XVI. Still Knitting
Madame Defarge and monsieur her husband returned amicably to thebosom of Saint Antoine, while a speck in a blue cap toiled through thedarkness, and through the dust, and down the weary miles of avenue bythe wayside, slowly tending towards that point of the compass wherethe chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, now in his grave, listened tothe whispering trees. Such ample leisure had the stone faces, now,for listening to the trees and to the fountain, that the few villagescarecrows who, in their quest for herbs to eat and fragments of deadstick to burn, strayed within sight of the great stone courtyard andterrace staircase, had it borne in upon their starved fancy thatthe expression of the faces was altered. A rumour just lived in thevillage--had a faint and bare existence there, as its people had--thatwhen the knife struck home, the faces changed, from faces of pride tofaces of anger and pain; also, that when that dangling figure was hauledup forty feet above the fountain, they changed again, and bore a cruellook of being avenged, which they would henceforth bear for ever. In thestone face over the great window of the bed-chamber where the murderwas done, two fine dints were pointed out in the sculptured nose, whicheverybody recognised, and which nobody had seen of old; and on thescarce occasions when two or three ragged peasants emerged from thecrowd to take a hurried peep at Monsieur the Marquis petrified, askinny finger would not have pointed to it for a minute, before they allstarted away among the moss and leaves, like the more fortunate hareswho could find a living there.
Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on thestone floor, and the pure water in the village well--thousands of acresof land--a whole province of France--all France itself--lay under thenight sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line. So does a wholeworld, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinklingstar. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analysethe manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read inthe feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, everyvice 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 theirjourney naturally tended. There was the usual stoppage at the barrierguardhouse, and the usual lanterns came glancing forth for the usualexamination and inquiry. Monsieur Defarge alighted; knowing one or twoof the soldiery there, and one of the police. The latter he was intimatewith, and affectionately embraced.
When Saint Antoine had again enfolded the Defarges in his dusky wings,and they, having finally alighted near the Saint's boundaries, werepicking their way on foot through the black mud and offal of hisstreets, Madame Defarge spoke to her husband:
"Say then, my friend; what did Jacques of the police tell thee?"
"Very little to-night, but all he knows. There is another spycommissioned for our quarter. There may be many more, for all that hecan say, but he knows of one."
"Eh well!" said Madame Defarge, raising her eyebrows with a coolbusiness air. "It is necessary to register him. How do they call thatman?"
"He is English."
"So much the better. His name?"
"Barsad," said Defarge, making it French by pronunciation. But, he hadbeen so careful to get it accurately, that he then spelt it with perfectcorrectness.
"Barsad," repeated madame. "Good. Christian name?"
"John."
"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, facethin, long, and sallow; nose aquiline, but not straight, having apeculiar inclination towards the left cheek; expression, therefore,sinister."
"Eh my faith. It is a portrait!" said madame, laughing. "He shall beregistered to-morrow."
They turned into the wine-shop, which was closed (for it was midnight),and where Madame Defarge immediately took her post at her desk, countedthe small moneys that had been taken during her absence, examined thestock, went through the entries in the book, made other entries ofher own, checked the serving man in every possible way, and finallydismissed him to bed. Then she turned out the contents of the bowlof money for the second time, and began knotting them up in herhandkerchief, in a chain of separate knots, for safe keeping through thenight. All this while, Defarge, with his pipe in his mouth, walkedup and down, complacently admiring, but never interfering; in whichcondition, indeed, as to the business and his domestic affairs, hewalked up and down through life.
The night was hot, and the shop, close shut and surrounded by so foul aneighbourhood, was ill-smelling. Monsieur Defarge's olfactory sense wasby no means delicate, but the stock of wine smelt much stronger thanit ever tasted, and so did the stock of rum and brandy and aniseed. Hewhiffed the compound of scents away, as he put down his smoked-out pipe.
"You are fatigued," said madame, raising her glance as she knotted themoney. "There are only the usual odours."
"I am a little tired," her husband acknowledged.
"You are a little depressed, too," said madame, whose quick eyes hadnever been so intent on the accounts, but they had had a ray or two forhim. "Oh, the men, the men!"
"But my dear!" began Defarge.
