I!" said Stryver, whistling. "I can't undertake to find third parties in common sense; I can only find it for

myself. I suppose sense in certain quarters; you suppose mincing breadandbutter nonsense. It's new to me,

"What I suppose, Mr. Stryver, I claim to characterise for myselfAnd understand me, sir," said Mr. Lorry,

quickly flushing again, "I will notnot even at Tellson'shave it characterised for me by any gentleman

"Granted. Thank you. Well, Mr. Stryver, I was about to say:it might be painful to you to find yourself

mistaken, it might be painful to Doctor Manette to have the task of being explicit with you, it might be very

painful to Miss Manette to have the task of being explicit with you. You know the terms upon which I have

the honour and happiness to stand with the family. If you please, committing you in no way, representing you

in no way, I will undertake to correct my advice by the exercise of a little new observation and judgment

expressly brought to bear upon it. If you should then be dissatisfied with it, you can but test its soundness for

yourself; if, on the other hand, you should be satisfied with it, and it should be what it now is, it may spare all

"Oh! It is only a question of a few hours. I could go to Soho in the evening, and come to your chambers

"Then I say yes," said Stryver: "I won't go up there now, I am not so hot upon it as that comes to; I say yes,

Then Mr. Stryver turned and burst out of the Bank, causing such a concussion of air on his passage through,

that to stand up against it bowing behind the two counters, required the utmost remaining strength of the two

ancient clerks. Those venerable and feeble persons were always seen by the public in the act of bowing, and

were popularly believed, when they had bowed a customer out, still to keep on bowing in the empty office

The barrister was keen enough to divine that the banker would not have gone so far in his expression of

opinion on any less solid ground than moral certainty. Unprepared as he was for the large pill he had to

swallow, he got it down. "And now," said Mr. Stryver, shaking his forensic forefinger at the Temple in

general, when it was down, "my way out of this, is, to put you all in the wrong."

It was a bit of the art of an Old Bailey tactician, in which he found great relief. "You shall not put me in the

Accordingly, when Mr. Lorry called that night as late as ten o'clock, Mr. Stryver, among a quantity of books

and papers littered out for the purpose, seemed to have nothing less on his mind than the subject of the

morning. He even showed surprise when he saw Mr. Lorry, and was altogether in an absent and preoccupied

"Well!" said that goodnatured emissary, after a full halfhour of bootless attempts to bring him round to the

"To Soho?" repeated Mr. Stryver, coldly. "Oh, to be sure! What am I thinking of!"

"And I have no doubt," said Mr. Lorry, "that I was right in the conversation we had. My opinion is

"I assure you," returned Mr. Stryver, in the friendliest way, "that I am sorry for it on your account, and sorry

for it on the poor father's account. I know this must always be a sore subject with the family; let us say no

"I dare say not," rejoined Stryver, nodding his head in a smoothing and final way; "no matter, no matter."

"No it doesn't; I assure you it doesn't. Having supposed that there was sense where there is no sense, and a

laudable ambition where there is not a laudable ambition, I am well out of my mistake, and no harm is done.

Young women have committed similar follies often before, and have repented them in poverty and obscurity

often before. In an unselfish aspect, I am sorry that the thing is dropped, because it would have been a bad

thing for me in a worldly point of view; in a selfish aspect, I am glad that the thing has dropped, because it

would have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view it is hardly necessary to say I could have

gained nothing by it. There is no harm at all done. I have not proposed to the young lady, and, between

ourselves, I am by no means certain, on reflection, that I ever should have committed myself to that extent.

Mr. Lorry, you cannot control the mincing vanities and giddinesses of emptyheaded girls; you must not

expect to do it, or you will always be disappointed. Now, pray say no more about it. I tell you, I regret it on

account of others, but I am satisfied on my own account. And I am really very much obliged to you for

allowing me to sound you, and for giving me your advice; you know the young lady better than I do; you

Mr. Lorry was so taken aback, that he looked quite stupidly at Mr. Stryver shouldering him towards the door,

with an appearance of showering generosity, forbearance, and goodwill, on his erring head. "Make the best of

it, my dear sir," said Stryver; "say no more about it; thank you again for allowing me to sound you; good

Mr. Lorry was out in the night, before he knew where he was. Mr. Stryver was lying back on his sofa,

If Sydney Carton ever shone anywhere, he certainly never shone in the house of Doctor Manette. He had

been there often, during a whole year, and had always been the same moody and morose lounger there. When

he cared to talk, he talked well; but, the cloud of caring for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a

And yet he did care something for the streets that environed that house, and for the senseless stones that made

their pavements. Many a night he vaguely and unhappily wandered there, when wine had brought no

transitory gladness to him; many a dreary daybreak revealed his solitary figure lingering there, and still

lingering there when the first beams of the sun brought into strong relief, removed beauties of architecture in

spires of churches and lofty buildings, as perhaps the quiet time brought some sense of better things, else

forgotten and unattainable, into his mind. Of late, the neglected bed in the Temple Court had known him

more scantily than ever; and often when he had thrown himself upon it no longer than a few minutes, he had

On a day in August, when Mr. Stryver (after notifying to his jackal that "he had thought better of that

marrying matter") had carried his delicacy into Devonshire, and when the sight and scent of flowers in the

City streets had some waifs of goodness in them for the worst, of health for the sickliest, and of youth for the

oldest, Sydney's feet still trod those stones. From being irresolute and purposeless, his feet became animated

by an intention, and, in the working out of that intention, they took him to the Doctor's door.

He was shown upstairs, and found Lucie at her work, alone. She had never been quite at her ease with him,

and received him with some little embarrassment as he seated himself near her table. But, looking up at his

face in the interchange of the first few commonplaces, she observed a change in it.

"No. But the life I lead, Miss Manette, is not conducive to health. What is to be expected of, or by, such

"Is it notforgive me; I have begun the question on my lipsa pity to live no better life?"

Looking gently at him again, she was surprised and saddened to see that there were tears in his eyes. There

"It is too late for that. I shall never be better than I am. I shall sink lower, and be worse."

He leaned an elbow on her table, and covered his eyes with his hand. The table trembled in the silence that

She had never seen him softened, and was much distressed. He knew her to be so, without looking at her, and

"Pray forgive me, Miss Manette. I break down before the knowledge of what I want to say to you. Will you

"If it will do you any good, Mr. Carton, if it would make you happier, it would make me very glad!"

"Don't be afraid to hear me. Don't shrink from anything I say. I am like one who died young. All my life

"No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it might still be; I am sure that you might be much, much

"Say of you, Miss Manette, and although I know betteralthough in the mystery of my own wretched heart I

She was pale and trembling. He came to her relief with a fixed despair of himself which made the interview

"If it had been possible, Miss Manette, that you could have returned the love of the man you see before

yourselfflung away, wasted, drunken, poor creature of misuse as you know him to behe would have

been conscious this day and hour, in spite of his happiness, that he would bring you to misery, bring you to

sorrow and repentance, blight you, disgrace you, pull you down with him. I know very well that you can have

"Without it, can I not save you, Mr. Carton? Can I not recall you forgive me again!to a better course?

Can I in no way repay your confidence? I know this is a confidence," she modestly said, after a little

hesitation, and in earnest tears, "I know you would say this to no one else. Can I turn it to no good account for

"To none. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear me through a very little more, all you can ever do for

me is done. I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have not

been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this home made such a home by you, has

stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse

that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me

upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew,

shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in

nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it."

"No, Miss Manette; all through it, I have known myself to be quite undeserving. And yet I have had the

weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me,

heap of ashes that I am, into firea fire, however, inseparable in its nature from myself, quickening nothing,

"Since it is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to have made you more unhappy than you were before you knew

"Don't say that, Miss Manette, for you would have reclaimed me, if anything could. you will not be the cause

"Since the state of your mind that you describe, is, at all events, attributable to some influence of minethis

is what I mean, if I can make it plaincan I use no influence to serve you? Have I no power for good, with

"The utmost good that I am capable of now, Miss Manette, I have come here to realise. Let me carry through

the rest of my misdirected life, the remembrance that I opened my heart to you, last of all the world; and that

"Which I entreated you to believe, again and again, most fervently, with all my heart, was capable of better

"Entreat me to believe it no more, Miss Manette. I have proved myself, and I know better. I distress you; I

draw fast to an end. Will you let me believe, when I recall this day, that the last confidence of my life was

reposed in your pure and innocent breast, and that it lies there alone, and will be shared by no one?"

"Mr. Carton," she answered, after an agitated pause, "the secret is yours, not mine; and I promise to respect

"Be under no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever resuming this conversation by so much as a passing

word. I will never refer to it again. If I were dead, that could not be surer than it is henceforth. In the hour of

my death, I shall hold sacred the one good remembrance and shall thank and bless you for itthat my last

avowal of myself was made to you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were gently carried in your

He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was so sad to think how much he had thrown

away, and how much he every day kept down and perverted, that Lucie Manette wept mournfully for him as

"Be comforted!" he said, "I am not worth such feeling, Miss Manette. An hour or two hence, and the low

companions and low habits that I scorn but yield to, will render me less worth such tears as those, than any

wretch who creeps along the streets. Be comforted! But, within myself, I shall always be, towards you, what I

am now, though outwardly I shall be what you have heretofore seen me. The last supplication but one I make

"My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieve you of a visitor with whom I well know you

have nothing in unison, and between whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless to say it, I

know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of

that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for

you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this

one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about

youties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adornthe dearest ties that

will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in

yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a

To the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool in Fleetstreet with his grisly urchin beside him, a

vast number and variety of objects in movement were every day presented. Who could sit upon anything in

Fleetstreet during the busy hours of the day, and not be dazed and deafened by two immense processions,

one ever tending westward with the sun, the other ever tending eastward from the sun, both ever tending to

With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two streams, like the heathen rustic who has for

several centuries been on duty watching one streamsaving that Jerry had no expectation of their ever

running dry. Nor would it have been an expectation of a hopeful kind, since a small part of his income was

derived from the pilotage of timid women (mostly of a full habit and past the middle term of life) from

Tellson's side of the tides to the opposite shore. Brief as such companionship was in every separate instance,

Mr. Cruncher never failed to become so interested in the lady as to express a strong desire to have the honour

of drinking her very good health. And it was from the gifts bestowed upon him towards the execution of this

Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and mused in the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher,

sitting on a stool in a public place, but not being a poet, mused as little as possible, and looked about him.

It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds were few, and belated women few, and when his

affairs in general were so unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in his breast that Mrs. Cruncher must

have been "flopping" in some pointed manner, when an unusual concourse pouring down Fleetstreet

westward, attracted his attention. Looking that way, Mr. Cruncher made out that some kind of funeral was

coming along, and that there was popular objection to this funeral, which engendered uproar.

The young gentleman uttered this exultant sound with mysterious significance. The elder gentleman took the

cry so ill, that he watched his opportunity, and smote the young gentleman on the ear.

"What d'ye mean? What are you hooroaring at? What do you want to conwey to your own father, you young

Rip? This boy is a getting too many for ME!" said Mr. Cruncher, surveying him. "Him and his hooroars!

Don't let me hear no more of you, or you shall feel some more of me. D'ye hear?"

"Drop it then," said Mr. Cruncher; "I won't have none of YOUR no harms. Get a top of that there seat, and

His son obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were bawling and hissing round a dingy hearse and dingy

mourning coach, in which mourning coach there was only one mourner, dressed in the dingy trappings that

were considered essential to the dignity of the position. The position appeared by no means to please him,

however, with an increasing rabble surrounding the coach, deriding him, making grimaces at him, and

incessantly groaning and calling out: "Yah! Spies! Tst! Yaha! Spies!" with many compliments too numerous

Funerals had at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr. Cruncher; he always pricked up his senses, and

became excited, when a funeral passed Tellson's. Naturally, therefore, a funeral with this uncommon

attendance excited him greatly, and he asked of the first man who ran against him:

"_I_ don't know," returned the man, clapping his hands to his mouth nevertheless, and vociferating in a

At length, a person better informed on the merits of the case, tumbled against him, and from this person he

"Why, to be sure!" exclaimed Jerry, recalling the Trial at which he had assisted. "I've seen him. Dead, is he?"

"Dead as mutton," returned the other, "and can't be too dead. Have 'em out, there! Spies! Pull 'em out, there!

The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any idea, that the crowd caught it up with eagerness,

and loudly repeating the suggestion to have 'em out, and to pull 'em out, mobbed the two vehicles so closely

that they came to a stop. On the crowd's opening the coach doors, the one mourner scuffled out of himself

and was in their hands for a moment; but he was so alert, and made such good use of his time, that in another

moment he was scouring away up a byestreet, after shedding his cloak, hat, long hatband, white

These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide with great enjoyment, while the tradesmen

hurriedly shut up their shops; for a crowd in those times stopped at nothing, and was a monster much

dreaded. They had already got the length of opening the hearse to take the coffin out, when some brighter

genius proposed instead, its being escorted to its destination amidst general rejoicing. Practical suggestions

being much needed, this suggestion, too, was received with acclamation, and the coach was immediately

filled with eight inside and a dozen out, while as many people got on the roof of the hearse as could by any

exercise of ingenuity stick upon it. Among the first of these volunteers was Jerry Cruncher himself, who

modestly concealed his spiky head from the observation of Tellson's, in the further corner of the mourning

The officiating undertakers made some protest against these changes in the ceremonies; but, the river being

alarmingly near, and several voices remarking on the efficacy of cold immersion in bringing refractory

members of the profession to reason, the protest was faint and brief. The remodelled procession started, with

a chimneysweep driving the hearseadvised by the regular driver, who was perched beside him, under

close inspection, for the purposeand with a pieman, also attended by his cabinet minister, driving the

mourning coach. A bearleader, a popular street character of the time, was impressed as an additional

ornament, before the cavalcade had gone far down the Strand; and his bear, who was black and very mangy,

gave quite an Undertaking air to that part of the procession in which he walked.

Thus, with beerdrinking, pipesmoking, songroaring, and infinite caricaturing of woe, the disorderly

procession went its way, recruiting at every step, and all the shops shutting up before it. Its destination was

the old church of Saint Pancras, far off in the fields. It got there in course of time; insisted on pouring into the

burialground; finally, accomplished the interment of the deceased Roger Cly in its own way, and highly to

The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the necessity of providing some other entertainment

for itself, another brighter genius (or perhaps the same) conceived the humour of impeaching casual

passersby, as Old Bailey spies, and wreaking vengeance on them. Chase was given to some scores of

inoffensive persons who had never been near the Old Bailey in their lives, in the realisation of this fancy, and

they were roughly hustled and maltreated. The transition to the sport of windowbreaking, and thence to the

plundering of publichouses, was easy and natural. At last, after several hours, when sundry summerhouses

had been pulled down, and some arearailings had been torn up, to arm the more belligerent spirits, a rumour

got about that the Guards were coming. Before this rumour, the crowd gradually melted away, and perhaps

the Guards came, and perhaps they never came, and this was the usual progress of a mob.

Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had remained behind in the churchyard, to confer and

condole with the undertakers. The place had a soothing influence on him. He procured a pipe from a

neighbouring publichouse, and smoked it, looking in at the railings and maturely considering the spot.

"Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophising himself in his usual way, "you see that there Cly that day, and you

Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, he turned himself about, that he might appear,

before the hour of closing, on his station at Tellson's. Whether his meditations on mortality had touched his

liver, or whether his general health had been previously at all amiss, or whether he desired to show a little

attention to an eminent man, is not so much to the purpose, as that he made a short call upon his medical

Young Jerry relieved his father with dutiful interest, and reported No job in his absence. The bank closed, the

ancient clerks came out, the usual watch was set, and Mr. Cruncher and his son went home to tea.

"Now, I tell you where it is!" said Mr. Cruncher to his wife, on entering. "If, as a honest tradesman, my

wenturs goes wrong tonight, I shall make sure that you've been praying again me, and I shall work you for it

"Why, you're at it afore my face!" said Mr. Cruncher, with signs of angry apprehension.

"Well, then; don't meditate nothing. You might as well flop as meditate. You may as well go again me one

"Yes, Jerry," repeated Mr. Cruncher sitting down to tea. "Ah! It IS yes, Jerry. That's about it. You may say

Mr. Cruncher had no particular meaning in these sulky corroborations, but made use of them, as people not

"You and your yes, Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out of his breadandbutter, and seeming to help

it down with a large invisible oyster out of his saucer. "Ah! I think so. I believe you."

"No, you mayn't. I'm a goingas your mother knowsa fishing. That's where I'm going to. Going a

"If I don't, you'll have short commons, tomorrow," returned that gentleman, shaking his head; "that's

He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening to keeping a most vigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher,

and sullenly holding her in conversation that she might be prevented from meditating any petitions to his

disadvantage. With this view, he urged his son to hold her in conversation also, and led the unfortunate

woman a hard life by dwelling on any causes of complaint he could bring against her, rather than he would

leave her for a moment to her own reflections. The devoutest person could have rendered no greater homage

to the efficacy of an honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It was as if a professed unbeliever in

"And mind you!" said Mr. Cruncher. "No games tomorrow! If I, as a honest tradesman, succeed in

providing a jinte of meat or two, none of your not touching of it, and sticking to bread. If I, as a honest

tradesman, am able to provide a little beer, none of your declaring on water. When you go to Rome, do as

Rome does. Rome will be a ugly customer to you, if you don't. _I_'m your Rome, you know."

"With your flying into the face of your own wittles and drink! I don't know how scarce you mayn't make the

wittles and drink here, by your flopping tricks and your unfeeling conduct. Look at your boy: he IS your'n,

ain't he? He's as thin as a lath. Do you call yourself a mother, and not know that a mother's first duty is to

This touched Young Jerry on a tender place; who adjured his mother to perform her first duty, and, whatever

else she did or neglected, above all things to lay especial stress on the discharge of that maternal function so

Thus the evening wore away with the Cruncher family, until Young Jerry was ordered to bed, and his mother,

laid under similar injunctions, obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier watches of the night with

solitary pipes, and did not start upon his excursion until nearly one o'clock. Towards that small and ghostly

hour, he rose up from his chair, took a key out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard, and brought forth a

sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope and chain, and other fishing tackle of that nature. Disposing these

articles about him in skilful manner, he bestowed a parting defiance on Mrs. Cruncher, extinguished the light,

Young Jerry, who had only made a feint of undressing when he went to bed, was not long after his father.

Under cover of the darkness he followed out of the room, followed down the stairs, followed down the court,

followed out into the streets. He was in no uneasiness concerning his getting into the house again, for it was

Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the art and mystery of his father's honest calling, Young Jerry,

keeping as close to house fronts, walls, and doorways, as his eyes were close to one another, held his

honoured parent in view. The honoured parent steering Northward, had not gone far, when he was joined by

Within half an hour from the first starting, they were beyond the winking lamps, and the more than winking

watchmen, and were out upon a lonely road. Another fisherman was picked up hereand that so silently,

that if Young Jerry had been superstitious, he might have supposed the second follower of the gentle craft to

The three went on, and Young Jerry went on, until the three stopped under a bank overhanging the road.

Upon the top of the bank was a low brick wall, surmounted by an iron railing. In the shadow of bank and wall

the three turned out of the road, and up a blind lane, of which the wallthere, risen to some eight or ten feet

highformed one side. Crouching down in a corner, peeping up the lane, the next object that Young Jerry

saw, was the form of his honoured parent, pretty well defined against a watery and clouded moon, nimbly

scaling an iron gate. He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, and then the third. They all

dropped softly on the ground within the gate, and lay there a littlelistening perhaps. Then, they moved

It was now Young Jerry's turn to approach the gate: which he did, holding his breath. Crouching down again

in a corner there, and looking in, he made out the three fishermen creeping through some rank grass! and all

the gravestones in the churchyardit was a large churchyard that they were inlooking on like ghosts in

white, while the church tower itself looked on Eke the ghost of a monstrous giant. They did not creep far,

They fished with a spade, at first. Presently the honoured parent appeared to be adjusting some instrument

like a great corkscrew. Whatever tools they worked with, they worked hard, until the awful striking of the

church clock so terrified Young Jerry, that he made off, with his hair as stiff as his father's.

But, his longcherished desire to know more about these matters, not only stopped him in his running away,

but lured him back again. They were still fishing perseveringly, when he peeped in at the gate for the second

time; but, now they seemed to have got a bite. There was a screwing and complaining sound down below,

and their bent figures were strained, as if by a weight. By slow degrees the weight broke away the earth upon

it, and came to the surface. Young Jerry very well knew what it would be; but, when he saw it, and saw his

honoured parent about to wrench it open, he was so frightened, being new to the sight, that he made off again,

He would not have stopped then, for anything less necessary than breath, it being a spectral sort of race that

he ran, and one highly desirable to get to the end of. He had a strong idea that the coffin he had seen was

running after him; and, pictured as hopping on behind him, bolt upright, upon its narrow end, always on the

point of overtaking him and hopping on at his sideperhaps taking his arm it was a pursuer to shun. It

was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend too, for, while it was making the whole night behind him dreadful,

he darted out into the roadway to avoid dark alleys, fearful of its coming hopping out of them like a dropsical

boy'sKite without tail and wings. It hid in doorways too, rubbing its horrible shoulders against doors, and

drawing them up to its ears, as if it were laughing. It got into shadows on the road, and lay cunningly on its

back to trip him up. All this time it was incessantly hopping on behind and gaining on him, so that when the

boy got to his own door he had reason for being half dead. And even then it would not leave him, but

followed him upstairs with a bump on every stair, scrambled into bed with him, and bumped down, dead and

>From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet was awakened after daybreak and before sunrise, by

the presence of his father in the family room. Something had gone wrong with him; at least, so Young Jerry

inferred, from the circumstance of his holding Mrs. Cruncher by the ears, and knocking the back of her head

"You oppose yourself to the profit of the business," said Jerry, "and me and my partners suffer. You was to

"Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband's business? Is it honouring your husband to dishonour his

business? Is it obeying your husband to disobey him on the wital subject of his business?"

"It's enough for you," retorted Mr. Cruncher, "to be the wife of a honest tradesman, and not to occupy your

female mind with calculations when he took to his trade or when he didn't. A honouring and obeying wife

would let his trade alone altogether. Call yourself a religious woman? If you're a religious woman, give me a

irreligious one! You have no more nat'ral sense of duty than the bed of this here Thames river has of a pile,

The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, and terminated in the honest tradesman's kicking off his

claysoiled boots, and lying down at his length on the floor. After taking a timid peep at him lying on his

back, with his rusty hands under his head for a pillow, his son lay down too, and fell asleep again.

There was no fish for breakfast, and not much of anything else. Mr. Cruncher was out of spirits, and out of

temper, and kept an iron potlid by him as a projectile for the correction of Mrs. Cruncher, in case he should

observe any symptoms of her saying Grace. He was brushed and washed at the usual hour, and set off with

Young Jerry, walking with the stool under his arm at his father's side along sunny and crowded Fleetstreet,

was a very different Young Jerry from him of the previous night, running home through darkness and

solitude from his grim pursuer. His cunning was fresh with the day, and his qualms were gone with the

nightin which particulars it is not improbable that he had compeers in Fleetstreet and the City of London,

"Father," said Young Jerry, as they walked along: taking care to keep at arm's length and to have the stool

Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he answered, "How should I know?"

"Hem! Well," returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, and lifting off his hat to give his spikes free play, "he's

"His goods," said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his mind, "is a branch of Scientific goods."

"Oh, father, I should so like to be a ResurrectionMan when I'm quite growed up!"

Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious and moral way. "It depends upon how you

dewelop your talents. Be careful to dewelop your talents, and never to say no more than you can help to

nobody, and there's no telling at the present time what you may not come to be fit for." As Young Jerry, thus

encouraged, went on a few yards in advance, to plant the stool in the shadow of the Bar, Mr. Cruncher added

to himself: "Jerry, you honest tradesman, there's hopes wot that boy will yet be a blessing to you, and a

There had been earlier drinking than usual in the wineshop of Monsieur Defarge. As early as six o'clock in

the morning, sallow faces peeping through its barred windows had descried other faces within, bending over

measures of wine. Monsieur Defarge sold a very thin wine at the best of times, but it would seem to have

been an unusually thin wine that he sold at this time. A sour wine, moreover, or a souring, for its influence on

the mood of those who drank it was to make them gloomy. No vivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of

the pressed grape of Monsieur Defarge: but, a smouldering fire that burnt in the dark, lay hidden in the dregs

This had been the third morning in succession, on which there had been early drinking at the wineshop of

Monsieur Defarge. It had begun on Monday, and here was Wednesday come. There had been more of early

brooding than drinking; for, many men had listened and whispered and slunk about there from the time of the

opening of the door, who could not have laid a piece of money on the counter to save their souls. These were

to the full as interested in the place, however, as if they could have commanded whole barrels of wine; and

they glided from seat to seat, and from corner to corner, swallowing talk in lieu of drink, with greedy looks.

Notwithstanding an unusual flow of company, the master of the wineshop was not visible. He was not

missed; for, nobody who crossed the threshold looked for him, nobody asked for him, nobody wondered to

see only Madame Defarge in her seat, presiding over the distribution of wine, with a bowl of battered small

coins before her, as much defaced and beaten out of their original impress as the small coinage of humanity

A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind, were perhaps observed by the spies who looked in at

the wineshop, as they looked in at every place, high and low, from the kings palace to the criminal's gaol.

Games at cards languished, players at dominoes musingly built towers with them, drinkers drew figures on

the tables with spilt drops of wine, Madame Defarge herself picked out the pattern on her sleeve with her

Thus, Saint Antoine in this vinous feature of his, until midday. It was high noontide, when two dusty men

passed through his streets and under his swinging lamps: of whom, one was Monsieur Defarge: the other a

mender of roads in a blue cap. All adust and athirst, the two entered the wineshop. Their arrival had lighted

a kind of fire in the breast of Saint Antoine, fast spreading as they came along, which stirred and flickered in

flames of faces at most doors and windows. Yet, no one had followed them, and no man spoke when they

It may have been a signal for loosening the general tongue. It elicited an answering chorus of "Good day!"

Upon which, every man looked at his neighbour, and then an cast down their eyes and sat silent. Except one

"My wife," said Defarge aloud, addressing Madame Defarge: "I have travelled certain leagues with this good

mender of roads, called Jacques. I met himby accidenta day and half's journey out of Paris. He is a good

A second man got up and went out. Madame Defarge set wine before the mender of roads called Jacques,

who doffed his blue cap to the company, and drank. In the breast of his blouse he carried some coarse dark

bread; he ate of this between whiles, and sat munching and drinking near Madame Defarge's counter. A third

Defarge refreshed himself with a draught of winebut, he took less than was given to the stranger, as being

himself a man to whom it was no rarityand stood waiting until the countryman had made his breakfast. He

looked at no one present, and no one now looked at him; not even Madame Defarge, who had taken up her

"Come, then! You shall see the apartment that I told you you could occupy. It will suit you to a marvel."

Out of the wineshop into the street, out of the street into a courtyard, out of the courtyard up a steep

staircase, out of the staircase into a garret,formerly the garret where a whitehaired man sat on a low

No whitehaired man was there now; but, the three men were there who had gone out of the wineshop

singly. And between them and the whitehaired man afar off, was the one small link, that they had once

"Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques Three! This is the witness encountered by appointment, by me, Jacques

The mender of roads, blue cap in hand, wiped his swarthy forehead with it, and said, "Where shall I

"Commence," was Monsieur Defarge's not unreasonable reply, "at the commencement."

"I saw him then, messieurs," began the mender of roads, "a year ago this running summer, underneath the

carriage of the Marquis, hanging by the chain. Behold the manner of it. I leaving my work on the road, the

sun going to bed, the carriage of the Marquis slowly ascending the hill, he hanging by the chainlike this."

Again the mender of roads went through the whole performance; in which he ought to have been perfect by

that time, seeing that it had been the infallible resource and indispensable entertainment of his village during

"By his tall figure," said the mender of roads, softly, and with his finger at his nose. "When Monsieur the

Marquis demands that evening, 'Say, what is he like?' I make response, `Tall as a spectre.'"

"But what did I know? The deed was not then accomplished, neither did he confide in me. Observe! Under

those circumstances even, I do not offer my testimony. Monsieur the Marquis indicates me with his finger,

standing near our little fountain, and says, `To me! Bring that rascal!' My faith, messieurs, I offer nothing."

"He is right there, Jacques," murmured Defarge, to him who had interrupted. "Go on!"

"Good!" said the mender of roads, with an air of mystery. "The tall man is lost, and he is soughthow many

"No matter, the number," said Defarge. "He is well hidden, but at last he is unluckily found. Go on!"

"I am again at work upon the hillside, and the sun is again about to go to bed. I am collecting my tools to

descend to my cottage down in the village below, where it is already dark, when I raise my eyes, and see

coming over the hill six soldiers. In the midst of them is a tall man with his arms boundtied to his

With the aid of his indispensable cap, he represented a man with his elbows bound fast at his hips, with cords

"I stand aside, messieurs, by my heap of stones, to see the soldiers and their prisoner pass (for it is a solitary

road, that, where any spectacle is well worth looking at), and at first, as they approach, I see no more than

that they are six soldiers with a tall man bound, and that they are almost black to my sightexcept on the

side of the sun going to bed, where they have a red edge, messieurs. Also, I see that their long shadows are on

the hollow ridge on the opposite side of the road, and are on the hill above it, and are like the shadows of

giants. Also, I see that they are covered with dust, and that the dust moves with them as they come, tramp,

tramp! But when they advance quite near to me, I recognise the tall man, and he recognises me. Ah, but he

would be well content to precipitate himself over the hillside once again, as on the evening when he and I

He described it as if he were there, and it was evident that he saw it vividly; perhaps he had not seen much in

"I do not show the soldiers that I recognise the tall man; he does not show the soldiers that he recognises me;

we do it, and we know it, with our eyes. `Come on!' says the chief of that company, pointing to the village,

`bring him fast to his tomb!' and they bring him faster. I follow. His arms are swelled because of being bound

so tight, his wooden shoes are large and clumsy, and he is lame. Because he is lame, and consequently slow,

He imitated the action of a man's being impelled forward by the buttends of muskets.

"As they descend the hill like madmen running a race, he falls. They laugh and pick him up again. His face is

bleeding and covered with dust, but he cannot touch it; thereupon they laugh again. They bring him into the

village; all the village runs to look; they take him past the mill, and up to the prison; all the village sees the

He opened his mouth as wide as he could, and shut it with a sounding snap of his teeth. Observant of his

unwillingness to mar the effect by opening it again, Defarge said, "Go on, Jacques."

"All the village," pursued the mender of roads, on tiptoe and in a low voice, "withdraws; all the village

whispers by the fountain; all the village sleeps; all the village dreams of that unhappy one, within the locks

and bars of the prison on the crag, and never to come out of it, except to perish. In the morning, with my tools

upon my shoulder, eating my morsel of black bread as I go, I make a circuit by the prison, on my way to my

work. There I see him, high up, behind the bars of a lofty iron cage, bloody and dusty as last night, looking

through. He has no hand free, to wave to me; I dare not call to him; he regards me like a dead man."

Defarge and the three glanced darkly at one another. The looks of all of them were dark, repressed, and

revengeful, as they listened to the countryman's story; the manner of all of them, while it was secret, was

authoritative too. They had the air of a rough tribunal; Jacques One and Two sitting on the old palletbed,

each with his chin resting on his hand, and his eyes intent on the roadmender; Jacques Three, equally intent,

on one knee behind them, with his agitated hand always gliding over the network of fine nerves about his

mouth and nose; Defarge standing between them and the narrator, whom he had stationed in the light of the

"He remains up there in his iron cage some days. The village looks at him by stealth, for it is afraid. But it

always looks up, from a distance, at the prison on the crag; and in the evening, when the work of the day is

achieved and it assembles to gossip at the fountain, all faces are turned towards the prison. Formerly, they

were turned towards the postinghouse; now, they are turned towards the prison. They whisper at the

fountain, that although condemned to death he will not be executed; they say that petitions have been

presented in Paris, showing that he was enraged and made mad by the death of his child; they say that a

petition has been presented to the King himself. What do I know? It is possible. Perhaps yes, perhaps no."

"Listen then, Jacques," Number One of that name sternly interposed. "Know that a petition was presented to

the King and Queen. All here, yourself excepted, saw the King take it, in his carriage in the street, sitting

beside the Queen. It is Defarge whom you see here, who, at the hazard of his life, darted out before the

"And once again listen, Jacques!" said the kneeling Number Three: his fingers ever wandering over and over

those fine nerves, with a strikingly greedy air, as if he hungered for somethingthat was neither food nor

drink; "the guard, horse and foot, surrounded the petitioner, and struck him blows. You hear?"

"Again; on the other hand, they whisper at the fountain," resumed the countryman, "that he is brought down

into our country to be executed on the spot, and that he will very certainly be executed. They even whisper

that because he has slain Monseigneur, and because Monseigneur was the father of his tenantsserfswhat

you willhe will be executed as a parricide. One old man says at the fountain, that his right hand, armed

with the knife, will be burnt off before his face; that, into wounds which will be made in his arms, his breast,

and his legs, there will be poured boiling oil, melted lead, hot resin, wax, and sulphur; finally, that he will be

torn limb from limb by four strong horses. That old man says, all this was actually done to a prisoner who

made an attempt on the life of the late King, Louis Fifteen. But how do I know if he lies? I am not a scholar."

