by Dave Mckay
Part of him was in the bank, and part of him was in the coach. But another part of him was on his way to dig up a person who had been buried for many years. The faces would change in the shadows of the night, and the emotions of the buried man would change. At times the man would be proud, or angry, or sad or broken, and he would be very thin, with the colour of death in his skin.
The passenger knew that the man would be 45 years old, and in every picture, the man's hair had turned white from what he had been through.
"How long have you been buried?” he would ask.
And the answer was always the same: "Almost 18 years.” "Did you lose all hope of someone coming to dig you up?” "Yes, long ago."
"You know that you have been called back to life?"
"Yes, that is what I have heard."
"Do you want to live again?"
"I don't know."
"Should I bring her in? Or do you want to go and see her?"
The answers to this question were many, and often they were quite different. At times they were, "Wait! It would kill me if I saw her too soon.” At times there were quiet tears, and then it was, "Take me to her.” And at other times it was wide open eyes, and a confused look, followed by, "I don't know. I don't understand."
After such talk, the passenger, in his mind, would start digging, first with a shovel, and then with a big key, and then with his hands, trying to dig this poor man out. And when the man was out, with dirt on his face and hair, he would turn to dust, and the passenger would come awake and open the coach window to let the fog and rain touch his cheek and bring him back to what was real.
But even when he was awake, looking out on the fog and rain, seeing the light of the coach on the bushes and trees that moved past the window in jumps and shakes, the night shadows outside would join with the night shadows inside. The real bank, the real business of the past day, the real strong rooms, the real news, and the real words that he sent back with the rider all returned to him. And from the middle of all that, would rise the ghost-like face and he would be talking to it again.
"How long have you been buried?”
"Almost 18 years."
"Do you want to live again?"
"I don't know."
Dig, dig, dig, until an angry movement from one of the other two passengers would lead him to close the window, put his arm back through the leather loop, and watch the other two passengers while his mind returned to the bank and to the place where the man was buried.
"How long have you been buried?"
"Almost 18 years."
"Did you lose all hope of someone coming to dig you up?” "Yes, long ago."
The words were still sounding in his head-- as strongly as any words he had ever heard -- when the sleepy passenger opened his eyes to see that there was light outside, and the shadows of the night were gone.
Dropping the window, he looked out at the sun as it came up. He could see a plough lying in a high field, where its owner had left it the night before, when the horses pulling it had finished for the day. Behind that were trees with leaves of burning red and golden yellow to mark the time of year. The ground was cold and wet, but the sky was clear and the sun was beautiful, bright, and full of peace.
"Eighteen years!" the passenger said to himself. "Good God! To be buried alive for 18 years!"
4. Preparing
Later that morning, when the Mail reached Dover, the head doorman at the King George Hotel opened the door with some special words of welcome. A coach arriving from London in winter was special, and the travellers in it would have been brave to have made the trip.
By that time, there was only one passenger left in the coach to receive the words of welcome; for the two others had left earlier, at other places on the way. The smell inside the coach was not very nice, because of the straw that had been put on the floor... straw that was no longer dry, and that was dirty with mud from the boots of the passengers. The darkness inside the coach and the smell of the dry grass made it seem more like a big house for dogs than a place for people. And Mr. Lorry himself seemed more like a big dog as he shook the straw off his mud covered legs and stepped out in his heavy coat and hat.
"Will there be a ship to France tomorrow, doorman?"
"Yes, sir, if the weather stays clear and the wind does not become any worse. The water level will be best around two in the afternoon. Would you like a bed, sir?"
"I will not go to bed until this evening. But I would like a room, and a barber."
"And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if you please. Show him the Concord room! Take his bag and some hot water there! Take his boots off when he gets there. (You will find a nice fire of coals there, sir.) Send the barber to Concord. Get moving, now, everyone!"
The Concord room was always saved for a passenger on the mail coach, and because passengers on the mail were always covered with coats and scarves from head to foot, workers at the King George Hotel always found it interesting to see what they were like when they came out of the room. They all went in looking the same, but each one was different when they came out.
Because of this, another doorman, two male workers, a few female workers and the woman who owned the hotel were all spaced, by accident you must understand, over the way between the Concord room and the coffee room, when a sixty-year-old man in a very nice brown business suit left the room on his way to breakfast.
The man in brown was the only one in the coffee room that morning. His table was set by the fire, and as he waited for his meal, he was as still as he would be if he was being painted.
His look was one of perfect control, with one hand on each knee, and a loud watch ticking in his pocket like it was competing with the sound of the fire, to see which one was more important. The man had good legs, and he was proud of it, having covered them in top quality, long brown socks. His shoes were clean and neat. He had on a strange little white wig that was clearly not made from real hair. His shirt was not of such good quality as his socks, but it was as white as the tops of the waves that broke on the beach near there, or as the little white sails that one could see on the boats far out in the water. In his perfectly controlled face were two bright eyes that must have been difficult for him to teach, over the years, to hide their feelings, in keeping with the rules of Tellson's Bank. There was a healthy colour in his cheeks, and his face, apart from a few lines to show his age, was free from signs of worry. That may have been because it was his job to think only of other people's worries; and other people's worries are easy to take off, as one can do with other people's clothes.
As often happens to one who is sitting for a painting, Mr. Lorry dropped off to sleep. But when his breakfast arrived, he came awake quickly, moved his chair closer to the table, and said to the waiter. "I'll need a room for a young woman who will be arriving here sometime today. She may ask for me by name, or she may only ask for a man from Tellson's Bank. Please do let me know when she comes."
"Yes, sir. Is that Tellson's Bank in London, sir?” "Yes."
"We often have people from your bank staying here, sir, on their travels between London and Paris."
"Yes, our bank in France is quite big, as is the one in England."
"Yes, sir. You yourself do not travel much?"
"Not these days. It's fifteen years since we... that is, since I... last came here from France."
"Is that true, sir? That was before my time here, sir. In truth, it was before our people's time here, sir. The George was in other hands at that time, sir."
"I believe it was."
"But I would say, sir, that Tellson's was a big business not just fifteen years ago, but more like fifty years ago."
"You can add that three times over if you like, for if you had said 150 years ago, you would not be far from the truth."
"You don't say, sir!"
Opening wide both his mouth and his eyes, the waiter moved back to where he could stand comfortably, and he
quietly watched the traveller eat, the way waiters do at all times and in all places.
