A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities Page 11

by Dave Mckay

  ****

  I am running out of paper. One was taken from me yesterday with a warning. I must finish my letter today.

  She was a good, kind woman, and she was not happy with her husband. How could she be! Her husband’s brother did not trust her and did not like her, and he did what he could to hurt her. She was afraid of him, and afraid of her husband too. When I walked her out the door, I found she had a child, a beautiful boy between two and three years old, in her coach.

  “For him, Doctor,” she said, pointing to him in tears, “I want to make up for what has happened. He will never be happy with being part of this family if I do not. I have a feeling that if nothing can be done to pay for what has happened, one day he will have to pay for it. What I have left to call my own -- it is little more than the price of some jewelry -- I will make it the first job that he must do when he is able, in the name of his dead mother's love, to give this to the family of that girl, if the sister can be found."

  She kissed the boy, and said, touching him softly, "It is for your own good. You will do it, won't you, Charles?” The child answered her bravely, "Yes!" I kissed her hand, and she took him in her arms and went away hugging him. I never saw her again.

  Because she gave me her husband's name, believing that I already knew it, I did not give his name in my letter. I closed it, and not trusting anyone else to carry it for me, I took it to the government myself that day.

  That night, the last night of the year, toward nine o'clock, a man dressed in black came to my gate, asking to see me, and he secretly followed my servant, a young boy named Ernest Defarge, up the steps when he came to tell me. When my servant came into the room where I was sitting with my wife -- Oh, my wife, the love of my life! My beautiful young English wife! -- we saw the man, who should have been out at the gate, standing quietly behind him.

  He said there was a serious case that I needed to see. It would not take long, and he had a coach waiting for me.

  It brought me here, to my death. When I was away from the house, a black scarf was tied tightly over my mouth from behind, and my arms were tied. The two brothers crossed the road from a dark corner, and showed that it was me with a movement of their hands. The Marquis took the letter I had written out of his pocket, showed it to me, and burned it in the flame from the lantern he was holding, then put out the last of the fire with his foot.

  Not one word was said. I was brought here. I was brought to this living death.

  If it had pleased God to put it in the hard heart of either of the brothers, in all these awful years, to send me any news from my sweet wife -- so much as to let me know if she was alive or dead -- I might have believed that he had not quite given up hope for them. But now, I believe that the mark of the red cross is death to them, and that they have no part in his mercy. Not to them, and not to any of their children, to the end of that family. I, Alexander Manette, sad prisoner, do this last night of the year 1767, in my great pain, mark them as evil until the time when they must give an answer for all these things. I mark them as evil before heaven and earth.

  _______________

  An awful noise came from the crowd after the reading of this letter. A sound of hunger and emotion that had no clear meaning apart from blood. The story called up the deepest feelings of hate at the time, and there was not a head in the country that they would not have dropped before it.

  There was little need for that court and for that crowd to ask why the Defarges had not shown the papers before this. There was little need to show that this hated family name had long been marked by Saint Antoine and was knitted into their death list. No man has ever walked the earth whose good acts and emotions would have protected him in that place on that day against such a story.

  And it was even worse for the man who was to die for it that the one who pointed him out was a countryman who everyone knew and loved; he was his own close friend; and he was the father of his wife. One of the crazy things that people from all countries and all times cry out for are great shows of service to the country, where one is prepared to die or to let a loved one die for it. So when the President said (partly because his own head would be in danger if he had not said it) that the good Doctor of the new government would be loved even more by the people for helping them to destroy a hated high class family, and that he would surely feel a holy happiness by having his daughter's husband and her child's father killed, the people went wild with happiness and enthusiasm for their country, without the smallest feeling for what the Doctor or his family were going through.

  "Much effect around him, has that Doctor?” whispered Madam Defarge, smiling, to The Punisher. "Save him now, my Doctor. Save him now!"

  As each member of the jury voted, there were loud shouts from the crowd. Another and another. Shouts and more shouts.