"Listen once again then, Jacques!" said the man with the restless hand and the craving air. "The name of that

prisoner was Damiens, and it was all done in open day, in the open streets of this city of Paris; and nothing

was more noticed in the vast concourse that saw it done, than the crowd of ladies of quality and fashion, who

were full of eager attention to the lastto the last, Jacques, prolonged until nightfall, when he had lost two

"Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that; they speak of nothing else; even the fountain appears to fall to

that tune. At length, on Sunday night when all the village is asleep, come soldiers, winding down from the

prison, and their guns ring on the stones of the little street. Workmen dig, workmen hammer, soldiers laugh

and sing; in the morning, by the fountain, there is raised a gallows forty feet high, poisoning the water."

The mender of roads looked THROUGH rather than AT the low ceiling, and pointed as if he saw the gallows

"All work is stopped, all assemble there, nobody leads the cows out, the cows are there with the rest. At

midday, the roll of drums. Soldiers have marched into the prison in the night, and he is in the midst of many

soldiers. He is bound as before, and in his mouth there is a gagtied so, with a tight string, making him look

almost as if he laughed." He suggested it, by creasing his face with his two thumbs, from the corners of his

mouth to his ears. "On the top of the gallows is fixed the knife, blade upwards, with its point in the air. He is

They looked at one another, as he used his blue cap to wipe his face, on which the perspiration had started

"It is frightful, messieurs. How can the women and the children draw water! Who can gossip of an evening,

under that shadow! Under it, have I said? When I left the village, Monday evening as the sun was going to

bed, and looked back from the hill, the shadow struck across the church, across the mill, across the

prisonseemed to strike across the earth, messieurs, to where the sky rests upon it!"

The hungry man gnawed one of his fingers as he looked at the other three, and his finger quivered with the

"That's all, messieurs. I left at sunset (as I had been warned to do), and I walked on, that night and half next

day, until I met (as I was warned I should) this comrade. With him, I came on, now riding and now walking,

After a gloomy silence, the first Jacques said, "Good! You have acted and recounted faithfully. Will you wait

"Very willingly," said the mender of roads. Whom Defarge escorted to the top of the stairs, and, leaving

The three had risen, and their heads were together when he came back to the garret.

The hungry man repeated, in a rapturous croak, "Magnificent!" and began gnawing another finger.

"Are you sure," asked Jacques Two, of Defarge, "that no embarrassment can arise from our manner of

keeping the register? Without doubt it is safe, for no one beyond ourselves can decipher it; but shall we

"Jacques," returned Defarge, drawing himself up, "if madame my wife undertook to keep the register in her

memory alone, she would not lose a word of itnot a syllable of it. Knitted, in her own stitches and her own

symbols, it will always be as plain to her as the sun. Confide in Madame Defarge. It would be easier for the

weakest poltroon that lives, to erase himself from existence, than to erase one letter of his name or crimes

There was a murmur of confidence and approval, and then the man who hungered, asked: "Is this rustic to be

"He knows nothing," said Defarge; "at least nothing more than would easily elevate himself to a gallows of

the same height. I charge myself with him; let him remain with me; I will take care of him, and set him on his

road. He wishes to see the fine worldthe King, the Queen, and Court; let him see them on Sunday."

"What?" exclaimed the hungry man, staring. "Is it a good sign, that he wishes to see Royalty and Nobility?"

"Jacques," said Defarge; "judiciously show a cat milk, if you wish her to thirst for it. Judiciously show a dog

Nothing more was said, and the mender of roads, being found already dozing on the topmost stair, was

advised to lay himself down on the palletbed and take some rest. He needed no persuasion, and was soon

Worse quarters than Defarge's wineshop, could easily have been found in Paris for a provincial slave of that

degree. Saving for a mysterious dread of madame by which he was constantly haunted, his life was very new

and agreeable. But, madame sat all day at her counter, so expressly unconscious of him, and so particularly

determined not to perceive that his being there had any connection with anything below the surface, that he

shook in his wooden shoes whenever his eye lighted on her. For, he contended with himself that it was

impossible to foresee what that lady might pretend next; and he felt assured that if she should take it into her

brightly ornamented head to pretend that she had seen him do a murder and afterwards flay the victim, she

Therefore, when Sunday came, the mender of roads was not enchanted (though he said he was) to find that

madame was to accompany monsieur and himself to Versailles. It was additionally disconcerting to have

madame knitting all the way there, in a public conveyance; it was additionally disconcerting yet, to have

madame in the crowd in the afternoon, still with her knitting in her hands as the crowd waited to see the

The man moved a little further away, as soon as he could, and the mender of roads fanned himself with his

blue cap: feeling it mightily close and oppressive. If he needed a King and Queen to restore him, he was

fortunate in having his remedy at hand; for, soon the largefaced King and the fairfaced Queen came in

their golden coach, attended by the shining Bull's Eye of their Court, a glittering multitude of laughing ladies

and fine lords; and in jewels and silks and powder and splendour and elegantly spurning figures and

handsomely disdainful faces of both sexes, the mender of roads bathed himself, so much to his temporary

intoxication, that he cried Long live the King, Long live the Queen, Long live everybody and everything! as

if he had never heard of ubiquitous Jacques in his time. Then, there were gardens, courtyards, terraces,

fountains, green banks, more King and Queen, more Bull's Eye,more lords and ladies, more Long live they

all! until he absolutely wept with sentiment. During the whole of this scene, which lasted some three hours,

he had plenty of shouting and weeping and sentimental company, and throughout Defarge held him by the

collar, as if to restrain him from flying at the objects of his brief devotion and tearing them to pieces.

"Bravo!" said Defarge, clapping him on the back when it was over, like a patron; "you are a good boy!"

The mender of roads was now coming to himself, and was mistrustful of having made a mistake in his late

"You are the fellow we want," said Defarge, in his ear; "you make these fools believe that it will last for ever.

"These fools know nothing. While they despise your breath, and would stop it for ever and ever, in you or in

a hundred like you rather than in one of their own horses or dogs, they only know what your breath tells

them. Let it deceive them, then, a little longer; it cannot deceive them too much."

"As to you," said she, "you would shout and shed tears for anything, if it made a show and a noise. Say!

"If you were shown a great heap of dolls, and were set upon them to pluck them to pieces and despoil them

for your own advantage, you would pick out the richest and gayest. Say! Would you not?"

"Yes. And if you were shown a flock of birds, unable to fly, and were set upon them to strip them of their

feathers for your own advantage, you would set upon the birds of the finest feathers; would you not?"

"You have seen both dolls and birds today," said Madame Defarge, with a wave of her hand towards the

Madame Defarge and monsieur her husband returned amicably to the bosom of Saint Antoine, while a speck

in a blue cap toiled through the darkness, and through the dust, and down the weary miles of avenue by the

wayside, slowly tending towards that point of the compass where the chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, now

in his grave, listened to the whispering trees. Such ample leisure had the stone faces, now, for listening to the

trees and to the fountain, that the few village scarecrows who, in their quest for herbs to eat and fragments of

dead stick to burn, strayed within sight of the great stone courtyard and terrace staircase, had it borne in upon

their starved fancy that the expression of the faces was altered. A rumour just lived in the villagehad a faint

and bare existence there, as its people hadthat when the knife struck home, the faces changed, from faces

of pride to faces of anger and pain; also, that when that dangling figure was hauled up forty feet above the

fountain, they changed again, and bore a cruel look of being avenged, which they would henceforth bear for

ever. In the stone face over the great window of the bedchamber where the murder was done, two fine dints

were pointed out in the sculptured nose, which everybody recognised, and which nobody had seen of old; and

on the scarce occasions when two or three ragged peasants emerged from the crowd to take a hurried peep at

Monsieur the Marquis petrified, a skinny finger would not have pointed to it for a minute, before they all

started away among the moss and leaves, like the more fortunate hares who could find a living there.

Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the

village wellthousands of acres of landa whole province of Franceall France itselflay under the

night sky, concentrated into a faint hairbreadth line. So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and

littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the

manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours,

every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it.

The Defarges, husband and wife, came lumbering under the starlight, in their public vehicle, to that gate of

Paris whereunto their journey naturally tended. There was the usual stoppage at the barrier guardhouse, and

the usual lanterns came glancing forth for the usual examination and inquiry. Monsieur Defarge alighted;

knowing one or two of the soldiery there, and one of the police. The latter he was intimate with, and

When Saint Antoine had again enfolded the Defarges in his dusky wings, and they, having finally alighted

near the Saint's boundaries, were picking their way on foot through the black mud and offal of his streets,

"Very little tonight, but all he knows. There is another spy commissioned for our quarter. There may be

"Eh well!" said Madame Defarge, raising her eyebrows with a cool business air. "It is necessary to register

"Barsad," said Defarge, making it French by pronunciation. But, he had been so careful to get it accurately,

"John Barsad," repeated madame, after murmuring it once to herself. "Good. His appearance; is it known?"

"Age, about forty years; height, about five feet nine; black hair; complexion dark; generally, rather handsome

visage; eyes dark, face thin, long, and sallow; nose aquiline, but not straight, having a peculiar inclination

"Eh my faith. It is a portrait!" said madame, laughing. "He shall be registered tomorrow."

They turned into the wineshop, which was closed (for it was midnight), and where Madame Defarge

immediately took her post at her desk, counted the small moneys that had been taken during her absence,

examined the stock, went through the entries in the book, made other entries of her own, checked the serving

man in every possible way, and finally dismissed him to bed. Then she turned out the contents of the bowl of

money for the second time, and began knotting them up in her handkerchief, in a chain of separate knots, for

safe keeping through the night. All this while, Defarge, with his pipe in his mouth, walked up and down,

complacently admiring, but never interfering; in which condition, indeed, as to the business and his domestic

The night was hot, and the shop, close shut and surrounded by so foul a neighbourhood, was illsmelling.

Monsieur Defarge's olfactory sense was by no means delicate, but the stock of wine smelt much stronger than

it ever tasted, and so did the stock of rum and brandy and aniseed. He whiffed the compound of scents away,

"You are fatigued," said madame, raising her glance as she knotted the money. "There are only the usual

"You are a little depressed, too," said madame, whose quick eyes had never been so intent on the accounts,

"But my dear!" repeated madame, nodding firmly; "but my dear! You are faint of heart tonight, my dear!"

"Well, then," said Defarge, as if a thought were wrung out of his breast, "it IS a long time."

"It is a long time," repeated his wife; "and when is it not a long time? Vengeance and retribution require a

"How long," demanded madame, composedly, "does it take to make and store the lightning? Tell me."

"It does not take a long time," said madame, "for an earthquake to swallow a town. Eh well! Tell me how

"But when it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces everything before it. In the meantime, it is always

"I tell thee," said madame, extending her right hand, for emphasis, "that although it is a long time on the road,

it is on the road and coming. I tell thee it never retreats, and never stops. I tell thee it is always advancing.

Look around and consider the Eves of all the world that we know, consider the faces of all the world that we

know, consider the rage and discontent to which the Jacquerie addresses itself with more and more of

"My brave wife," returned Defarge, standing before her with his head a little bent, and his hands clasped at

his back, like a docile and attentive pupil before his catechist, "I do not question all this. But it has lasted a

long time, and it is possibleyou know well, my wife, it is possiblethat it may not come, during our

"Eh well! How then?" demanded madame, tying another knot, as if there were another enemy strangled.

"Well!" said Defarge, with a half complaining and half apologetic shrug. "We shall not see the triumph."

"We shall have helped it," returned madame, with her extended hand in strong action. "Nothing that we do, is

done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see the triumph. But even if not, even if I knew

"Hold!" cried Defarge, reddening a little as if he felt charged with cowardice; "I too, my dear, will stop at

"Yes! But it is your weakness that you sometimes need to see your victim and your opportunity, to sustain

you. Sustain yourself without that. When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for the time

Madame enforced the conclusion of this piece of advice by striking her little counter with her chain of money

as if she knocked its brains out, and then gathering the heavy handkerchief under her arm in a serene manner,

Next noontide saw the admirable woman in her usual place in the wineshop, knitting away assiduously. A

rose lay beside her, and if she now and then glanced at the flower, it was with no infraction of her usual

preoccupied air. There were a few customers, drinking or not drinking, standing or seated, sprinkled about.

The day was very hot, and heaps of flies, who were extending their inquisitive and adventurous perquisitions

into all the glutinous little glasses near madame, fell dead at the bottom. Their decease made no impression

on the other flies out promenading, who looked at them in the coolest manner (as if they themselves were

elephants, or something as far removed), until they met the same fate. Curious to consider how heedless flies

A figure entering at the door threw a shadow on Madame Defarge which she felt to be a new one. She laid

down her knitting, and began to pin her rose in her headdress, before she looked at the figure.

It was curious. The moment Madame Defarge took up the rose, the customers ceased talking, and began

She said it aloud, but added to herself, as she resumed her knitting: "Hah! Good day, age about forty, height

about five feet nine, black hair, generally rather handsome visage, complexion dark, eyes dark, thin, long and

sallow face, aquiline nose but not straight, having a peculiar inclination towards the left cheek which imparts

"Have the goodness to give me a little glass of old cognac, and a mouthful of cool fresh water, madame."

It was the first time it had ever been so complemented, and Madame Defarge knew enough of its antecedents

to know better. She said, however, that the cognac was flattered, and took up her knitting. The visitor

watched her fingers for a few moments, and took the opportunity of observing the place in general.

"Pastime," said madame, still looking at him with a smile while her fingers moved nimbly.

"That depends. I may find a use for it one day. If I doWell," said madame, drawing a breath and nodding

It was remarkable; but, the taste of Saint Antoine seemed to be decidedly opposed to a rose on the headdress

of Madame Defarge. Two men had entered separately, and had been about to order drink, when, catching

sight of that novelty, they faltered, made a pretence of looking about as if for some friend who was not there,

and went away. Nor, of those who had been there when this visitor entered, was there one left. They had all

dropped off. The spy had kept his eyes open, but had been able to detect no sign. They had lounged away in a

povertystricken, purposeless, accidental manner, quite natural and unimpeachable.

"JOHN," thought madame, checking off her work as her fingers knitted, and her eyes looked at the stranger.

"As YOU say," madame retorted, correcting him, and deftly knitting an extra something into his name that

"Pardon me; certainly it was I who said so, but you naturally think so. Of course."

"_I_ think?" returned madame, in a high voice. "I and my husband have enough to do to keep this wineshop

open, without thinking. All we think, here, is how to live. That is the subject WE think of, and it gives us,

from morning to night, enough to think about, without embarrassing our heads concerning others. _I_ think

The spy, who was there to pick up any crumbs he could find or make, did not allow his baffled state to

express itself in his sinister face; but, stood with an air of gossiping gallantry, leaning his elbow on Madame

"A bad business this, madame, of Gaspard's execution. Ah! the poor Gaspard!" With a sigh of great

"My faith!" returned madame, coolly and lightly, "if people use knives for such purposes, they have to pay

for it. He knew beforehand what the price of his luxury was; he has paid the price."

"I believe," said the spy, dropping his soft voice to a tone that invited confidence, and expressing an injured

revolutionary susceptibility in every muscle of his wicked face: "I believe there is much compassion and

As the keeper of the wineshop entered at the door, the spy saluted him by touching his hat, and saying, with

an engaging smile, "Good day, Jacques!" Defarge stopped short, and stared at him.

"Good day, Jacques!" the spy repeated; with not quite so much confidence, or quite so easy a smile under the

"You deceive yourself, monsieur," returned the keeper of the wineshop. "You mistake me for another. That

"I was saying to madame, with whom I had the pleasure of chatting when you entered, that they tell me there

isand no wonder!much sympathy and anger in Saint Antoine, touching the unhappy fate of poor

"No one has told me so," said Defarge, shaking his head. "I know nothing of it."

Having said it, he passed behind the little counter, and stood with his hand on the back of his wife's chair,

looking over that barrier at the person to whom they were both opposed, and whom either of them would

The spy, well used to his business, did not change his unconscious attitude, but drained his little glass of

cognac, took a sip of fresh water, and asked for another glass of cognac. Madame Defarge poured it out for

"You seem to know this quarter well; that is to say, better than I do?" observed Defarge.

"Not at all, but I hope to know it better. I am so profoundly interested in its miserable inhabitants."

"The pleasure of conversing with you, Monsieur Defarge, recalls to me," pursued the spy, "that I have the

"Yes, indeed. When Doctor Manette was released, you, his old domestic, had the charge of him, I know. He

"Such is the fact, certainly," said Defarge. He had had it conveyed to him, in an accidental touch of his wife's

elbow as she knitted and warbled, that he would do best to answer, but always with brevity.

"It was to you," said the spy, "that his daughter came; and it was from your care that his daughter took him,

accompanied by a neat brown monsieur; how is he called?in a little wigLorryof the bank of Tellson

"Very interesting remembrances!" said the spy. "I have known Doctor Manette and his daughter, in England."

"In effect," madame struck in, looking up from her work and her little song, "we never hear about them. We

received the news of their safe arrival, and perhaps another letter, or perhaps two; but, since then, they have

"Going?" echoed madame. "She was pretty enough to have been married long ago. You English are cold, it

"I perceive your tongue is," returned madame; "and what the tongue is, I suppose the man is."

He did not take the identification as a compliment; but he made the best of it, and turned it off with a laugh.

"Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married. But not to an Englishman; to one who, like herself, is French by

birth. And speaking of Gaspard (ah, poor Gaspard! It was cruel, cruel!), it is a curious thing that she is going

to marry the nephew of Monsieur the Marquis, for whom Gaspard was exalted to that height of so many feet;

in other words, the present Marquis. But he lives unknown in England, he is no Marquis there; he is Mr.

Madame Defarge knitted steadily, but the intelligence had a palpable effect upon her husband. Do what he

would, behind the little counter, as to the striking of a light and the lighting of his pipe, he was troubled, and

his hand was not trustworthy. The spy would have been no spy if he had failed to see it, or to record it in his

Having made, at least, this one hit, whatever it might prove to be worth, and no customers coming in to help

him to any other, Mr. Barsad paid for what he had drunk, and took his leave: taking occasion to say, in a

genteel manner, before he departed, that he looked forward to the pleasure of seeing Monsieur and Madame

Defarge again. For some minutes after he had emerged into the outer presence of Saint Antoine, the husband

"Can it be true," said Defarge, in a low voice, looking down at his wife as he stood smoking with his hand on

"As he has said it," returned madame, lifting her eyebrows a little, "it is probably false. But it may be true."

"And if it does come, while we live to see it triumphI hope, for her sake, Destiny will keep her husband

"Her husband's destiny," said Madame Defarge, with her usual composure, "will take him where he is to go,

"But it is very strangenow, at least, is it not very strange"said Defarge, rather pleading with his wife to

induce her to admit it, "that, after all our sympathy for Monsieur her father, and herself, her husband's name

should be proscribed under your hand at this moment, by the side of that infernal dog's who has just left us?"

"Stranger things than that will happen when it does come," answered madame. "I have them both here, of a

She roiled up her knitting when she had said those words, and presently took the rose out of the handkerchief

that was wound about her head. Either Saint Antoine had an instinctive sense that the objectionable

decoration was gone, or Saint Antoine was on the watch for its disappearance; howbeit, the Saint took

courage to lounge in, very shortly afterwards, and the wineshop recovered its habitual aspect.

In the evening, at which season of all others Saint Antoine turned himself inside out, and sat on doorsteps

and windowledges, and came to the corners of vile streets and courts, for a breath of air, Madame Defarge

with her work in her hand was accustomed to pass from place to place and from group to group: a

Missionarythere were many like hersuch as the world will do well never to breed again. All the women

knitted. They knitted worthless things; but, the mechanical work was a mechanical substitute for eating and

drinking; the hands moved for the jaws and the digestive apparatus: if the bony fingers had been still, the

But, as the fingers went, the eyes went, and the thoughts. And as Madame Defarge moved on from group to

group, all three went quicker and fiercer among every little knot of women that she had spoken with, and left

Her husband smoked at his door, looking after her with admiration. "A great woman," said he, "a strong

Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of church bells and the distant beating of the military

drums in the Palace Courtyard, as the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness encompassed them. Another

darkness was closing in as surely, when the church bells, then ringing pleasantly in many an airy steeple over

France, should be melted into thundering cannon; when the military drums should be beating to drown a

wretched voice, that night all potent as the voice of Power and Plenty, Freedom and Life. So much was

closing in about the women who sat knitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing in around a

structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads.

Never did the sun go down with a brighter glory on the quiet corner in Soho, than one memorable evening

when the Doctor and his daughter sat under the planetree together. Never did the moon rise with a milder

radiance over great London, than on that night when it found them still seated under the tree, and shone upon

Lucie was to be married tomorrow. She had reserved this last evening for her father, and they sat alone

They had said little, though they had been there a long time. When it was yet light enough to work and read,

she had neither engaged herself in her usual work, nor had she read to him. She had employed herself in both

ways, at his side under the tree, many and many a time; but, this time was not quite like any other, and

"And I am very happy tonight, dear father. I am deeply happy in the love that Heaven has so blessedmy

love for Charles, and Charles's love for me. But, if my life were not to be still consecrated to you, or if my

marriage were so arranged as that it would part us, even by the length of a few of these streets, I should be

In the sad moonlight, she clasped him by the neck, and laid her face upon his breast. In the moonlight which

is always sad, as the light of the sun itself isas the light called human life isat its coming and its going.

"Dearest dear! Can you tell me, this last time, that you feel quite, quite sure, no new affections of mine, and

no new duties of mine, will ever interpose between us? _I_ know it well, but do you know it? In your own

Her father answered, with a cheerful firmness of conviction he could scarcely have assumed, "Quite sure, my

darling! More than that," he added, as he tenderly kissed her: "my future is far brighter, Lucie, seen through

"Believe it, love! Indeed it is so. Consider how natural and how plain it is, my dear, that it should be so. You,

devoted and young, cannot fully appreciate the anxiety I have felt that your life should not be wasted"

She moved her hand towards his lips, but he took it in his, and repeated the word.

"wasted, my childshould not be wasted, struck aside from the natural order of thingsfor my sake.

Your unselfishness cannot entirely comprehend how much my mind has gone on this; but, only ask yourself,

"If I had never seen Charles, my father, I should have been quite happy with you."

He smiled at her unconscious admission that she would have been unhappy without Charles, having seen

"My child, you did see him, and it is Charles. If it had not been Charles, it would have been another. Or, if it

had been no other, I should have been the cause, and then the dark part of my life would have cast its shadow

It was the first time, except at the trial, of her ever hearing him refer to the period of his suffering. It gave her

a strange and new sensation while his words were in her ears; and she remembered it long afterwards.

"See!" said the Doctor of Beauvais, raising his hand towards the moon. "I have looked at her from my

prisonwindow, when I could not bear her light. I have looked at her when it has been such torture to me to

think of her shining upon what I had lost, that I have beaten my head against my prisonwalls. I have looked

at her, in a state so dun and lethargic, that I have thought of nothing but the number of horizontal lines I could

draw across her at the full, and the number of perpendicular lines with which I could intersect them." He

added in his inward and pondering manner, as he looked at the moon, "It was twenty either way, I remember,

The strange thrill with which she heard him go back to that time, deepened as he dwelt upon it; but, there was

nothing to shock her in the manner of his reference. He only seemed to contrast his present cheerfulness and

"I have looked at her, speculating thousands of times upon the unborn child from whom I had been rent.

Whether it was alive. Whether it had been born alive, or the poor mother's shock had killed it. Whether it was

a son who would some day avenge his father. (There was a time in my imprisonment, when my desire for

vengeance was unbearable.) Whether it was a son who would never know his father's story; who might even

live to weigh the possibility of his father's having disappeared of his own will and act. Whether it was a

"I have pictured my daughter, to myself, as perfectly forgetful of me rather, altogether ignorant of me, and

unconscious of me. I have cast up the years of her age, year after year. I have seen her married to a man who

knew nothing of my fate. I have altogether perished from the remembrance of the living, and in the next

"My father! Even to hear that you had such thoughts of a daughter who never existed, strikes to my heart as if

"You, Lucie? It is out of the Consolation and restoration you have brought to me, that these remembrances

arise, and pass between us and the moon on this last night.What did I say just now?"

"So! But on other moonlight nights, when the sadness and the silence have touched me in a different

wayhave affected me with something as like a sorrowful sense of peace, as any emotion that had pain for

its foundations couldI have imagined her as coming to me in my cell, and leading me out into the freedom

beyond the fortress. I have seen her image in the moonlight often, as I now see you; except that I never held

her in my arms; it stood between the little grated window and the door. But, you understand that that was not

"No. That was another thing. It stood before my disturbed sense of sight, but it never moved. The phantom

that my mind pursued, was another and more real child. Of her outward appearance I know no more than that

she was like her mother. The other had that likeness too as you havebut was not the same. Can you

follow me, Lucie? Hardly, I think? I doubt you must have been a solitary prisoner to understand these

His collected and calm manner could not prevent her blood from running cold, as he thus tried to anatomise

"In that more peaceful state, I have imagined her, in the moonlight, coming to me and taking me out to show

me that the home of her married life was full of her loving remembrance of her lost father. My picture was in

her room, and I was in her prayers. Her life was active, cheerful, useful; but my poor history pervaded it all."

"I was that child, my father, I was not half so good, but in my love that was I."

"And she showed me her children," said the Doctor of Beauvais, "and they had heard of me, and had been

taught to pity me. When they passed a prison of the State, they kept far from its frowning walls, and looked

up at its bars, and spoke in whispers. She could never deliver me; I imagined that she always brought me

back after showing me such things. But then, blessed with the relief of tears, I fell upon my knees, and

"I am that child, I hope, my father. O my dear, my dear, will you bless me as fervently tomorrow?"

"Lucie, I recall these old troubles in the reason that I have tonight for loving you better than words can tell,

and thanking God for my great happiness. My thoughts, when they were wildest, never rose near the

He embraced her, solemnly commended her to Heaven, and humbly thanked Heaven for having bestowed her

There was no one bidden to the marriage but Mr. Lorry; there was even to be no bridesmaid but the gaunt

Miss Pross. The marriage was to make no change in their place of residence; they had been able to extend it,

by taking to themselves the upper rooms formerly belonging to the apocryphal invisible lodger, and they

Doctor Manette was very cheerful at the little supper. They were only three at table, and Miss Pross made the

third. He regretted that Charles was not there; was more than half disposed to object to the loving little plot

So, the time came for him to bid Lucie good night, and they separated. But, in the stillness of the third hour of

the morning, Lucie came downstairs again, and stole into his room; not free from unshaped fears, beforehand.

All things, however, were in their places; all was quiet; and he lay asleep, his white hair picturesque on the

untroubled pillow, and his hands lying quiet on the coverlet. She put her needless candle in the shadow at a

distance, crept up to his bed, and put her lips to his; then, leaned over him, and looked at him.

Into his handsome face, the bitter waters of captivity had worn; but, he covered up their tracks with a

determination so strong, that he held the mastery of them even in his sleep. A more remarkable face in its

quiet, resolute, and guarded struggle with an unseen assailant, was not to be beheld in all the wide dominions

She timidly laid her hand on his dear breast, and put up a prayer that she might ever be as true to him as her

love aspired to be, and as his sorrows deserved. Then, she withdrew her hand, and kissed his lips once more,

and went away. So, the sunrise came, and the shadows of the leaves of the planetree moved upon his face,

The marriageday was shining brightly, and they were ready outside the closed door of the Doctor's room,

where he was speaking with Charles Darnay. They were ready to go to church; the beautiful bride, Mr. Lorry,

and Miss Prossto whom the event, through a gradual process of reconcilement to the inevitable, would

have been one of absolute bliss, but for the yet lingering consideration that her brother Solomon should have

"And so," said Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently admire the bride, and who had been moving round her

to take in every point of her quiet, pretty dress; "and so it was for this, my sweet Lucie, that I brought you

across the Channel, such a baby' Lord bless me' How little I thought what I was doing! How lightly I valued

"You didn't mean it," remarked the matteroffact Miss Pross, "and therefore how could you know it?

"I, my Pross?" (By this time, Mr. Lorry dared to be pleasant with her, on occasion.)

"You were, just now; I saw you do it, and I don't wonder at it. Such a present of plate as you have made 'em,

is enough to bring tears into anybody's eyes. There's not a fork or a spoon in the collection," said Miss Pross,

"that I didn't cry over, last night after the box came, till I couldn't see it."

"I am highly gratified," said Mr. Lorry, "though, upon my honour, I had no intention of rendering those

trifling articles of remembrance invisible to any one. Dear me! This is an occasion that makes a man

speculate on all he has lost. Dear, dear, dear! To think that there might have been a Mrs. Lorry, any time

"You think there never might have been a Mrs. Lorry?" asked the gentleman of that name.

"Well!" observed Mr. Lorry, beamingly adjusting his little wig, "that seems probable, too."

"And you were cut out for a bachelor," pursued Miss Pross, "before you were put in your cradle."

"Then, I think," said Mr. Lorry, "that I was very unhandsomely dealt with, and that I ought to have had a

voice in the selection of my pattern. Enough! Now, my dear Lucie," drawing his arm soothingly round her

waist, "I hear them moving in the next room, and Miss Pross and I, as two formal folks of business, are

anxious not to lose the final opportunity of saying something to you that you wish to hear. You leave your

good father, my dear, in hands as earnest and as loving as your own; he shall be taken every conceivable care

of; during the next fortnight, while you are in Warwickshire and thereabouts, even Tellson's shall go to the

wall (comparatively speaking) before him. And when, at the fortnight's end, he comes to join you and your

beloved husband, on your other fortnight's trip in Wales, you shall say that we have sent him to you in the

best health and in the happiest frame. Now, I hear Somebody's step coming to the door. Let me kiss my dear

girl with an oldfashioned bachelor blessing, before Somebody comes to claim his own."

For a moment, he held the fair face from him to look at the wellremembered expression on the forehead,

and then laid the bright golden hair against his little brown wig, with a genuine tenderness and delicacy

The door of the Doctor's room opened, and he came out with Charles Darnay. He was so deadly palewhich

had not been the case when they went in togetherthat no vestige of colour was to be seen in his face. But,

in the composure of his manner he was unaltered, except that to the shrewd glance of Mr. Lorry it disclosed

some shadowy indication that the old air of avoidance and dread had lately passed over him, like a cold wind.

He gave his arm to his daughter, and took her downstairs to the chariot which Mr. Lorry had hired in honour

of the day. The rest followed in another carriage, and soon, in a neighbouring church, where no strange eyes

Besides the glancing tears that shone among the smiles of the little group when it was done, some diamonds,

very bright and sparkling, glanced on the bride's hand, which were newly released from the dark obscurity of

one of Mr. Lorry's pockets. They returned home to breakfast, and all went well, and in due course the golden

hair that had mingled with the poor shoemaker's white locks in the Paris garret, were mingled with them

It was a hard parting, though it was not for long. But her father cheered her, and said at last, gently

The corner being out of the way of the idle and curious, and the preparations having been very simple and

few, the Doctor, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross, were left quite alone. It was when they turned into the welcome

shade of the cool old hall, that Mr. Lorry observed a great change to have come over the Doctor; as if the

He had naturally repressed much, and some revulsion might have been expected in him when the occasion for

repression was gone. But, it was the old scared lost look that troubled Mr. Lorry; and through his absent

manner of clasping his head and drearily wandering away into his own room when they got upstairs, Mr.

"I think," he whispered to Miss Pross, after anxious consideration, "I think we had best not speak to him just

now, or at all disturb him. I must look in at Tellson's; so I will go there at once and come back presently.

Then, we will take him a ride into the country, and dine there, and all will be well."

It was easier for Mr. Lorry to look in at Tellson's, than to look out of Tellson's. He was detained two hours.

When he came back, he ascended the old staircase alone, having asked no question of the servant; going thus

Miss Pross, with a terrified face, was at his ear. "O me, O me! All is lost!" cried she, wringing her hands.

Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her, and went himself into the Doctor's room. The bench was turned

towards the light, as it had been when he had seen the shoemaker at his work before, and his head was bent

The Doctor looked at him for a momenthalf inquiringly, half as if he were angry at being spoken toand

He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat; his shirt was open at the throat, as it used to be when he did that

work; and even the old haggard, faded surface of face had come back to him. He worked hard

Mr. Lorry glanced at the work in his hand, and observed that it was a shoe of the old size and shape. He took

"A young lady's walking shoe," he muttered, without looking up. "It ought to have been finished long ago.

He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, without pausing in his work.

"You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is not your proper occupation. Think, dear friend!"

Nothing would induce him to speak more. He looked up, for an instant at a time, when he was requested to do

so; but, no persuasion would extract a word from him. He worked, and worked, and worked, in silence, and

words fell on him as they would have fallen on an echoless wall, or on the air. The only ray of hope that Mr.

Lorry could discover, was, that he sometimes furtively looked up without being asked. In that, there seemed a

faint expression of curiosity or perplexityas though he were trying to reconcile some doubts in his mind.

Two things at once impressed themselves on Mr. Lorry, as important above all others; the first, that this must

be kept secret from Lucie; the second, that it must be kept secret from all who knew him. In conjunction with

Miss Pross, he took immediate steps towards the latter precaution, by giving out that the Doctor was not well,

and required a few days of complete rest. In aid of the kind deception to be practised on his daughter, Miss

Pross was to write, describing his having been called away professionally, and referring to an imaginary letter

of two or three hurried lines in his own hand, represented to have been addressed to her by the same post.