"But my dear!" repeated madame, nodding firmly; "but my dear! You arefaint of heart to-night, my dear!"
"Well, then," said Defarge, as if a thought were wrung out of hisbreast, "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 long time; it is the rule."
"It does not take a long time to strike a man with Lightning," saidDefarge.
"How long," demanded madame, composedly, "does it take to make and storethe lightning? Tell me."
Defarge raised his head thoughtfully, as if there were something in thattoo.
"It does not take a long time," said madame, "for an earthquake toswallow a town. Eh well! Tell me how long it takes to prepare theearthquake?"
"A long time, I suppose," said Defarge.
"But when it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces everythingbefore it. In the meantime, it is always preparing, though it is notseen or heard. That is your consolation. Keep it."
She tied a knot with flashing eyes, as if it throttled a foe.
"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 andcoming. I tell thee it never retreats, and never stops. I tell thee itis always advancing. Look around and consider the lives of all the worldthat we know, consider the faces of all the world that we know, considerthe rage and discontent to which the Jacquerie addresses itself withmore and more of certainty every hour. Can such things last? Bah! I mockyou."
"My brave wife," returned Defarge, standing before her with his heada little bent, and his hands clasped at his back, like a docile andattentive pupil before his catechist, "I do not question all this. Butit has lasted a long time, and it is possible--you know well, my wife,it is possible--that it may not come, during our lives."
"Eh well! How then?" demanded madame, tying another knot, as if therewere 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 instrong action. "Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with allmy soul, that we shall see the triumph. But even if not, even if I knewcertainly not, show me the neck of an aristocrat and tyrant, and still Iwould--"
Then madame, with her teeth set, tied a very terrible knot indeed.
"Hold!" cried Defarge, reddening a little as if he felt charged withcowardice; "I too, my dear, will stop at nothing."
"Yes! But it is your weakness that you sometimes need to see your victimand your opportunity, to sustain you. Sustain yourself without that.When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait
for thetime with the tiger and the devil chained--not shown--yet always ready."
Madame enforced the conclusion of this piece of advice by striking herlittle counter with her chain of money as if she knocked its brainsout, and then gathering the heavy handkerchief under her arm in a serenemanner, and observing that it was time to go to bed.
Next noontide saw the admirable woman in her usual place in thewine-shop, knitting away assiduously. A rose lay beside her, and if shenow and then glanced at the flower, it was with no infraction of herusual preoccupied air. There were a few customers, drinking or notdrinking, standing or seated, sprinkled about. The day was very hot,and heaps of flies, who were extending their inquisitive and adventurousperquisitions into all the glutinous little glasses near madame, felldead at the bottom. Their decease made no impression on the other fliesout promenading, who looked at them in the coolest manner (as if theythemselves were elephants, or something as far removed), until they metthe same fate. Curious to consider how heedless flies are!--perhaps theythought as much at Court that sunny summer day.
A figure entering at the door threw a shadow on Madame Defarge which shefelt to be a new one. She laid down her knitting, and began to pin herrose in her head-dress, before she looked at the figure.
It was curious. The moment Madame Defarge took up the rose, thecustomers ceased talking, and began gradually to drop out of thewine-shop.
"Good day, madame," said the new-comer.
"Good day, monsieur."
She said it aloud, but added to herself, as she resumed her knitting:"Hah! Good day, age about forty, height about five feet nine, blackhair, generally rather handsome visage, complexion dark, eyes dark,thin, long and sallow face, aquiline nose but not straight, having apeculiar inclination towards the left cheek which imparts a sinisterexpression! Good day, one and all!"
"Have the goodness to give me a little glass of old cognac, and amouthful of cool fresh water, madame."
Madame complied with a polite air.
"Marvellous cognac this, madame!"
It was the first time it had ever been so complimented, and MadameDefarge knew enough of its antecedents to know better. She said,however, that the cognac was flattered, and took up her knitting. Thevisitor watched her fingers for a few moments, and took the opportunityof observing the place in general.
"You knit with great skill, madame."
"I am accustomed to it."
"A pretty pattern too!"
"_You_ think so?" said madame, looking at him with a smile.
"Decidedly. May one ask what it is for?"
"Pastime," said madame, still looking at him with a smile while herfingers moved nimbly.
"Not for use?"