  They all agreed. At heart and by family he was part of the rich class, an enemy of the people's government, one who had worked to bring pain to the people. He must go back to the court prison and be killed before twenty-four hours were out!

  11. The Sun Goes Down

  The poor wife of the innocent man who was soon to die, was also hurt badly by what the judge said, as if she was the one to die. But she said nothing; and a voice inside her so strongly told her that it was her job to make his leaving as easy as possible, that it quickly lifted her above even that awful pain.

  Because there was a show being planned for outside the court, and because the judges were to be part of it, the court closed. The noise of people leaving the room by many doors had not yet ended when Lucie stood, reaching her arms out toward her husband, with nothing in her face but feelings of love for him.

  "Could I just touch him? Could I give him one last hug? Oh, good countrymen, will you please show us that much kindness?"

  There was only one guard left, two of the men who had taken him the night before, and Barsad. The people had all left for the street show. Barsad said to the others, "Let her hug him; it'll only take a minute.” The others said nothing against it, and even helped her over the seats to a place near the stage, where he could lean over the counter between them and hold her in his arms.

  "Goodbye, sweet love of my soul. My last words to you, my love: We will meet again, where the tired all find rest!"

  That was what her husband said as he hugged her.

  "I can go through this, sweet Charles. God is helping me; do not feel sad for me. Do you have a last word for our child?"

  "I send it to her by you. I kiss her by you. I say goodbye to her by you."

  "My husband. No! One more second!" He was pulling himself away from her. "We will not be separated for long. I feel that this will soon kill me, but I'll do what I can for her for now, and when I leave, God will find friends for her as he did for me."

  Her father had followed her and fell on his knees to both of them, but Darnay put his hand out and grabbed him, crying, "No, no!

  What have you done that you should have to bow before us? We know now what you went through in the past. We know now what you went through when you learned who my family was. We know now how hard it must have been for you not to hate me, and you did it all for her. We thank you with all our hearts and with all of our love. God be with you!"

  Her father's only answer was to push his hands through his white hair and to squeeze them together with a high cry of pain.

  "It could not be other than this," said the prisoner. "All things have been leading to this. I had been trying, without luck, to do as my mother had asked when I first met you. Good could never come from such an evil start. A happier ending would not be right. Be encouraged, and forgive me. God bless you!"

  As he was pulled away, his wife let him go and stood looking after him with her hands touching one another like she was praying. She had a loving look on her face, in which there was even a little smile to make him feel better. As he went through the prisoners' door, she put her head lovingly on her father's chest, t
ried to speak, and then fell at his feet.

  Hurrying from that quiet corner of the room where he had been sitting since he arrived, Sydney Carton came over and lifted her up. Only her father and Mr. Lorry were with her. His arm was shaking as he lifted her and held her head. Yet there was a spirit about him that was not at all feeling sad for her. It was more like he was proud of her.

  "Should I carry her to the coach? I'll never feel her weight."

  He carried her to the door, and put her down softly in a coach. Her father and Mr. Lorry climbed in, and he sat up with the driver.

  When they arrived at the gate, where he had waited in the dark not many hours before, thinking to himself about which of the rough stones her feet had stepped on, he lifted her again and carried her up the steps to the rooms. There he put her down on a couch, where her child and Miss Pross cried over her.

  "Don't try to wake her," he said softly to Miss Pross. "She is better off sleeping now. She has only fainted."

  "Oh Carton, Carton, my good Carton!" cried little Lucie, jumping up and throwing her arms lovingly around him, as she broke into tears. "Now that you are here, I think you will do something to help my mum and daddy! Look at her, Carton! Does it hurt you to see her like this?"

  He leaned over the child and put her cheek against his face. He then pushed her back and looked at her sleeping mother.

  "Before I go," he said, and then waited... "Can I kiss her?"