These measures, advisable to be taken in any case, Mr. Lorry took in the hope of his coming to himself. If

that should happen soon, he kept another course in reserve; which was, to have a certain opinion that he

In the hope of his recovery, and of resort to this third course being thereby rendered practicable, Mr. Lorry

resolved to watch him attentively, with as little appearance as possible of doing so. He therefore made

arrangements to absent himself from Tellson's for the first time in his life, and took his post by the window in

He was not long in discovering that it was worse than useless to speak to him, since, on being pressed, he

became worried. He abandoned that attempt on the first day, and resolved merely to keep himself always

before him, as a silent protest against the delusion into which he had fallen, or was failing. He remained,

therefore, in his seat near the window, reading and writing, and expressing in as many pleasant and natural

Doctor Manette took what was given him to eat and drink, and worked on, that first day, until it was too dark

to seeworked on, half an hour after Mr. Lorry could not have seen, for his life, to read or write. When he

He looked down at the floor on either side of him in the old manner, looked up in the old manner, and

He made no effort to say why not, and said not a word more. But, Mr. Lorry thought he saw, as he leaned

forward on his bench in the dusk, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, that he was in some

misty way asking himself, "Why not?" The sagacity of the man of business perceived an advantage here, and

Miss Pross and he divided the night into two watches, and observed him at intervals from the adjoining room.

He paced up and down for a long time before he lay down; but, when he did finally lay himself down, he fell

asleep. In the morning, he was up betimes, and went straight to his bench and to work.

On this second day, Mr. Lorry saluted him cheerfully by his name, and spoke to him on topics that had been

of late familiar to them. He returned no reply, but it was evident that he heard what was said, and that he

thought about it, however confusedly. This encouraged Mr. Lorry to have Miss Pross in with her work,

several times during the day; at those times, they quietly spoke of Lucie, and of her father then present,

precisely in the usual manner, and as if there were nothing amiss. This was done without any demonstrative

accompaniment, not long enough, or often enough to harass him; and it lightened Mr. Lorry's friendly heart to

believe that he looked up oftener, and that he appeared to be stirred by some perception of inconsistencies

This time, Mr. Lorry feigned to go out when he could extract no answer from him, and, after remaining

absent for an hour, returned. In the meanwhile, the Doctor had removed to the seat in the window, and had sat

there looking down at the planetree; but, on Mr. Lorry's return, be slipped away to his bench.

The time went very slowly on, and Mr. Lorry's hope darkened, and his heart grew heavier again, and grew yet

heavier and heavier every day. The third day came and went, the fourth, the fifth. Five days, six days, seven

With a hope ever darkening, and with a heart always growing heavier and heavier, Mr. Lorry passed through

this anxious time. The secret was well kept, and Lucie was unconscious and happy; but he could not fail to

observe that the shoemaker, whose hand had been a little out at first, was growing dreadfully skilful, and that

he had never been so intent on his work, and that his hands had never been so nimble and expert, as in the

Worn out by anxious watching, Mr. Lorry fell asleep at his post. On the tenth morning of his suspense, he

was startled by the shining of the sun into the room where a heavy slumber had overtaken him when it was

He rubbed his eyes and roused himself; but he doubted, when he had done so, whether he was not still asleep.

For, going to the door of the Doctor's room and looking in, he perceived that the shoemaker's bench and tools

were put aside again, and that the Doctor himself sat reading at the window. He was in his usual morning

dress, and his face (which Mr. Lorry could distinctly see), though still very pale, was calmly studious and

Even when he had satisfied himself that he was awake, Mr. Lorry felt giddily uncertain for some few

moments whether the late shoemaking might not be a disturbed dream of his own; for, did not his eyes show

him his friend before him in his accustomed clothing and aspect, and employed as usual; and was there any

sign within their range, that the change of which he had so strong an impression had actually happened?

It was but the inquiry of his first confusion and astonishment, the answer being obvious. If the impression

were not produced by a real corresponding and sufficient cause, how came he, Jarvis Lorry, there? How came

he to have fallen asleep, in his clothes, on the sofa in Doctor Manette's consultingroom, and to be debating

Within a few minutes, Miss Pross stood whispering at his side. If he had had any particle of doubt left, her

talk would of necessity have resolved it; but he was by that time clearheaded, and had none. He advised that

they should let the time go by until the regular breakfasthour, and should then meet the Doctor as if nothing

unusual had occurred. If he appeared to be in his customary state of mind, Mr. Lorry would then cautiously

proceed to seek direction and guidance from the opinion he had been, in his anxiety, so anxious to obtain.

Miss Pross, submitting herself to his judgment, the scheme was worked out with care. Having abundance of

time for his usual methodical toilette, Mr. Lorry presented himself at the breakfasthour in his usual white

linen, and with his usual neat leg. The Doctor was summoned in the usual way, and came to breakfast.

So far as it was possible to comprehend him without overstepping those delicate and gradual approaches

which Mr. Lorry felt to be the only safe advance, he at first supposed that his daughter's marriage had taken

place yesterday. An incidental allusion, purposely thrown out, to the day of the week, and the day of the

month, set him thinking and counting, and evidently made him uneasy. In all other respects, however, he was

so composedly himself, that Mr. Lorry determined to have the aid he sought. And that aid was his own.

Therefore, when the breakfast was done and cleared away, and he and the Doctor were left together, Mr.

"My dear Manette, I am anxious to have your opinion, in confidence, on a very curious case in which I am

deeply interested; that is to say, it is very curious to me; perhaps, to your better information it may be less

Glancing at his hands, which were discoloured by his late work, the Doctor looked troubled, and listened

"Doctor Manette," said Mr. Lorry, touching him affectionately on the arm, "the case is the case of a

particularly dear friend of mine. Pray give your mind to it, and advise me well for his sakeand above all,

"My dear Manette, it is the case of an old and a prolonged shock, of great acuteness and severity to the

affections, the feelings, thetheas you express itthe mind. The mind. It is the case of a shock under

which the sufferer was borne down, one cannot say for how long, because I believe he cannot calculate the

time himself, and there are no other means of getting at it. It is the case of a shock from which the sufferer

recovered, by a process that he cannot trace himselfas I once heard him publicly relate in a striking

manner. It is the case of a shock from which he has recovered, so completely, as to be a highly intelligent

man, capable of close application of mind, and great exertion of body, and of constantly making fresh

additions to his stock of knowledge, which was already very large. But, unfortunately, there has been," he

"How did it show itself? I infer," glancing at his hands again, "in the resumption of some old pursuit

"Now, did you ever see him," asked the Doctor, distinctly and collectedly, though in the same low voice,

"And when the relapse fell on him, was he in most respectsor in all respectsas he was then?"

"No. It has been kept from her, and I hope will always be kept from her. It is known only to myself, and to

The Doctor grasped his band, and murmured, "That was very kind. That was very thoughtful!" Mr. Lorry

"Now, my dear Manette," said Mr. Lorry, at length, in his most considerate and most affectionate way, "I am

a mere man of business, and unfit to cope with such intricate and difficult matters. I do not possess the kind

of information necessary; I do not possess the kind of intelligence; I want guiding. There is no man in this

world on whom I could so rely for right guidance, as on you. Tell me, how does this relapse come about? Is

there danger of another? Could a repetition of it be prevented? How should a repetition of it be treated? How

does it come about at all? What can I do for my friend? No man ever can have been more desirous in his heart

But I don't know how to originate, in such a case. If your sagacity, knowledge, and experience, could put me

on the right track, I might be able to do so much; unenlightened and undirected, I can do so little. Pray

discuss it with me; pray enable me to see it a little more clearly, and teach me how to be a little more useful."

Doctor Manette sat meditating after these earnest words were spoken, and Mr. Lorry did not press him.

"I think it probable," said the Doctor, breaking silence with an effort, "that the relapse you have described,

"You have no idea how such an apprehension weighs on the sufferer's mind, and how difficulthow almost

impossibleit is, for him to force himself to utter a word upon the topic that oppresses him."

"Would he," asked Mr. Lorry, "be sensibly relieved if he could prevail upon himself to impart that secret

"I think so. But it is, as I have told you, next to impossible. I even believe itin some casesto be quite

"Now," said Mr. Lorry, gently laying his hand on the Doctor's arm again, after a short silence on both sides,

"I believe," returned Doctor Manette, "that there had been a strong and extraordinary revival of the train of

thought and remembrance that was the first cause of the malady. Some intense associations of a most

distressing nature were vividly recalled, I think. It is probable that there had long been a dread lurking in his

mind, that those associations would be recalledsay, under certain circumstancessay, on a particular

occasion. He tried to prepare himself in vain; perhaps the effort to prepare himself made him less able to bear

"Would he remember what took place in the relapse?" asked Mr. Lorry, with natural hesitation.

The Doctor looked desolately round the room, shook his head, and answered, in a low voice, "Not at all."

"As to the future," said the Doctor, recovering firmness, "I should have great hope. As it pleased Heaven in

its mercy to restore him so soon, I should have great hope. He, yielding under the pressure of a complicated

something, long dreaded and long vaguely foreseen and contended against, and recovering after the cloud had

"There are two other points," said Mr. Lorry, "on which I am anxious to be instructed. I may go on?"

"To the first, then. He is of a studious habit, and unusually energetic; he applies himself with great ardour to

the acquisition of professional knowledge, to the conducting of experiments, to many things. Now, does he

"I think not. It may be the character of his mind, to be always in singular need of occupation. That may be, in

part, natural to it; in part, the result of affliction. The less it was occupied with healthy things, the more it

would be in danger of turning in the unhealthy direction. He may have observed himself, and made the

"My dear Lorry, I doubt if that could easily be. There has been a violent stress in one direction, and it needs a

"Excuse me, as a persistent man of business. Assuming for a moment, that he WAS overworked; it would

"I do not think so. I do not think," said Doctor Manette with the firmness of selfconviction, "that anything

but the one train of association would renew it. I think that, henceforth, nothing but some extraordinary

jarring of that chord could renew it. After what has happened, and after his recovery, I find it difficult to

imagine any such violent sounding of that string again. I trust, and I almost believe, that the circumstances

He spoke with the diffidence of a man who knew how slight a thing would overset the delicate organisation

of the mind, and yet with the confidence of a man who had slowly won his assurance out of personal

endurance and distress. It was not for his friend to abate that confidence. He professed himself more relieved

and encouraged than he really was, and approached his second and last point. He felt it to be the most

difficult of all; but, remembering his old Sunday morning conversation with Miss Pross, and remembering

"The occupation resumed under the influence of this passing affliction so happily recovered from," said Mr.

Lorry, clearing his throat, "we will callBlacksmith's work, Blacksmith's work. We will say, to put a case

and for the sake of illustration, that he had been used, in his bad time, to work at a little forge. We will say

that he was unexpectedly found at his forge again. Is it not a pity that he should keep it by him?"

The Doctor shaded his forehead with his hand, and beat his foot nervously on the ground.

"He has always kept it by him," said Mr. Lorry, with an anxious look at his friend. "Now, would it not be

"You do not find it easy to advise me?" said Mr. Lorry. "I quite understand it to be a nice question. And yet I

"You see," said Doctor Manette, turning to him after an uneasy pause, "it is very hard to explain, consistently,

the innermost workings of this poor man's mind. He once yearned so frightfully for that occupation, and it

was so welcome when it came; no doubt it relieved his pain so much, by substituting the perplexity of the

fingers for the perplexity of the brain, and by substituting, as he became more practised, the ingenuity of the

hands, for the ingenuity of the mental torture; that he has never been able to bear the thought of putting it

quite out of his reach. Even now, when I believe he is more hopeful of himself than he has ever been, and

even speaks of himself with a kind of confidence, the idea that he might need that old employment, and not

find it, gives him a sudden sense of terror, like that which one may fancy strikes to the heart of a lost child."

"But may notmind! I ask for information, as a plodding man of business who only deals with such material

objects as guineas, shillings, and banknotesmay not the retention of the thing involve the retention of the

idea? If the thing were gone, my dear Manette, might not the fear go with it? In short, is it not a concession to

"I would not keep it," said Mr. Lorry, shaking his head; for he gained in firmness as he saw the Doctor

disquieted. "I would recommend him to sacrifice it. I only want your authority. I am sure it does no good.

Come! Give me your authority, like a dear good man. For his daughter's sake, my dear Manette!"

"In her name, then, let it be done; I sanction it. But, I would not take it away while he was present. Let it be

Mr. Lorry readily engaged for that, and the conference was ended. They passed the day in the country, and

the Doctor was quite restored. On the three following days he remained perfectly well, and on the fourteenth

day he went away to join Lucie and her husband. The precaution that had been taken to account for his

silence, Mr. Lorry had previously explained to him, and he had written to Lucie in accordance with it, and she

On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr. Lorry went into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel,

and hammer, attended by Miss Pross carrying a light. There, with closed doors, and in a mysterious and

guilty manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker's bench to pieces, while Miss Pross held the candle as if she

were assisting at a murderfor which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable figure. The burning of

the body (previously reduced to pieces convenient for the purpose) was commenced without delay in the

kitchen fire; and the tools, shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden. So wicked do destruction and

secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the commission of their

deed and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible crime.

When the newlymarried pair came home, the first person who appeared, to offer his congratulations, was

Sydney Carton. They had not been at home many hours, when he presented himself. He was not improved in

habits, or in looks, or in manner; but there was a certain rugged air of fidelity about him, which was new to

He watched his opportunity of taking Darnay aside into a window, and of speaking to him when no one

"You are good enough to say so, as a fashion of speech; but, I don't mean any fashion of speech. Indeed,

Charles Darnayas was naturalasked him, in all goodhumour and goodfellowship, what he did mean?

"Upon my life," said Carton, smiling, "I find that easier to comprehend in my own mind, than to convey to

yours. However, let me try. You remember a certain famous occasion when I was more drunk than than

"I remember a certain famous occasion when you forced me to confess that you had been drinking."

"I remember it too. The curse of those occasions is heavy upon me, for I always remember them. I hope it

may be taken into account one day, when all days are at an end for me! Don't be alarmed; I am not going to

"Ah!" said Carton, with a careless wave of his hand, as if he waved that away. "On the drunken occasion in

question (one of a large number, as you know), I was insufferable about liking you, and not liking you. I wish

"Fashion of speech again! But, Mr. Darnay, oblivion is not so easy to me, as you represent it to be to you. I

have by no means forgotten it, and a light answer does not help me to forget it."

"If it was a light answer," returned Darnay, "I beg your forgiveness for it. I had no other object than to turn a

slight thing, which, to my surprise, seems to trouble you too much, aside. I declare to you, on the faith of a

gentleman, that I have long dismissed it from my mind. Good Heaven, what was there to dismiss! Have I had

nothing more important to remember, in the great service you rendered me that day?"

"As to the great service," said Carton, "I am bound to avow to you, when you speak of it in that way, that it

was mere professional claptrap, I don't know that I cared what became of you, when I rendered it.Mind! I

"You make light of the obligation," returned Darnay, "but I will not quarrel with YOUR light answer."

"Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me! I have gone aside from my purpose; I was speaking about our being

friends. Now, you know me; you know I am incapable of all the higher and better flights of men. If you doubt

"Well! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog, who has never done any good, and never will."

"But I do, and you must take my word for it. Well! If you could endure to have such a worthless fellow, and a

fellow of such indifferent reputation, coming and going at odd times, I should ask that I might be permitted to

come and go as a privileged person here; that I might be regarded as an useless (and I would add, if it were

not for the resemblance I detected between you and me, an unornamental) piece of furniture, tolerated for its

old service, and taken no notice of. I doubt if I should abuse the permission. It is a hundred to one if I should

avail myself of it four times in a year. It would satisfy me, I dare say, to know that I had it."

"That is another way of saying that I am placed on the footing I have indicated. I thank you, Darnay. I may

They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away. Within a minute afterwards, he was, to all outward

When he was gone, and in the course of an evening passed with Miss Pross, the Doctor, and Mr. Lorry,

Charles Darnay made some mention of this conversation in general terms, and spoke of Sydney Carton as a

problem of carelessness and recklessness. He spoke of him, in short, not bitterly or meaning to bear hard

He had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of his fair young wife; but, when he afterwards joined her

in their own rooms, he found her waiting for him with the old pretty lifting of the forehead strongly marked.

"Yes, dearest Charles," with her hands on his breast, and the inquiring and attentive expression fixed upon

him; "we are rather thoughtful tonight, for we have something on our mind tonight."

What, indeed, with his hand putting aside the golden hair from the cheek, and his other hand against the heart

"I think, Charles, poor Mr. Carton deserves more consideration and respect than you expressed for him

"I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and very lenient on his faults when he is not

by. I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep

"It is a painful reflection to me," said Charles Darnay, quite astounded, "that I should have done him any

"My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed; there is scarcely a hope that anything in his character or

fortunes is reparable now. But, I am sure that he is capable of good things, gentle things, even magnanimous

She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this lost man, that her husband could have looked at her as

"And, O my dearest Love!" she urged, clinging nearer to him, laying her head upon his breast, and raising her

eyes to his, "remember how strong we are in our happiness, and how weak he is in his misery!"

The supplication touched him home. "I will always remember it, dear Heart! I will remember it as long as I

He bent over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to his, and folded her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer

then pacing the dark streets, could have heard her innocent disclosure, and could have seen the drops of pity

kissed away by her husband from the soft blue eyes so loving of that husband, he might have cried to the

A wonderful corner for echoes, it has been remarked, that corner where the Doctor lived. Ever busily winding

the golden thread which bound her husband, and her father, and herself, and her old directress and

companion, in a life of quiet bliss, Lucie sat in the still house in the tranquilly resounding corner, listening to

At first, there were times, though she was a perfectly happy young wife, when her work would slowly fall

from her hands, and her eyes would be dimmed. For, there was something coming in the echoes, something

light, afar off, and scarcely audible yet, that stirred her heart too much. Fluttering hopes and doubtshopes,

of a love as yet unknown to her: doubts, of her remaining upon earth, to enjoy that new delightdivided her

breast. Among the echoes then, there would arise the sound of footsteps at her own early grave; and thoughts

of the husband who would be left so desolate, and who would mourn for her so much, swelled to her eyes,

That time passed, and her little Lucie lay on her bosom. Then, among the advancing echoes, there was the

tread of her tiny feet and the sound of her prattling words. Let greater echoes resound as they would, the

young mother at the cradle side could always hear those coming. They came, and the shady house was sunny

with a child's laugh, and the Divine friend of children, to whom in her trouble she had confided hers, seemed

to take her child in his arms, as He took the child of old, and made it a sacred joy to her.

Ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them all together, weaving the service of her happy

influence through the tissue of all their lives, and making it predominate nowhere, Lucie heard in the echoes

of years none but friendly and soothing sounds. Her husband's step was strong and prosperous among them;

her father's firm and equal. Lo, Miss Pross, in harness of string, awakening the echoes, as an unruly charger,

Even when there were sounds of sorrow among the rest, they were not harsh nor cruel. Even when golden

hair, like her own, lay in a halo on a pillow round the worn face of a little boy, and he said, with a radiant

smile, "Dear papa and mamma, I am very sorry to leave you both, and to leave my pretty sister; but I am

called, and I must go!" those were not tears all of agony that wetted his young mother's cheek, as the spirit

departed from her embrace that had been entrusted to it. Suffer them and forbid them not. They see my

Thus, the rustling of an Angel's wings got blended with the other echoes, and they were not wholly of earth,

but had in them that breath of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that blew over a little gardentomb were mingled

with them also, and both were audible to Lucie, in a hushed murmurlike the breathing of a summer sea

asleep upon a sandy shore as the little Lucie, comically studious at the task of the morning, or dressing a

doll at her mother's footstool, chattered in the tongues of the Two Cities that were blended in her life.

The Echoes rarely answered to the actual tread of Sydney Carton. Some halfdozen times a year, at most, he

claimed his privilege of coming in uninvited, and would sit among them through the evening, as he had once

done often. He never came there heated with wine. And one other thing regarding him was whispered in the

No man ever really loved a woman, lost her, and knew her with a blameless though an unchanged mind,

when she was a wife and a mother, but her children had a strange sympathy with himan instinctive

delicacy of pity for him. What fine hidden sensibilities are touched in such a case, no echoes tell; but it is so,

and it was so here. Carton was the first stranger to whom little Lucie held out her chubby arms, and he kept

his place with her as she grew. The little boy had spoken of him, almost at the last. "Poor Carton! Kiss him

Mr. Stryver shouldered his way through the law, like some great engine forcing itself through turbid water,

and dragged his useful friend in his wake, like a boat towed astern. As the boat so favoured is usually in a

rough plight, and mostly under water, so, Sydney had a swamped life of it. But, easy and strong custom,

unhappily so much easier and stronger in him than any stimulating sense of desert or disgrace, made it the life

he was to lead; and he no more thought of emerging from his state of lion's jackal, than any real jackal may

be supposed to think of rising to be a lion. Stryver was rich; had married a florid widow with property and

three boys, who had nothing particularly shining about them but the straight hair of their dumpling heads.

These three young gentlemen, Mr. Stryver, exuding patronage of the most offensive quality from every pore,

had walked before him like three sheep to the quiet corner in Soho, and had offered as pupils to Lucie's

husband: delicately saying "Halloa! here are three lumps of breadand cheese towards your matrimonial

picnic, Darnay!" The polite rejection of the three lumps of breadandcheese had quite bloated Mr. Stryver

with indignation, which he afterwards turned to account in the training of the young gentlemen, by directing

them to beware of the pride of Beggars, like that tutorfellow. He was also in the habit of declaiming to Mrs.

Stryver, over his fullbodied wine, on the arts Mrs. Darnay had once put in practice to "catch" him, and on

the diamondcutdiamond arts in himself, madam, which had rendered him "not to be caught." Some of his

King's Bench familiars, who were occasionally parties to the fullbodied wine and the lie, excused him for

the latter by saying that he had told it so often, that he believed it himselfwhich is surely such an

incorrigible aggravation of an originally bad offence, as to justify any such offender's being carried off to

These were among the echoes to which Lucie, sometimes pensive, sometimes amused and laughing, listened

in the echoing corner, until her little daughter was six years old. How near to her heart the echoes of her

child's tread came, and those of her own dear father's, always active and selfpossessed, and those of her dear

husband's, need not be told. Nor, how the lightest echo of their united home, directed by herself with such a

wise and elegant thrift that it was more abundant than any waste, was music to her. Nor, how there were

echoes all about her, sweet in her ears, of the many times her father had told her that he found her more

devoted to him married (if that could be) than single, and of the many times her husband had said to her that

no cares and duties seemed to divide her love for him or her help to him, and asked her "What is the magic

secret, my darling, of your being everything to all of us, as if there were only one of us, yet never seeming to

But, there were other echoes, from a distance, that rumbled menacingly in the corner all through this space of

time. And it was now, about little Lucie's sixth birthday, that they began to have an awful sound, as of a great

On a night in midJuly, one thousand seven hundred and eightynine, Mr. Lorry came in late, from Tellson's,

and sat himself down by Lucie and her husband in the dark window. It was a hot, wild night, and they were

all three reminded of the old Sunday night when they had looked at the lightning from the same place.

"I began to think," said Mr. Lorry, pushing his brown wig back, "that I should have to pass the night at

Tellson's. We have been so full of business all day, that we have not known what to do first, or which way to

turn. There is such an uneasiness in Paris, that we have actually a run of confidence upon us! Our customers

over there, seem not to be able to confide their property to us fast enough. There is positively a mania among

"A bad look, you say, my dear Darnay? Yes, but we don't know what reason there is in it. People are so

unreasonable! Some of us at Tellson's are getting old, and we really can't be troubled out of the ordinary

"I know that, to be sure," assented Mr. Lorry, trying to persuade himself that his sweet temper was soured,

and that he grumbled, "but I am determined to be peevish after my long day's botheration. Where is

"I am quite glad you are at home; for these hurries and forebodings by which I have been surrounded all day

"I don't think I do like, if I may speak my mind. I am not fit to be pitted against you tonight. Is the teaboard

"That's right; all safe and well! I don't know why anything should be otherwise than safe and well here, thank

God; but I have been so put out all day, and I am not as young as I was! My tea, my dear! Thank ye. Now,

come and take your place in the circle, and let us sit quiet, and hear the echoes about which you have your

"A fancy, then, my wise pet," said Mr. Lorry, patting her hand. "They are very numerous and very loud,

Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to force their way into anybody's life, footsteps not easily made

clean again if once stained red, the footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar off, as the little circle sat in the dark

Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a vast dusky mass of scarecrows heaving to and fro, with frequent

gleams of light above the billowy heads, where steel blades and bayonets shone in the sun. A tremendous roar

arose from the throat of Saint Antoine, and a forest of naked arms struggled in the air like shrivelled branches

of trees in a winter wind: all the fingers convulsively clutching at every weapon or semblance of a weapon

Who gave them out, whence they last came, where they began, through what agency they crookedly quivered

and jerked, scores at a time, over the heads of the crowd, like a kind of lightning, no eye in the throng could

have told; but, muskets were being distributedso were cartridges, powder, and ball, bars of iron and wood,

knives, axes, pikes, every weapon that distracted ingenuity could discover or devise. People who could lay

hold of nothing else, set themselves with bleeding hands to force stones and bricks out of their places in

walls. Every pulse and heart in Saint Antoine was on highfever strain and at highfever heat. Every living

creature there held life as of no account, and was demented with a passionate readiness to sacrifice it.

As a whirlpool of boiling waters has a centre point, so, all this raging circled round Defarge's wineshop, and

every human drop in the caldron had a tendency to be sucked towards the vortex where Defarge himself,

already begrimed with gunpowder and sweat, issued orders, issued arms, thrust this man back, dragged this

man forward, disarmed one to arm another, laboured and strove in the thickest of the uproar.

"Keep near to me, Jacques Three," cried Defarge; "and do you, Jacques One and Two, separate and put

yourselves at the head of as many of these patriots as you can. Where is my wife?"

"Eh, well! Here you see me!" said madame, composed as ever, but not knitting today. Madame's resolute

right hand was occupied with an axe, in place of the usual softer implements, and in her girdle were a pistol

"I go," said madame, "with you at present. You shall see me at the head of women, byandbye."

"Come, then!" cried Defarge, in a resounding voice. "Patriots and friends, we are ready! The Bastille!"

With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had been shaped into the detested word, the living sea

rose, wave on wave, depth on depth, and overflowed the city to that point. Alarmbells ringing, drums

Deep ditches, double drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke.

Through the fire and through the smokein the fire and in the smoke, for the sea cast him up against a

cannon, and on the instant he became a cannonierDefarge of the wineshop worked like a manful soldier,

Deep ditch, single drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. One

drawbridge down! "Work, comrades all, work! Work, Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques One Thousand,

Jacques Two Thousand, Jacques FiveandTwenty Thousand; in the name of all the Angels or the

Devilswhich you preferwork!" Thus Defarge of the wineshop, still at his gun, which had long gown

"To me, women!" cried madame his wife. "What! We can kill as well as the men when the place is taken!"

And to her, with a shrill thirsty cry, trooping women variously armed, but all armed age in hunger and

Cannon, muskets, fire and smoke; but, still the deep ditch, the single drawbridge, the massive stone wails,

and the eight great towers. Slight displacements of the raging sea, made by the falling wounded. Flashing

weapons, blazing torches, smoking waggonloads of wet straw, hard work at neighbouring barricades in all

directions, shrieks, volleys, execrations, bravery without stint, boom smash and rattle, and the furious

sounding of the living sea; but, still the deep ditch, and the single drawbridge, and the massive stone walls,

and the eight great towers, and still Defarge of the wineshop at his gun, grown doubly hot by the service of

A white flag from within the fortress, and a parleythis dimly perceptible through the raging storm, nothing

audible in itsuddenly the sea rose immeasurably wider and higher, and swept Defarge of the wineshop

over the lowered drawbridge, past the massive stone outer walls, in among the eight great towers

So resistless was the force of the ocean bearing him on, that even to draw his breath or turn his head was as

impracticable as if he had been struggling in the surf at the South Sea, until he was landed in the outer

courtyard of the Bastille. There, against an angle of a wall, he made a struggle to look about him. Jacques

Three was nearly at his side; Madame Defarge, still heading some of her women, was visible in the inner

distance, and her knife was in her hand. Everywhere was tumult, exultation, deafening and maniacal

Of all these cries, and ten thousand incoherences, "The Prisoners!" was the cry most taken up by the sea that

rushed in, as if there were an eternity of people, as well as of time and space. When the foremost billows

rolled past, bearing the prison officers with them, and threatening them all with instant death if any secret

nook remained undisclosed, Defarge laid his strong hand on the breast of one of these mena man with a

grey head, who had a lighted torch in his hand separated him from the rest, and got him between himself

"I will faithfully," replied the man, "if you will come with me. But there is no one there."

"What is the meaning of One Hundred and Five, North Tower?" asked Defarge. "Quick!"

"Does it mean a captive, or a place of captivity? Or do you mean that I shall strike you dead?"

Jacques Three, with his usual craving on him, and evidently disappointed by the dialogue taking a turn that

did not seem to promise bloodshed, held by Defarge's arm as he held by the turnkey's. Their three heads had

been close together during this brief discourse, and it had been as much as they could do to hear one another,

even then: so tremendous was the noise of the living ocean, in its irruption into the Fortress, and its

inundation of the courts and passages and staircases. All around outside, too, it beat the walls with a deep,

hoarse roar, from which, occasionally, some partial shouts of tumult broke and leaped into the air like spray.

Through gloomy vaults where the light of day had never shone, past hideous doors of dark dens and cages,

down cavernous flights of steps, and again up steep rugged ascents of stone and brick, more like dry

waterfalls than staircases, Defarge, the turnkey, and Jacques Three, linked hand and arm, went with all the

speed they could make. Here and there, especially at first, the inundation started on them and swept by; but

when they had done descending, and were winding and climbing up a tower, they were alone. Hemmed in

here by the massive thickness of walls and arches, the storm within the fortress and without was only audible

to them in a dull, subdued way, as if the noise out of which they had come had almost destroyed their sense

The turnkey stopped at a low door, put a key in a clashing lock, swung the door slowly open, and said, as

There was a small, heavilygrated, unglazed window high in the wall, with a stone screen before it, so that

the sky could be only seen by stooping low and looking up. There was a small chimney, heavily barred

across, a few feet within. There was a heap of old feathery woodashes on the hearth. There was a stool, and

table, and a straw bed. There were the four blackened walls, and a rusted iron ring in one of them.

"Pass that torch slowly along these walls, that I may see them," said Defarge to the turnkey.

"Alexandre Manette," said Defarge in his ear, following the letters with his swart forefinger, deeply

engrained with gunpowder. "And here he wrote `a poor physician.' And it was he, without doubt, who

scratched a calendar on this stone. What is that in your hand? A crowbar? Give it me!"

He had still the linstock of his gun in his own hand. He made a sudden exchange of the two instruments, and

"Hold the light higher!" he said, wrathfully, to the turnkey. "Look among those fragments with care, Jacques.

And see! Here is my knife," throwing it to him; "rip open that bed, and search the straw. Hold the light

With a menacing look at the turnkey he crawled upon the hearth, and, peering up the chimney, struck and

prised at its sides with the crowbar, and worked at the iron grating across it. In a few minutes, some mortar

and dust came dropping down, which he averted his face to avoid; and in it, and in the old woodashes, and

in a crevice in the chimney into which his weapon had slipped or wrought itself, he groped with a cautious

The turnkey fired the little pile, which blazed high and hot. Stooping again to come out at the lowarched

door, they left it burning, and retraced their way to the courtyard; seeming to recover their sense of hearing as

They found it surging and tossing, in quest of Defarge himself. Saint Antoine was clamorous to have its

wineshop keeper foremost in the guard upon the governor who had defended the Bastille and shot the

people. Otherwise, the governor would not be marched to the Hotel de Ville for judgment. Otherwise, the

governor would escape, and the people's blood (suddenly of some value, after many years of worthlessness)

In the howling universe of passion and contention that seemed to encompass this grim old officer

conspicuous in his grey coat and red decoration, there was but one quite steady figure, and that was a

woman's. "See, there is my husband!" she cried, pointing him out. "See Defarge!" She stood immovable close

to the grain old officer, and remained immovable close to him; remained immovable close to him through the

streets, as Defarge and the rest bore him along; remained immovable close to him when he was got near his

destination, and began to be struck at from behind; remained immovable close to him when the

longgathering rain of stabs and blows fell heavy; was so close to him when he dropped dead under it, that,

suddenly animated, she put her foot upon his neck, and with her cruel knifelong readyhewed off his

The hour was come, when Saint Antoine was to execute his horrible idea of hoisting up men for lamps to

show what he could be and do. Saint Antoine's blood was up, and the blood of tyranny and domination by the

iron hand was downdown on the steps of the Hotel de Ville where the governor's body laydown on the

sole of the shoe of Madame Defarge where she had trodden on the body to steady it for mutilation. "Lower

the lamp yonder!" cried Saint Antoine, after glaring round for a new means of death; "here is one of his

soldiers to be left on guard!" The swinging sentinel was posted, and the sea rushed on.