When Mr. Lorry had finished his meal, he went for a walk. The little town of Dover tried to hide behind the chalk cliffs that dropped down to the beach, while the beach itself was like a desert, with hills of water throwing stones around. The waves did what they liked, and what they liked most was to destroy things. The waves shouted at the town and shouted at the cliffs. The air around the houses smelled so much like fish that one would think that sick fish might go there to breathe the air in the same way that sick people from the town went down to the water for healing. A few people fished in the ocean each day, and many people walked around at night, looking out at the ocean. This happened most when the water level was up. Business people who did no business at all would often become rich quickly without an honest reason for it; and it is strange that no one in the town had any interest in putting up lights at night!
(Dickens is trying to say that the town secretly smuggled things in from across the ocean, under cover of darkness.)
As evening came closer, and the air, which had been so clear that one could see across the ocean to France earlier in the day, turned to clouds, Mr. Lorry's thoughts seemed to take on clouds too. When he was back in the coffee room waiting for his evening meal, his mind was busily digging, digging, digging in the hot red coals on the fire.
A bottle of good red wine after dinner does not hurt the mind of one who digs in hot red coals, apart from putting an end to the digging. Mr. Lorry had stopped his digging sometime earlier, and was pouring the last glass of wine from the bottle with a happy look on his face when he heard the sound of timber wheels on the stone street, just before they turned into the hotel yard.
He put down his glass without touching the wine in it. "She’s here!" he said to himself.
In a few minutes the waiter came to say that Miss Manette had arrived from London, and would like to see the man from Tellson's.
"So soon?"
Miss Manette had been eating on the way and was not hungry. On the other hand, she was hungry to hear what the man from Tellson's had to say, as soon as he was able to see her.
The man from Tellson's finished his glass of wine without feeling, smoothed his strange little wig around his ears, and then followed the waiter to Miss Manette's room. It was a big dark room, with heavy, dark furniture that had been oiled so much that the light of two tall candles went deeply into each board on the table where they were sitting. It was like the candles themselves were buried in the black timber, and one needed to dig the light out of them.
It was so dark that Mr. Lorry, finding his way over the rug, was thinking that the woman must be in a neighbouring room. But when he was past the two candles, he could see her standing there in the same room, beside another table.
She was a young woman, not looking more than 17, still in her riding coat, and still holding her hat by its string. Mr. Lorry's eyes rested on a short, thin, beautiful woman with golden hair and blue eyes that met his own with a questioning look. The smooth skin on her forehead could lift itself in a way that showed a mixture of enthusiastic interest, fear, confusion, and surprise. As he looked at her, he remembered a child whom he had held in his arms on another crossing of the Channel between France and England. It had been very cold. The waves had been high, and little pieces of ice had been thrown at him by the wind. The picture in his mind became invisible as quickly as breathing on the tall mirror behind her would have disappeared from the mirror. And he bowed in her direction.
"Please take a seat, sir.” Her voice was clear and beautiful, with only the softest French sound to it.
"I kiss your hand, Miss," said Mr. Lorry before taking a seat.
"I received a letter from the Bank yesterday, sir, saying that you had learned... or that you had found..."
"Either word will do, Miss."
"...that you learned something about my poor father, whom I have never seen, him being so long dead..."
Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and turned a worried look toward the mirror behind Miss Manette.
"And that I needed to go to Paris, where I would meet a man from the Bank who was going there from here."
"That's me."
"And that is what I thought, sir."
She bowed to his age and wisdom. And then she bowed again.
"Because I have no parents, and I have no friend to go with me, I asked the bank if I could travel with you to Paris. They said you had already left London, but they sent a man to find you, and ask you to wait for me here."
"And I was happy to do that," said Mr. Lorry. "I shall be even happier to travel with you."
"Sir, I truly thank you. I was told that you would tell me more about what I must do; and they said that I should be prepared for a surprise. I have tried to be prepared for anything, but I have a strong interest in knowing what this is all about."
"I can understand that," said Mr. Lorry. "Yes... I...” He smoothed his wig once again.
"It is very difficult to start."
He did not start. He just looked at her. Her forehead lifted itself in that way that showed so many different emotions at once. Then she lifted her hand, like she was trying to touch a shadow.
"Do I know you?"
"Should you?” he asked, opening his hands and projecting them toward her, with a smile as his only argument.
The emotion showing in her forehead became deeper, as she sat down in the chair that she had been standing beside. He watched her as she thought deeply, and when she looked up at him again, he went on:
"Because you live in England now, can I call you Miss Manette?"
"If you like, sir."
"Miss Manette, I am a man of business; and I have a job to do. As you listen, think of me only as a talking machine, for I am not much more than that. If you will let me, I will tell you the story of one of the people that I have served."
"Story?"
He chose not to hear or to answer what she was really asking, as he went on quickly. "Yes, one of the people I have served. He was a French scientist. A doctor."
"Not from Beauvais?"
"Why, yes, from Beauvais. Like your father, Mr. Manette. And like your father, he was well known in Paris. I was proud to have known him there. We secretly did business together. At that time I had been in our French office for about twenty years."
"At that time? May I ask what time that was, sir?"
"I am talking, Miss, of twenty years ago. He married an English woman. His business, like the business of many other French men and families, was fully in the hands of Tellson's Bank. I have served hundreds of people like that in my job. They are not friends, and there are no emotions between us... just business. In short, I have no feelings about these things. I am only a machine. So, to go on..."
"But this is my father's story, sir.” And her forehead was rougher than ever now, as she looked deeply at him. "I am starting to think that, when my mother died, two years after my father, it was you who carried me to England. I am almost sure it was you."
Mr. Lorry touched the shy little hand that had reached out to take his, and he lifted it to his lips, after which he walked with her back to the chair she had left. Then, with his left hand on the back of the chair, he busied his right hand with touching his chin, smoothing his wig, and making movements to go with what he went on to say. She sat looking up at him as he talked.
"Yes, Miss Manette. It was I. And you can see that I was only doing my job when you remember that you have not seen me since. It has been the business of Tellson's Bank to care for you; but I myself have been busy with other people. Feelings? I have no time for them. I spend my whole life, Miss, working for a very big machine that is there only to make money."
After this strange way of talking about his job, Mr. Lorry used both of his hands to smooth the wig (which was not needed, for it could not be smoother or flatter than it was already), and then returned his left
hand to the back of the chair.