  It was remembered after that, that when he leaned down and touched her face with his lips, he whispered some words. The child, who was closest to him, told them later, and told her grandchildren when she was a beautiful old woman, that she heard him say, "A life you love."

  When he was in the next room, he turned quickly to Mr. Lorry and her father, who were following him, and said to her father:

  "You had great effect just yesterday, Doctor Manette; try again now. These judges, and all those in power here, are very friendly to you. They see what good work you've done, do they not?"

  "They kept nothing about Charles secret from me. I had their promise that I could save him; and I did.” He gave the answer with much trouble, and he spoke very slowly.

  "Try them again. The hours between now and tomorrow afternoon are few and short, but do try."

  "I plan to try. I will not rest one minute."

  "That's good. I've known of people like yourself working hard and doing great things before now... Never," he added, with a smile and a deep breathing out, "anything so great as this, but do try! When life is not used well, it is worth very little, so at least try. It costs nothing to give away a life that has not been used well."

  "I will go," said Doctor Manette, "straight to the government lawyer and the President, and to others whom it is better not to name. I will write too, and... but wait! There is a show going on in the streets, and I will not be able to talk to anyone until dark."

  "That's true. It is a last hope at best, and not much worse for being put off until it is dark. But I would like to know how it goes. I am not counting on anything. When do you think you could see these powerful men, Doctor Manette?"

  "When it's dark... not more than an hour or two from now."

  "It will be dark soon after four. Let us give you more than an hour or two. If I go to Mr. Lorry's at nine, will I be able to learn then how it went, either from our friend or from you?"

  "Yes."

  "Good luck!"

  Mr. Lorry followed Carton to the outside door and, touching him on the shoulder as he was leaving, made him turn around.

  "I have no hope," said Mr. Lorry, in a low and sad whisper.

  "I don't either."

  "If any one of these men... or even if all the them could be talked into saving him -- which is very difficult to believe, because his life is of no interest to them -- I do not think they would act, because of the feeling they saw in the crowd in the court."

  "I agree. I could hear the axe fall in the sound of the crowd."

  Mr. Lorry put his arm on the door post and rested his face on it.

  "Don't be so sad," said Carton very softly. "Don't be sad. I encouraged Doctor Manette to try because I believed that one day it would make her feel better to know that he tried. If not, she might one day think that her father's whole life had been wasted, and that could trouble her."

  "Yes, yes, yes," returned Mr. Lorry, drying his eyes. "You're right. But he will perish all the same. There is no real hope."

  "Yes, he will perish. There is no real hope," Carton returned. And he walked with clear, strong steps down to the gate.

  12. Darkness

  Sydney Carton waited for a while in the street, not sure where to go. "Tellson's at nine," he said, thinking. "Is it wise to show my face before then? I think so. It is best that these people know that there is such a man here; it is a good way to prepare them. But I must be very careful. Let me think it out!"

  He had already started in a special direction when he stopped and turned around to think about what could be the effects of his plan. On thinking, he reasoned that the plan was a good one. "It is best," he said, now strongly in agreement with the plan, "that these people should know that there is such a man here.” And he turned his face toward Saint Antoine.

  Defarge had said in court that day that he owned a wine shop in Saint Antoine. It was not difficult for one who knew the city well, to find his house without asking. Having worked out where it was, Carton stopped at a restaurant for dinner, after which he fell asleep. For the first time in many years, he had no strong drink with his meal. Since the night before, he had only taken a little light wine. The night before he had poured the strong drink at Mr. Lorry's in the fireplace, a little at a time, making Mr. Lorry think that he was drinking it.

  By seven o'clock he was awake again, and feeling good, so he returned to the streets. As he walked through the streets toward Saint Antoine, he stopped at a shop window where there was a mirror, and he moved his tie to make it straight. He did the same with his coat, and with his wild hair. When he was finished, he walked straight to Defarge's and went in.