The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructive upheaving of wave against wave, whose depths

were yet unfathomed and whose forces were yet unknown. The remorseless sea of turbulently swaying

shapes, voices of vengeance, and faces hardened in the furnaces of suffering until the touch of pity could

But, in the ocean of faces where every fierce and furious expression was in vivid life, there were two groups

of faceseach seven in number so fixedly contrasting with the rest, that never did sea roll which bore

more memorable wrecks with it. Seven faces of prisoners, suddenly released by the storm that had burst their

tomb, were carried high overhead: all scared, all lost, all wondering and amazed, as if the Last Day were

come, and those who rejoiced around them were lost spirits. Other seven faces there were, carried higher,

seven dead faces, whose drooping eyelids and halfseen eyes awaited the Last Day. Impassive faces, yet with

a suspendednot an abolishedexpression on them; faces, rather, in a fearful pause, as having yet to raise

the dropped lids of the eyes, and bear witness with the bloodless lips, "THOU DIDST IT!"

Seven prisoners released, seven gory heads on pikes, the keys of the accursed fortress of the eight strong

towers, some discovered letters and other memorials of prisoners of old time, long dead of broken

hearts,such, and suchlike, the loudly echoing footsteps of Saint Antoine escort through the Paris streets

in midJuly, one thousand seven hundred and eightynine. Now, Heaven defeat the fancy of Lucie Darnay,

and keep these feet far out of her life! For, they are headlong, mad, and dangerous; and in the years so long

after the breaking of the cask at Defarge's wineshop door, they are not easily purified when once stained red.

Haggard Saint Antoine had had only one exultant week, in which to soften his modicum of hard and bitter

bread to such extent as he could, with the relish of fraternal embraces and congratulations, when Madame

Defarge sat at her counter, as usual, presiding over the customers. Madame Defarge wore no rose in her head,

for the great brotherhood of Spies had become, even in one short week, extremely chary of trusting

themselves to the saint's mercies. The lamps across his streets had a portentously elastic swing with them.

Madame Defarge, with her arms folded, sat in the morning light and heat, contemplating the wineshop and

the street. In both, there were several knots of loungers, squalid and miserable, but now with a manifest sense

of power enthroned on their distress. The raggedest nightcap, awry on the wretchedest head, had this crooked

significance in it: "I know how hard it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to support life in myself; but do

you know how easy it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to destroy life in you?" Every lean bare arm, that

bad been without work before, had this work always ready for it now, that it could strike. The fingers of the

knitting women were vicious, with the experience that they could tear. There was a change in the appearance

of Saint Antoine; the image had been hammering into this for hundreds of years, and the last finishing blows

Madame Defarge sat observing it, with such suppressed approval as was to be desired in the leader of the

Saint Antoine women. One of her sisterhood knitted beside her. The short, rather plump wife of a starved

grocer, and the mother of two children withal, this lieutenant had already earned the complimentary name of

As if a train of powder laid from the outermost bound of Saint Antoine Quarter to the wineshop door, had

Defarge came in breathless, pulled off a red cap he wore, and looked around him! "Listen, everywhere!" said

madame again. "Listen to him!" Defarge stood, panting, against a background of eager eyes and open

mouths, formed outside the door; all those within the wineshop had sprung to their feet.

"Does everybody here recall old Foulon, who told the famished people that they might eat grass, and who

"Not dead! He feared us so muchand with reasonthat he caused himself to be represented as dead, and

had a grand mockfuneral. But they have found him alive, hiding in the country, and have brought him in. I

have seen him but now, on his way to the Hotel de Ville, a prisoner. I have said that he had reason to fear us.

Wretched old sinner of more than threescore years and ten, if he had never known it yet, he would have

A moment of profound silence followed. Defarge and his wife looked steadfastly at one another. The

Vengeance stooped, and the jar of a drum was heard as she moved it at her feet behind the counter.

Instantly Madame Defarge's knife was in her girdle; the drum was beating in the streets, as if it and a

drummer had flown together by magic; and The Vengeance, uttering terrific shrieks, and flinging her arms

about her head like all the forty Furies at once, was tearing from house to house, rousing the women.

The men were terrible, in the bloodyminded anger with which they looked from windows, caught up what

arms they had, and came pouring down into the streets; but, the women were a sight to chill the boldest. From

such household occupations as their bare poverty yielded, from their children, from their aged and their sick

crouching on the bare ground famished and naked, they ran out with streaming hair, urging one another, and

themselves, to madness with the wildest cries and actions. Villain Foulon taken, my sister! Old Foulon taken,

my mother! Miscreant Foulon taken, my daughter! Then, a score of others ran into the midst of these, beating

their breasts, tearing their hair, and screaming, Foulon alive! Foulon who told the starving people they might

eat grass! Foulon who told my old father that he might eat grass, when I had no bread to give him! Foulon

who told my baby it might suck grass, when these breasts where dry with want! O mother of God, this

Foulon! O Heaven our suffering! Hear me, my dead baby and my withered father: I swear on my knees, on

these stones, to avenge you on Foulon! Husbands, and brothers, and young men, Give us the blood of Foulon,

Give us the head of Foulon, Give us the heart of Foulon, Give us the body and soul of Foulon, Rend Foulon

to pieces, and dig him into the ground, that grass may grow from him! With these cries, numbers of the

women, lashed into blind frenzy, whirled about, striking and tearing at their own friends until they dropped

into a passionate swoon, and were only saved by the men belonging to them from being trampled under foot.

Nevertheless, not a moment was lost; not a moment! This Foulon was at the Hotel de Ville, and might be

loosed. Never, if Saint Antoine knew his own sufferings, insults, and wrongs! Armed men and women

flocked out of the Quarter so fast, and drew even these last dregs after them with such a force of suction, that

within a quarter of an hour there was not a human creature in Saint Antoine's bosom but a few old crones and

No. They were all by that time choking the Hall of Examination where this old man, ugly and wicked, was,

and overflowing into the adjacent open space and streets. The Defarges, husband and wife, The Vengeance,

and Jacques Three, were in the first press, and at no great distance from him in the Hall.

"See!" cried madame, pointing with her knife. "See the old villain bound with ropes. That was well done to

tie a bunch of grass upon his back. Ha, ha! That was well done. Let him eat it now!" Madame put her knife

The people immediately behind Madame Defarge, explaining the cause of her satisfaction to those behind

them, and those again explaining to others, and those to others, the neighbouring streets resounded with the

clapping of hands. Similarly, during two or three hours of drawl, and the winnowing of many bushels of

words, Madame Defarge's frequent expressions of impatience were taken up, with marvellous quickness, at a

distance: the more readily, because certain men who had by some wonderful exercise of agility climbed up

the external architecture to look in from the windows, knew Madame Defarge well, and acted as a telegraph

At length the sun rose so high that it struck a kindly ray as of hope or protection, directly down upon the old

prisoner's head. The favour was too much to bear; in an instant the barrier of dust and chaff that had stood

It was known directly, to the furthest confines of the crowd. Defarge had but sprung over a railing and a table,

and folded the miserable wretch in a deadly embraceMadame Defarge had but followed and turned her

hand in one of the ropes with which he was tiedThe Vengeance and Jacques Three were not yet up with

them, and the men at the windows had not yet swooped into the Hall, like birds of prey from their high

percheswhen the cry seemed to go up, all over the city, "Bring him out! Bring him to the lamp!"

Down, and up, and head foremost on the steps of the building; now, on his knees; now, on his feet; now, on

his back; dragged, and struck at, and stifled by the bunches of grass and straw that were thrust into his face by

hundreds of hands; torn, bruised, panting, bleeding, yet always entreating and beseeching for mercy; now full

of vehement agony of action, with a small clear space about him as the people drew one another back that

they might see; now, a log of dead wood drawn through a forest of legs; he was hauled to the nearest street

corner where one of the fatal lamps swung, and there Madame Defarge let him goas a cat might have done

to a mouseand silently and composedly looked at him while they made ready, and while he besought her:

the women passionately screeching at him all the time, and the men sternly calling out to have him killed

with grass in his mouth. Once, he went aloft, and the rope broke, and they caught him shrieking; twice, he

went aloft, and the rope broke, and they caught him shrieking; then, the rope was merciful, and held him, and

his head was soon upon a pike, with grass enough in the mouth for all Saint Antoine to dance at the sight of.

Nor was this the end of the day's bad work, for Saint Antoine so shouted and danced his angry blood up, that

it boiled again, on hearing when the day closed in that the soninlaw of the despatched, another of the

people's enemies and insulters, was coming into Paris under a guard five hundred strong, in cavalry alone.

Saint Antoine wrote his crimes on flaring sheets of paper, seized himwould have torn him out of the breast

of an army to bear Foulon companyset his head and heart on pikes, and carried the three spoils of the day,

Not before dark night did the men and women come back to the children, wailing and breadless. Then, the

miserable bakers' shops were beset by long files of them, patiently waiting to buy bad bread; and while they

waited with stomachs faint and empty, they beguiled the time by embracing one another on the triumphs of

the day, and achieving them again in gossip. Gradually, these strings of ragged people shortened and frayed

away; and then poor lights began to shine in high windows, and slender fires were made in the streets, at

Scanty and insufficient suppers those, and innocent of meat, as of most other sauce to wretched bread. Yet,

human fellowship infused some nourishment into the flinty viands, and struck some sparks of cheerfulness

out of them. Fathers and mothers who had had their full share in the worst of the day, played gently with their

meagre children; and lovers, with such a world around them and before them, loved and hoped.

It was almost morning, when Defarge's wineshop parted with its last knot of customers, and Monsieur

Saint Antoine slept, the Defarges slept: even The Vengeance slept with her starved grocer, and the drum was

at rest. The drum's was the only voice in Saint Antoine that blood and hurry had not changed. The

Vengeance, as custodian of the drum, could have wakened him up and had the same speech out of him as

before the Bastille fell, or old Foulon was seized; not so with the hoarse tones of the men and women in Saint

There was a change on the village where the fountain fell, and where the mender of roads went forth daily to

hammer out of the stones on the highway such morsels of bread as might serve for patches to hold his poor

ignorant soul and his poor reduced body together. The prison on the crag was not so dominant as of yore;

there were soldiers to guard it, but not many; there were officers to guard the soldiers, but not one of them

knew what his men would dobeyond this: that it would probably not be what he was ordered.

Far and wide lay a ruined country, yielding nothing but desolation. Every green leaf, every blade of grass and

blade of grain, was as shrivelled and poor as the miserable people. Everything was bowed down, dejected,

oppressed, and broken. Habitations, fences, domesticated animals, men, women, children, and the soil that

Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) was a national blessing, gave a chivalrous tone to

things, was a polite example of luxurious and shining fife, and a great deal more to equal purpose;

nevertheless, Monseigneur as a class had, somehow or other, brought things to this. Strange that Creation,

designed expressly for Monseigneur, should be so soon wrung dry and squeezed out! There must be

something shortsighted in the eternal arrangements, surely! Thus it was, however; and the last drop of blood

having been extracted from the flints, and the last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its

purchase crumbled, and it now turned and turned with nothing to bite, Monseigneur began to run away from a

But, this was not the change on the village, and on many a village like it. For scores of years gone by,

Monseigneur had squeezed it and wrung it, and had seldom graced it with his presence except for the

pleasures of the chasenow, found in hunting the people; now, found in hunting the beasts, for whose

preservation Monseigneur made edifying spaces of barbarous and barren wilderness. No. The change

consisted in the appearance of strange faces of low caste, rather than in the disappearance of the high caste,

For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary, in the dust, not often troubling himself to reflect

that dust he was and to dust he must return, being for the most part too much occupied in thinking how little

he had for supper and how much more he would eat if he had itin these times, as he raised his eyes from

his lonely labour, and viewed the prospect, he would see some rough figure approaching on foot, the like of

which was once a rarity in those parts, but was now a frequent presence. As it advanced, the mender of roads

would discern without surprise, that it was a shaggyhaired man, of almost barbarian aspect, tall, in wooden

shoes that were clumsy even to the eyes of a mender of roads, grim, rough, swart, steeped in the mud and dust

of many highways, dank with the marshy moisture of many low grounds, sprinkled with the thorns and leaves

Such a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the July weather, as he sat on his heap of stones under a

The man looked at him, looked at the village in the hollow, at the mill, and at the prison on the crag. When he

had identified these objects in what benighted mind he had, he said, in a dialect that was just intelligible:

He took out a blackened pipe, filled it, lighted it with flint and steel, pulled at it until it was in a bright glow:

then, suddenly held it from him and dropped something into it from between his finger and thumb, that

"Touch then." It was the turn of the mender of roads to say it this time, after observing these operations. They

He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones looking silently at one another, with the hail driving in

between them like a pigmy charge of bayonets, until the sky began to clear over the village.

"See!" returned the mender of roads, with extended finger. "You go down here, and straight through the

"To the Devil with all that!" interrupted the other, rolling his eye over the landscape. "_I_ go through no

"Will you wake me, before departing? I have walked two nights without resting. Let me finish my pipe, and I

The wayfarer smoked his pipe out, put it in his breast, slipped off his great wooden shoes, and lay down on

As the roadmender plied his dusty labour, and the hailclouds, rolling away, revealed bright bars and

streaks of sky which were responded to by silver gleams upon the landscape, the little man (who wore a red

cap now, in place of his blue one) seemed fascinated by the figure on the heap of stones. His eyes were so

often turned towards it, that he used his tools mechanically, and, one would have said, to very poor account.

The bronze face, the shaggy black hair and beard, the coarse woollen red cap, the rough medley dress of

homespun stuff and hairy skins of beasts, the powerful frame attenuated by spare living, and the sullen and

desperate compression of the lips in sleep, inspired the mender of roads with awe. The traveller had travelled

far, and his feet were footsore, and his ankles chafed and bleeding; his great shoes, stuffed with leaves and

grass, had been heavy to drag over the many long leagues, and his clothes were chafed into holes, as he

himself was into sores. Stooping down beside him, the roadmender tried to get a peep at secret weapons in

his breast or where not; but, in vain, for he slept with his arms crossed upon him, and set as resolutely as his

lips. Fortified towns with their stockades, guardhouses, gates, trenches, and drawbridges, seemed to the

mender of roads, to be so much air as against this figure. And when he lifted his eyes from it to the horizon

and looked around, he saw in his small fancy similar figures, stopped by no obstacle, tending to centres all

The man slept on, indifferent to showers of hail and intervals of brightness, to sunshine on his face and

shadow, to the paltering lumps of dull ice on his body and the diamonds into which the sun changed them,

until the sun was low in the west, and the sky was glowing. Then, the mender of roads having got his tools

"Good!" said the sleeper, rising on his elbow. "Two leagues beyond the summit of the hill?"

The mender of roads went home, with the dust going on before him according to the set of the wind, and was

soon at the fountain, squeezing himself in among the lean kine brought there to drink, and appearing even to

whisper to them in his whispering to all the village. When the village had taken its poor supper, it did not

creep to bed, as it usually did, but came out of doors again, and remained there. A curious contagion of

whispering was upon it, and also, when it gathered together at the fountain in the dark, another curious

contagion of looking expectantly at the sky in one direction only. Monsieur Gabelle, chief functionary of the

place, became uneasy; went out on his housetop alone, and looked in that direction too; glanced down from

behind his chimneys at the darkening faces by the fountain below, and sent word to the sacristan who kept the

The night deepened. The trees environing the old chateau, keeping its solitary state apart, moved in a rising

wind, as though they threatened the pile of building massive and dark in the gloom. Up the two terrace flights

of steps the rain ran wildly, and beat at the great door, like a swift messenger rousing those within; uneasy

rushes of wind went through the hall, among the old spears and knives, and passed lamenting up the stairs,

and shook the curtains of the bed where the last Marquis had slept. East, West, North, and South, through the

woods, four heavytreading, unkempt figures crushed the high grass and cracked the branches, striding on

cautiously to come together in the courtyard. Four lights broke out there, and moved away in different

But, not for long. Presently, the chateau began to make itself strangely visible by some light of its own, as

though it were growing luminous. Then, a flickering streak played behind the architecture of the front,

picking out transparent places, and showing where balustrades, arches, and windows were. Then it soared

higher, and grew broader and brighter. Soon, from a score of the great windows, flames burst forth, and the

A faint murmur arose about the house from the few people who were left there, and there was a saddling of a

horse and riding away. There was spurring and splashing through the darkness, and bridle was drawn in the

space by the village fountain, and the horse in a foam stood at Monsieur Gabelle's door. "Help, Gabelle!

Help, every one!" The tocsin rang impatiently, but other help (if that were any) there was none. The mender

of roads, and two hundred and fifty particular friends, stood with folded arms at the fountain, looking at the

pillar of fire in the sky. "It must be forty feet high," said they, grimly; and never moved.

The rider from the chateau, and the horse in a foam, clattered away through the village, and galloped up the

stony steep, to the prison on the crag. At the gate, a group of officers were looking at the fire; removed from

them, a group of soldiers. "Help, gentlemen officers! The chateau is on fire; valuable objects may be saved

from the flames by timely aid! Help, help!" The officers looked towards the soldiers who looked at the fire;

As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the street, the village was illuminating. The mender of

roads, and the two hundred and fifty particular friends, inspired as one man and woman by the idea of

lighting up, had darted into their houses, and were putting candles in every dull little pane of glass. The

general scarcity of everything, occasioned candles to be borrowed in a rather peremptory manner of Monsieur

Gabelle; and in a moment of reluctance and hesitation on that functionary's part, the mender of roads, once so

submissive to authority, had remarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with, and that posthorses

The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn. In the roaring and raging of the conflagration, a redhot

wind, driving straight from the infernal regions, seemed to be blowing the edifice away. With the rising and

falling of the blaze, the stone faces showed as if they were in torment. When great masses of stone and timber

fell, the face with the two dints in the nose became obscured: anon struggled out of the smoke again, as if it

were the face of the cruel Marquis, burning at the stake and contending with the fire.

The chateau burned; the nearest trees, laid hold of by the fire, scorched and shrivelled; trees at a distance,

fired by the four fierce figures, begirt the blazing edifice with a new forest of smoke. Molten lead and iron

boiled in the marble basin of the fountain; the water ran dry; the extinguisher tops of the towers vanished like

ice before the heat, and trickled down into four rugged wells of flame. Great rents and splits branched out in

the solid walls, like crystallisation; stupefied birds wheeled about and dropped into the furnace; four fierce

figures trudged away, East, West, North, and South, along the night enshrouded roads, guided by the beacon

they had lighted, towards their next destination. The illuminated village had seized hold of the tocsin, and,

Not only that; but the village, lightheaded with famine, fire, and bellringing, and bethinking itself that

Monsieur Gabelle had to do with the collection of rent and taxesthough it was but a small instalment of

taxes, and no rent at all, that Gabelle had got in those latter daysbecame impatient for an interview with

him, and, surrounding his house, summoned him to come forth for personal conference. Whereupon,

Monsieur Gabelle did heavily bar his door, and retire to hold counsel with himself. The result of that

conference was, that Gabelle again withdrew himself to his housetop behind his stack of chimneys; this time

resolved, if his door were broken in (he was a small Southern man of retaliative temperament), to pitch

Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there, with the distant chateau for fire and candle, and the

beating at his door, combined with the joyringing, for music; not to mention his having an illomened lamp

slung across the road before his postinghouse gate, which the village showed a lively inclination to displace

in his favour. A trying suspense, to be passing a whole summer night on the brink of the black ocean, ready to

take that plunge into it upon which Monsieur Gabelle had resolved! But, the friendly dawn appearing at last,

and the rushcandles of the village guttering out, the people happily dispersed, and Monsieur Gabelle came

Within a hundred miles, and in the light of other fires, there were other functionaries less fortunate, that night

and other nights, whom the rising sun found hanging across oncepeaceful streets, where they had been born

and bred; also, there were other villagers and townspeople less fortunate than the mender of roads and his

fellows, upon whom the functionaries and soldiery turned with success, and whom they strung up in their

turn. But, the fierce figures were steadily wending East, West, North, and South, be that as it would; and

whosoever hung, fire burned. The altitude of the gallows that would turn to water and quench it, no

In such risings of fire and risings of seathe firm earth shaken by the rushes of an angry ocean which had

now no ebb, but was always on the flow, higher and higher, to the terror and wonder of the beholders on the

shorethree years of tempest were consumed. Three more birthdays of little Lucie had been woven by the

Many a night and many a day had its inmates listened to the echoes in the corner, with hearts that failed them

when they heard the thronging feet. For, the footsteps had become to their minds as the footsteps of a people,

tumultuous under a red flag and with their country declared in danger, changed into wild beasts, by terrible

Monseigneur, as a class, had dissociated himself from the phenomenon of his not being appreciated: of his

being so little wanted in France, as to incur considerable danger of receiving his dismissal from it, and this

life together. Like the fabled rustic who raised the Devil with infinite pains, and was so terrified at the sight

of him that he could ask the Enemy no question, but immediately fled; so, Monseigneur, after boldly reading

the Lord's Prayer backwards for a great number of years, and performing many other potent spells for

compelling the Evil One, no sooner beheld him in his terrors than he took to his noble heels.

The shining Bull's Eye of the Court was gone, or it would have been the mark for a hurricane of national

bullets. It had never been a good eye to see withhad long had the mote in it of Lucifer's pride,

Sardanapalus's luxury, and a mole's blindnessbut it had dropped out and was gone. The Court, from that

exclusive inner circle to its outermost rotten ring of intrigue, corruption, and dissimulation, was all gone

together. Royalty was gone; had been besieged in its Palace and "suspended," when the last tidings came

The August of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninetytwo was come, and Monseigneur was by this

As was natural, the headquarters and great gatheringplace of Monseigneur, in London, was Tellson's Bank.

Spirits are supposed to haunt the places where their bodies most resorted, and Monseigneur without a guinea

haunted the spot where his guineas used to be. Moreover, it was the spot to which such French intelligence as

was most to be relied upon, came quickest. Again: Tellson's was a munificent house, and extended great

liberality to old customers who had fallen from their high estate. Again: those nobles who had seen the

coming storm in time, and anticipating plunder or confiscation, had made provident remittances to Tellson's,

were always to be heard of there by their needy brethren. To which it must be added that every newcomer

from France reported himself and his tidings at Tellson's, almost as a matter of course. For such variety of

reasons, Tellson's was at that time, as to French intelligence, a kind of High Exchange; and this was so well

known to the public, and the inquiries made there were in consequence so numerous, that Tellson's

sometimes wrote the latest news out in a line or so and posted it in the Bank windows, for all who ran

On a steaming, misty afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his desk, and Charles Darnay stood leaning on it, talking

with him in a low voice. The penitential den once set apart for interviews with the House, was now the

newsExchange, and was filled to overflowing. It was within half an hour or so of the time of closing.

"But, although you are the youngest man that ever lived," said Charles Darnay, rather hesitating, "I must still

"Unsettled weather, a long journey, uncertain means of travelling, a disorganised country, a city that may not

"My dear Charles," said Mr. Lorry, with cheerful confidence, "you touch some of the reasons for my going:

not for my staying away. It is safe enough for me; nobody will care to interfere with an old fellow of hard

upon fourscore when there are so many people there much better worth interfering with. As to its being a

disorganised city, if it were not a disorganised city there would be no occasion to send somebody from our

House here to our House there, who knows the city and the business, of old, and is in Tellson's confidence.

As to the uncertain travelling, the long journey, and the winter weather, if I were not prepared to submit

myself to a few inconveniences for the sake of Tellson's, after all these years, who ought to be?"

"I wish I were going myself," said Charles Darnay, somewhat restlessly, and like one thinking aloud.

"Indeed! You are a pretty fellow to object and advise!" exclaimed Mr. Lorry. "You wish you were going

"My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a Frenchman born, that the thought (which I did not mean to utter

here, however) has passed through my mind often. One cannot help thinking, having had some sympathy for

the miserable people, and having abandoned something to them," he spoke here in his former thoughtful

manner, "that one might be listened to, and might have the power to persuade to some restraint. Only last

"When you were talking to Lucie," Mr. Lorry repeated. "Yes. I wonder you are not ashamed to mention the

"However, I am not going," said Charles Darnay, with a smile. "It is more to the purpose that you say you

"And I am, in plain reality. The truth is, my dear Charles," Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and

lowered his voice, "you can have no conception of the difficulty with which our business is transacted, and of

the peril in which our books and papers over yonder are involved. The Lord above knows what the

compromising consequences would be to numbers of people, if some of our documents were seized or

destroyed; and they might be, at any time, you know, for who can say that Paris is not set afire today, or

sacked tomorrow! Now, a judicious selection from these with the least possible delay, and the burying of

them, or otherwise getting of them out of harm's way, is within the power (without loss of precious time) of

scarcely any one but myself, if any one. And shall I hang back, when Tellson's knows this and says

thisTellson's, whose bread I have eaten these sixty yearsbecause I am a little stiff about the joints? Why,

"Tut! Nonsense, sir!And, my dear Charles," said Mr. Lorry, glancing at the House again, "you are to

remember, that getting things out of Paris at this present time, no matter what things, is next to an

impossibility. Papers and precious matters were this very day brought to us here (I speak in strict confidence;

it is not businesslike to whisper it, even to you), by the strangest bearers you can imagine, every one of

whom had his head hanging on by a single hair as he passed the Barriers. At another time, our parcels would

come and go, as easily as in businesslike Old England; but now, everything is stopped."

"All sorts of people have been proposed to me, but I will have nothing to say to any of them. I intend to take

Jerry. Jerry has been my bodyguard on Sunday nights for a long time past and I am used to him. Nobody will

suspect Jerry of being anything but an English bulldog, or of having any design in his head but to fly at

"I must say again, nonsense, nonsense! When I have executed this little commission, I shall, perhaps, accept

Tellson's proposal to retire and live at my ease. Time enough, then, to think about growing old."

This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry's usual desk, with Monseigneur swarming within a yard or two of

it, boastful of what he would do to avenge himself on the rascalpeople before long. It was too much the way

of Monseigneur under his reverses as a refugee, and it was much too much the way of native British

orthodoxy, to talk of this terrible Revolution as if it were the only harvest ever known under the skies that had

not been sownas if nothing had ever been done, or omitted to be done, that had led to itas if observers of

the wretched millions in France, and of the misused and perverted resources that should have made them

prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming, years before, and had not in plain words recorded what they

saw. Such vapouring, combined with the extravagant plots of Monseigneur for the restoration of a state of

things that had utterly exhausted itself, and worn out Heaven and earth as well as itself, was hard to be

endured without some remonstrance by any sane man who knew the truth. And it was such vapouring all

about his ears, like a troublesome confusion of blood in his own head, added to a latent uneasiness in his

mind, which had already made Charles Darnay restless, and which still kept him so.

Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King's Bench Bar, far on his way to state promotion, and, therefore,

loud on the theme: broaching to Monseigneur, his devices for blowing the people up and exterminating them

from the face of the earth, and doing without them: and for accomplishing many similar objects akin in their

nature to the abolition of eagles by sprinkling salt on the tails of the race. Him, Darnay heard with a particular

feeling of objection; and Darnay stood divided between going away that he might hear no more, and

remaining to interpose his word, when the thing that was to be, went on to shape itself out.

The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying a soiled and unopened letter before him, asked if he had yet

discovered any traces of the person to whom it was addressed? The House laid the letter down so close to

Darnay that he saw the directionthe more quickly because it was his own right name. The address, turned

"Very pressing. To Monsieur heretofore the Marquis St. Evremonde, of France. Confided to the cares of

On the marriage morning, Doctor Manette bad made it his one urgent and express request to Charles Darnay,

that the secret of this name should beunless he, the Doctor, dissolved the obligationkept inviolate

between them. Nobody else knew it to be his name; his own wife had no suspicion of the fact; Mr. Lorry

"No," said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House; "I have referred it, I think, to everybody now here, and no one

The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing the Bank, there was a general set of the current of

talkers past Mr. Lorry's desk. He held the letter out inquiringly; and Monseigneur looked at it, in the person

of this plotting and indignant refugee; and Monseigneur looked at it in the person of that plotting and

indignant refugee; and This, That, and The Other, all had something disparaging to say, in French or in

"Nephew, I believebut in any case degenerate successorof the polished Marquis who was murdered,"

"A craven who abandoned his post," said anotherthis Monseigneur had been got out of Paris, legs

"Infected with the new doctrines," said a third, eyeing the direction through his glass in passing; "set himself

in opposition to the last Marquis, abandoned the estates when he inherited them, and left them to the ruffian

"Hey?" cried the blatant Stryver. "Did he though? Is that the sort of fellow? Let us look at his infamous name.

Darnay, unable to restrain himself any longer, touched Mr. Stryver on the shoulder, and said:

"Then I tell you again, Mr. Darnay, I am sorry for it. I am sorry to hear you putting any such extraordinary

questions. Here is a fellow, who, infected by the most pestilent and blasphemous code of devilry that ever

was known, abandoned his property to the vilest scum of the earth that ever did murder by wholesale, and

you ask me why I am sorry that a man who instructs youth knows him? Well, but I'll answer you. I am sorry

Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked himself, and said: "You may not understand the

"I understand how to put YOU in a corner, Mr. Darnay," said Bully Stryver, "and I'll do it. If this fellow is a

gentleman, I DON'T understand him. You may tell him so, with my compliments. You may also tell him,

from me, that after abandoning his worldly goods and position to this butcherly mob, I wonder he is not at the

head of them. But, no, gentlemen," said Stryver, looking all round, and snapping his fingers, "I know

something of human nature, and I tell you that you'll never find a fellow like this fellow, trusting himself to

the mercies of such precious PROTEGES. No, gentlemen; he'll always show 'em a clean pair of heels very

With those words, and a final snap of his fingers, Mr. Stryver shouldered himself into Fleetstreet, amidst the

general approbation of his hearers. Mr. Lorry and Charles Darnay were left alone at the desk, in the general

"Will you take charge of the letter?" said Mr. Lorry. "You know where to deliver it?"

"Will you undertake to explain, that we suppose it to have been addressed here, on the chance of our knowing

Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most other men, Darnay made the best of his way into the

"After having long been in danger of my life at the hands of the village, I have been seized, with great

violence and indignity, and brought a long journey on foot to Paris. On the road I have suffered a great deal.

"The crime for which I am imprisoned, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, and for which I shall be summoned

before the tribunal, and shall lose my life (without your so generous help), is, they tell me, treason against the

majesty of the people, in that I have acted against them for an emigrant. It is in vain I represent that I have

acted for them, and not against, according to your commands. It is in vain I represent that, before the

sequestration of emigrant property, I had remitted the imposts they had ceased to pay; that I had collected no

rent; that I had had recourse to no process. The only response is, that I have acted for an emigrant, and where

"Ah! most gracious Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, where is that emigrant? I cry in my sleep where is he? I

demand of Heaven, will he not come to deliver me? No answer. Ah Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I send

my desolate cry across the sea, hoping it may perhaps reach your ears through the great bank of Tilson known

"For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of your noble name, I supplicate you,

Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, to succour and release me. My fault is, that I have been true to you. Oh

"From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearer and nearer to destruction, I send you,

Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, the assurance of my dolorous and unhappy service.

The latent uneasiness in Darnay's mind was roused to vigourous life by this letter. The peril of an old servant

and a good one, whose only crime was fidelity to himself and his family, stared him so reproachfully in the

face, that, as he walked to and fro in the Temple considering what to do, he almost hid his face from the

He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which had culminated the bad deeds and bad reputation of

the old family house, in his resentful suspicions of his uncle, and in the aversion with which his conscience

regarded the crumbling fabric that he was supposed to uphold, he had acted imperfectly. He knew very well,

that in his love for Lucie, his renunciation of his social place, though by no means new to his own mind, had

been hurried and incomplete. He knew that he ought to have systematically worked it out and supervised it,

The happiness of his own chosen English home, the necessity of being always actively employed, the swift

changes and troubles of the time which bad followed on one another so fast, that the events of this week

annihilated the immature plans of last week, and the events of the week following made all new again; he

knew very well, that to the force of these circumstances he had yielded:not without disquiet, but still

without continuous and accumulating resistance. That he had watched the times for a time of action, and that

they had shifted and struggled until the time had gone by, and the nobility were trooping from France by

every highway and byway, and their property was in course of confiscation and destruction, and their very

names were blotting out, was as well known to himself as it could be to any new authority in France that

But, he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man; he was so far from having harshly exacted

payment of his dues, that he had relinquished them of his own will, thrown himself on a world with no favour

in it, won his own private place there, and earned his own bread. Monsieur Gabelle had held the

impoverished and involved estate on written instructions, to spare the people, to give them what little there

was to givesuch fuel as the heavy creditors would let them have in the winter, and such produce as could

be saved from the same grip in the summerand no doubt he had put the fact in plea and proof, for his own

This favoured the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had begun to make, that he would go to Paris.

Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams had driven him within the influence of the

Loadstone Rock, and it was drawing him to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose before his mind

drifted him on, faster and faster, more and more steadily, to the terrible attraction. His latent uneasiness had

been, that bad aims were being worked out in his own unhappy land by bad instruments, and that he who

could not fail to know that he was better than they, was not there, trying to do something to stay bloodshed,

and assert the claims of mercy and humanity. With this uneasiness half stifled, and half reproaching him, he

had been brought to the pointed comparison of himself with the brave old gentleman in whom duty was so

strong; upon that comparison (injurious to himself) had instantly followed the sneers of Monseigneur, which

had stung him bitterly, and those of Stryver, which above all were coarse and galling, for old reasons. Upon

those, had followed Gabelle's letter: the appeal of an innocent prisoner, in danger of death, to his justice,

Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must sail on, until he struck. He knew of no rock; he saw

hardly any danger. The intention with which he had done what he had done, even although he had left it

incomplete, presented it before him in an aspect that would be gratefully acknowledged in France on his

presenting himself to assert it. Then, that glorious vision of doing good, which is so often the sanguine

mirage of so many good minds, arose before him, and he even saw himself in the illusion with some

As he walked to and fro with his resolution made, he considered that neither Lucie nor her father must know

of it until he was gone. Lucie should be spared the pain of separation; and her father, always reluctant to turn

his thoughts towards the dangerous ground of old, should come to the knowledge of the step, as a step taken,

and not in the balance of suspense and doubt. How much of the incompleteness of his situation was referable

to her father, through the painful anxiety to avoid reviving old associations of France in his mind, he did not

discuss with himself. But, that circumstance too, had had its influence in his course.

He walked to and fro, with thoughts very busy, until it was time to return to Tellson's and take leave of Mr.

Lorry. As soon as he arrived in Paris he would present himself to this old friend, but he must say nothing of

A carriage with posthorses was ready at the Bank door, and Jerry was booted and equipped.

"I have delivered that letter," said Charles Darnay to Mr. Lorry. "I would not consent to your being charged

He helped Mr. Lorry to wrap himself in a number of coats and cloaks, and went out with him from the warm

atmosphere of the old Bank, into the misty air of Fleetstreet. "My love to Lucie, and to little Lucie," said

Mr. Lorry at parting, "and take precious care of them till I come back." Charles Darnay shook his head and

That nightit was the fourteenth of Augusthe sat up late, and wrote two fervent letters; one was to Lucie,

explaining the strong obligation he was under to go to Paris, and showing her, at length, the reasons that he

had, for feeling confident that he could become involved in no personal danger there; the other was to the

Doctor, confiding Lucie and their dear child to his care, and dwelling on the same topics with the strongest

assurances. To both, he wrote that he would despatch letters in proof of his safety, immediately after his

It was a hard day, that day of being among them, with the first reservation of their joint lives on his mind. It

was a hard matter to preserve the innocent deceit of which they were profoundly unsuspicious. But, an

affectionate glance at his wife, so happy and busy, made him resolute not to tell her what impended (he had

been half moved to do it, so strange it was to him to act in anything without her quiet aid), and the day passed

quickly. Early in the evening he embraced her, and her scarcely less dear namesake, pretending that he would

return byandbye (an imaginary engagement took him out, and he had secreted a valise of clothes ready),

and so he emerged into the heavy mist of the heavy streets, with a heavier heart.

The unseen force was drawing him fast to itself, now, and all the tides and winds were setting straight and

strong towards it. He left his two letters with a trusty porter, to be delivered half an hour before midnight, and

no sooner; took horse for Dover; and began his journey. "For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of

the honour of your noble name!" was the poor prisoner's cry with which he strengthened his sinking heart, as

he left all that was dear on earth behind him, and floated away for the Loadstone Rock.

The traveller fared slowly on his way, who fared towards Paris from England in the autumn of the year one

thousand seven hundred and ninetytwo. More than enough of bad roads, bad equipages, and bad horses, he

would have encountered to delay him, though the fallen and unfortunate King of France had been upon his

throne in all his glory; but, the changed times were fraught with other obstacles than these. Every towngate

and village taxinghouse had its band of citizen patriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive

state of readiness, who stopped all comers and goers, crossquestioned them, inspected their papers, looked

for their names in lists of their own, turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them in

hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawning Republic One and Indivisible, of

A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished, when Charles Darnay began to perceive that

for him along these country roads there was no hope of return until he should have been declared a good

citizen at Paris. Whatever might befall now, he must on to his journey's end. Not a mean village closed upon

him, not a common barrier dropped across the road behind him, but he knew it to be another iron door in the

series that was barred between him and England. The universal watchfulness so encompassed him, that if he

had been taken in a net, or were being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he could not have felt his

This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highway twenty times in a stage, but retarded his

progress twenty times in a day, by riding after him and taking him back, riding before him and stopping him

by anticipation, riding with him and keeping him in charge. He had been days upon his journey in France

alone, when he went to bed tired out, in a little town on the high road, still a long way from Paris.

Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle's letter from his prison of the Abbaye would have got him

on so far. Ms difficulty at the guardhouse in this small place had been such, that he felt his journey to have

come to a crisis. And he was, therefore, as little surprised as a man could be, to find himself awakened at the

small inn to which he had been remitted until morning, in the middle of the night.

Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed patriots in rough red caps and with pipes in their

"Emigrant," said the functionary, "I am going to send you on to Paris, under an escort."

"Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though I could dispense with the escort."

"Silence!" growled a redcap, striking at the coverlet with the buttend of his musket. "Peace, aristocrat!"

"It is as the good patriot says," observed the timid functionary. "You are an aristocrat, and must have an

"Choice! Listen to him!" cried the same scowling redcap. "As if it was not a favour to be protected from the

"It is always as the good patriot says," observed the functionary. "Rise and dress yourself, emigrant."

Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guardhouse, where other patriots in rough red caps were

smoking, drinking, and sleeping, by a watchfire. Here he paid a heavy price for his escort, and hence he

The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tricoloured cockades, armed with national muskets

The escorted governed his own horse, but a loose line was attached to his bridle, the end of which one of the

patriots kept girded round his wrist. In this state they set forth with the sharp rain driving in their faces:

clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneven town pavement, and out upon the miredeep roads. In this

state they traversed without change, except of horses and pace, all the mire deep leagues that lay between

They travelled in the night, halting an hour or two after daybreak, and lying by until the twilight fell. The

escort were so wretchedly clothed, that they twisted straw round their bare legs, and thatched their ragged

shoulders to keep the wet off. Apart from the personal discomfort of being so attended, and apart from such

considerations of present danger as arose from one of the patriots being chronically drunk, and carrying his

musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay did not allow the restraint that was laid upon him to awaken any

serious fears in his breast; for, he reasoned with himself that it could have no reference to the merits of an

individual case that was not yet stated, and of representations, confirmable by the prisoner in the Abbaye, that

But when they came to the town of Beauvaiswhich they did at eventide, when the streets were filled with

peoplehe could not conceal from himself that the aspect of affairs was very alarming. An ominous crowd

gathered to see him dismount of the postingyard, and many voices called out loudly, "Down with the

He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle, and, resuming it as his safest place, said:

"You are a cursed emigrant," cried a farrier, making at him in a furious manner through the press, hammer in

The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the rider's bridle (at which he was evidently

making), and soothingly said, "Let him be; let him be! He will be judged at Paris."

"Judged!" repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer. "Ay! and condemned as a traitor." At this the crowd

Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse's head to the yard (the drunken patriot sat

composedly in his saddle looking on, with the line round his wrist), Darnay said, as soon as he could make

"He lies!" cried the smith. "He is a traitor since the decree. His life is forfeit to the people. His cursed life is

At the instant when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the crowd, which another instant would have brought

upon him, the postmaster turned his horse into the yard, the escort rode in close upon his horse's flanks, and

the postmaster shut and barred the crazy double gates. The farrier struck a blow upon them with his hammer,

"What is this decree that the smith spoke of?" Darnay asked the postmaster, when he had thanked him, and

"Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will be othersif there are not alreadybanishing all

emigrants, and condemning all to death who return. That is what he meant when he said your life was not

"What do I know!" said the postmaster, shrugging his shoulders; "there may be, or there will be. It is all the

They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the night, and then rode forward again when all the

town was asleep. Among the many wild changes observable on familiar things which made this wild ride

unreal, not the least was the seeming rarity of sleep. After long and lonely spurring over dreary roads, they

would come to a cluster of poor cottages, not steeped in darkness, but all glittering with lights, and would

find the people, in a ghostly manner in the dead of the night, circling hand in hand round a shrivelled tree of

Liberty, or all drawn up together singing a Liberty song. Happily, however, there was sleep in Beauvais that

night to help them out of it and they passed on once more into solitude and loneliness: jingling through the

untimely cold and wet, among impoverished fields that had yielded no fruits of the earth that year, diversified

by the blackened remains of burnt houses, and by the sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining

Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The barrier was closed and strongly guarded when they

"Where are the papers of this prisoner?" demanded a resolutelooking man in authority, who was summoned

Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay requested the speaker to take notice that he was a

free traveller and French citizen, in charge of an escort which the disturbed state of the country had imposed

"Where," repeated the same personage, without taking any heed of him whatever, "are the papers of this

The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced them. Casting his eyes over Gabelle's letter, the same

personage in authority showed some disorder and surprise, and looked at Darnay with a close attention.

He left escort and escorted without saying a word, however, and went into the guardroom; meanwhile, they

sat upon their horses outside the gate. Looking about him while in this state of suspense, Charles Darnay

observed that the gate was held by a mixed guard of soldiers and patriots, the latter far outnumbering the

former; and that while ingress into the city for peasants' carts bringing in supplies, and for similar traffic and

traffickers, was easy enough, egress, even for the homeliest people, was very difficult. A numerous medley of

men and women, not to mention beasts and vehicles of various sorts, was waiting to issue forth; but, the

previous identification was so strict, that they filtered through the barrier very slowly. Some of these people

knew their turn for examination to be so far off, that they lay down on the ground to sleep or smoke, while

others talked together, or loitered about. The red cap and tricolour cockade were universal, both among men

When he had sat in his saddle some halfhour, taking note of these things, Darnay found himself confronted

by the same man in authority, who directed the guard to open the barrier. Then he delivered to the escort,

drunk and sober, a receipt for the escorted, and requested him to dismount. He did so, and the two patriots,

He accompanied his conductor into a guardroom, smelling of common wine and tobacco, where certain

soldiers and patriots, asleep and awake, drunk and sober, and in various neutral states between sleeping and

waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were standing and lying about. The light in the guardhouse, half derived

from the waning oillamps of the night, and half from the overcast day, was in a correspondingly uncertain

condition. Some registers were lying open on a desk, and an officer of a coarse, dark aspect, presided over

"Citizen Defarge," said he to Darnay's conductor, as he took a slip of paper to write on. "Is this the emigrant

"We have new laws, Evremonde, and new offences, since you were here." He said it with a hard smile, and

"I entreat you to observe that I have come here voluntarily, in response to that written appeal of a

fellowcountryman which lies before you. I demand no more than the opportunity to do so without delay. Is

"Emigrants have no rights, Evremonde," was the stolid reply. The officer wrote until he had finished, read

over to himself what he had written, sanded it, and handed it to Defarge, with the words "In secret."

Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner that he must accompany him. The prisoner obeyed, and a

"Is it you," said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down the guardhouse steps and turned into Paris, "who

married the daughter of Doctor Manette, once a prisoner in the Bastille that is no more?"

"My name is Defarge, and I keep a wineshop in the Quarter Saint Antoine. Possibly you have heard of me."

The word "wife" seemed to serve as a gloomy reminder to Defarge, to say with sudden impatience, "In the

name of that sharp female newlyborn, and called La Guillotine, why did you come to France?"

"A bad truth for you," said Defarge, speaking with knitted brows, and looking straight before him.

"Indeed I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so changed, so sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely

"In this prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have some free communication with the world outside?"

"I am not to be buried there, prejudged, and without any means of presenting my case?"

"You will see. But, what then? Other people have been similarly buried in worse prisons, before now."

Defarge glanced darkly at him for answer, and walked on in a steady and set silence. The deeper he sank into

this silence, the fainter hope there wasor so Darnay thoughtof his softening in any slight degree. He,

"It is of the utmost importance to me (you know, Citizen, even better than I, of how much importance), that I

should be able to communicate to Mr. Lorry of Tellson's Bank, an English gentleman who is now in Paris, the

simple fact, without comment, that I have been thrown into the prison of La Force. Will you cause that to be

"I will do," Defarge doggedly rejoined, "nothing for you. My duty is to my country and the People. I am the

Charles Darnay felt it hopeless to entreat him further, and his pride was touched besides. As they walked on

in silence, he could not but see how used the people were to the spectacle of prisoners passing along the

streets. The very children scarcely noticed him. A few passers turned their heads, and a few shook their

fingers at him as an aristocrat; otherwise, that a man in good clothes should be going to prison, was no more

remarkable than that a labourer in working clothes should be going to work. In one narrow, dark, and dirty

street through which they passed, an excited orator, mounted on a stool, was addressing an excited audience

on the cranes against the people, of the king and the royal family. The few words that he caught from this

man's lips, first made it known to Charles Darnay that the king was in prison, and that the foreign

ambassadors had one and all left Paris. On the road (except at Beauvais) he had heard absolutely nothing. The

That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those which had developed themselves when he left

England, he of course knew now. That perils had thickened about him fast, and might thicken faster and

faster yet, he of course knew now. He could not but admit to himself that he might not have made this

journey, if he could have foreseen the events of a few days. And yet his misgivings were not so dark as,

imagined by the light of this later time, they would appear. Troubled as the future was, it was the unknown

future, and in its obscurity there was ignorant hope. The horrible massacre, days and nights long, which,

within a few rounds of the clock, was to set a great mark of blood upon the blessed garnering time of harvest,

was as far out of his knowledge as if it had been a hundred thousand years away. The "sharp female

newlyborn, and called La Guillotine," was hardly known to him, or to the generality of people, by name.

The frightful deeds that were to be soon done, were probably unimagined at that time in the brains of the

Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel separation from his wife and child, he

foreshadowed the likelihood, or the certainty; but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing distinctly. With this on his

mind, which was enough to carry into a dreary prison courtyard, he arrived at the prison of La Force.

A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to whom Defarge presented "The Emigrant

"What the Devil! How many more of them!" exclaimed the man with the bloated face.

Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation, and withdrew, with his two fellowpatriots.

"What the Devil, I say again!" exclaimed the gaoler, left with his wife. "How many more!"

The gaoler's wife, being provided with no answer to the question, merely replied, "One must have patience,

my dear!" Three turnkeys who entered responsive to a bell she rang, echoed the sentiment, and one added,

"For the love of Liberty;" which sounded in that place like an inappropriate conclusion.

The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and filthy, and with a horrible smell of foul sleep in it.

Extraordinary how soon the noisome flavour of imprisoned sleep, becomes manifest in all such places that

"In secret, too," grumbled the gaoler, looking at the written paper. "As if I was not already full to bursting!"

He stuck the paper on a file, in an illhumour, and Charles Darnay awaited his further pleasure for half an

hour: sometimes, pacing to and fro in the strong arched room: sometimes, resting on a stone seat: in either

Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge accompanied him by corridor and staircase, many doors

clanging and locking behind them, until they came into a large, low, vaulted chamber, crowded with

prisoners of both sexes. The women were seated at a long table, reading and writing, knitting, sewing, and

embroidering; the men were for the most part standing behind their chairs, or lingering up and down the

In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful crime and disgrace, the newcomer recoiled from

this company. But the crowning unreality of his long unreal ride, was, their all at once rising to receive him,

with every refinement of manner known to the time, and with all the engaging graces and courtesies of life.

So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison manners and gloom, so spectral did they become

in the inappropriate squalor and misery through which they were seen, that Charles Darnay seemed to stand

in a company of the dead. Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, the ghost of stateliness, the ghost of elegance, the

ghost of pride, the ghost of frivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, all waiting their

dismissal from the desolate shore, all turning on him eyes that were changed by the death they had died in

It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side, and the other gaolers moving about, who would

have been well enough as to appearance in the ordinary exercise of their functions, looked so extravagantly

coarse contrasted with sorrowing mothers and blooming daughters who were therewith the apparitions of

the coquette, the young beauty, and the mature woman delicately bredthat the inversion of all experience

and likelihood which the scene of shadows presented, was heightened to its utmost. Surely, ghosts all. Surely,

the long unreal ride some progress of disease that had brought him to these gloomy shades!

"In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune," said a gentleman of courtly appearance and

address, coming forward, "I have the honour of giving you welcome to La Force, and of condoling with you

on the calamity that has brought you among us. May it soon terminate happily! It would be an impertinence

Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required information, in words as suitable as he could find.

"But I hope," said the gentleman, following the chief gaoler with his eyes, who moved across the room, "that

"Ah, what a pity! We so much regret it! But take courage; several members of our society have been in

secret, at first, and it has lasted but a short time." Then he added, raising his voice, "I grieve to inform the

There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay crossed the room to a grated door where the gaoler

awaited him, and many voicesamong which, the soft and compassionate voices of women were

conspicuousgave him good wishes and encouragement. He turned at the grated door, to render the thanks

of his heart; it closed under the gaoler's hand; and the apparitions vanished from his sight forever.

The wicket opened on a stone staircase, leading upward. When they bad ascended forty steps (the prisoner of

half an hour already counted them), the gaoler opened a low black door, and they passed into a solitary cell. It

"Such are not my orders. You will be visited, and can ask then. At present, you may buy your food, and

There were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mattress. As the gaoler made a general inspection of these

objects, and of the four walls, before going out, a wandering fancy wandered through the mind of the prisoner

leaning against the wall opposite to him, that this gaoler was so unwholesomely bloated, both in face and

person, as to look like a man who had been drowned and filled with water. When the gaoler was gone, he

thought in the same wandering way, "Now am I left, as if I were dead." Stopping then, to look down at the

mattress, he turned from it with a sick feeling, and thought, "And here in these crawling creatures is the first

"Five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half." The prisoner

walked to and fro in his cell, counting its measurement, and the roar of the city arose like muffled drums with

a wild swell of voices added to them. "He made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes." The prisoner counted

the measurement again, and paced faster, to draw his mind with him from that latter repetition. "The ghosts

that vanished when the wicket closed. There was one among them, the appearance of a lady dressed in black,

who was leaning in the embrasure of a window, and she had a light shining upon her golden hair, and she

looked like * * * * Let us ride on again, for God's sake, through the illuminated villages with the people all

awake! * * * * He made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes. * * * * Five paces by four and a half." With

such scraps tossing and rolling upward from the depths of his mind, the prisoner walked faster and faster,

obstinately counting and counting; and the roar of the city changed to this extentthat it still rolled in like

muffled drums, but with the wail of voices that he knew, in the swell that rose above them.

Tellson's Bank, established in the Saint Germain Quarter of Paris, was in a wing of a large house, approached

by a courtyard and shut off from the street by a high wall and a strong gate. The house belonged to a great

nobleman who had lived in it until he made a flight from the troubles, in his own cook's dress, and got across

the borders. A mere beast of the chase flying from hunters, he was still in his metempsychosis no other than

the same Monseigneur, the preparation of whose chocolate for whose lips had once occupied three strong

Monseigneur gone, and the three strong men absolving themselves from the sin of having drawn his high

wages, by being more than ready and willing to cut his throat on the altar of the dawning Republic one and

indivisible of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, Monseigneur's house had been first sequestrated, and

then confiscated. For, all things moved so fast, and decree followed decree with that fierce precipitation, that

now upon the third night of the autumn month of September, patriot emissaries of the law were in possession

of Monseigneur's house, and had marked it with the tricolour, and were drinking brandy in its state

A place of business in London like Tellson's place of business in Paris, would soon have driven the House out

of its mind and into the Gazette. For, what would staid British responsibility and respectability have said to

orangetrees in boxes in a Bank courtyard, and even to a Cupid over the counter? Yet such things were.

Tellson's had whitewashed the Cupid, but he was still to be seen on the ceiling, in the coolest linen, aiming

(as he very often does) at money from morning to night. Bankruptcy must inevitably have come of this young

Pagan, in Lombardstreet, London, and also of a curtained alcove in the rear of the immortal boy, and also of

a lookingglass let into the wall, and also of clerks not at all old, who danced in public on the slightest

provocation. Yet, a French Tellson's could get on with these things exceedingly well, and, as long as the

What money would be drawn out of Tellson's henceforth, and what would lie there, lost and forgotten; what

plate and jewels would tarnish in Tellson's hidingplaces, while the depositors rusted in prisons, and when

they should have violently perished; how many accounts with Tellson's never to be balanced in this world,

must be carried over into the next; no man could have said, that night, any more than Mr. Jarvis Lorry could,

though he thought heavily of these questions. He sat by a newlylighted wood fire (the blighted and

unfruitful year was prematurely cold), and on his honest and courageous face there was a deeper shade than

the pendent lamp could throw, or any object in the room distortedly reflecta shade of horror.

He occupied rooms in the Bank, in his fidelity to the House of which he had grown to be a part, lie strong

rootivy. it chanced that they derived a kind of security from the patriotic occupation of the main building,

but the truehearted old gentleman never calculated about that. All such circumstances were indifferent to

him, so that he did his duty. On the opposite side of the courtyard, under a colonnade, was extensive

standinfor carriageswhere, indeed, some carriages of Monseigneur yet stood. Against two of the pillars

were fastened two great flaring flambeaux, and in the light of these, standing out in the open air, was a large

grindstone: a roughly mounted thing which appeared to have hurriedly been brought there from some

neighbouring smithy, or other workshop. Rising and looking out of window at these harmless objects, Mr.

Lorry shivered, and retired to his seat by the fire. He had opened, not only the glass window, but the lattice

blind outside it, and he had closed both again, and he shivered through his frame.

From the streets beyond the high wall and the strong gate, there came the usual night hum of the city, with

now and then an indescribable ring in it, weird and unearthly, as if some unwonted sounds of a terrible nature

"Thank God," said Mr. Lorry, clasping his hands, "that no one near and dear to me is in this dreadful town

Soon afterwards, the bell at the great gate sounded, and he thought, "They have come back!" and sat

listening. But, there was no loud irruption into the courtyard, as he had expected, and he heard the gate clash

The nervousness and dread that were upon him inspired that vague uneasiness respecting the Bank, which a

great change would naturally awaken, with such feelings roused. It was well guarded, and he got up to go

among the trusty people who were watching it, when his door suddenly opened, and two figures rushed in, at

Lucie and her father! Lucie with her arms stretched out to him, and with that old look of earnestness so

concentrated and intensified, that it seemed as though it had been stamped upon her face expressly to give

"What is this?" cried Mr. Lorry, breathless and confused. "What is the matter? Lucie! Manette! What has

With the look fixed upon him, in her paleness and wildness, she panted out in his arms, imploringly, "O my

"Has been here some daysthree or fourI don't know how many I can't collect my thoughts. An errand

of generosity brought him here unknown to us; he was stopped at the barrier, and sent to prison."

The old man uttered an irrepressible cry. Almost at the same moment, the beg of the great gate rang again,

"Don't look!" cried Mr. Lorry. "Don't look out! Manette, for your life, don't touch the blind!"

The Doctor turned, with his hand upon the fastening of the window, and said, with a cool, bold smile:

"My dear friend, I have a charmed life in this city. I have been a Bastille prisoner. There is no patriot in

Parisin Paris? In Francewho, knowing me to have been a prisoner in the Bastille, would touch me,

except to overwhelm me with embraces, or carry me in triumph. My old pain has given me a power that has

brought us through the barrier, and gained us news of Charles there, and brought us here. I knew it would be

so; I knew I could help Charles out of all danger; I told Lucie so.What is that noise?" His hand was again

"Don't look!" cried Mr. Lorry, absolutely desperate. "No, Lucie, my dear, nor you!" He got his arm round her,

and held her. "Don't be so terrified, my love. I solemnly swear to you that I know of no harm having

happened to Charles; that I had no suspicion even of his being in this fatal place. What prison is he in?"

"La Force! Lucie, my child, if ever you were brave and serviceable in your lifeand you were always

bothyou will compose yourself now, to do exactly as I bid you; for more depends upon it than you can

think, or I can say. There is no help for you in any action on your part tonight; you cannot possibly stir out. I

say this, because what I must bid you to do for Charles's sake, is the hardest thing to do of all. You must

instantly be obedient, still, and quiet. You must let me put you in a room at the back here. You must leave

your father and me alone for two minutes, and as there are Life and Death in the world you must not delay."

"I will be submissive to you. I see in your face that you know I can do nothing else than this. I know you are

The old man kissed her, and hurried her into his room, and turned the key; then, came hurrying back to the

Doctor, and opened the window and partly opened the blind, and put his hand upon the Doctor's arm, and

Looked out upon a throng of men and women: not enough in number, or near enough, to fill the courtyard:

not more than forty or fifty in all. The people in possession of the house had let them in at the gate, and they

had rushed in to work at the grindstone; it had evidently been set up there for their purpose, as in a convenient

The grindstone had a double handle, and, turning at it madly were two men, whose faces, as their long hair

Rapped back when the whirlings of the grindstone brought their faces up, were more horrible and cruel than

the visages of the wildest savages in their most barbarous disguise. False eyebrows and false moustaches

were stuck upon them, and their hideous countenances were all bloody and sweaty, and all awry with

howling, and all staring and glaring with beastly excitement and want of sleep. As these ruffians turned and

turned, their matted locks now flung forward over their eyes, now flung backward over their necks, some

women held wine to their mouths that they might drink; and what with dropping blood, and what with

dropping wine, and what with the stream of sparks struck out of the stone, all their wicked atmosphere

seemed gore and fire. The eye could not detect one creature in the group free from the smear of blood.

Shouldering one another to get next at the sharpeningstone, were men stripped to the waist, with the stain all

over their limbs and bodies; men in all sorts of rags, with the stain upon those rags; men devilishly set off

with spoils of women's lace and silk and ribbon, with the stain dyeing those trifles through and through.

Hatchets, knives, bayonets, swords, all brought to be sharpened, were all red with it. Some of the hacked

swords were tied to the wrists of those who carried them, with strips of linen and fragments of dress: ligatures

various in kind, but all deep of the one colour. And as the frantic wielders of these weapons snatched them

from the stream of sparks and tore away into the streets, the same red hue was red in their frenzied

eyes;eyes which any unbrutalised beholder would have given twenty years of life, to petrify with a

All this was seen in a moment, as the vision of a drowning man, or of any human creature at any very great

pass, could see a world if it were there. They drew back from the window, and the Doctor looked for

"They are," Mr. Lorry whispered the words, glancing fearfully round at the locked room, "murdering the

prisoners. If you are sure of what you say; if you really have the power you think you haveas I believe you

havemake yourself known to these devils, and get taken to La Force. It may be too late, I don't know, but

Doctor Manette pressed his hand, hastened bareheaded out of the room, and was in the courtyard when Mr.

His streaming white hair, his remarkable face, and the impetuous confidence of his manner, as he put the

weapons aside like water, carried him in an instant to the heart of the concourse at the stone. For a few

moments there was a pause, and a hurry, and a murmur, and the unintelligible sound of his voice; and then

Mr. Lorry saw him, surrounded by all, and in the midst of a line of twenty men long, all linked shoulder to

shoulder, and hand to shoulder, hurried out with cries of"Live the Bastille prisoner! Help for the Bastille

prisoner's kindred in La Force! Room for the Bastille prisoner in front there! Save the prisoner Evremonde at

He closed the lattice again with a fluttering heart, closed the window and the curtain, hastened to Lucie, and

told her that her father was assisted by the people, and gone in search of her husband. He found her child and

Miss Pross with her; but, it never occurred to him to be surprised by their appearance until a long time

Lucie had, by that time, fallen into a stupor on the floor at his feet, clinging to his hand. Miss Pross had laid

the child down on his own bed, and her head had gradually fallen on the pillow beside her pretty charge. O

the long, long night, with the moans of the poor wife! And O the long, long night, with no return of her father

Twice more in the darkness the bell at the great gate sounded, and the irruption was repeated, and the

grindstone whirled and spluttered. "What is it?" cried Lucie, affrighted. "Hush! The soldiers' swords are

sharpened there," said Mr. Lorry. "The place is national property now, and used as a kind of armoury, my

Twice more in all; but, the last spell of work was feeble and fitful. Soon afterwards the day began to dawn,

and he softly detached himself from the clasping hand, and cautiously looked out again. A man, so besmeared

that he might have been a sorely wounded soldier creeping back to consciousness on a field of slain, was

rising from the pavement by the side of the grindstone, and looking about him with a vacant air. Shortly, this

wornout murderer descried in the imperfect light one of the carriages of Monseigneur, and, staggering to

that gorgeous vehicle, climbed in at the door, and shut himself up to take his rest on its dainty cushions.

The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again, and the sun was red on the

courtyard. But, the lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with a red upon it that the sun

One of the first considerations which arose in the business mind of Mr. Lorry when business hours came

round, was this:that he had no right to imperil Tellson's by sheltering the wife of an emigrant prisoner

under the Bank roof, His own possessions, safety, life, he would have hazarded for Lucie and her child,

without a moment's demur; but the great trust he held was not his own, and as to that business charge he was

At first, his mind reverted to Defarge, and he thought of finding out the wineshop again and taking counsel

with its master in reference to the safest dwellingplace in the distracted state of the city. But, the same

consideration that suggested him, repudiated him; he lived in the most violent Quarter, and doubtless was

Noon coming, and the Doctor not returning, and every minute's delay tending to compromise Tellson's, Mr.

Lorry advised with Lucie. She said that her father had spoken of hiring a lodging for a short term, in that

Quarter, near the Bankinghouse. As there was no business objection to this, and as he foresaw that even if it

were all well with Charles, and he were to be released, he could not hope to leave the city, Mr. Lorry went

out in quest of such a lodging, and found a suitable one, high up in a removed bystreet where the closed

blinds in all the other windows of a high melancholy square of buildings marked deserted homes.

To this lodging he at once removed Lucie and her child, and Miss Pross: giving them what comfort he could,

and much more than he had himself. He left Jerry with them, as a figure to fill a doorway that would bear

considerable knocking on the head, and retained to his own occupations. A disturbed and doleful mind he

It wore itself out, and wore him out with it, until the Bank closed. He was again alone in his room of the

previous night, considering what to do next, when he heard a foot upon the stair. In a few moments, a man

stood in his presence, who, with a keenly observant look at him, addressed him by his name.

He was a strongly made man with dark curling hair, from fortyfive to fifty years of age. For answer he

Defarge gave into his anxious hand, an open scrap of paper. It bore the words in the Doctor's writing:

"Charles is safe, but I cannot safely leave this place yet. I have obtained the favour that the bearer has a short

"Will you accompany me," said Mr. Lorry, joyfully relieved after reading this note aloud, "to where his wife

Scarcely noticing as yet, in what a curiously reserved and mechanical way Defarge spoke, Mr. Lorry put on

his hat and they went down into the courtyard. There, they found two women; one, knitting.

"Madame Defarge, surely!" said Mr. Lorry, who had left her in exactly the same attitude some seventeen

"Does Madame go with us?" inquired Mr. Lorry, seeing that she moved as they moved.

"Yes. That she may be able to recognise the faces and know the persons. It is for their safety."

Beginning to be struck by Defarge's manner, Mr. Lorry looked dubiously at him, and led the way. Both the

They passed through the intervening streets as quickly as they might, ascended the staircase of the new

domicile, were admitted by Jerry, and found Lucie weeping, alone. She was thrown into a transport by the

tidings Mr. Lorry gave her of her husband, and clasped the hand that delivered his notelittle thinking what

it had been doing near him in the night, and might, but for a chance, have done to him.

"DEAREST,Take courage. I am well, and your father has influence around me. You cannot answer this.

That was all the writing. It was so much, however, to her who received it, that she turned from Defarge to his

wife, and kissed one of the hands that knitted. It was a passionate, loving, thankful, womanly action, but the

There was something in its touch that gave Lucie a check. She stopped in the act of putting the note in her

bosom, and, with her hands yet at her neck, looked terrified at Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge met the

"My dear," said Mr. Lorry, striking in to explain; "there are frequent risings in the streets; and, although it is

not likely they will ever trouble you, Madame Defarge wishes to see those whom she has the power to protect

at such times, to the end that she may know themthat she may identify them. I believe," said Mr. Lorry,

rather halting in his reassuring words, as the stony manner of all the three impressed itself upon him more and

Defarge looked gloomily at his wife, and gave no other answer than a gruff sound of acquiescence.

"You had better, Lucie," said Mr. Lorry, doing all he could to propitiate, by tone and manner, "have the dear

child here, and our good Pross. Our good Pross, Defarge, is an English lady, and knows no French."

The lady in question, whose rooted conviction that she was more than a match for any foreigner, was not to

be shaken by distress and, danger, appeared with folded arms, and observed in English to The Vengeance,

whom her eyes first encountered, "Well, I am sure, Boldface! I hope YOU are pretty well!" She also

bestowed a British cough on Madame Defarge; but, neither of the two took much heed of her.

"Is that his child?" said Madame Defarge, stopping in her work for the first time, and pointing her

"Yes, madame," answered Mr. Lorry; "this is our poor prisoner's darling daughter, and only child."

The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed to fall so threatening and dark on the child,

that her mother instinctively kneeled on the ground beside her, and held her to her breast. The shadow

attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed then to fall, threatening and dark, on both the mother and

But, the suppressed manner had enough of menace in itnot visible and presented, but indistinct and

withheldto alarm Lucie into saying, as she laid her appealing hand on Madame Defarge's dress:

"You will be good to my poor husband. You will do him no harm. You will help me to see him if you can?"