"As you have seen, the story has been about your father. But now comes a difference. If your father had not died when he did... Don't be afraid! My, how you jumped!"
And she did truly jump. With both of her hands she took hold of his right wrist.
"Please," said Mr. Lorry softly, bringing his left hand over to put it on the shaking hands that were holding his right wrist. "Please control yourself. This is nothing but business. As I was saying..."
But her look made him forget for a second what he was saying. So he started again.
"As I was saying, if Mr. Manette had not died, if he had only disappeared, if he had been carried away secretly, if it had been difficult to say to what awful place he had been taken, if he had an enemy in that country who could fill in papers to have him put in prison with no one knowing where it was, and if his wife had asked the king, the queen, the court, the church to do something with no effect, then the story of your father would be the story of the poor man I served, the doctor from Beauvais."
"I beg you to tell me more, sir.” "I will. I will. Are you up to it?”
"What I am not up to is waiting."
"You sound relaxed. And, yes, you do look relaxed. That's good!" (But he did not sound as confident of this as his words may have seemed.) "Back to business. Think of it as business... business that must be done. Now if this doctor's wife, a strong, brave woman, had been through so much before the birth of her child..."
"The child was a daughter, sir?"
"Yes, a daughter. Just... just... business. Do not worry. Miss, if the poor woman had been through so much before the child was born, that she wanted to shield the child from going through the same things, by letting her believe that her father was dead... No, don't get down on your knees in front of me like that! In heaven's name, why are you doing that?"
"For the truth. Oh good kind sir, for the truth!"
"This is... is... business. You have confused me, and how can I do my job if I am confused? Let us think clearly. If you could, shall we say, tell me how much nine times nine is, or how many shillings are in a pound, it would encourage me to go on. I would be much more confident about how much you are in control of your emotions."
She did not do as he asked, but when he had softly lifted her to the chair, she sat so quietly, and her hands, which were still holding his wrists, were so much more relaxed, that Mr. Jarvis Lorry felt better about going on.
"That's good. Very good. Be brave. Business. You have business before you. Business that will help you. Miss Manette, this is what your mother did with you. When she died -- I believe from a broken heart -- never having stopped in her looking for your father, she left you, at two years of age, to grow up beautiful and happy, without the dark cloud of not knowing how your father was, or if he was dead or alive."
As he said this, Mr. Lorry looked down with loving sadness on her long golden hair, as if he was thinking that it might already be turning grey.
"You know that your parents were not rich, and that what they had has been given to you. We have not found more money or land for you. But..."
He felt her squeezing his wrist, and he stopped. The rough lines on her forehead that so interested him before, became even deeper as they showed her pain and fear.
"But he has been... been found. He is alive. I am sure that he will have been deeply changed. It is possible that his mind has been destroyed by what he has been through, but we'll hope for the best. Yet, he is alive. Your father has been taken to the house of an old servant in Paris. That is where we're going. I will go with you to know if it is truly him, and you will go to bring him back to life, to show him love and help him return to the world.
There was a little shaking that moved through her body, and he could feel it. She said, in a low, clear, but surprised voice, as if she were saying it in a dream, "I am going to see his ghost. It will not be him. It will be his ghost."
Mr. Lorry quietly rubbed the hands that were holding his arm.
"There, there, there! See now? See? You now know the best and the worst. You are now well on your way to see your poor wronged father, and with a good trip over the ocean and a good trip over the land, you will soon be by his sweet side."
In the same low voice, but whispering now, she said again, "I have been free and happy, never thinking about his ghost."
"Only one thing more," said Mr. Lorry quite strongly, hoping that it would bring her back to thinking clearly. "He has been found under another name. We do not know if he is hiding his old name or if he has forgotten it. There is no need to even ask now. There is also no need to know if he has been free and hiding for long, or if he has been a prisoner all this time. There is no need to ask questions of important people now, because it could be dangerous. It would be best not to talk about his past anywhere or in any way, but to take him -- at least for a while -- out of France. Even I, protected by being from England, and Tellson's, which is important to the wealth of that country, try not to say anything about what happened. I do not have any paper on me with writing about this business. What we are doing must be kept secret. Who I am and what I am doing is covered only in four secret words: Called back to life. It could mean anything. But what is happening? You are not listening to a word that I'm saying! Miss Manette!"
Perfectly still and quiet, without even falling back in her chair, she now sat under his hand without any feeling. Her eyes were open and looking at him, with that same strange look on her face, like it was shaped in stone now. She was holding so strongly to his arm that he feared he would hurt her if he tried to pull her hands away. So he did not move, but called out loudly for help.
A wild-looking woman with red hair, dressed in a tight red dress, and wearing a big cylinder-shaped hat, came running into the room, followed closely by some hotel workers. The woman quickly fixed the problem by putting a big strong hand on Mr. Lorry's chest and sending him flying back against the nearest wall.
Mr. Lorry's first thought, as he hit the wall, was that this must be a man, and not a woman.
"Why, look at you all!" shouted the woman, turning to the servants. "Why don't you get something to help, instead of standing there looking at me? Am I really so interesting? Go and get something. You'll hear from me if you don't bring smelling-salts and cold water, and bring it quickly. Do it or you'll hear from me!"
They all left at once, and she softly carried the young woman over to the couch, calling her "Ladybird" and "my little one" and smoothing her golden hair to the side and over her shoulders, with great pride and care.
"And you in brown!" she said, turning angrily to Mr. Lorry, "couldn't you have said what you needed to say without scaring her to death? Look at her, with her beautiful white face and her cold hands. Do you call that being a banker?"
Mr. Lorry was so baffled by a question that he had no answer for, that he could only look on, at a distance, feeling humbled and sorry for Miss Manette, while the strong woman, having scared the workers away with a promise that they would "hear from her" something too awful to name, was able, just by looking at her, to slowly bring the young woman back to life.
"I do hope she'll be okay now," said Mr. Lorry.
"No thanks to you in brown, if she is. My poor sweet thing!"
"I hope," said Mr. Lorry after another time of feeling weak and humble, "that you are here to travel with Miss Manette to France?"
"I don't think so!" answered the strong woman. "If I was to go over the ocean, do you think that God would have put me on an island?"
This being another question that was too hard for Mr. Jarvis Lorry to answer, he left the room to think about it.