"That depends. I may find a use for it one day. If I do--Well," saidmadame, drawing a breath and nodding her head with a stern kind ofcoquetry, "I'll use it!"
It was remarkable; but, the taste of Saint Antoine seemed to bedecidedly opposed to a rose on the head-dress of Madame Defarge. Twomen had entered separately, and had been about to order drink, when,catching sight of that novelty, they faltered, made a pretence oflooking 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 thereone 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 apoverty-stricken, purposeless, accidental manner, quite natural andunimpeachable.
"_John_," thought madame, checking off her work as her fingers knitted,and her eyes looked at the stranger. "Stay long enough, and I shall knit'BARSAD' before you go."
"You have a husband, madame?"
"I have."
"Children?"
"No children."
"Business seems bad?"
"Business is very bad; the people are so poor."
"Ah, the unfortunate, miserable people! So oppressed, too--as you say."
"As _you_ say," madame retorted, correcting him, and deftly knitting anextra something into his name that boded him no good.
"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 haveenough to do to keep this wine-shop open, without thinking. All wethink, here, is how to live. That is the subject _we_ think of, andit gives us, from morning to night, enough to think about, withoutembarrassing our heads concerning others. _I_ think for others? No, no."
The spy, who was there to pick up any crumbs he could find or make, didnot allow his baffled state to express itself in his sinister face; but,stood with an air of gossiping gallantry, leaning his elbow on MadameDefarge's little counter, and occasionally sipping his cognac.
"A bad business this, madame, of Gaspard's execution. Ah! the poorGaspard!" With a sigh of great compassion.
"My faith!" returned madame, coolly and lightly, "if people use knivesfor such purposes, they have to pay for it. He knew beforehand what theprice of his luxury was; he has paid the price."
"I believe," said the spy, dropping his soft voice to a tonethat invited confidence, and expressing an injured revolutionarysusceptibility in every muscle of his wicked face: "I believe thereis much compassion and anger in this neighbourhood, touching the poorfellow? Between ourselves."
"Is there?" asked madame, vacantly.
"Is there not?"
"--Here is my husband!" said Madame Defarge.
As the keeper of the wine-shop entered at the door, the spy salutedhim 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 muchconfidence, or quite so easy a smile under the stare.
"You deceive yourself, monsieur," returned the keeper of the wine-shop."You mistake me for another. That is not my name. I am Ernest Defarge."
"It is all the same," said the spy, airily, but discomfited too: "goodday!"
"Good day!" answered Defarge, drily.
"I was saying to madame, with whom I had the pleasure of chatting whenyou entered, that they tell me there is--and no wonder!--much sympathyand anger in Saint Antoine, touching the unhappy fate of poor Gaspard."
"No one has told me so," said Defarge, shaking his head. "I know nothingof it."
Having said it, he passed behind the little counter, and stood with hishand on the back of his wife's chair, looking over that barrier at theperson to whom they were both opposed, and whom either of them wouldhave shot with the greatest satisfaction.
The spy, well used to his business, did not change his unconsciousattitude, but drained his little glass of cognac, took a sip of freshwater, and asked for another glass of cognac. Madame Defarge poured itout for him, took to her knitting again, and hummed a little song overit.
"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 interestedin its miserable inhabitants."
"Hah!" muttered Defarge.
"The pleasure of conversing with you, Monsieur Defarge, recalls to me,"pursued the spy, "that I have the honour of cherishing some interestingassociations with your name."
"Indeed!" said Defarge, with much indifference.
"Yes, indeed. When Doctor Manette was released, you, his old domestic,had the charge of him, I know. He was delivered to you. You see I aminformed of the circumstances?"
"Such is the fact, certainly," said Defarge. He had had it conveyedto him, in an accidental touch of his wife's elbow as she knitted andwarbled, that he would do best to answer, but always with brevity.
"It was to you," said the spy, "that his daughter came; and it wasfrom your care that his daughter took him, accompanied by a neat brownmonsieur; how is he called?--in a little wig--Lorry--of the bank ofTellson and Company--over to England."
"Such is the fact," repeated Defarge.
"Very interesting remembrances!" said the spy. "I have known DoctorManette and his daughter,
in England."
"Yes?" said Defarge.