"Your husband is not my business here," returned Madame Defarge, looking down at her with perfect

"For my sake, then, be merciful to my husband. For my child's sake! She will put her hands together and pray

Madame Defarge received it as a compliment, and looked at her husband. Defarge, who had been uneasily

biting his thumbnail and looking at her, collected his face into a sterner expression.

"What is it that your husband says in that little letter?" asked Madame Defarge, with a lowering smile.

"That my father," said Lucie, hurriedly taking the paper from her breast, but with her alarmed eyes on her

"As a wife and mother," cried Lucie, most earnestly, "I implore you to have pity on me and not to exercise

any power that you possess, against my innocent husband, but to use it in his behalf. O sisterwoman, think

Madame Defarge looked, coldly as ever, at the suppliant, and said, turning to her friend The Vengeance:

"The wives and mothers we have been used to see, since we were as little as this child, and much less, have

not been greatly considered? We have known THEIR husbands and fathers laid in prison and kept from them,

often enough? All our lives, we have seen our sisterwomen suffer, in themselves and in their children,

poverty, nakedness, hunger, thirst, sickness, misery, oppression and neglect of all kinds?"

"We have borne this a long time," said Madame Defarge, turning her eyes again upon Lucie. "Judge you! Is it

She resumed her knitting and went out. The Vengeance followed. Defarge went last, and closed the door.

"Courage, my dear Lucie," said Mr. Lorry, as he raised her. "Courage, courage! So far all goes well with

usmuch, much better than it has of late gone with many poor souls. Cheer up, and have a thankful heart."

"I am not thankless, I hope, but that dreadful woman seems to throw a shadow on me and on all my hopes."

"Tut, tut!" said Mr. Lorry; "what is this despondency in the brave little breast? A shadow indeed! No

But the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark upon himself, for all that, and in his secret mind it

Doctor Manette did not return until the morning of the fourth day of his absence. So much of what had

happened in that dreadful time as could be kept from the knowledge of Lucie was so well concealed from her,

that not until long afterwards, when France and she were far apart, did she know that eleven hundred

defenceless prisoners of both sexes and all ages had been killed by the populace; that four days and nights

had been darkened by this deed of horror; and that the air around her had been tainted by the slain. She only

knew that there had been an attack upon the prisons, that all political prisoners had been in danger, and that

To Mr. Lorry, the Doctor communicated under an injunction of secrecy on which he had no need to dwell,

that the crowd had taken him through a scene of carnage to the prison of La Force. That, in the prison he had

found a selfappointed Tribunal sitting, before which the prisoners were brought singly, and by which they

were rapidly ordered to be put forth to be massacred, or to be released, or (in a few cases) to be sent back to

their cells. That, presented by his conductors to this Tribunal, he had announced himself by name and

profession as having been for eighteen years a secret and unaccused prisoner in the Bastille; that, one of the

body so sitting in judgment had risen and identified him, and that this man was Defarge.

That, hereupon he had ascertained, through the registers on the table, that his soninlaw was among the

living prisoners, and had pleaded hard to the Tribunalof whom some members were asleep and some

awake, some dirty with murder and some clean, some sober and some notfor his life and liberty. That, in

the first frantic greetings lavished on himself as a notable sufferer under the overthrown system, it had been

accorded to him to have Charles Darnay brought before the lawless Court, and examined. That, he seemed on

the point of being at once released, when the tide in his favour met with some unexplained check (not

intelligible to the Doctor), which led to a few words of secret conference. That, the man sitting as President

had then informed Doctor Manette that the prisoner must remain in custody, but should, for his sake, be held

inviolate in safe custody. That, immediately, on a signal, the prisoner was removed to the interior of the

prison again; but, that he, the Doctor, had then so strongly pleaded for permission to remain and assure

himself that his soninlaw was, through no malice or mischance, delivered to the concourse whose

murderous yells outside the gate had often drowned the proceedings, that he had obtained the permission, and

The sights he had seen there, with brief snatches of food and sleep by intervals, shall remain untold. The mad

joy over the prisoners who were saved, had astounded him scarcely less than the mad ferocity against those

who were cut to pieces. One prisoner there was, he said, who had been discharged into the street free, but at

whom a mistaken savage had thrust a pike as he passed out. Being besought to go to him and dress the

wound, the Doctor had passed out at the same gate, and had found him in the arms of a company of

Samaritans, who were seated on the bodies of their victims. With an inconsistency as monstrous as anything

in this awful nightmare, they had helped the healer, and tended the wounded man with the gentlest

solicitude had made a litter for him and escorted him carefully from the spot had then caught up their

weapons and plunged anew into a butchery so dreadful, that the Doctor had covered his eyes with his hands,

As Mr. Lorry received these confidences, and as he watched the face of his friend now sixtytwo years of

age, a misgiving arose within him that such dread experiences would revive the old danger.

But, he had never seen his friend in his present aspect: he had never at all known him in his present character.

For the first time the Doctor felt, now, that his suffering was strength and power. For the first time he felt that

in that sharp fire, he had slowly forged the iron which could break the prison door of his daughter's husband,

and deliver him. "It all tended to a good end, my friend; it was not mere waste and ruin. As my beloved child

was helpful in restoring me to myself, I will be helpful now in restoring the dearest part of herself to her; by

the aid of Heaven I will do it!" Thus, Doctor Manette. And when Jarvis Lorry saw the kindled eyes, the

resolute face, the calm strong look and bearing of the man whose life always seemed to him to have been

stopped, like a clock, for so many years, and then set going again with an energy which had lain dormant

Greater things than the Doctor had at that time to contend with, would have yielded before his persevering

purpose. While he kept himself in his place, as a physician, whose business was with all degrees of mankind,

bond and free, rich and poor, bad and good, he used his personal influence so wisely, that he was soon the

inspecting physician of three prisons, and among them of La Force. He could now assure Lucie that her

husband was no longer confined alone, but was mixed with the general body of prisoners; he saw her husband

weekly, and brought sweet messages to her, straight from his lips; sometimes her husband himself sent a

letter to her (though never by the Doctor's hand), but she was not permitted to write to him: for, among the

many wild suspicions of plots in the prisons, the wildest of all pointed at emigrants who were known to have

This new life of the Doctor's was an anxious life, no doubt; still, the sagacious Mr. Lorry saw that there was a

new sustaining pride in it. Nothing unbecoming tinged the pride; it was a natural and worthy one; but he

observed it as a curiosity. The Doctor knew, that up to that time, his imprisonment had been associated in the

minds of his daughter and his friend, with his personal affliction, deprivation, and weakness. Now that this

was changed, and he knew himself to be invested through that old trial with forces to which they both looked

for Charles's ultimate safety and deliverance, he became so far exalted by the change, that he took the lead

and direction, and required them as the weak, to trust to him as the strong. The preceding relative positions of

himself and Lucie were reversed, yet only as the liveliest gratitude and affection could reverse them, for he

could have had no pride but in rendering some service to her who had rendered so much to him. "All curious

to see," thought Mr. Lorry, in his amiably shrewd way, "but all natural and right; so, take the lead, my dear

But, though the Doctor tried hard, and never ceased trying, to get Charles Darnay set at liberty, or at least to

get him brought to trial, the public current of the time set too strong and fast for him. The new era began; the

king was tried, doomed, and beheaded; the Republic of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, declared for

victory or death against the world in arms; the black flag waved night and day from the great towers of Notre

Dame; three hundred thousand men, summoned to rise against the tyrants of the earth, rose from all the

varying soils of France, as if the dragon's teeth had been sown broadcast, and had yielded fruit equally on hill

and plain, on rock, in gravel, and alluvial mud, under the bright sky of the South and under the clouds of the

North, in fell and forest, in the vineyards and the olivegrounds and among the cropped grass and the stubble

of the corn, along the fruitful banks of the broad rivers, and in the sand of the seashore. What private

solicitude could rear itself against the deluge of the Year One of Libertythe deluge rising from below, not

There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting rest, no measurement of time. Though days

and nights circled as regularly as when time was young, and the evening and morning were the first day,

other count of time there was none. Hold of it was lost in the raging fever of a nation, as it is in the fever of

one patient. Now, breaking the unnatural silence of a whole city, the executioner showed the people the head

of the kingand now, it seemed almost in the same breath, the bead of his fair wife which had had eight

And yet, observing the strange law of contradiction which obtains in all such cases, the time was long, while

it flamed by so fast. A revolutionary tribunal in the capital, and forty or fifty thousand revolutionary

committees all over the land; a law of the Suspected, which struck away all security for liberty or life, and

delivered over any good and innocent person to any bad and guilty one; prisons gorged with people who had

committed no offence, and could obtain no hearing; these things became the established order and nature of

appointed things, and seemed to be ancient usage before they were many weeks old. Above all, one hideous

figure grew as familiar as if it had been before the general gaze from the foundations of the worldthe

It was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure for headache, it infallibly prevented the hair from

turning grey, it imparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the National Razor which shaved close:

who kissed La Guillotine, looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack. It was the sign of the

regeneration of the human race. It superseded the Cross. Models of it were worn on breasts from which the

Cross was discarded, and it was bowed down to and believed in where the Cross was denied.

It sheared off heads so many, that it, and the ground it most polluted, were a rotten red. It was taken to pieces,

like a toypuzzle for a young Devil, and was put together again when the occasion wanted it. It hushed the

eloquent, struck down the powerful, abolished the beautiful and good. Twentytwo friends of high public

mark, twentyone living and one dead, it had lopped the heads off, in one morning, in as many minutes. The

name of the strong man of Old Scripture had descended to the chief functionary who worked it; but, so

armed, he was stronger than his namesake, and blinder, and tore away the gates of God's own Temple every

Among these terrors, and the brood belonging to them, the Doctor walked with a steady head: confident in his

power, cautiously persistent in his end, never doubting that he would save Lucie's husband at last. Yet the

current of the time swept by, so strong and deep, and carried the time away so fiercely, that Charles had lain

in prison one year and three months when the Doctor was thus steady and confident. So much more wicked

and distracted had the Revolution grown in that December month, that the rivers of the South were

encumbered with the bodies of the violently drowned by night, and prisoners were shot in lines and squares

under the southern wintry sun. Still, the Doctor walked among the terrors with a steady head. No man better

known than he, in Paris at that day; no man in a stranger situation. Silent, humane, indispensable in hospital

and prison, using his art equally among assassins and victims, he was a man apart. In the exercise of his skill,

the appearance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all other men. He was not suspected

or brought in question, any more than if he bad indeed been recalled to life some eighteen years before, or

One year and three months. During all that time Lucie was never sure, from hour to hour, but that the

Guillotine would strike off her husband's head next day. Every day, through the stony streets, the tumbrils

now jolted heavily, filled with Condemned. Lovely girls; bright women, brownhaired, blackhaired, and

grey; youths; stalwart men and old; gentle born and peasant born; all red wine for La Guillotine, all daily

brought into light from the dark cellars of the loathsome prisons, and carried to her through the streets to

slake her devouring thirst. Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death;the last, much the easiest to bestow, O

If the suddenness of her calamity, and the whirling wheels of the time, had stunned the Doctor's daughter into

awaiting the result in idle despair, it would but have been with her as it was with many. But, from the hour

when she had taken the white head to her fresh young bosom in the garret of Saint Antoine, she had been true

to her duties. She was truest to them in the season of trial, as all the quietly loyal and good will always be.

As soon as they were established in their new residence, and her father had entered on the routine of his

avocations, she arranged the little household as exactly as if her husband had been there. Everything had its

appointed place and its appointed time. Little Lucie she taught, as regularly, as if they had all been united in

their English home. The slight devices with which she cheated herself into the show of a belief that they

would soon be reunited the little preparations for his speedy return, the setting aside of his chair and his

booksthese, and the solemn prayer at night for one dear prisoner especially, among the many unhappy

souls in prison and the shadow of deathwere almost the only outspoken reliefs of her heavy mind.

She did not greatly alter in appearance. The plain dark dresses, akin to mourning dresses, which she and her

child wore, were as neat and as well attended to as the brighter clothes of happy days. She lost her colour, and

the old and intent expression was a constant, not an occasional, thing; otherwise, she remained very pretty

and comely. Sometimes, at night on kissing her father, she would burst into the grief she had repressed all

day, and would say that her sole reliance, under Heaven, was on him. He always resolutely answered:

"Nothing can happen to him without my knowledge, and I know that I can save him, Lucie."

They had not made the round of their changed life many weeks, when her father said to her, on coming home

"My dear, there is an upper window in the prison, to which Charles can sometimes gain access at three in the

afternoon. When he can get to itwhich depends on many uncertainties and incidentshe might see you in

the street, he thinks, if you stood in a certain place that I can show you. But you will not be able to see him,

my poor child, and even if you could, it would be unsafe for you to make a sign of recognition."

From that time, in all weathers, she waited there two hours. As the clock struck two, she was there, and at

four she turned resignedly away. When it was not too wet or inclement for her child to be with her, they went

It was the dark and dirty corner of a small winding street. The hovel of a cutter of wood into lengths for

burning, was the only house at that end; all else was wall. On the third day of her being there, he noticed her.

This mode of address was now prescribed by decree. It had been established voluntarily some time ago,

The woodsawyer, who was a little man with a redundancy of gesture (he had once been a mender of roads),

cast a glance at the prison, pointed at the prison, and putting his ten fingers before his face to represent bars,

"Ah! But it's not my business. My work is my business. See my saw! I call it my Little Guillotine. La, la, la;

"I call myself the Samson of the firewood guillotine. See here again! Loo, loo, loo; Loo, loo, loo! And off

HER head comes! Now, a child. Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle! And off ITS head comes. All the family!"

Lucie shuddered as he threw two more billets into his basket, but it was impossible to be there while the

woodsawyer was at work, and not be in his sight. Thenceforth, to secure his good will, she always spoke to

He was an inquisitive fellow, and sometimes when she had quite forgotten him in gazing at the prison roof

and grates, and in lifting her heart up to her husband, she would come to herself to find him looking at her,

with his knee on his bench and his saw stopped in its work. "But it's not my business!" he would generally

In all weathers, in the snow and frost of winter, in the bitter winds of spring, in the hot sunshine of summer,

in the rains of autumn, and again in the snow and frost of winter, Lucie passed two hours of every day at this

place; and every day on leaving it, she kissed the prison wall. Her husband saw her (so she learned from her

father) it might be once in five or six times: it might be twice or thrice running: it might be, not for a week or

a fortnight together. It was enough that he could and did see her when the chances served, and on that

These occupations brought her round to the December month, wherein her father walked among the terrors

with a steady head. On a lightlysnowing afternoon she arrived at the usual corner. It was a day of some wild

rejoicing, and a festival. She had seen the houses, as she came along, decorated with little pikes, and with

little red caps stuck upon them; also, with tricoloured ribbons; also, with the standard inscription (tricoloured

letters were the favourite), Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death!

The miserable shop of the woodsawyer was so small, that its whole surface furnished very indifferent space

for this legend. He had got somebody to scrawl it up for him, however, who had squeezed Death in with most

inappropriate difficulty. On his housetop, he displayed pike and cap, as a good citizen must, and in a

window he had stationed his saw inscribed as his "Little Sainte Guillotine" for the great sharp female was

by that time popularly canonised. His shop was shut and he was not there, which was a relief to Lucie, and

But, he was not far off, for presently she heard a troubled movement and a shouting coming along, which

filled her with fear. A moment afterwards, and a throng of people came pouring round the corner by the

prison wall, in the midst of whom was the woodsawyer hand in hand with The Vengeance. There could not

be fewer than five hundred people, and they were dancing like five thousand demons. There was no other

music than their own singing. They danced to the popular Revolution song, keeping a ferocious time that was

like a gnashing of teeth in unison. Men and women danced together, women danced together, men danced

together, as hazard had brought them together. At first, they were a mere storm of coarse red caps and coarse

woollen rags; but, as they filled the place, and stopped to dance about Lucie, some ghastly apparition of a

dancefigure gone raving mad arose among them. They advanced, retreated, struck at one another's hands,

clutched at one another's heads, spun round alone, caught one another and spun round in pairs, until many of

them dropped. While those were down, the rest linked hand in hand, and all spun round together: then the

ring broke, and in separate rings of two and four they turned and turned until they all stopped at once, began

again, struck, clutched, and tore, and then reversed the spin, and all spun round another way. Suddenly they

stopped again, paused, struck out the time afresh, formed into lines the width of the public way, and, with

their heads low down and their hands high up, swooped screaming off. No fight could have been half so

terrible as this dance. It was so emphatically a fallen sporta something, once innocent, delivered over to all

devilrya healthy pastime changed into a means of angering the blood, bewildering the senses, and steeling

the heart. Such grace as was visible in it, made it the uglier, showing how warped and perverted all things

good by nature were become. The maidenly bosom bared to this, the pretty almostchild's head thus

distracted, the delicate foot mincing in this slough of blood and dirt, were types of the disjointed time.

This was the Carmagnole. As it passed, leaving Lucie frightened and bewildered in the doorway of the

woodsawyer's house, the feathery snow fell as quietly and lay as white and soft, as if it had never been.

"O my father!" for he stood before her when she lifted up the eyes she had momentarily darkened with her

"I know, my dear, I know. I have seen it many times. Don't be frightened! Not one of them would harm you."

"I am not frightened for myself, my father. But when I think of my husband, and the mercies of these

"We will set him above their mercies very soon. I left him climbing to the window, and I came to tell you.

There is no one here to see. You may kiss your hand towards that highest shelving roof."

A footstep in the snow. Madame Defarge. "I salute you, citizeness," from the Doctor. "I salute you, citizen."

This in passing. Nothing more. Madame Defarge gone, like a shadow over the white road.

"Give me your arm, my love. Pass from here with an air of cheerfulness and courage, for his sake. That was

well done;" they had left the spot; "it shall not be in vain. Charles is summoned for tomorrow."

"There is no time to lose. I am well prepared, but there are precautions to be taken, that could not be taken

until he was actually summoned before the Tribunal. He has not received the notice yet, but I know that he

will presently be summoned for tomorrow, and removed to the Conciergerie; I have timely information.

"Do so, implicitly. Your suspense is nearly ended, my darling; he shall be restored to you within a few hours;

He stopped. There was a heavy lumbering of wheels within hearing. They both knew too well what it meant.

One. Two. Three. Three tumbrils faring away with their dread loads over the hushing snow.

The staunch old gentleman was still in his trust; had never left it. He and his books were in frequent

requisition as to property confiscated and made national. What he could save for the owners, he saved. No

better man living to hold fast by what Tellson's had in keeping, and to hold his peace.

A murky red and yellow sky, and a rising mist from the Seine, denoted the approach of darkness. It was

almost dark when they arrived at the Bank. The stately residence of Monseigneur was altogether blighted and

deserted. Above a heap of dust and ashes in the court, ran the letters: National Property. Republic One and

Who could that be with Mr. Lorrythe owner of the ridingcoat upon the chairwho must not be seen?

From whom newly arrived, did he come out, agitated and surprised, to take his favourite in his arms? To

whom did he appear to repeat her faltering words, when, raising his voice and turning his head towards the

door of the room from which he had issued, he said: "Removed to the Conciergerie, and summoned for

The dread tribunal of five Judges, Public Prosecutor, and determined Jury, sat every day. Their lists went

forth every evening, and were read out by the gaolers of the various prisons to their prisoners. The standard

When a name was called, its owner stepped apart into a spot reserved for those who were announced as being

thus fatally recorded. Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, had reason to know the usage; he had seen

His bloated gaoler, who wore spectacles to read with, glanced over them to assure himself that he had taken

his place, and went through the list, making a similar short pause at each name. There were twentythree

names, but only twenty were responded to; for one of the prisoners so summoned had died in gaol and been

forgotten, and two had already been guillotined and forgotten. The list was read, in the vaulted chamber

where Darnay had seen the associated prisoners on the night of his arrival. Every one of those had perished in

the massacre; every human creature he had since cared for and parted with, had died on the scaffold.

There were hurried words of farewell and kindness, but the parting was soon over. It was the incident of

every day, and the society of La Force were engaged in the preparation of some games of forfeits and a little

concert, for that evening. They crowded to the grates and shed tears there; but, twenty places in the projected

entertainments had to be refilled, and the time was, at best, short to the lockup hour, when the common

rooms and corridors would be delivered over to the great dogs who kept watch there through the night. The

prisoners were far from insensible or unfeeling; their ways arose out of the condition of the time. Similarly,

though with a subtle difference, a species of fervour or intoxication, known, without doubt, to have led some

persons to brave the guillotine unnecessarily, and to die by it, was not mere boastfulness, but a wild infection

of the wildly shaken public mind. In seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the

disease a terrible passing inclination to die of it. And all of us have like wonders hidden in our breasts,

The passage to the Conciergerie was short and dark; the night in its verminhaunted cells was long and cold.

Next day, fifteen prisoners were put to the bar before Charles Darnay's name was called. All the fifteen were

His judges sat upon the Bench in feathered hats; but the rough red cap and tricoloured cockade was the

headdress otherwise prevailing. Looking at the Jury and the turbulent audience, he might have thought that

the usual order of things was reversed, and that the felons were trying the honest men. The lowest, cruelest,

and worst populace of a city, never without its quantity of low, cruel, and bad, were the directing spirits of the

scene: noisily commenting, applauding, disapproving, anticipating, and precipitating the result, without a

check. Of the men, the greater part were armed in various ways; of the women, some wore knives, some

daggers, some ate and drank as they looked on, many knitted. Among these last, was one, with a spare piece

of knitting under her arm as she worked. She was in a front row, by the side of a man whom he had never

seen since his arrival at the Barrier, but whom he directly remembered as Defarge. He noticed that she once

or twice whispered in his ear, and that she seemed to be his wife; but, what he most noticed in the two figures

was, that although they were posted as close to himself as they could be, they never looked towards him.

They seemed to be waiting for something with a dogged determination, and they looked at the Jury, but at

nothing else. Under the President sat Doctor Manette, in his usual quiet dress. As well as the prisoner could

see, he and Mr. Lorry were the only men there, unconnected with the Tribunal, who wore their usual clothes,

Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, was accused by the public prosecutor as an emigrant, whose life was

forfeit to the Republic, under the decree which banished all emigrants on pain of Death. It was nothing that

the decree bore date since his return to France. There he was, and there was the decree; he had been taken in

The President rang his bell to silence those cries, and asked the prisoner whether it was not true that he had

Because he had voluntarily relinquished a title that was distasteful to him, and a station that was distasteful to

him, and had left his countryhe submitted before the word emigrant in the present acceptation by the

Tribunal was in useto live by his own industry in England, rather than on the industry of the overladen

He handed in the names of two witnesses; Theophile Gabelle, and Alexandre Manette.

"Lucie Manette, only daughter of Doctor Manette, the good physician who sits there."

This answer had a happy effect upon the audience. Cries in exaltation of the wellknown good physician rent

the hall. So capriciously were the people moved, that tears immediately rolled down several ferocious

countenances which had been glaring at the prisoner a moment before, as if with impatience to pluck him out

On these few steps of his dangerous way, Charles Darnay had set his foot according to Doctor Manette's

reiterated instructions. The same cautious counsel directed every step that lay before him, and had prepared

He had not returned sooner, he replied, simply because he had no means of living in France, save those he

had resigned; whereas, in England, he lived by giving instruction in the French language and literature. He

had returned when he did, on the pressing and written entreaty of a French citizen, who represented that his

life was endangered by his absence. He had come back, to save a citizen's life, and to bear his testimony, at

whatever personal hazard, to the truth. Was that criminal in the eyes of the Republic?

The populace cried enthusiastically, "No!" and the President rang his bell to quiet them. Which it did not, for

The President required the name of that citizen. The accused explained that the citizen was his first witness.

He also referred with confidence to the citizen's letter, which had been taken from him at the Barrier, but

which he did not doubt would be found among the papers then before the President.

The Doctor had taken care that it should be therehad assured him that it would be thereand at this stage

of the proceedings it was produced and read. Citizen Gabelle was called to confirm it, and did so. Citizen

Gabelle hinted, with infinite delicacy and politeness, that in the pressure of business imposed on the Tribunal

by the multitude of enemies of the Republic with which it had to deal, he had been slightly overlooked in his

prison of the Abbayein fact, had rather passed out of the Tribunal's patriotic remembranceuntil three

days ago; when he had been summoned before it, and had been set at liberty on the Jury's declaring

themselves satisfied that the accusation against him was answered, as to himself, by the surrender of the

Doctor Manette was next questioned. His high personal popularity, and the clearness of his answers, made a

great impression; but, as he proceeded, as he showed that the Accused was his first friend on his release from

his long imprisonment; that, the accused had remained in England, always faithful and devoted to his

daughter and himself in their exile; that, so far from being in favour with the Aristocrat government there, he

had actually been tried for his life by it, as the foe of England and friend of the United Statesas he brought

these circumstances into view, with the greatest discretion and with the straightforward force of truth and

earnestness, the Jury and the populace became one. At last, when he appealed by name to Monsieur Lorry, an

English gentleman then and there present, who, like himself, had been a witness on that English trial and

could corroborate his account of it, the Jury declared that they had heard enough, and that they were ready

At every vote (the Jurymen voted aloud and individually), the populace set up a shout of applause. All the

Then, began one of those extraordinary scenes with which the populace sometimes gratified their fickleness,

or their better impulses towards generosity and mercy, or which they regarded as some setoff against their

swollen account of cruel rage. No man can decide now to which of these motives such extraordinary scenes

were referable; it is probable, to a blending of all the three, with the second predominating. No sooner was

the acquittal pronounced, than tears were shed as freely as blood at another time, and such fraternal embraces

were bestowed upon the prisoner by as many of both sexes as could rush at him, that after his long and

unwholesome confinement he was in danger of fainting from exhaustion; none the less because he knew very

well, that the very same people, carried by another current, would have rushed at him with the very same

His removal, to make way for other accused persons who were to be tried, rescued him from these caresses

for the moment. Five were to be tried together, next, as enemies of the Republic, forasmuch as they had not

assisted it by word or deed. So quick was the Tribunal to compensate itself and the nation for a chance lost,

that these five came down to him before he left the place, condemned to die within twentyfour hours. The

first of them told him so, with the customary prison sign of Deatha raised fingerand they all added in

The five had had, it is true, no audience to lengthen their proceedings, for when he and Doctor Manette

emerged from the gate, there was a great crowd about it, in which there seemed to be every face he had seen

in Courtexcept two, for which he looked in vain. On his coming out, the concourse made at him anew,

weeping, embracing, and shouting, all by turns and all together, until the very tide of the river on the bank of

They put him into a great chair they had among them, and which they had taken either out of the Court itself,

or one of its rooms or passages. Over the chair they had thrown a red flag, and to the back of it they had

bound a pike with a red cap on its top. In this car of triumph, not even the Doctor's entreaties could prevent

his being carried to his home on men's shoulders, with a confused sea of red caps heaving about him, and

casting up to sight from the stormy deep such wrecks of faces, that he more than once misdoubted his mind

being in confusion, and that he was in the tumbril on his way to the Guillotine.

In wild dreamlike procession, embracing whom they met and pointing him out, they carried him on.

Reddening the snowy streets with the prevailing Republican colour, in winding and tramping through them,

as they had reddened them below the snow with a deeper dye, they carried him thus into the courtyard of the

building where he lived. Her father had gone on before, to prepare her, and when her husband stood upon his

As he held her to his heart and turned her beautiful head between his face and the brawling crowd, so that his

tears and her lips might come together unseen, a few of the people fell to dancing. Instantly, all the rest fell to

dancing, and the courtyard overflowed with the Carmagnole. Then, they elevated into the vacant chair a

young woman from the crowd to be carried as the Goddess of Liberty, and then swelling and overflowing out

into the adjacent streets, and along the river's bank, and over the bridge, the Carmagnole absorbed them every

After grasping the Doctor's hand, as he stood victorious and proud before him; after grasping the hand of Mr.

Lorry, who came panting in breathless from his struggle against the waterspout of the Carmagnole; after

kissing little Lucie, who was lifted up to clasp her arms round his neck; and after embracing the ever zealous

and faithful Pross who lifted her; he took his wife in his arms, and carried her up to their rooms.

"O dearest Charles, let me thank God for this on my knees as I have prayed to Him."

They all reverently bowed their heads and hearts. When she was again in his arms, he said to her:

"And now speak to your father, dearest. No other man in all this France could have done what he has done for

She laid her head upon her father's breast, as she had laid his poor head on her own breast, long, long ago. He

was happy in the return he had made her, he was recompensed for his suffering, be was proud of his strength.

"You must not be weak, my darling," he remonstrated; "don't tremble so. I have saved him."

"I have saved him." It was not another of the dreams in which he had often come back; he was really here.

All the air round was so thick and dark, the people were so passionately revengeful and fitful, the innocent

were so constantly put to death on vague suspicion and black malice, it was so impossible to forget that many

as blameless as her husband and as dear to others as he was to her, every day shared the fate from which he

had been clutched, that her heart could not be as lightened of its load as she felt it ought to be. The shadows

of the wintry afternoon were beginning to fall, and even now the dreadful carts were rolling through the

streets. Her mind pursued them, looking for him among the Condemned; and then she clung closer to his real

Her father, cheering her, showed a compassionate superiority to this woman's weakness, which was

wonderful to see. No garret, no shoemaking, no One Hundred and Five, North Tower, now! He had

accomplished the task he had set himself, his promise was redeemed, he had saved Charles. Let them all lean

Their housekeeping was of a very frugal kind: not only because that was the safest way of life, involving the

least offence to the people, but because they were not rich, and Charles, throughout his imprisonment, had

had to pay heavily for his bad food, and for his guard, and towards the living of the poorer prisoners. Partly

on this account, and partly to avoid a domestic spy, they kept no servant; the citizen and citizeness who acted

as porters at the courtyard gate, rendered them occasional service; and Jerry (almost wholly transferred to

them by Mr. Lorry) had become their daily retainer, and had his bed there every night.

It was an ordinance of the Republic One and Indivisible of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, that on the

door or doorpost of every house, the name of every inmate must be legibly inscribed in letters of a certain

size, at a certain convenient height from the ground. Mr. Jerry Cruncher's name, therefore, duly embellished

the doorpost down below; and, as the afternoon shadows deepened, the owner of that name himself appeared,

from overlooking a painter whom Doctor Manette had employed to add to the list the name of Charles

In the universal fear and distrust that darkened the time, all the usual harmless ways of life were changed. In

the Doctor's little household, as in very many others, the articles of daily consumption that were wanted were

purchased every evening, in small quantities and at various small shops. To avoid attracting notice, and to

For some months past, Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher had discharged the office of purveyors; the former

carrying the money; the latter, the basket. Every afternoon at about the time when the public lamps were

lighted, they fared forth on this duty, and made and brought home such purchases as were needful. Although

Miss Pross, through her long association with a French family, might have known as much of their language

as of her own, if she had had a mind, she had no mind in that direction; consequently she knew no more of

that "nonsense" (as she was pleased to call it) than Mr. Cruncher did. So her manner of marketing was to

plump a nounsubstantive at the head of a shopkeeper without any introduction in the nature of an article,

and, if it happened not to be the name of the thing she wanted, to look round for that thing, lay hold of it, and

hold on by it until the bargain was concluded. She always made a bargain for it, by holding up, as a statement

of its just price, one finger less than the merchant held up, whatever his number might be.

"Now, Mr. Cruncher," said Miss Pross, whose eyes were red with felicity; "if you are ready, I am."

Jerry hoarsely professed himself at Miss Pross's service. He had worn all his rust off long ago, but nothing

"There's all manner of things wanted," said Miss Pross, "and we shall have a precious time of it. We want

wine, among the rest. Nice toasts these Redheads will be drinking, wherever we buy it."

"It will be much the same to your knowledge, miss, I should think," retorted Jerry, "whether they drink your

"Ha!" said Miss Pross, "it doesn't need an interpreter to explain the meaning of these creatures. They have but

"Yes, yes, yes, I'll be cautious," said Miss Pross; "but I may say among ourselves, that I do hope there will be

no oniony and tobaccoey smotherings in the form of embracings all round, going on in the streets. Now,

Ladybird, never you stir from that fire till I come back! Take care of the dear husband you have recovered,

and don't move your pretty head from his shoulder as you have it now, till you see me again! May I ask a

"For gracious sake, don't talk about Liberty; we have quite enough of that," said Miss Pross.

"Well, my sweet," said Miss Pross, nodding her head emphatically, "the short and the long of it is, that I am a

subject of His Most Gracious Majesty King George the Third;" Miss Pross curtseyed at the name; "and as

such, my maxim is, Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks, On him our hopes we fix, God

Mr. Cruncher, in an access of loyalty, growlingly repeated the words after Miss Pross, Re somebody at

"I am glad you have so much of the Englishman in you, though I wish you had never taken that cold in your

voice," said Miss Pross, approvingly. "But the question, Doctor Manette. Is there"it was the good

creature's way to affect to make light of anything that was a great anxiety with them all, and to come at it in

this chance manner"is there any prospect yet, of our getting out of this place?"

"Heighhohum!" said Miss Pross, cheerfully repressing a sigh as she glanced at her darling's golden hair in

the light of the fire, "then we must have patience and wait: that's all. We must hold up our heads and fight

low, as my brother Solomon used to say. Now, Mr. Cruncher!Don't you move, Ladybird!"