5. The Wine Shop
A big barrel of wine had been dropped and broken in the street. The accident had happened in getting it out of the wagon. It had landed with a bang, breaking the metal rings holding it together; and now the barrel was on the stones near the front door of the
wine shop, like the shell of a big broken nut.
All who saw it dropped what they were doing and ran to drink what wine they could save. The rough stones in the road, made to cripple any who tried to walk over them, had places between them that were like little lakes, each catching some of the wine. And by each little lake was a group of people pushing to get to the wine. Some men were face down near the wine, getting what they could in their two hands. Some were giving some to women who leaned over their shoulders. Others would put a cup into the liquid, and a few women even put their head scarves into it before squeezing the wine into the mouths of their babies. A few made little walls of dirt to stop the wine from running away. And there were those who, following directions from people leaning out of high windows, ran here and there to where they believed the most wine could be found. Others were happy to pick up pieces of the broken barrel, drink what little was on them and then chew on them, to get the taste of the wine out of the wet timber.
Very little wine was lost, and not only was the wine itself picked up, but an equal measure of mud was picked up with it, making it look like a miracle-working street cleaner had been there.
There was a lot of laughing and many happy voices for as long as the job of cleaning up the wine lasted. The people were not rough with each other, but it was more like they were playing a game. Those who were able to win a good taste of the wine would shake hands, laugh, dance, and hug each other. When the wine was finished, people returned to what they were doing. The man who had left his saw in a piece of timber he was cutting for the fire, returned to his cutting. The woman who had been trying to warm herself and her hungry child by a container of hot coals, returned to the coals. Men without coats who had come into the winter light from the basements where they worked, returned to the basements. And a sadness returned to the street that was more a part of it than was light from the sun.
The wine had been red wine, and it had painted the ground red there in the Saint Antoine part of Paris. Red too were the hands and faces and cold feet of the people who had come. The hands of the man cutting timber left red marks on the branches that he was cutting now. The woman who had given wine to her baby now had a red mark on her head, where the head scarf had been returned. Those who had chewed on the timber pieces of the barrel had wide red marks on both sides of their mouths. And one tall man, rubbing his finger in the bitter seeds at the bottom of the barrel, used them to write BLOOD on a wall.
A time was coming when that red liquid would be poured out on the street too. And many of these same people would have blood on themselves like the red wine that marked their bodies now.
Now that the clouds were back over Saint Antoine, the darkness in that place was heavy. Cold, dirt, sickness, and hunger were the servants of the poor saint after whom the place was named. Antoine's servants were all strong, but hunger was the strongest. These people had been through many troubles, and they were not the kind of troubles that kept old people young. Everywhere you looked, you could see, instead, young people who had been turned into old people because of their troubles. The children had the faces and voices of adults, and adults had the deep lines of old age, all of it coming from that devil called hunger. You could see hunger in the broken clothes hanging on the lines outside the tall houses. Hunger was there in every little piece of firewood that the man was cutting. It looked down on them from the chimneys that had no smoke coming out, and it looked up at them from the street, where there was not the smallest piece of food thrown away. Hunger was there in the bread shop, where only a few very rough loaves of bread could be found, and in the butcher shop, where dead dogs were cooked and made into sausages. You could hear the dry bones of hunger in the chestnuts that were cooking in a turning cylinder, and in the little bowls of rough potato pieces, cooked in a few small drops of oil, that were to be sold for the smallest coin.
The place and its people were equal to the hunger that lived there. It was a narrow bending street with more narrow bending streets coming off of it. All of them were full of bad smells and of sick-looking people dressed in rags like so many scarecrows. But in these people there was also the hope that things could change. Sad and slow as they were, there were still eyes of fire, tight lips (from all that they were holding back) and serious faces. The lines on their faces were like the ropes that they knew could be used to hang them or could be used by them to hang their enemies.
The dangerous stones on the road, with room between them for mud and water, were not made for walking. Down the middle of the road was a channel for rain water, but in a storm, by the time the channel filled, water would already be working its way into many of the houses. Ropes across the road here and there each held one rough lantern, that the lantern-lighter would lower each night, put a light to, and lift back up on the rope. When one looked at all of these lights moving from side to side in the wind, it gave the feeling of being in a storm on a ship. And in real life a storm was building up there that could have serious effects.
The time would come when the thin scarecrows living in that part of Paris would have watched the lantern-lighter so long that they would have started to think of pulling bodies up on those ropes and putting fire to them. But the time was not yet. For now, the scarecrows would shake in the wind while the birds in their beautiful feathers would go on singing their beautiful songs without any interest in the warnings.
The wine shop was a corner shop, better than most, both in its size and in its looks. Its owner had stood outside in his yellow top and green pants, watching as the people raced for the wine.
"It's not my problem," he had said, lifting and dropping his shoulders to show how little interest he had in it all. "The people from the market dropped it, so they'll just have to bring me another."
Then he saw the tall joker writing his word on the wall. He called out to him from across the street, "Say there, what do you think you're doing?"
The man pointed to his joke, proud of what he had written, as is often the way with his kind. But the joke missed its mark and did not bring a laugh. That too is often the way with his kind.
"What now? Do you want to be locked away as crazy?” asked the wine shop owner as he crossed the road. He picked up mud in his hand on the way, and rubbed it over the word. "Why do you write here on the wall? Is there... listen to me... is there no other place where you can write words like this?"
In saying this, he dropped his clean hand (maybe by accident and maybe not) on the foolish man's heart. The joker pushed it away and jumped high in the air only to come down in a dancing movement, with one shoe pulled off and in his hand. He reached out to the wine shop owner with his shoe.
"Put it on. Put it on. You should call wine wine and leave it at that.” With that, he rubbed his dirty hand on the clothes (if you can call them that) that the joker was wearing, as if to say that he was the reason that the hand had become dirty in the first place. Then he returned across the road and into the wine shop.
This owner was a strong man of thirty, with a thick neck. One could understand him being angry, because it was very cold out and he did not have a coat on (but he carried one over his shoulder). Even the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, leaving his brown arms with no covering to the elbows. He did not wear a hat either, to cover his short dark hair. He was a dark man all over, with good eyes and a good distance between them. On the whole he was friendly, but he was not the kind of person one would want to argue with, or to meet on a narrow road with water on each side.