"You don't hear much about them now?" said the spy.
"No," said Defarge.
"In effect," madame struck in, looking up from her work and her littlesong, "we never hear about them. We received the news of their safearrival, and perhaps another letter, or perhaps two; but, since then,they have gradually taken their road in life--we, ours--and we have heldno correspondence."
"Perfectly so, madame," replied the spy. "She is going to be married."
"Going?" echoed madame. "She was pretty enough to have been married longago. You English are cold, it seems to me."
"Oh! You know I am English."
"I perceive your tongue is," returned madame; "and what the tongue is, Isuppose the man is."
He did not take the identification as a compliment; but he made the bestof it, and turned it off with a laugh. After sipping his cognac to theend, he added:
"Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married. But not to an Englishman; toone 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 isgoing to marry the nephew of Monsieur the Marquis, for whom Gaspardwas exalted to that height of so many feet; in other words, the presentMarquis. But he lives unknown in England, he is no Marquis there; he isMr. Charles Darnay. D'Aulnais is the name of his mother's family."
Madame Defarge knitted steadily, but the intelligence had a palpableeffect 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 wastroubled, and his hand was not trustworthy. The spy would have been nospy if he had failed to see it, or to record it in his mind.
Having made, at least, this one hit, whatever it might prove to beworth, and no customers coming in to help him to any other, Mr. Barsadpaid 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 thepleasure of seeing Monsieur and Madame Defarge again. For some minutesafter he had emerged into the outer presence of Saint Antoine, thehusband and wife remained exactly as he had left them, lest he shouldcome back.
"Can it be true," said Defarge, in a low voice, looking down at his wifeas he stood smoking with his hand on the back of her chair: "what he hassaid of Ma'amselle Manette?"
"As he has said it," returned madame, lifting her eyebrows a little, "itis probably false. But it may be true."
"If it is--" Defarge began, and stopped.
"If it is?" repeated his wife.
"--And if it does come, while we live to see it triumph--I hope, for hersake, Destiny will keep her husband out of France."
"Her husband's destiny," said Madame Defarge, with her usual composure,"will take him where he is to go, and will lead him to the end that isto end him. That is all I know."
"But it is very strange--now, at least, is it not very strange"--saidDefarge, rather pleading with his wife to induce her to admit it,"that, after all our sympathy for Monsieur her father, and herself, herhusband's name should be proscribed under your hand at this moment, bythe side of that infernal dog's who has just left us?"
"Stranger things than that will happen when it does come," answeredmadame. "I have them both here, of a certainty; and they are both herefor their merits; that is enough."
She rolled up her knitting when she had said those words, and presentlytook the rose out of the handkerchief that was wound about her head.Either Saint Antoine had an instinctive sense that the objectionabledecoration was gone, or Saint Antoine was on the watch for itsdisappearance; howbeit, the Saint took courage to lounge in, veryshortly afterwards, and the wine-shop recovered its habitual aspect.
In the evening, at which season of all others Saint Antoine turnedhimself inside out, and sat on door-steps and window-ledges, and cameto the corners of vile streets and courts, for a breath of air, MadameDefarge with her work in her hand was accustomed to pass from placeto place and from group to group: a Missionary--there were many likeher--such as the world will do well never to breed again. All the womenknitted. They knitted worthless things; but, the mechanical work was amechanical substitute for eating and drinking; the hands moved for thejaws and the digestive apparatus: if the bony fingers had been still,the stomachs would have been more famine-pinched.
But, as the fingers went, the eyes went, and the thoughts. And as MadameDefarge moved on from group to group, all three went quicker and fierceramong every little knot of women that she had spoken with, and leftbehind.
Her husband smoked at his door, looking after her with admiration. "Agreat woman," said he, "a strong woman, a grand woman, a frightfullygrand woman!"
Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of church bells andthe distant beating of the military drums in the Palace Courtyard, asthe women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness encompassed them. Anotherdarkness was closing in as surely, when the church bells, then ringingpleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should be melted intothundering cannon; when the military drums should be beating to drown awretched voice, that night all potent as the voice of Power and Plenty,Freedom and Life. So much was closing in about the women who satknitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing in arounda structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting,counting dropping heads.
A Tale of Two Cities Page 22