They went out, leaving Lucie, and her husband, her father, and the child, by a bright fire. Mr. Lorry was

expected back presently from the Banking House. Miss Pross had lighted the lamp, but had put it aside in a

corner, that they might enjoy the firelight undisturbed. Little Lucie sat by her grandfather with her hands

clasped through his arm: and he, in a tone not rising much above a whisper, began to ten her a story of a great

and powerful Fairy who had opened a prisonwall and let out a captive who had once done the Fairy a

service. All was subdued and quiet, and Lucie was more at ease than she had been.

"My dear!" said her father, stopping in his story, and laying his hand on hers, "command yourself. What a

disordered state you are in! The least thingnothingstartles you! YOU, your father's daughter!"

"I thought, my father," said Lucie, excusing herself, with a pale face and in a faltering voice, "that I heard

"My child," said the Doctor, rising, and laying his hand upon her shoulder, "I HAVE saved him. What

He took the lamp in his hand, crossed the two intervening outer rooms, and opened it. A rude clattering of

feet over the floor, and four rough men in red caps, armed with sabres and pistols, entered the room.

"I seek him. We seek him. I know you, Evremonde; I saw you before the Tribunal today. You are again the

The four surrounded him, where he stood with his wife and child clinging to him.

"It is enough that you return straight to the Conciergerie, and will know tomorrow. You are summoned for

Doctor Manette, whom this visitation had so turned into stone, that be stood with the lamp in his band, as if

be woe a statue made to hold it, moved after these words were spoken, put the lamp down, and confronting

the speaker, and taking him, not ungently, by the loose front of his red woollen shirt, said:

He looked abstractedly from one to another, and said, in a lower voice, after a pause:

"Citizen Doctor," said the first, reluctantly, "he has been denounced to the Section of Saint Antoine. This

"Citizen Doctor," said the first, with his former reluctance, "ask no more. If the Republic demands sacrifices

from you, without doubt you as a good patriot will be happy to make them. The Republic goes before all. The

"It is against rule," answered the first; "but you can ask Him of Saint Antoine here."

The Doctor turned his eyes upon that man. Who moved uneasily on his feet, rubbed his beard a little, and at

"Well! Truly it is against rule. But he is denouncedand gravelyby the Citizen and Citizeness Defarge.

"Then," said he of Saint Antoine, with a strange look, "you will be answered tomorrow. Now, I am dumb!"

Happily unconscious of the new calamity at home, Miss Pross threaded her way along the narrow streets and

crossed the river by the bridge of the PontNeuf, reckoning in her mind the number of indispensable

purchases she had to make. Mr. Cruncher, with the basket, walked at her side. They both looked to the right

and to the left into most of the shops they passed, had a wary eye for all gregarious assemblages of people,

and turned out of their road to avoid any very excited group of talkers. It was a raw evening, and the misty

river, blurred to the eye with blazing lights and to the ear with harsh noises, showed where the barges were

stationed in which the smiths worked, making guns for the Army of the Republic. Woe to the man who

played tricks with THAT Army, or got undeserved promotion in it! Better for him that his beard had never

Having purchased a few small articles of grocery, and a measure of oil for the lamp, Miss Pross bethought

herself of the wine they wanted. After peeping into several wineshops, she stopped at the sign of the Good

Republican Brutus of Antiquity, not far from the National Palace, once (and twice) the Tuileries, where the

aspect of things rather took her fancy. It had a quieter look than any other place of the same description they

had passed, and, though red with patriotic caps, was not so red as the rest. Sounding Mr. Cruncher, and

finding him of her opinion, Miss Pross resorted to the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, attended by her

Slightly observant of the smoky lights; of the people, pipe in mouth, playing with limp cards and yellow

dominoes; of the one bare breasted, barearmed, sootbegrimed workman reading a journal aloud, and of

the others listening to him; of the weapons worn, or laid aside to be resumed; of the two or three customers

fallen forward asleep, who in the popular highshouldered shaggy black spencer looked, in that attitude, like

slumbering bears or dogs; the two outlandish customers approached the counter, and showed what they

As their wine was measuring out, a man parted from another man in a corner, and rose to depart. In going, he

had to face Miss Pross. No sooner did he face her, than Miss Pross uttered a scream, and clapped her hands.

In a moment, the whole company were on their feet. That somebody was assassinated by somebody

vindicating a difference of opinion was the likeliest occurrence. Everybody looked to see somebody fall, but

only saw a man and a woman standing staring at each other; the man with all the outward aspect of a

What was said in this disappointing anticlimax, by the disciples of the Good Republican Brutus of

Antiquity, except that it was something very voluble and loud, would have been as so much Hebrew or

Chaldean to Miss Pross and her protector, though they had been all ears. But, they bad no ears for anything in

their surprise. For, it must be recorded, that not only was Miss Pross lost in amazement and agitation, but,

Mr. Cruncherthough it seemed on his own separate and individual accountwas in a state of the greatest

"What is the matter?" said the man who had caused Miss Pross to scream; speaking in a vexed, abrupt voice

"Oh, Solomon, dear Solomon!" cried Miss Pross, clapping her hands again. "After not setting eyes upon you

"Don't call me Solomon. Do you want to be the death of me?" asked the man, in a furtive, frightened way.

"Brother, brother!" cried Miss Pross, bursting into tears. "Have I ever been so hard with you that you ask me

"Then hold your meddlesome tongue," said Solomon, "and come out, if you want to speak to me. Pay for

Miss Pross, shaking her loving and dejected head at her by no means affectionate brother, said through her

Apparently, Mr. Cruncher did, to judge from his looks. He said not a word, however, and Miss Pross,

exploring the depths of her reticule through her tears with great difficulty paid for her wine. As she did so,

Solomon turned to the followers of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, and offered a few words of

explanation in the French language, which caused them all to relapse into their former places and pursuits.

"How dreadfully unkind in a brother nothing has ever turned my love away from!" cried Miss Pross, "to give

"There. Confound it! There," said Solomon, making a dab at Miss Pross's lips with his own. "Now are you

"If you expect me to be surprised," said her brother Solomon, "I am not surprised; I knew you were here; I

know of most people who are here. If you really don't want to endanger my existencewhich I half believe

you dogo your ways as soon as possible, and let me go mine. I am busy. I am an official."

"My English brother Solomon," mourned Miss Pross, casting up her tearfraught eyes, "that had the makings

in him of one of the best and greatest of men in his native country, an official among foreigners, and such

"I said so!" cried her brother, interrupting. "I knew it. You want to be the death of me. I shall be rendered

"The gracious and merciful Heavens forbid!" cried Miss Pross. "Far rather would I never see you again, dear

Solomon, though I have ever loved you truly, and ever shall. Say but one affectionate word to me, and tell me

there is nothing angry or estranged between us, and I will detain you no longer."

Good Miss Pross! As if the estrangement between them had come of any culpability of hers. As if Mr. Lorry

had not known it for a fact, years ago, in the quiet corner in Soho, that this precious brother had spent her

He was saying the affectionate word, however, with a far more grudging condescension and patronage than

he could have shown if their relative merits and positions had been reversed (which is invariably the case, all

the world over), when Mr. Cruncher, touching him on the shoulder, hoarsely and unexpectedly interposed

"I say! Might I ask the favour? As to whether your name is John Solomon, or Solomon John?"

The official turned towards him with sudden distrust. He had not previously uttered a word.

"Come!" said Mr. Cruncher. "Speak out, you know." (Which, by the way, was more than he could do

himself.) "John Solomon, or Solomon John? She calls you Solomon, and she must know, being your sister.

And _I_ know you're John, you know. Which of the two goes first? And regarding that name of Pross,

"Well, I don't know all I mean, for I can't call to mind what your name was, over the water."

"Yes. T'other one's was one syllable. I know you. You was a spy witness at the Bailey. What, in the name

The speaker who struck in, was Sydney Carton. He had his hands behind him under the skirts of his

ridingcoat, and he stood at Mr. Cruncher's elbow as negligently as he might have stood at the Old Bailey

"Don't be alarmed, my dear Miss Pross. I arrived at Mr. Lorry's, to his surprise, yesterday evening; we agreed

that I would not present myself elsewhere until all was well, or unless I could be useful; I present myself

here, to beg a little talk with your brother. I wish you had a better employed brother than Mr. Barsad. I wish

Sheep was a cant word of the time for a spy, under the gaolers. The spy, who was pale, turned paler, and

"I'll tell you," said Sydney. "I lighted on you, Mr. Barsad, coming out of the prison of the Conciergerie while

I was contemplating the walls, an hour or more ago. You have a face to be remembered, and I remember

faces well. Made curious by seeing you in that connection, and having a reason, to which you are no stranger,

for associating you with the misfortunes of a friend now very unfortunate, I walked in your direction. I

walked into the wineshop here, close after you, and sat near you. I had no difficulty in deducing from your

unreserved conversation, and the rumour openly going about among your admirers, the nature of your calling.

And gradually, what I had done at random, seemed to shape itself into a purpose, Mr. Barsad."

"It would be troublesome, and might be dangerous, to explain in the street. Could you favour me, in

confidence, with some minutes of your companyat the office of Tellson's Bank, for instance?"

Carton's negligent recklessness of manner came powerfully in aid of his quickness and skill, in such a

business as be had in his secret mind, and with such a man as he had to do with. His practised eye saw it, and

"Now, I told you so," said the spy, casting a reproachful look at his sister; "if any trouble comes of this, it's

"Come, come, Mr. Barsad!" exclaimed Sydney. "Don't be ungrateful. But for my great respect for your sister,

I might not have led up so pleasantly to a little proposal that I wish to make for our mutual satisfaction. Do

"I propose that we first conduct your sister safely to the corner of her own street. Let me take your arm, Miss

Pross. This is not a good city, at this time, for you to be out in, unprotected; and as your escort knows Mr.

Miss Pross recalled soon afterwards, and to the end of her life remembered, that as she pressed her hands on

Sydney's arm and looked up in his face, imploring him to do no hurt to Solomon, there was a braced purpose

in the arm and a kind of inspiration in the eyes, which not only contradicted his light manner, but changed

and raised the man. She was too much occupied then with fears for the brother who so little deserved her

affection, and with Sydney's friendly reassurances, adequately to heed what she observed.

They left her at the corner of the street, and Carton led the way to Mr. Lorry's, which was within a few

Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and was sitting before a cheery little log or two of fireperhaps

looking into their blaze for the picture of that younger elderly gentleman from Tellson's, who had looked into

the red coals at the Royal George at Dover, now a good many years ago. He turned his head as they entered,

"Barsad?" repeated the old gentleman, "Barsad? I have an association with the nameand with the face."

"I told you you had a remarkable face, Mr. Barsad," observed Carton, coolly. "Pray sit down."

As he took a chair himself, he supplied the link that Mr. Lorry wanted, by saying to him with a frown,

"Witness at that trial." Mr. Lorry immediately remembered, and regarded his new visitor with an undisguised

"Mr. Barsad has been recognised by Miss Pross as the affectionate brother you have heard of," said Sydney,

"and has acknowledged the relationship. I pass to worse news. Darnay has been arrested again."

Struck with consternation, the old gentleman exclaimed, "What do you tell me! I left him safe and free within

"Mr. Barsad is the best authority possible, sir," said Sydney, "and I have it from Mr. Barsad's communication

to a friend and brother Sheep over a bottle of wine, that the arrest has taken place. He left the messengers at

the gate, and saw them admitted by the porter. There is no earthly doubt that he is retaken."

Mr. Lorry's business eye read in the speaker's face that it was loss of time to dwell upon the point. Confused,

but sensible that something might depend on his presence of mind, he commanded himself, and was silently

"Now, I trust," said Sydney to him, "that the name and influence of Doctor Manette may stand him in as good

stead tomorrowyou said he would be before the Tribunal again tomorrow, Mr. Barsad?"

"In as good stead tomorrow as today. But it may not be so. I own to you, I am shaken, Mr. Lorry, by

"But that very circumstance would be alarming, when we remember how identified he is with his

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

"In short," said Sydney, "this is a desperate time, when desperate games are played for desperate stakes. Let

the Doctor play the winning game; I will play the losing one. No man's life here is worth purchase. Any one

carried home by the people today, may be condemned tomorrow. Now, the stake I have resolved to play for,

in case of the worst, is a friend in the Conciergerie. And the friend I purpose to myself to win, is Mr. Barsad."

"I'll run them over. I'll see what I hold,Mr. Lorry, you know what a brute I am; I wish you'd give me a little

It was put before him, and he drank off a glassfuldrank off another glassfulpushed the bottle

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

prisons, emissary of Republican committees, now turnkey, now prisoner, always spy and secret informer, so

much the more valuable here for being English that an Englishman is less open to suspicion of subornation in

those characters than a Frenchman, represents himself to his employers under a false name. That's a very

good card. Mr. Barsad, now in the employ of the republican French government, was formerly in the employ

of the aristocratic English government, the enemy of France and freedom. That's an excellent card. Inference

clear as day in this region of suspicion, that Mr. Barsad, still in the pay of the aristocratic English

government, is the spy of Pitt, the treacherous foe of the Republic crouching in its bosom, the English traitor

and agent of all mischief so much spoken of and so difficult to find. That's a card not to be beaten. Have you

"I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the nearest Section Committee. Look over your hand, Mr.

He drew the bottle near, poured out another glassful of brandy, and drank it off. He saw that the spy was

fearful of his drinking himself into a fit state for the immediate denunciation of him. Seeing it, he poured out

It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr. Barsad saw losing cards in it that Sydney Carton knew nothing

of. Thrown out of his honourable employment in England, through too much unsuccessful hard swearing

therenot because he was not wanted there; our English reasons for vaunting our superiority to secrecy and

spies are of very modern datehe knew that he had crossed the Channel, and accepted service in France:

first, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among his own countrymen there: gradually, as a tempter and an

eavesdropper among the natives. He knew that under the overthrown government he had been a spy upon

Saint Antoine and Defarge's wineshop; had received from the watchful police such heads of information

concerning Doctor Manette's imprisonment, release, and history, as should serve him for an introduction to

familiar conversation with the Defarges; and tried them on Madame Defarge, and had broken down with

them signally. He always remembered with fear and trembling, that that terrible woman had knitted when he

talked with her, and had looked ominously at him as her fingers moved. He had since seen her, in the Section

of Saint Antoine, over and over again produce her knitted registers, and denounce people whose lives the

guillotine then surely swallowed up. He knew, as every one employed as he was did, that he was never safe;

that flight was impossible; that he was tied fast under the shadow of the axe; and that in spite of his utmost

tergiversation and treachery in furtherance of the reigning terror, a word might bring it down upon him. Once

denounced, and on such grave grounds as had just now been suggested to his mind, he foresaw that the

dreadful woman of whose unrelenting character he had seen many proofs, would produce against him that

fatal register, and would quash his last chance of life. Besides that all secret men are men soon terrified, here

were surely cards enough of one black suit, to justify the holder in growing rather livid as he turned them

"You scarcely seem to like your hand," said Sydney, with the greatest composure. "Do you play?"

"I think, sir," said the spy, in the meanest manner, as he turned to Mr. Lorry, "I may appeal to a gentleman of

your years and benevolence, to put it to this other gentleman, so much your junior, whether he can under any

circumstances reconcile it to his station to play that Ace of which he has spoken. I admit that _I_ am a spy,

and that it is considered a discreditable stationthough it must be filled by somebody; but this gentleman is

"I play my Ace, Mr. Barsad," said Carton, taking the answer on himself, and looking at his watch, "without

"I should have hoped, gentlemen both," said the spy, always striving to hook Mr. Lorry into the discussion,

"I could not better testify my respect for your sister than by finally relieving her of her brother," said Sydney

The smooth manner of the spy, curiously in dissonance with his ostentatiously rough dress, and probably with

his usual demeanour, received such a check from the inscrutability of Carton,who was a mystery to wiser

and honester men than he,that it faltered here and failed him. While he was at a loss, Carton said, resuming

"And indeed, now I think again, I have a strong impression that I have another good card here, not yet

enumerated. That friend and fellowSheep, who spoke of himself as pasturing in the country prisons; who

"French, eh?" repeated Carton, musing, and not appearing to notice him at all, though he echoed his word.

"Though it's not important," repeated Carton, in the same mechanical way"though it's not importantNo,

"Itcan'tbe," muttered Sydney Carton, retrospectively, and idling his glass (which fortunately was a small

"No. Foreign!" cried Carton, striking his open hand on the table, as a light broke clearly on his mind. "Cly!

"Now, there you are hasty, sir," said Barsad, with a smile that gave his aquiline nose an extra inclination to

one side; "there you really give me an advantage over you. Cly (who I will unreservedly admit, at this

distance of time, was a partner of mine) has been dead several years. I attended him in his last illness. He was

buried in London, at the church of Saint PancrasintheFields. His unpopularity with the blackguard

multitude at the moment prevented my following his remains, but I helped to lay him in his coffin."

Here, Mr. Lorry became aware, from where he sat, of a most remarkable goblin shadow on the wall. Tracing

it to its source, he discovered it to be caused by a sudden extraordinary rising and stiffening of all the risen

"Let us be reasonable," said the spy, "and let us be fair. To show you how mistaken you are, and what an

unfounded assumption yours is, I will lay before you a certificate of Cly's burial, which I happened to have

carried in my pocketbook," with a hurried hand he produced and opened it, "ever since. There it is. Oh, look

Here, Mr. Lorry perceived the reflection on the wall to elongate, and Mr. Cruncher rose and stepped forward.

His hair could not have been more violently on end, if it had been that moment dressed by the Cow with the

Unseen by the spy, Mr. Cruncher stood at his side, and touched him on the shoulder like a ghostly bailiff.

"That there Roger Cly, master," said Mr. Cruncher, with a taciturn and ironbound visage. "So YOU put him

"I mean," said Mr. Cruncher, "that he warn't never in it. No! Not he! I'll have my head took off, if he was ever

The spy looked round at the two gentlemen; they both looked in unspeakable astonishment at Jerry.

"I tell you," said Jerry, "that you buried pavingstones and earth in that there coffin. Don't go and tell me that

"What's that to you? Ecod!" growled Mr. Cruncher, "it's you I have got a old grudge again, is it, with your

shameful impositions upon tradesmen! I'd catch hold of your throat and choke you for half a guinea."

Sydney Carton, who, with Mr. Lorry, had been lost in amazement at this turn of the business, here requested

"At another time, sir," he returned, evasively, "the present time is illconwenient for explainin'. What I stand

to, is, that he knows well wot that there Cly was never in that there coffin. Let him say he was, in so much as

a word of one syllable, and I'll either catch hold of his throat and choke him for half a guinea;" Mr. Cruncher

"Humph! I see one thing," said Carton. "I hold another card, Mr. Barsad. Impossible, here in raging Paris,

with Suspicion filling the air, for you to outlive denunciation, when you are in communication with another

aristocratic spy of the same antecedents as yourself, who, moreover, has the mystery about him of having

feigned death and come to life again! A plot in the prisons, of the foreigner against the Republic. A strong

"No!" returned the spy. "I throw up. I confess that we were so unpopular with the outrageous mob, that I only

got away from England at the risk of being ducked to death, and that Cly was so ferreted up and down, that

he never would have got away at all but for that sham. Though how this man knows it was a sham, is a

"Never you trouble your head about this man," retorted the contentious Mr. Cruncher; "you'll have trouble

enough with giving your attention to that gentleman. And look here! Once more!" Mr. Cruncher could not

be restrained from making rather an ostentatious parade of his liberality"I'd catch hold of your throat and

The Sheep of the prisons turned from him to Sydney Carton, and said, with more decision, "It has come to a

point. I go on duty soon, and can't overstay my time. You told me you had a proposal; what is it? Now, it is of

no use asking too much of me. Ask me to do anything in my office, putting my head in great extra danger,

and I had better trust my life to the chances of a refusal than the chances of consent. In short, I should make

that choice. You talk of desperation. We are all desperate here. Remember! I may denounce you if I think

proper, and I can swear my way through stone walls, and so can others. Now, what do you want with me?"

"I tell you once for all, there is no such thing as an escape possible," said the spy, firmly.

"Why need you tell me what I have not asked? You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie?"

Sydney Carton filled another glass with brandy, poured it slowly out upon the hearth, and watched it as it

"So far, we have spoken before these two, because it was as well that the merits of the cards should not rest

solely between you and me. Come into the dark room here, and let us have one final word alone."

While Sydney Carton and the Sheep of the prisons were in the adjoining dark room, speaking so low that not

a sound was heard, Mr. Lorry looked at Jerry in considerable doubt and mistrust. That honest tradesman's

manner of receiving the look, did not inspire confidence; he changed the leg on which he rested, as often as if

he had fifty of those limbs, and were trying them all; he examined his fingernails with a very questionable

closeness of attention; and whenever Mr. Lorry's eye caught his, he was taken with that peculiar kind of short

cough requiring the hollow of a hand before it, which is seldom, if ever, known to be an infirmity attendant

Mr. Cruncher came forward sideways, with one of his shoulders in advance of him.

After some cogitation, accompanied with an intent look at his patron, Mr. Cruncher conceived the luminous

"My mind misgives me much," said Mr. Lorry, angrily shaking a forefinger at him, "that you have used the

respectable and great house of Tellson's as a blind, and that you have had an unlawful occupation of an

infamous description. If you have, don't expect me to befriend you when you get back to England. If you

have, don't expect me to keep your secret. Tellson's shall not be imposed upon."

"I hope, sir," pleaded the abashed Mr. Cruncher, "that a gentleman like yourself wot I've had the honour of

odd jobbing till I'm grey at it, would think twice about harming of me, even if it wos soI don't say it is, but

even if it wos. And which it is to be took into account that if it wos, it wouldn't, even then, be all o' one side.

There'd be two sides to it. There might be medical doctors at the present hour, a picking up their guineas

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

nor yet his quartera banking away like smoke at Tellson's, and a cocking their medical eyes at that

tradesman on the sly, a going in and going out to their own carriagesah! equally like smoke, if not more so.

Well, that 'ud be imposing, too, on Tellson's. For you cannot sarse the goose and not the gander. And here's

Mrs. Cruncher, or leastways wos in the Old England times, and would be tomorrow, if cause given, a

floppin' again the business to that degree as is ruinatingstark ruinating! Whereas them medical doctors'

wives don't flopcatch 'em at it! Or, if they flop, their toppings goes in favour of more patients, and how can

you rightly have one without t'other? Then, wot with undertakers, and wot with parish clerks, and wot with

sextons, and wot with private watchmen (all awaricious and all in it), a man wouldn't get much by it, even if

it wos so. And wot little a man did get, would never prosper with him, Mr. Lorry. He'd never have no good of

it; he'd want all along to be out of the line, if he, could see his way out, being once in even if it wos so."

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

"Now, what I would humbly offer to you, sir," pursued Mr. Cruncher, "even if it wos so, which I don't say it

"No, I will NOT, sir," returned Mr. Crunches as if nothing were further from his thoughts or

practice"which I don't say it iswot I would humbly offer to you, sir, would be this. Upon that there

stool, at that there Bar, sets that there boy of mine, brought up and growed up to be a man, wot will errand

you, message you, general lightjob you, till your heels is where your head is, if such should be your

wishes. If it wos so, which I still don't say it is (for I will not prewaricate to you, sir), let that there boy keep

his father's place, and take care of his mother; don't blow upon that boy's fatherdo not do it, sirand let

that father go into the line of the reg'lar diggin', and make amends for what he would have undugif it wos

soby diggin' of 'em in with a will, and with conwictions respectin' the futur' keepin' of 'em safe. That, Mr.

Lorry," said Mr. Cruncher, wiping his forehead with his arm, as an announcement that he had arrived at the

peroration of his discourse, "is wot I would respectfully offer to you, sir. A man don't see all this here a goin'

on dreadful round him, in the way of Subjects without heads, dear me, plentiful enough fur to bring the price

down to porterage and hardly that, without havin' his serious thoughts of things. And these here would be

mine, if it wos so, entreatin' of you fur to bear in mind that wot I said just now, I up and said in the good

"That at least is true, said Mr. Lorry. "Say no more now. It may be that I shall yet stand your friend, if you

Mr. Cruncher knuckled his forehead, as Sydney Carton and the spy returned from the dark room. "Adieu, Mr.

Barsad," said the former; "our arrangement thus made, you have nothing to fear from me."

He sat down in a chair on the hearth, over against Mr. Lorry. When they were alone, Mr. Lorry asked him

"Not much. If it should go ill with the prisoner, I have ensured access to him, once."

"It is all I could do," said Carton. "To propose too much, would be to put this man's head under the axe, and,

as he himself said, nothing worse could happen to him if he were denounced. It was obviously the weakness

"But access to him," said Mr. Lorry, "if it should go ill before the Tribunal, will not save him."

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

second arrest, gradually weakened them; he was an old man now, overborne with anxiety of late, and his tears

"You are a good man and a true friend," said Carton, in an altered voice. "Forgive me if I notice that you are

affected. I could not see my father weep, and sit by, careless. And I could not respect your sorrow more, if

Though he said the last words, with a slip into his usual manner, there was a true feeling and respect both in

his tone and in his touch, that Mr. Lorry, who had never seen the better side of him, was wholly unprepared

"To return to poor Darnay," said Carton. "Don't tell Her of this interview, or this arrangement. It would not

enable Her to go to see him. She might think it was contrived, in case of the worse, to convey to him the

Mr. Lorry had not thought of that, and he looked quickly at Carton to see if it were in his mind. It seemed to

"She might think a thousand things," Carton said, "and any of them would only add to her trouble. Don't

speak of me to her. As I said to you when I first came, I had better not see her. I can put my hand out, to do

any little helpful work for her that my hand can find to do, without that. You are going to her, I hope? She

"I am glad of that. She has such a strong attachment to you and reliance on you. How does she look?"

It was a long, grieving sound, like a sighalmost like a sob. It attracted Mr. Lorry's eyes to Carton's face,

which was turned to the fire. A light, or a shade (the old gentleman could not have said which), passed from it

as swiftly as a change will sweep over a hillside on a wild bright day, and he lifted his foot to put back one

of the little flaming logs, which was tumbling forward. He wore the white ridingcoat and topboots, then in

vogue, and the light of the fire touching their light surfaces made him look very pale, with his long brown

hair, all untrimmed, hanging loose about him. His indifference to fire was sufficiently remarkable to elicit a

word of remonstrance from Mr. Lorry; his boot was still upon the hot embers of the flaming log, when it had

Mr. Lorry's eyes were again attracted to his face. Taking note of the wasted air which clouded the naturally

handsome features, and having the expression of prisoners' faces fresh in his mind, he was strongly reminded

"Yes. As I was telling you last night when Lucie came in so unexpectedly, I have at length done all that I can

do here. I hoped to have left them in perfect safety, and then to have quitted Paris. I have my Leave to Pass. I

"You have been useful all your life; steadily and constantly occupied; trusted, respected, and looked up to?"

"I have been a man of business, ever since I have been a man. indeed, I may say that I was a man of business

"See what a place you fill at seventyeight. How many people will miss you when you leave it empty!"

"A solitary old bachelor," answered Mr. Lorry, shaking his head. "There is nobody to weep for me."

"If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, tonight, 'I have secured to myself the love and

attachment, the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I

have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by!' your seventyeight years would be

Sydney turned his eyes again upon the fire, and, after a silence of a few moments, said:

"I should like to ask you:Does your childhood seem far off? Do the days when you sat at your mother's

"Twenty years back, yes; at this time of my life, no. For, as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in the

circle, nearer and nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind smoothings and preparings of the

way. My heart is touched now, by many remembrances that had long fallen asleep, of my pretty young

mother (and I so old!), and by many associations of the days when what we call the World was not so real

"I understand the feeling!" exclaimed Carton, with a bright flush. "And you are the better for it?"

Carton terminated the conversation here, by rising to help him on with his outer coat; "But you," said Mr.

"Yes," said Carton. "I am not old, but my young way was never the way to age. Enough of me."

"I'll walk with you to her gate. You know my vagabond and restless habits. If I should prowl about the streets

a long time, don't be uneasy; I shall reappear in the morning. You go to the Court tomorrow?"

"I shall be there, but only as one of the crowd. My Spy will find a place for me. Take my arm, sir."

Mr. Lorry did so, and they went downstairs and out in the streets. A few minutes brought them to Mr.

Lorry's destination. Carton left him there; but lingered at a little distance, and turned back to the gate again

when it was shut, and touched it. He had heard of her going to the prison every day. "She came out here," he

said, looking about him, "turned this way, must have trod on these stones often. Let me follow in her steps."

It was ten o'clock at night when he stood before the prison of La Force, where she had stood hundreds of

times. A little woodsawyer, having closed his shop, was smoking his pipe at his shopdoor.

"Good night, citizen," said Sydney Carton, pausing in going by; for, the man eyed him inquisitively.

"You mean the Guillotine. Not ill. Sixtythree today. We shall mount to a hundred soon. Samson and his

men complain sometimes, of being exhausted. Ha, ha, ha! He is so droll, that Samson. Such a Barber!"

"Go and see him when he has a good batch. Figure this to yourself, citizen; he shaved the sixtythree today,

As the grinning little man held out the pipe he was smoking, to explain how he timed the executioner, Carton

was so sensible of a rising desire to strike the life out of him, that he turned away.

"But you are not English," said the woodsawyer, "though you wear English dress?"

"But go and see that droll dog," the little man persisted, calling after him. "And take a pipe with you!"

Sydney had not gone far out of sight, when he stopped in the middle of the street under a glimmering lamp,

and wrote with his pencil on a scrap of paper. Then, traversing with the decided step of one who remembered

the way well, several dark and dirty streetsmuch dirtier than usual, for the best public thoroughfares

remained uncleansed in those times of terrorhe stopped at a chemist's shop, which the owner was closing

with his own hands. A small, dim, crooked shop, kept in a tortuous, uphill thoroughfare, by a small, dim,

Giving this citizen, too, good night, as he confronted him at his counter, he laid the scrap of paper before him.

"You will be careful to keep them separate, citizen? You know the consequences of mixing them?"

Certain small packets were made and given to him. He put them, one by one, in the breast of his inner coat,

counted out the money for them, and deliberately left the shop. "There is nothing more to do," said he,

It was not a reckless manner, the manner in which he said these words aloud under the fastsailing clouds,

nor was it more expressive of negligence than defiance. It was the settled manner of a tired man, who had

wandered and struggled and got lost, but who at length struck into his road and saw its end.

Long ago, when he had been famous among his earliest competitors as a youth of great promise, be had

followed his father to the grave. His mother had died, years before. These solemn words, which had been

read at his father's grave, arose in his mind as he went down the dark streets, among the heavy shadows, with

the moon and the clouds sailing on high above him. "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that

believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never

In a city dominated by the axe, alone at night, with natural sorrow rising in him for the sixtythree who had

been that day put to death, and for tomorrow's victims then awaiting their doom in the prisons, and still of

tomorrow's and tomorrow's, the chain of association that brought the words home, like a rusty old ship's

anchor from the deep, might have been easily found. He did not seek it, but repeated them and went on.

With a solemn interest in the lighted windows where the people were going to rest, forgetful through a few

calm hours of the horrors surrounding them; in the towers of the churches, where no prayers were said, for

the popular revulsion had even travelled that length of selfdestruction from years of priestly impostors,

plunderers, and profligates; in the distant burialplaces, reserved, as they wrote upon the gates, for Eternal

Sleep; in the abounding gaols; and in the streets along which the sixties rolled to a death which had become

so common and material, that no sorrowful story of a haunting Spirit ever arose among the people out of all

the working of the Guillotine; with a solemn interest in the whole life and death of the city settling down to

its short nightly pause in fury; Sydney Carton crossed the Seine again for the lighter streets.

Few coaches were abroad, for riders in coaches were liable to be suspected, and gentility hid its head in red

nightcaps, and put on heavy shoes, and trudged. But, the theatres were all well filled, and the people poured

cheerfully out as he passed, and went chatting home. At one of the theatre doors, there was a little girl with a

mother, looking for a way across the street through the mud. He carried the child over, and before, the timid

"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he

Now, that the streets were quiet, and the night wore on, the words were in the echoes of his feet, and were in

the air. Perfectly calm and steady, he sometimes repeated them to himself as he walked; but, he heard them

The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listening to the water as it splashed the riverwalls of

the Island of Paris, where the picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral shone bright in the light of the

moon, the day came coldly, looking like a dead face out of the sky. Then, the night, with the moon and the

stars, turned pale and died, and for a little while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to Death's

But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, that burden of the night, straight and warm to his

heart in its long bright rays. And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared

The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and certain, was like a congenial friend, in the morning stillness. He

walked by the stream, far from the houses, and in the light and warmth of the sun fell asleep on the bank.

When he awoke and was afoot again, he lingered there yet a little longer, watching an eddy that turned and

turned purposeless, until the stream absorbed it, and carried it on to the sea."Like me."

A tradingboat, with a sail of the softened colour of a dead leaf, then glided into his view, floated by him,

and died away. As its silent track in the water disappeared, the prayer that had broken up out of his heart for a

merciful consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors, ended in the words, "I am the resurrection and

Mr. Lorry was already out when he got back, and it was easy to surmise where the good old man was gone.

Sydney Carton drank nothing but a tittle coffee, ate some bread, and, having washed and changed to refresh

The court was all astir and abuzz, when the black sheepwhom many fell away from in dreadpressed

him into an obscure corner among the crowd. Mr. Lorry was there, and Doctor Manette was there. She was

When her husband was brought in, she turned a look upon him, so sustaining, so encouraging, so full of

admiring love and pitying tenderness, yet so courageous for his sake, that it called the healthy blood into his

face, brightened his glance, and animated his heart. If there had been any eyes to notice the influence of her

look, on Sydney Carton, it would have been seen to be the same influence exactly.