Madam Defarge, his wife, was sitting in the shop behind the counter, when he came in. She was a heavy woman of about his age with an eye that looked at nothing and everything at the same time. She had a few heavy rings on her fingers, an interesting face, and a quiet spirit. She had an air of confidence about her that would make one think she was not often wrong in anything she did. Not liking the cold, Madam Defarge was covered in animal skins, with a big scarf turned around her head, but
not enough to cover the big rings hanging from her ears. She had been knitting, but she had stopped to pick at her teeth with a match stick. She was so busy doing this, with her left hand holding up her right elbow, that she said nothing when her husband came in. She just made a very little cough and lifted her eyebrow by the smallest distance, as if to say that he needed to look around the shop and see if there were any new people who had come in while he was out.
He looked around to see if there was anyone new in the shop, and he saw an older man together with a young woman, both seated in a corner. There were also two people playing cards, two playing dominoes, and three people at the counter talking. As he walked over to the counter, he heard the older man in the corner say to the young woman, "There's our man."
"What the devil do I have to do with him?” Mr. Defarge asked himself. "I don't know him."
He did not show any interest in the new people, but started talking to the three men at the counter instead.
"How is it, Jack?” said one of the three to Mr. Defarge. "Did they drink all of the wine?"
"Every drop, Jack," answered Mr. Defarge.
At this point, Madam Defarge coughed another little cough, and lifted her eyebrows a little more than she did the first time.
"It is not often," said the second of the three to Mr. Defarge, "that many of these poor animals know the taste of wine, or of anything but black bread and death. Isn't that true, Jack?"
"That's true, Jack," Mr. Defarge returned.
At this, Madam Defarge, still quietly using her match stick to clean her teeth, gave another little cough, and lifted her eyebrows a little higher than she had just done.
The last of the three put down his cup, rubbed his lips together and had his say: "Ah, so much the worse for them! Now they will always have that bitter taste in their mouths. The poor cows do live a hard life, do they not, Jack?"
"You're so right, Jack," Mr. Defarge answered.
This is when Madam Defarge put down her match stick, holding her eyebrows up, and moved a little in her seat.
"Stay there!" whispered her husband. "Men... my wife!"
The three men took off their hats to Madam Defarge, and she answered back by bowing her head and giving them a little look. Then she looked quietly around the wine shop, picked up her needles with what looked like a happy spirit, and turned her whole mind to knitting.
"Good men," said her husband, "the room that you had been asking to see is on the fifth floor. The steps leading up to it start in the little closed yard to my left here, close to the shop window. But now, as I remember, one of you has been there already, and so he can show you all the way. You may go, my friends!"
They paid for their wine and left. Mr. Defarge's eyes were studying his wife at her knitting when the old man came from his corner and asked to have a word with him.
"I would be happy to do that," said Mr. Defarge as he walked quietly with him to the door.
Their talk was very short, but very clear. Almost at the first word Mr. Defarge showed serious interest in what he was hearing. In less than a minute, he showed agreement and stepped outside. The old man showed with his hand that he wanted the young woman to follow him, and she too went out the door. Madam Defarge was so busy knitting that she saw nothing.
Mr. Lorry and Miss Manette left the wine shop to join Mr. Defarge at the foot of the steps that he had just pointed out to the other men. The closed yard was dark and full of bad smells. It was the front yard for many floors of rooms holding many more people. At the foot of the steps, Mr. Defarge went down on one knee to the child of his old master, and put her hand to his lips. It was a humble action, but it marked a change in his spirit. Far from being happy and friendly, he became angry, in a dangerous and secret way.
"It's a long climb. It's a little difficult. Better to start slowly.” Mr. Defarge said this to Mr. Lorry like it was an important rule, as they started climbing the steps.
"Is he alone?” Mr. Lorry whispered.
"Alone? God help him, who should be with him?” said the other in the same low voice.
"Is he always alone, then?”
"Yes."
"Because he wants to be?"
"Because he needs to be. He is now as he was when I first saw him, after they found him and asked if I would take him. They made it clear that I would be in danger if I was not very careful."
"Had he changed much?"
"Changed?!" The owner of the wine shop stopped to hit the wall with his hand and say some very rough words. The answer was clear. Mr. Lorry's spirit grew heavier and heavier as the three of them climbed higher and higher.
Such steps today would be hard enough in the older and poorer parts of Paris; but it was much worse then, for any who were not used to being in such a place. Every room in that great nest of rooms that was one tall building, left their rubbish by these steps; that is, if they did not just throw it out of their windows to land in the yard. The three people were now climbing up through a dark tower filled with this awful smell. Giving in to his own worries, and to those of his young friend, whose worries were growing as they climbed, Mr. Jarvis Lorry stopped two times on the way to have a rest.
Each stop was beside an opening with bars, where light could come in. Because other buildings were so close beside them, it seemed that the openings were taking the best air out of that dark tower and bringing the worst air in. One could almost taste the life in the other awful buildings near this one, and the closest sign of healthy air and high hopes, even up here, were the two tall towers of Notre Dame far off in the distance.
At last they reached the top of the steps, where they rested for the third time. But there was one more narrow ladder up to the room in the roof that they were trying to reach. The shop owner, who had been leading them, and keeping to Mr. Lorry's side of the steps as if afraid the young woman would ask him a question, turned around here and, carefully feeling in the pockets of the coat he carried over his shoulder, took out a key
"The door is locked?” asked Mr. Lorry in surprise.
"Oh, yes," Mr. Defarge answered quite seriously.
"You think you need to keep the poor man away from others?"
Mr. Defarge leaned down to whisper into Mr. Lorry's ear. "I think that I need to be in control."
"Why?"
"Why? Because he has lived so long that way, that he would be afraid... go crazy... die... Who knows what would happen if his door was left open?"
"Is that possible?” Mr. Lorry said with surprise.
"Is it possible!" Defarge whispered bitterly. "Yes. And what a world we live in when it is, and when many other things like it are... not only possible, but done. Done, see you! Under that sky there every day. The devil is real and alive. Now let us go on."
These words had been said so softly that not one had reached the young woman's ears. But by now she was shaking under such emotion, and her face showed so much worry and fear, that Mr. Lorry believed he should speak a word or two to encourage her.
"Do not be afraid, Miss! Be brave! Business, remember? The worst will be over in a minute. It's just a question of opening the door, and the worst will be over. Then all the good, the love, and the happiness you bring to him will start to work. Let our good friend help you up the steps. Thank you, friend Defarge. Come now. Business, business!"
They went up slowly and softly. It was only a short distance and they were at the top. There, on turning the corner, they saw three men bending over, with their heads close together by the door. They were busy looking into the room through some small holes in the wall. On hearing the others, they stood and turned to face them, showing themselves to be the three men with the same name who had been drinking in the wine shop.
"I had forgotten them in the surprise of your visit," Mr. Defarge said. "Leave us, boys; we have business here."
The men squeezed by and climbed quietly down the ladder.
There being no other door on th
at floor, Mr. Lorry asked the owner in a whisper, and with some anger, "Do you make a show of Mr. Manette?"
"I show him in the way you have seen, to a few people whom I choose."
"Is it right to do that?"
"I think it is right."
"Who are the few people, and how do you choose them?"
"I choose them as real men, men with the same name as me... Jack. I choose men who I think will be better off for seeing. That is enough reason for me. You're English; you would not understand. Wait here for a minute."
With a hand out to hold them back, he leaned over to look through a hole in the wall himself. Soon he lifted his head and knocked two or three times on the door, for no other reason than to say that he was there. Then he pulled the key across the door three or four times for the same reason, before putting it in the lock and turning it as loudly as he could.
The door opened slowly into the room. Defarge looked in and said something. A weak voice answered something. Little more than a word could have been said by either.
Mr. Defarge looked back over his shoulder and made a movement to call them in. Mr. Lorry put his arm strongly around the daughter, to help her, because he had the feeling that she was about to faint.
"A... a... a business!" he said, with a tear on his cheek that was not of business. "Come in. Come in."
"I am not afraid of it," she answered, shaking.
"Of it? Of what?"
"I mean of him. Of my father."
Between Defarge calling them in and Miss Manette being so worried, Mr. Lorry did not know what to do. So he pulled the arm that was shaking on his shoulder, over his neck, and half lifted the girl into the room. He put her down just inside the door, where she stood holding onto him in fear.
Defarge pulled the key out of the lock, closed the door, and then locked the door again from the inside. He did it all with as much noise as he could make of it. Then he walked across the room to where the window was and turned around to face the others.
The room had been a place for firewood in the past, and the window was more of a door in the roof than a window, with a rope and timbers to be used for lifting things from the street below. There was no glass in it, and it opened in two halves. To keep out the cold, one half was locked at all times. The other was only open a very little. So little light was coming through that opening that it was difficult, on first coming into the room, to see anything. Only after living there for a long time would anyone be able to do any work that needed good eyes. Yet work of that kind was being done in that room even now; for, with his back toward the door and his face toward the window, where the wine shop owner stood looking at him, a white-haired man sat on a low bench, leaning forward and was very busily making shoes.
6. The Shoemaker
"Good day!" said Mr. Defarge, looking down at the white head that was bending over his shoemaking.
The head lifted for a second and answered with a quiet voice, like he was far away, "Good day!"
"I see you are still hard at work."
After some time, the head lifted again, and the voice said, "Yes. I am working.” This time two tired eyes looked at Defarge before the face dropped again.
The weakness of the voice was both sad and awful. Having worked hard in prison for many years had not helped the man physically, but it was not a physical weakness that was so sad about his voice. The awful truth was that the weakness of his voice had come from being alone for so long. At some point, he had just stopped using it. When words came out, it was like they had been said long ago, and the people in that room were just hearing the last dying sounds of them. There was so little life in those words that they were like a once beautiful colour that has been washed away, leaving only a very weak mark where it had been. It was so low that it was like it was coming from under the ground. And the feeling carried across in those words was of one who had lost all hope. They were like the last words of a lost traveller, dying from hunger away from all friends and family.
A few minutes passed without a sound, as the man went on working. Then the tired eyes looked up again, but not with any interest. It was like he had forgotten that anyone was there, and then he saw again that someone was in front of him.
"I want," said Defarge, who had not stopped looking at the shoemaker, "to let in a little more light. Can you take a little more?"
The shoemaker stopped working, looked at the floor on each side of him, like he was listening for something, and then looked up at the speaker.
"What did you say?"
"Can you take a little more light?"
"I must take it if you choose to let it in.” He said the second word with only the smallest difference to the other words.
The half-door was opened a little more, bringing in a wider line of light, and showing a half-finished shoe on the shoemaker's knees. A few tools and some pieces of leather were at his feet and on the bench. He had a white beard, roughly cut but not very long, a thin, empty face, and surprisingly bright eyes. Any eyes would look big in such an empty face, but this man's eyes were big to start with, and so they looked even bigger now. His yellow shirt was open at the throat, showing his body to be old and thin. He and the rags he was wearing, from his long loose socks to his long, open robe, were all of the same colour now, which is the weak yellow of a dried goat's skin when it is used for paper.
He had put a hand up between his eyes and the light, and one could almost see the light coming through it. He sat for a time like that, with an empty look in his eyes. Each time he looked at the man in front of him, he would first look down at the floor on each side of himself, like he was trying to find where the voice was coming from. And his talking was the same. He would look around and forget what it was that he was going to say.
"Will you finish those shoes today?” asked Defarge, moving his arm to call Mr. Lorry forward.
"What did you say?"
"Do you plan to finish those shoes today?"
"I can't say what I plan. I may, but I don't know."
The question made him remember his work, and return to it.
Mr. Lorry came quietly forward, leaving the daughter by the door. When he had been standing for a minute or two beside Defarge, the shoemaker looked up. He showed no surprise at seeing another person there, but the shaking fingers of one hand went to his lips as he looked (His lips and his nails were of the same grey colour.) and then his hand dropped back to working on the shoe.
"You see, you have a visitor," Mr. Defarge said.
"What did you say?"
"Here is a visitor."
Still holding the shoe, the shoemaker looked up.
"Come!" said Defarge. "Here is a man who knows a well-made shoe when he sees one. Show him that shoe you are working on. Take it, sir."
Mr. Lorry took the shoe in his hand.
"Tell him what kind of shoe it is, and the maker's name."
There was a long wait before the shoemaker answered.
"I cannot remember what it was you asked me. What did you say?"
"I said, could you tell this man something about the shoe?"
"It is a woman's shoe. A young woman's walking shoe. It is what they wear now, but I have not seen them wearing it. I was given a pattern for it.” He looked at the shoe with a touch of pride.
"And the maker's name?” asked Defarge.