Before that unjust Tribunal, there was little or no order of procedure, ensuring to any accused person any

reasonable hearing. There could have been no such Revolution, if all laws, forms, and ceremonies, had not

first been so monstrously abused, that the suicidal vengeance of the Revolution was to scatter them all to the

Every eye was turned to the jury. The same determined patriots and good republicans as yesterday and the

day before, and tomorrow and the day after. Eager and prominent among them, one man with a craving

face, and his fingers perpetually hovering about his lips, whose appearance gave great satisfaction to the

spectators. A life thirsting, canniballooking, bloodyminded juryman, the Jacques Three of St. Antoine.

Every eye then turned to the five judges and the public prosecutor. No favourable leaning in that quarter

today. A fell, uncompromising, murderous businessmeaning there. Every eye then sought some other eye

in the crowd, and gleamed at it approvingly; and heads nodded at one another, before bending forward with a

Charles Evremonde, called Darnay. Released yesterday. Reaccused and retaken yesterday. Indictment

delivered to him last night. Suspected and Denounced enemy of the Republic, Aristocrat, one of a family of

tyrants, one of a race proscribed, for that they had used their abolished privileges to the infamous oppression

of the people. Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, in right of such proscription, absolutely Dead in Law.

A great uproar took place in the court, and in the midst of it, Doctor Manette was seen, pale and trembling,

"President, I indignantly protest to you that this is a forgery and a fraud. You know the accused to be the

husband of my daughter. My daughter, and those dear to her, are far dearer to me than my life. Who and

where is the false conspirator who says that I denounce the husband of my child!"

"Citizen Manette, be tranquil. To fail in submission to the authority of the Tribunal would be to put yourself

out of Law. As to what is dearer to you than life, nothing can be so dear to a good citizen as the Republic."

Loud acclamations hailed this rebuke. The President rang his bell, and with warmth resumed.

"If the Republic should demand of you the sacrifice of your child herself, you would have no duty but to

Frantic acclamations were again raised. Doctor Manette sat down, with his eyes looking around, and his lips

trembling; his daughter drew closer to him. The craving man on the jury rubbed his hands together, and

Defarge was produced, when the court was quiet enough to admit of his being heard, and rapidly expounded

the story of the imprisonment, and of his having been a mere boy in the Doctor's service, and of the release,

and of the state of the prisoner when released and delivered to him. This short examination followed, for the

Here, an excited woman screeched from the crowd: "You were one of the best patriots there. Why not say so?

You were a cannoneer that day there, and you were among the first to enter the accursed fortress when it fell.

It was The Vengeance who, amidst the warm commendations of the audience, thus assisted the proceedings.

The President rang his bell; but, The Vengeance, warming with encouragement, shrieked, "I defy that bell!"

"I knew," said Defarge, looking down at his wife, who stood at the bottom of the steps on which he was

raised, looking steadily up at him; "I knew that this prisoner, of whom I speak, had been confined in a cell

known as One Hundred and Five, North Tower. I knew it from himself. He knew himself by no other name

than One Hundred and Five, North Tower, when he made shoes under my care. As I serve my gun that day, I

resolve, when the place shall fall, to examine that cell. It falls. I mount to the cell, with a fellowcitizen who

is one of the Jury, directed by a gaoler. I examine it, very closely. In a hole in the chimney, where a stone has

been worked out and replaced, I find a written paper. This is that written paper. I have made it my business to

examine some specimens of the writing of Doctor Manette. This is the writing of Doctor Manette. I confide

In a dead silence and stillnessthe prisoner under trial looking lovingly at his wife, his wife only looking

from him to look with solicitude at her father, Doctor Manette keeping his eyes fixed on the reader, Madame

Defarge never taking hers from the prisoner, Defarge never taking his from his feasting wife, and all the other

eyes there intent upon the Doctor, who saw none of themthe paper was read, as follows.

"I, Alexandre Manette, unfortunate physician, native of Beauvais, and afterwards resident in Paris, write this

melancholy paper in my doleful cell in the Bastille, during the last month of the year, 1767. I write it at stolen

intervals, under every difficulty. I design to secrete it in the wall of the chimney, where I have slowly and

laboriously made a place of concealment for it. Some pitying hand may find it there, when I and my sorrows

"These words are formed by the rusty iron point with which I write with difficulty in scrapings of soot and

charcoal from the chimney, mixed with blood, in the last month of the tenth year of my captivity. Hope has

quite departed from my breast. I know from terrible warnings I have noted in myself that my reason will not

long remain unimpaired, but I solemnly declare that I am at this time in the possession of my right

mindthat my memory is exact and circumstantialand that I write the truth as I shall answer for these my

last recorded words, whether they be ever read by men or not, at the Eternal Judgmentseat.

"One cloudy moonlight night, in the third week of December (I think the twentysecond of the month) in the

year 1757, I was walking on a retired part of the quay by the Seine for the refreshment of the frosty air, at an

hour's distance from my place of residence in the Street of the School of Medicine, when a carriage came

along behind me, driven very fast. As I stood aside to let that carriage pass, apprehensive that it might

otherwise run me down, a head was put out at the window, and a voice called to the driver to stop.

"The carriage stopped as soon as the driver could rein in his horses, and the same voice called to me by my

name. I answered. The carriage was then so far in advance of me that two gentlemen had time to open the

I observed that they were both wrapped in cloaks, and appeared to conceal themselves. As they stood side by

side near the carriage door, I also observed that they both looked of about my own age, or rather younger, and

that they were greatly alike, in stature, manner, voice, and (as far as I could see) face too.

"`Doctor Manette, formerly of Beauvais,' said the other; `the young physician, originally an expert surgeon,

"`Gentlemen,' I returned, `I am that Doctor Manette of whom you speak so graciously.'

"`We have been to your residence,' said the first, `and not being so fortunate as to find you there, and being

informed that you were probably walking in this direction, we followed, in the hope of overtaking you. Will

"The manner of both was imperious, and they both moved, as these words were spoken, so as to place me

"`Gentlemen,' said I, `pardon me; but I usually inquire who does me the honour to seek my assistance, and

"The reply to this was made by him who had spoken second. 'Doctor, your clients are people of condition. As

to the nature of the case, our confidence in your skill assures us that you will ascertain it for yourself better

"I could do nothing but comply, and I entered it in silence. They both entered after methe last springing in,

after putting up the steps. The carriage turned about, and drove on at its former speed.

"I repeat this conversation exactly as it occurred. I have no doubt that it is, word for word, the same. I

describe everything exactly as it took place, constraining my mind not to wander from the task. Where I make

the broken marks that follow here, I leave off for the time, and put my paper in its hidingplace.

"The carriage left the streets behind, passed the North Barrier, and emerged upon the country road. At

twothirds of a league from the BarrierI did not estimate the distance at that time, but afterwards when I

traversed itit struck out of the main avenue, and presently stopped at a solitary house, We all three

alighted, and walked, by a damp soft footpath in a garden where a neglected fountain had overflowed, to the

door of the house. It was not opened immediately, in answer to the ringing of the bell, and one of my two

conductors struck the man who opened it, with his heavy riding glove, across the face.

"There was nothing in this action to attract my particular attention, for I had seen common people struck

more commonly than dogs. But, the other of the two, being angry likewise, struck the man in like manner

with his arm; the look and bearing of the brothers were then so exactly alike, that I then first perceived them

"From the time of our alighting at the outer gate (which we found locked, and which one of the brothers had

opened to admit us, and had relocked), I had heard cries proceeding from an upper chamber. I was conducted

to this chamber straight, the cries growing louder as we ascended the stairs, and I found a patient in a high

"The patient was a woman of great beauty, and young; assuredly not much past twenty. Her hair was torn and

ragged, and her arms were bound to her sides with sashes and handkerchiefs. I noticed that these bonds were

all portions of a gentleman's dress. On one of them, which was a fringed scarf for a dress of ceremony, I saw

"I saw this, within the first minute of my contemplation of the patient; for, in her restless strivings she had

turned over on her face on the edge of the bed, had drawn the end of the scarf into her mouth, and was in

danger of suffocation. My first act was to put out my hand to relieve her breathing; and in moving the scarf

"I turned her gently over, placed my hands upon her breast to calm her and keep her down, and looked into

her face. Her eyes were dilated and wild, and she constantly uttered piercing shrieks, and repeated the words,

`My husband, my father, and my brother!' and then counted up to twelve, and said, `Hush!' For an instant, and

no more, she would pause to listen, and then the piercing shrieks would begin again, and she would repeat the

cry, `My husband, my father, and my brother!' and would count up to twelve, and say, `Hush!' There was no

variation in the order, or the manner. There was no cessation, but the regular moment's pause, in the utterance

"To distinguish the brothers, I will call them the elder and the younger; by the elder, I mean him who

exercised the most authority. It was the elder who replied, `Since about this hour last night.'

"`See, gentlemen,' said I, still keeping my hands upon her breast, 'how useless I am, as you have brought me!

If I had known what I was coming to see, I could have come provided. As it is, time must be lost. There are

"The elder brother looked to the younger, who said haughtily, `There is a case of medicines here;' and

"I opened some of the bottles, smelt them, and put the stoppers to my lips. If I had wanted to use anything

save narcotic medicines that were poisons in themselves, I would not have administered any of those.

"I made the patient swallow, with great difficulty, and after many efforts, the dose that I desired to give. As I

intended to repeat it after a while, and as it was necessary to watch its influence, I then sat down by the side

of the bed. There was a timid and suppressed woman in attendance (wife of the man downstairs), who had

retreated into a corner. The house was damp and decayed, indifferently furnishedevidently, recently

occupied and temporarily used. Some thick old hangings had been nailed up before the windows, to deaden

the sound of the shrieks. They continued to be uttered in their regular succession, with the cry, `My husband,

my father, and my brother!' the counting up to twelve, and `Hush!' The frenzy was so violent, that I had not

unfastened the bandages restraining the arms; but, I had looked to them, to see that they were not painful. The

only spark of encouragement in the case, was, that my hand upon the sufferer's breast had this much soothing

influence, that for minutes at a time it tranquillised the figure. It had no effect upon the cries; no pendulum

"For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), I had sat by the side of the bed for half an hour, with

"The other patient lay in a back room across a second staircase, which was a species of loft over a stable.

There was a low plastered ceiling to a part of it; the rest was open, to the ridge of the tiled roof, and there

were beams across. Hay and straw were stored in that portion of the place, fagots for firing, and a heap of

apples in sand. I had to pass through that part, to get at the other. My memory is circumstantial and unshaken.

I try it with these details, and I see them all, in this my cell in the Bastille, near the close of the tenth year of

"On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under his head, lay a handsome peasant boya boy of

not more than seventeen at the most. He lay on his back, with his teeth set, his right hand clenched on his

breast, and his glaring eyes looking straight upward. I could not see where his wound was, as I kneeled on

one knee over him; but, I could see that he was dying of a wound from a sharp point.

"It was under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move his hand away. The wound was a swordthrust,

received from twenty to twenty four hours before, but no skill could have saved him if it had been looked to

without delay. He was then dying fast. As I turned my eyes to the elder brother, I saw him looking down at

this handsome boy whose life was ebbing out, as if he were a wounded bird, or hare, or rabbit; not at all as if

"`A crazed young common dog! A serf! Forced my brother to draw upon him, and has fallen by my brother's

"There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity, in this answer. The speaker seemed to

acknowledge that it was inconvenient to have that different order of creature dying there, and that it would

have been better if he had died in the usual obscure routine of his vermin kind. He was quite incapable of any

"The boy's eyes had slowly moved to him as he had spoken, and they now slowly moved to me.

"`Doctor, they are very proud, these Nobles; but we common dogs are proud too, sometimes. They plunder

us, outrage us, beat us, kill us; but we have a little pride left, sometimes. Shehave you seen her, Doctor?'

"The shrieks and the cries were audible there, though subdued by the distance. He referred to them, as if she

"`She is my sister, Doctor. They have had their shameful rights, these Nobles, in the modesty and virtue of

our sisters, many years, but we have had good girls among us. I know it, and have heard my father say so.

She was a good girl. She was betrothed to a good young man, too: a tenant of his. We were all tenants of

histhat man's who stands there. The other is his brother, the worst of a bad race.'

"It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered bodily force to speak; but, his spirit spoke with a

"`We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as an we common dogs are by those superior

Beingstaxed by him without mercy, obliged to work for him without pay, obliged to grind our corn at his

mill, obliged to feed scores of his tame birds on our wretched crops, and forbidden for our lives to keep a

single tame bird of our own, pillaged and plundered to that degree that when we chanced to have a bit of

meat, we ate it in fear, with the door barred and the shutters closed, that his people should not see it and take

it from usI say, we were so robbed, and hunted, and were made so poor, that our father told us it was a

dreadful thing to bring a child into the world, and that what we should most pray for, was, that our women

"I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed, bursting forth like a fire. I had supposed that it must be

latent in the people somewhere; but, I had never seen it break out, until I saw it in the dying boy.

"`Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married. He was ailing at that time, poor fellow, and she married her lover,

that she might tend and comfort him in our cottageour doghut, as that man would call it. She had not been

married many weeks, when that man's brother saw her and admired her, and asked that man to lend her to

himfor what are husbands among us! He was willing enough, but my sister was good and virtuous, and

hated his brother with a hatred as strong as mine. What did the two then, to persuade her husband to use his

"The boy's eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly turned to the lookeron, and I saw in the two faces

that all he said was true. The two opposing kinds of pride confronting one another, I can see, even in this

Bastille; the gentleman's, all negligent indifference; the peasants, all troddendown sentiment, and passionate

"`You know, Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these Nobles to harness us common dogs to carts, and

drive us. They so harnessed him and drove him. You know that it is among their Rights to keep us in their

grounds all night, quieting the frogs, in order that their noble sleep may not be disturbed. They kept him out

in the unwholesome mists at night, and ordered him back into his harness in the day. But he was not

persuaded. No! Taken out of harness one day at noon, to feedif he could find foodhe sobbed twelve

"Nothing human could have held life in the boy but his determination to tell all his wrong. He forced back the

gathering shadows of death, as he forced his clenched right hand to remain clenched, and to cover his wound.

"`Then, with that man's permission and even with his aid, his brother took her away; in spite of what I know

she must have told his brotherand what that is, will not be long unknown to you, Doctor, if it is nowhis

brother took her awayfor his pleasure and diversion, for a little while. I saw her pass me on the road. When

I took the tidings home, our father's heart burst; he never spoke one of the words that fined it. I took my

young sister (for I have another) to a place beyond the reach of this man, and where, at least, she will never

be HIS vassal. Then, I tracked the brother here, and last night climbed ina common dog, but sword in

"The room was darkening to his sight; the world was narrowing around him. I glanced about me, and saw that

the hay and straw were trampled over the floor, as if there had been a struggle.

"`She heard me, and ran in. I told her not to come near us till he was dead. He came in and first tossed me

some pieces of money; then struck at me with a whip. But I, though a common dog, so struck at him as to

make him draw. Let him break into as many pieces as he will, the sword that he stained with my common

"My glance had fallen, but a few moments before, on the fragments of a broken sword, lying among the hay.

That weapon was a gentleman's. In another place, lay an old sword that seemed to have been a soldier's.

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

"`He! Proud as these nobles are, he is afraid to see me. Where is the man who was here? turn my face to him.'

"I did so, raising the boy's head against my knee. But, invested for the moment with extraordinary power, he

raised himself completely: obliging me to rise too, or I could not have still supported him.

"`Marquis,' said the boy, turned to him with his eyes opened wide, and his right hand raised, `in the days

when all these things are to be answered for, I summon you and yours, to the last of your bad race, to answer

for them. I mark this cross of blood upon you, as a sign that I do it. In the days when all these things are to be

answered for, I summon your brother, the worst of the bad race, to answer for them separately. I mark this

"Twice, he put his hand to the wound in his breast, and with his forefinger drew a cross in the air. He stood

for an instant with the finger yet raised, and as it dropped, he dropped with it, and I laid him down dead.

"When I returned to the bedside of the young woman, I found her raving in precisely the same order of

continuity. I knew that this might last for many hours, and that it would probably end in the silence of the

"I repeated the medicines I had given her, and I sat at the side of the bed until the night was far advanced. She

never abated the piercing quality of her shrieks, never stumbled in the distinctness or the order of her words.

They were always `My husband, my father, and my brother! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,

"This lasted twentysix hours from the time when I first saw her. I had come and gone twice, and was again

sitting by her, when she began to falter. I did what little could be done to assist that opportunity, and

"It was as if the wind and rain had lulled at last, after a long and fearful storm. I released her arms, and called

the woman to assist me to compose her figure and the dress she had tom. It was then that I knew her

condition to be that of one in whom the first expectations of being a mother have arisen; and it was then that I

"`Is she dead?' asked the Marquis, whom I will still describe as the elder brother, coming booted into the

"`What strength there is in these common bodies!' he said, looking down at her with some curiosity.

"He first laughed at my words, and then frowned at them. He moved a chair with his foot near to mine,

"`Doctor, finding my brother in this difficulty with these hinds, I recommended that your aid should be

invited. Your reputation is high, and, as a young man with your fortune to make, you are probably mindful of

your interest. The things that you see here, are things to be seen, and not spoken of.'

"`Monsieur,' said I, `in my profession, the communications of patients are always received in confidence.' I

was guarded in my answer, for I was troubled in my mind with what I had heard and seen.

"Her breathing was so difficult to trace, that I carefully tried the pulse and the heart. There was life, and no

more. Looking round as I resumed my seat, I found both the brothers intent upon me.

"I write with so much difficulty, the cold is so severe, I am so fearful of being detected and consigned to an

underground cell and total darkness, that I must abridge this narrative. There is no confusion or failure in my

memory; it can recall, and could detail, every word that was ever spoken between me and those brothers.

"She lingered for a week. Towards the last, I could understand some few syllables that she said to me, by

placing my ear close to her lips. She asked me where she was, and I told her; who I was, and I told her. It was

in vain that I asked her for her family name. She faintly shook her head upon the pillow, and kept her secret,

"I had no opportunity of asking her any question, until I had told the brothers she was sinking fast, and could

not live another day. Until then, though no one was ever presented to her consciousness save the woman and

myself, one or other of them had always jealously sat behind the curtain at the head of the bed when I was

there. But when it came to that, they seemed careless what communication I might hold with her; as ifthe

"I always observed that their pride bitterly resented the younger brother's (as I call him) having crossed

swords with a peasant, and that peasant a boy. The only consideration that appeared to affect the mind of

either of them was the consideration that this was highly degrading to the family, and was ridiculous. As

often as I caught the younger brother's eyes, their expression reminded me that he disliked me deeply, for

knowing what I knew from the boy. He was smoother and more polite to me than the elder; but I saw this. I

"My patient died, two hours before midnightat a time, by my watch, answering almost to the minute when

I had first seen her. I was alone with her, when her forlorn young head drooped gently on one side, and all her

"The brothers were waiting in a room downstairs, impatient to ride away. I had heard them, alone at the

bedside, striking their boots with their ridingwhips, and loitering up and down.

"He had before offered me money, which I had postponed taking. He now gave me a rouleau of gold. I took it

from his hand, but laid it on the table. I had considered the question, and had resolved to accept nothing.

"They exchanged looks, but bent their heads to me as I bent mine to them, and we parted without another

"I am weary, weary, wearyworn down by misery. I cannot read what I have written with this gaunt hand.

"Early in the morning, the rouleau of gold was left at my door in a little box, with my name on the outside.

From the first, I had anxiously considered what I ought to do. I decided, that day, to write privately to the

Minister, stating the nature of the two cases to which I had been summoned, and the place to which I had

gone: in effect, stating all the circumstances. I knew what Court influence was, and what the immunities of

the Nobles were, and I expected that the matter would never be heard of; but, I wished to relieve my own

mind. I had kept the matter a profound secret, even from my wife; and this, too, I resolved to state in my

letter. I had no apprehension whatever of my real danger; but I was conscious that there might be danger for

others, if others were compromised by possessing the knowledge that I possessed.

"I was much engaged that day, and could not complete my letter that night. I rose long before my usual time

next morning to finish it. It was the last day of the year. The letter was lying before me just completed, when

"I am growing more and more unequal to the task I have set myself. It is so cold, so dark, my senses are so

"The lady was young, engaging, and handsome, but not marked for long life. She was in great agitation. She

presented herself to me as the wife of the Marquis St. Evremonde. I connected the title by which the boy had

addressed the elder brother, with the initial letter embroidered on the scarf, and had no difficulty in arriving at

"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

"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.

"These scraps of paper fail me. One was taken from me, with a warning, yesterday. I must finish my record

"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

"`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 ownit is little

beyond the worth of a few jewelsI 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

"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, upstairs. When my servant came into

the room where I sat with my wifeO my wife, beloved of my heart! My fair young English wife!we saw

"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.

"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 wifeso much as to let me know by a word whether alive or deadI 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

Little need, in presence of that tribunal and that auditory, to 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

And all the worse for the doomed man, that the denouncer was a wellknown 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 selfimmolations 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,

"Much influence around him, has that Doctor?" murmured Madame Defarge, smiling to The Vengeance.

Unanimously voted. At heart and by descent an Aristocrat, an enemy of the Republic, a notorious oppressor

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

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

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,

"Farewell, dear darling of my soul. My parting blessing on my love. We shall meet again, where the weary

"I can bear it, dear Charles. I am supported from above: don't suffer for me. A parting blessing for our chad."

"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 byandbye; but I will do my duty while I can, and when I leave her, God will

Her father had followed her, and would have fallen on his knees to both of them, but that Darnay put out a

"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

Her father's only answer was to draw his hands through his white hair, and wring them with a shriek of

"It could not be otherwise," said the prisoner. "All things have worked together as they have fallen out. it was

the alwaysvain 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

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

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 pitythat had a flush of pride in it.

He carried her lightly to the door, and laid her tenderly down in a coach. Her father and their old friend got

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

"Don't recall her to herself," he said, softly, to the latter, "she is better so. Don't revive her to consciousness,

"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

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

When he had gone out into the next room, he turned suddenly on Mr. Lorry and her father, who were

"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

"Try them again. The hours between this and tomorrow afternoon are few and short, but try."

"That's well. I have known such energy as yours do great things before nowthough 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

"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, andBut stay! There is a Celebration in the streets, and no one will be

"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

"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

Mr. Lorry followed Sydney to the outer door, and, touching him on the shoulder as he was going away,

"If any one of these men, or all of these men, were disposed to spare himwhich 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."

"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 want only thrown

"Yes, yes, yes," returned Mr. Lorry, drying his eyes, "you are right. But he will perish; there is no real hope."

Sydney Carton paused in the street, not quite decided where to go. "At Tellson's bankinghouse 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

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

Defarge had described himself, that day, as the keeper of a wineshop 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

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 shopwindow 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

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

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

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!"

"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

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

"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?"

"Extermination is good doctrine, my wife," said Defarge, rather troubled; "in general, I say nothing against it.

But this Doctor has suffered much; you have seen him today; you have observed his face when the paper

"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,

"I have observed his daughter," repeated madame; "yes, I have observed his daughter, more times than one. I

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

observed her in the street by the prison. Let me but lift my finger!" She seemed to raise it (the listener's

eyes were always on his paper), and to let it fall with a rattle on the ledge before her, as if the axe had

"As to thee," pursued madame, implacably, addressing her husband, "if it depended on theewhich, happily,

"No!" protested Defarge. "Not if to lift this glass would do it! But I would leave the matter there. I say, stop

"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

"In the beginning of the great days, when the Bastille falls, he finds this paper of today, and he brings it

home, and in the middle of the night when this place is clear and shut, we read it, here on this spot, by the

"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

"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 seashore, 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

Both her hearers derived a horrible enjoyment from the deadly nature of her wraththe listener could feel

how white she was, without seeing herand 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

But, he went his way, and was soon swallowed up in the shadow of the prison wan. 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 bankinghouse

towards four o'clock. She had some faint hopes that his mediation might save Charles, but they were very

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 bankinghouse again at midnight. In

He waited and waited, and the clock struck twelve; but Doctor Manette did not come back. Mr. Lorry

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

Whether he had really been to any one, or whether be 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.

His head and throat were bare, and, as he spoke with a helpless look straying all around, he took his coat off,

"Where is my bench? I have been looking everywhere for my bench, and I can't find it. What have they done

"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

It was so clearly beyond hope to reason with him, or try to restore him, thatas if by agreementthey 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

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

"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

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 sickbed 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, fen 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,

"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

"Keep it for me until tomorrow. I shall see him tomorrow, you remember, and I had better not take it into

"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

"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

"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, tonight, 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

woodsawyer, 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 lifeand perhaps her child'sand perhaps her father'sfor both have been seen with her at that

"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 tomorrow; 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

"So attentively, and with so much confidence in what you say, that for the moment I lose sight," touching the

"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 tomorrow have your

horses ready, so that they may be in starting trim at two o'clock in the afternoon."

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, tonight, 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 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."

"You have my certificate in your hand with the rest, you know, and will reserve my place. Wait for nothing

"Why, then," said Mr. Lorry, grasping his eager but so firm and steady hand, "it does not all depend on one

"By the help of Heaven you shall! Promise me solemnly that nothing will influence you to alter the course on

"Remember these words tomorrow: change the course, or delay in it for any reasonand no life can

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

itoutwatched 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,

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. Fiftytwo were to roll that afternoon on the lifetide 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 tomorrow was already set apart.

Two score and twelve were told off. From the farmergeneral 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

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,

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

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 conditionfully intelligible nowthat 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 planetree 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 herthough he added that he knew it was needlessto 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

He had time to finish these letters before the lights were put out. When he lay down on his straw bed, he

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 fiftytwo 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

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, bow 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

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

He had been apprised that the final hour was Three, and be 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,

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 selfpossession, he thought,

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

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,

"I could not believe it to be you. I can scarcely believe it now. You are not"the apprehension came

"No. I am accidentally possessed of a power over one of the keepers here, and in virtue of it I stand before

"A most earnest, pressing, and emphatic entreaty, addressed to you in the most pathetic tones of the voice so

"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

There was a chair against the wall of the cell, behind the prisoner. Carton, pressing forward, had already, with

"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

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

Pressing his hand to his bewildered head, Darnay sat down at the table. Carton, with his right hand in his

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,

"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.

"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, Cartonhis hand again

"`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

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

Quickly, but with hands as true to the purpose as his heart was, Carton dressed himself in the clothes the

prisoner bad laid aside, combed back his hair, and tied it with the ribbon the prisoner had worn. Then, he

"You see?" said Carton, looking up, as he kneeled on one knee beside the insensible figure, putting the paper

"Mr. Carton," the Spy answered, with a timid snap of his fingers, "my hazard is not THAT, in the thick of

"You must be, Mr. Carton, if the tale of fiftytwo is to be right. Being made right by you in that dress, I shall

"Have no fear! I shall soon be out of the way of harming you, and the rest will soon be far from here, please

"Him, man, with whom I have exchanged. You go out at the gate by which you brought me in?"

"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.

"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

"How, then?" said one of them, contemplating the fallen figure. "So afflicted to find that his friend has drawn

"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

"I know it well," answered Carton. "Be careful of my friend, I entreat you, and leave me."

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 fiftytwo 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

"Citizen Evremonde," she said, touching him with her cold hand. "I am a poor little seamstress, who was with

"Plots. Though the just Heaven knows that I am innocent of any. Is it likely? Who would think of plotting

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

As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and soften to, it warmed and softened to this pitiable girl.

"If I may ride with you, Citizen Evremonde, will you let me hold your hand? I am not afraid, but I am little

As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in them, and then astonishment. He pressed

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.

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

"Apparently the CitizenDoctor is not in his right mind? The Revolutionfever will have been too much for

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

"Kiss me, child of Evremonde. Now, thou hast kissed a good Republican; something new in thy family;

It is hoped he will recover in the fresher air. It is represented that he is not in strong health, and has separated

"Is that all? It is not a great deal, that! Many are under the displeasure of the Republic, and must look out at

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 countrypeople 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.

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."

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

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

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

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?

"I said so! A brave number! My fellowcitizen here would have it fortytwo; ten more heads are worth

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!

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.

In that same juncture of time when the FiftyTwo awaited their fate Madame Defarge held darkly ominous

council with The Vengeance and Jacques Three of the Revolutionary Jury. Not in the wineshop did

Madame Defarge confer with these ministers, but in the shed of the woodsawyer, erst a mender of roads.

The sawyer himself did not participate in the conference, but abided at a little distance, like an outer satellite

"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, fellowcitizen, 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

"It is a great pity," croaked Jacques Three, dubiously shaking his head, with his cruel fingers at his hungry

"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

"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.

"The child also," observed Jacques Three, with a meditative enjoyment of his words, "has golden hair and

"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

"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,

The woodsawyer, who held her in the respect, and himself in the submission, of mortal fear, advanced with

"Touching those signals, little citizen," said Madame Defarge, sternly, "that she made to the prisoners; you

"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

"There is no doubt of the Jury?" inquired Madame Defarge, letting her eyes turn to him with a gloomy smile.

"Now, let me see," said Madame Defarge, pondering again. "Yet once more! Can I spare this Doctor to my

"He would count as one head," observed Jacques Three, in a low voice. "We really have not heads enough; it

"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

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

"He must take his chance," said Madame Defarge. "No, I cannot spare him! You are engaged at three o'clock;

The question was addressed to the woodsawyer, 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 oversay at eight tonightcome you

to me, in Saint Antoine, and we will give information against these people at my Section."

The woodsawyer 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,

Madame Defarge beckoned the Juryman and The Vengeance a little nearer to the door, and there expounded

"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

"What an admirable woman; what an adorable woman!" exclaimed Jacques Three, rapturously. "Ah, my

"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

"I willingly obey the orders of my Chief," said The Vengeance with alacrity, and kissing her cheek. "You will

"And before the tumbrils arrive. Be sure you are there, my soul," said The Vengeance, calling after her, for

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

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

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 tomorrow, would she have gone to it with any softer feeling

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, barefoot and barelegged, on the brown seasand, Madame Defarge took her way

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

"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

"My opinion, miss," returned Mr. Cruncher, "is as you're right. Likewise wot I'll stand by you, right or

"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' mind, I think not. Would you do me the favour, miss, to take notice o' two promises

"Oh, for gracious sake!" cried Miss Pross, still wildly crying, "record them at once, and get them out of the

"First," said Mr. Cruncher, who was all in a tremble, and who spoke with an ashy and solemn visage, "them

"I am quite sure, Mr. Cruncher," returned Miss Pross, "that you never will do it again, whatever it is, and I

"No, miss," returned Jerry, "it shall not be named to you. Second: them poor things well out o' this, and never

"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

"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 yourselfthat wot

my opinions respectin' flopping has undergone a change, and that wot I only hope with all my heart as Mrs.

"There, there, there! I hope she is, my dear man," cried the distracted Miss Pross, "and I hope she finds it

"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, forBID it!" This was Mr. Cruncher's conclusion after a

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

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

Mr. Cruncher was so bewildered that he could think of no locality but Temple Bar. Alas! Temple Bar was

"By the cathedral door," said Miss Pross. "Would it be much out of the way, to take me in, near the great

"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

"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! Thinknot 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

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

Afraid, in her extreme perturbation, of the loneliness of the deserted rooms, and of halfimagined 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

The basin fell to the ground broken, and the water flowed to the feet of Madame Defarge. By strange stem

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

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

"You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer," said Miss Pross, in her breathing. "Nevertheless,

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

"I know that your intentions are evil," said Miss Pross, "and you may depend upon it, I'll hold my own

Each spoke in her own language; neither understood the other's words; both were very watchful, and intent to

"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 bedwinches," returned Miss Pross, "and I was an English fourposter, 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

"Woman imbecile and piglike!" 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!"

"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

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

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

"Those rooms are all in disorder, there has been hurried packing, there are odds and ends upon the ground.

"Never!" said Miss Pross, who understood the request as perfectly as Madame Defarge understood the

"If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be pursued and brought back," said Madame Defarge to

"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

"I have been in the streets from the first, nothing has stopped me, I will tear you to pieces, but I will have you

"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

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

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

Madame Defarge's hands were at her bosom. Miss Pross looked up, saw what it was, struck at it, struck out a

All this was in a second. As the smoke cleared, leaving an awful stillness, it passed out on the air, like the

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

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 griping 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

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

"The usual noises," Mr. Cruncher replied; and looked surprised by the question and by her aspect.

It was in vain for Mr. Cruncher to repeat what he said; Miss Pross could not hear him. "So I'll nod my head,"

"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

"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

"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."

Along the Paris streets, the deathcarts 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

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

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

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 comingup of the tumbrils, stands the Spy and prisonsheep. He looks

into the first of them: not there. He looks into the second: not there. He already asks himself, "Has he

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

"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 foremost chairs,

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

"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

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 knittingwomen, never

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

"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."

The two stand in the fastthinning 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

"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 fatefor I cannot writeand if I could, how should I tell her! It is 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."

"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

"You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you now? Is the moment come?"

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 himis

"I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he

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.

They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many

One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axea womanhad 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

"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

"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, foremost 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