Now that he had no work to hold, the old man put the fist of his right hand in the bowl of his left, and then the fist of the left in the bowl of the right, and then passed a hand across his beard. He repeated this over and over without a break. Trying to keep his interest in what was happening was like trying to wake a very weak person from a faint, or to get the last few words from a dying man.
"Did you ask me for my name?”
"Yes, I truly did."
"One hundred and five, North Tower.
"Is that all?"
"One hundred and five, North Tower."
Wit
h a tired sound, between a groan and a sad breathing out, he returned to work, until this time Mr. Lorry spoke, looking straight at him as he asked, "Was shoemaking always your job?"
His tired eyes turned to Defarge, like he was asking Defarge to answer for him. When Defarge did not help him, he looked at the ground and then back to the questioner.
"It was not always my job? No, it was not. I learned it here, teaching myself. I asked if I could..."
He fell away again, for quite some time, doing those same movements with his hands all the while. His eyes came slowly back, at last, to the face from which they had left. When they landed on it, he jumped a little and started talking again, like one waking from a sleep and starting to talk about what they did the night before.
"I asked them to let me teach myself. It was a long time coming, but I have been making shoes from that time to now."
As he held his hand out for the shoe that had been taken from him, Mr. Lorry said, still looking straight into his face, "Mr. Manette, do you remember nothing of me?"
The shoe dropped to the ground, and he sat looking at the questioner.
"Mr. Manette.” Mr. Lorry put his hand on Defarge's arm. "Do you remember nothing of this man? Look at him. Look at me. Can you not remember an old banker? Some old business? An old servant? Something from the past, Mr. Manette?"
As the man who had been a prisoner for so many years sat looking, from Mr. Lorry to Mr. Defarge, some long covered pieces of his mind slowly forced themselves through the black fog that covered him. The fog returned and the light soon left his face, but it had been there.
Something like this was also happening on the beautiful young face of the girl who had been moving along the wall to a place where she could see him. She was standing there now, reaching out with hands that before had been lifted only in fear. Now she reached out in love, wanting to hold that ghost-like face to her breast, and to love it back to life and hope.
Darkness took the place of the light that had touched Mr. Manette for a few seconds. He became less interested in the others and then his eyes went looking for the floor again, before picking up the shoe and returning to work.
"Could you see who he was?” Defarge asked in a whisper.
"Yes, for a second," Mr. Lorry answered. "At first I thought he was too far gone, but I have clearly seen for just one second, the face that I once knew so well. But say no more. Let us move back. Say no more."
His daughter had moved away from the wall, and was very near the bench on which he sat. There was something awful about him showing such interest in his work that he did not even know she was there. She was so close that she could have touched him.
Not a word was said. Not a sound was made. She stood there beside him like a ghost, and he leaned over his work.
It happened, after some time, that he needed to change the instrument in his hand for a shoemaker's knife. It was on the side of him that was opposite to where she stood, so he picked it up without seeing her. But when he turned back to his work, he saw the bottom of her dress out of the corner of his eye. He looked up and saw her face. The other men started to move forward, but she stopped them with a movement of her hand. She had no reason to be afraid of him hurting her with the knife, but that was what the others had feared.
He looked up in fear. His lips started to shape words, but no sound came out. Little by little he was able to say, "What is this?"
With tears running down her face, she put her hands to her lips and kissed them to him. Then she put them together over her heart, as she put his head there.
"You are not the prison guard's daughter?”
"No."
"Who are you?"
Not yet trusting her voice, she sat down on the bench beside him. He moved back, but she put her hand softly on his arm. A strange feeling went through him when she did this, and it could be seen going through his body. He put the knife down quietly, and sat looking at her.
Her long golden hair had been pushed back, and fell down in loops over her neck. Moving his hand little by little in that direction, he at last touched the hair, lifted it, and looked at it. In the middle of that action, his mind walked off again, and he returned to his shoemaking. But not for long.
She moved her hand from his arm to his shoulder. After looking at it one or two times, as if to be sure it was really there, he put his work down, reached behind his neck, and took off a dirty old string with a small piece of folded cloth joined to it. He opened it carefully on one knee and took out one or two pieces of long golden hair that he had at some time in the past looped many times around his finger before folding it in the piece of material.
He lifted the girl's hair again and looked at it more closely. "It is the same! How can it be? When was it...? How was it...?"
As he was thinking deeply, he seemed to know that she was thinking deeply too. He turned her so that the light was on her face, and looked at her.
"She put her head on my shoulder that night, when I was asked to come. She was afraid of what it would mean, but I did not see a problem. And when I was taken to the North Tower, they found these hairs on my sleeve. 'You will leave them for me?' I had asked. 'They can never help me to break out, but they can help my spirit to be free.' Those were the words I said. I remember them very well."
He shaped each of these words many times with his lips before they were said. But when he said them, the words were clear, even if they were slow in coming.
"How was this...? Was it you?"
Again, the other two moved to help when they saw him turn to her so quickly and with such feeling. But she sat perfectly still, with him holding her, and only said in a low voice, "Please, good friends, do not come near us, do not speak, do not move!"
"Listen!" he said with surprise. "Whose voice was that?"
He dropped his hold on the girl and put his hands to his head, tearing crazily at the white hair. His emotions soon died down, as everything died down apart from his shoemaking. He folded the hairs back into the cloth, and tried to hide them back over his heart. But he still looked at her, sadly shaking his head.
"No, no, no. You're too young. It can't be. Look at this prisoner. These are not the hands she knew. This is not the face she knew. This is not the voice she ever heard. No, no. She was, and he was -- before the slow years of the North Tower -- far in the past. But what is your name, my little angel?"
Welcoming his softer voice and actions, his daughter fell onto her knees in front of him, with her hands reaching up to his chest.
"Oh, sir, at another time you will know my name and the names of my parents, and how I never knew the history of their hard, hard life. But I cannot tell you now, and I cannot tell you here. All that I can tell you here and now is that I want you to touch me and to bless me. Kiss me. Kiss me, you kind, sweet man!"
His cold white head came together with her bright yellow hair, which warmed and lighted him as if it were the light of liberation.
"If you hear in my voice -- I don't know if you do, but I hope you do -- if you hear in my voice anything that is like a voice that once was sweet music in your ears, cry for it, cry for it! If you feel anything in touching my hair that makes you remember the head of a loved one who put her head on your chest when you were young and free, cry for it, cry for it! If my promise of a home where I will care for you makes you think of a home that was sadly empty while you were away, cry for it, cry for it!
She hugged him closer, around the neck, and moved from side to side with him against her breast, like she was holding a child.
"If I tell you that I have come here to take you to England to be at peace, and it makes you think of how our country here in France was so evil to you, then cry for it, cry for it! And if, when I tell you my name and the name of my father, who is alive, and mother, who is dead... if you learn that I have to beg my father for forgiveness for never having worried about him, because my mother did not tell me about the t
orture that he was put through, cry for it, cry for it! Cry first for her, and then for me! Good man, thank God! I feel his holy tears on my face, and the sadness that he feels I feel in my heart. Oh see! Thank God for us. Thank God!"
He had joined her on his knees, having given in to her hug; and he dropped his head onto her breast. It was a picture so touching, but so awful in the great wrong and the great pain which had gone before it, that the two looking on covered their faces.
After a long time with no one saying a word, when the man's heart and body had stopped shaking and were at peace, like the peace that comes after a storm, and like the peace that comes at the end of Life, the others moved forward to lift the father and daughter from the ground. He had slowly dropped off to sleep, and she had dropped to the floor with him, so that he could rest his head on her arm, with her hair protecting his face from the light.
"If you can do it without waking him," she said to Mr. Lorry as he leaned over them, "could you get tickets for us to leave Paris today, so he can go to England straight from this room?"
"Think first. Is he ready for such a long trip?” asked Mr. Lorry.
"He is ready for that more than he is ready for more of this awful city and what they have done to him."
"That's true," said Defarge, who was on his knees beside them now, so that he could hear better. "For many reasons it would be best for Mr. Manette to be out of Paris. Do you want me to send for a coach with fast horses?"
"That's business," said Mr. Lorry, who quickly returned to his job as a businessman. "If there is business to do, then I should be the one to do it."
"Then be so kind," Miss Manette asked, "as to leave us here. You see how quiet he is. Surely you cannot be afraid to leave me with him now. There is no reason to be. If you will lock the door to keep others from coming in, I am sure you will find him as quiet when you return as he is now. I will care for him until you return, and then we can take him straight out of here."
Both Mr. Lorry and Defarge were against doing that, wanting at least one of them to stay with the girl. But as they needed to get the coach and horses, as well as travelling papers, and as the day was quickly coming to an end, they agreed to share the jobs between them, and to start at once.
With darkness closing in, the daughter joined her father on the floor, close to his side, and watched him. It became darker and darker, and they both lay quietly, until a light came through the holes in the wall.
Mr. Lorry and Mr. Defarge had made everything ready for the trip. They had brought coats and scarves, bread, meat, wine, and hot coffee. Mr. Defarge put these and the lantern he was carrying on the bench (There was nothing else in the room but the man's thin mattress on the floor.) and he and Mr. Lorry encouraged the old prisoner to wake up, before helping him to his feet.
No person could possibly know the secrets of the man's mind through the scared empty look of surprise on his face. Did he know what was happening? Could he remember what they had said? Did he understand that he was free? These are questions that all the education in the world could not have given an answer to. They tried speaking to him, but he was so confused and so slow with his answers, that they agreed to not push him farther at this time. He had at times, a wild, lost look when he would grab his head strongly with both hands, an action they had not seen him do earlier. But one could still see that he knew his daughter's voice, and he would turn to it each time she spoke.
In the way of one who has been forced to obey for many years, he, without a word, ate what he was given and put on the coat and scarves that they gave him to wear. He was happy for his daughter to put her arm through his, and he took her hand in both of his.
They started down the steps. Mr. Defarge was first, carrying the lantern, and Mr. Lorry was last. They were not far down through the tower of steps leading down from the fifth floor, when he stopped, looking at the roof, and around at the walls.
"Do you remember this place, father? Do you remember coming up here?"
"What did you say?"
But before she could ask her question again, he gave an answer, as if he had heard it a second time.
"Remember? No, I don't remember. It was so long ago."
It was clear to them that he did not remember coming from the prison to the house. They heard him say softly, "One hundred and five, North Tower," and when he looked around, it was clear that he was looking for the strong walls of the prison. When they came to the closed yard, he changed the way he was walking, thinking that a bridge would be lifted, as they had in the prison. Then, when he saw the coach waiting in the street, he dropped his daughter's hand and put his hands to his head again.
There was no crowd in the yard, no head looking out the windows, not even one person walking by in the street. It was strangely quiet. Only one person was there, and that was Madam Defarge, who was leaning against the door, knitting. And she saw nothing.
The prisoner was already inside the coach, followed by his daughter when Mr. Lorry was stopped on the step by Mr. Manette asking, sadly, for his tools and for the half finished shoes. Madam Defarge shouted out that she would get them, and she went, knitting, out of the light from the coach lantern, into the yard, and up the steps. She soon returned with them, handed them in, then returned to lean against the door, knitting. And she saw nothing.
Defarge jumped up on the shelf at the back of the coach and shouted, "To the border!" The driver cracked his whip, and the coach rolled down the street, under the weak lanterns hanging on ropes over their heads.
They rolled under those lanterns -- brighter in the better streets and weaker in the worse -- by lighted shops, happy crowds, busy coffee houses, and theatre doors to one of the city gates. Soldiers were standing with lanterns at the guard house.
"Your papers, travellers.”
"See here, Officer," said Defarge, jumping down and moving away from the coach. "These are the papers for the old man inside with the white head. They were given to me with him, at the...” He dropped his voice, and there was much movement around the army lanterns before one of the lanterns was pushed into the coach at the end of an arm in a uniform. The eyes at the end of the arm looked at the man with the white head in a way that was strangely different from how he looked at other people.
"It is well. Forward!" said the uniform.
"Goodbye!" from Defarge.
And so it went, under weaker and weaker hanging lanterns until they were out under the great covering of the stars.
Under those eternal lights, some so far from earth that the scientists say their light has not even reached our planet yet. Out there, the shadows of the night were wide and black. All through the cold rough night those shadows whispered again to Mr. Jarvis Lorry, who was sitting opposite the buried man who had been uncovered. He was asking himself what abilities had left the man forever and what abilities could be returned to him with time. The old question came to him again:
"I hope you want to be called back to life?” And the old answer: "I cannot say."
The End of the First Book