  There were no other people drinking there apart from Jack Three, the one with a rough voice and fingers that always moved around his mouth. He had been part of the jury, and now he was talking with the Defarges as he stood drinking at the counter. The Punisher was there too, like she was part of the business now.

  As Carton walked in, took a seat, and asked (in very poor French) for a small measure of wine, Madam Defarge looked with little interest in his direction. Then she looked again, and then a third time with much interest. She walked up to him and asked what it was that he had asked for.

  He repeated what he had already said.

  "Are you English?” asked Madam Defarge, lifting her dark eyebrows to show her interest.

  After looking at her as if the sound of even one French word was difficult for him to understand, he answered with a strong English sound to his words, "Yes, Madam, yes. I am English!"

  Madam Defarge returned to her counter to get the wine, and he took up a magazine written by a leader in the fight to start the new government. As he acted like it was very difficult for him to read and understand the magazine, he could hear her saying, "I'm telling you the truth, he looks just like Evremonde!"

  Defarge brought the wine and said good evening in French.

  "How?"

  "Good evening."

  "Oh! Good evening, countryman.” Filling his glass he said, "Ah! And good wine. I drink to the new government."

  Defarge went back to the counter and said, "True, he is a little like him.” Madam seriously argued back, "I tell you, he is a lot like him.” Jack Three, trying to make peace, said, "He is so much in your mind, Madam, that you see him there.” The Punisher answered with a friendly laugh, "Yes, quite true! And you are looking forward with so much enthusiasm to seeing him again tomorrow!"

  Carton followed the lines and words of his paper wi
th a slowly moving finger, and with a serious, studying face. They were all leaning their arms on the counter close together and talking softly.

  After a short time when they said nothing and just looked toward him, without seeing any sign that he was thinking about anything but the magazine he was reading, they returned to talking.

  "It's true what Madam says," pointed out Jack Three. "Why stop? Things are going well, so why stop now?"

  "Well, well," reasoned Defarge, "but one must stop somewhere. After all, the question is still, Where?"

  "When they are all gone," said Madam.

  "Perfect!" said Jack Three. The Punisher also agreed highly.

  "Killing all of them is a good plan, my wife," said Defarge, a little worried. "For the most part I say nothing against it. But this Doctor has been through so much. You saw him today. You saw his face when the paper was read."

  "Yes, I did see his face!" repeated Madam with a show of anger and hate. "Yes. I have seen his face. I have seen that it is not the face of a true friend of the new government. Let him be careful about that face!"

  "And did you see, my wife," asked Defarge, humbly disagreeing with her, "the pain that his daughter was going through? That must have brought an awful pain to him!"

  "I have seen the daughter," repeated Madam. "Yes, I have seen his daughter more than once. I saw her today, but I have seen her other days too. I have seen her in the court and I have seen her in the street by the prison. Just let me lift my finger...!" The listener's eyes were always on his paper, but it seemed that she lifted her finger and let it fall with a bump on the counter in front of her, as if the axe had dropped.

  "The countrywoman knows best!" said the man from the jury.

  "She is an angel!" said The Punisher, and she hugged her.

  "As for you," went on Madam, whose anger was not going to be stopped, as she turned to her husband, "if it was up to you, and I am happy that it is not, you would rescue this man even now."

  "No!" argued Defarge. "Not even if just lifting this glass would do it! But I would leave it there. I say stop there."

  "See this, Jack," said Madam Defarge, angrily, "and see you too, my little Punisher. Listen, both of you! For many evil acts I have had this family on my list for a long time, named to be destroyed. Ask my husband if this is so."

  "It is so," said Defarge, without being asked.

  "At the start of the great days, when the prison fell, he found the paper we read today. He brought it home in the middle of the night, when this place was empty and closed. We read it here, where we are now, by the light of this lantern. Ask him if it is so."

  "It is so," agreed Defarge.

  "That night, I told him, when we had finished reading the paper, and when the lantern had burned out, and the morning was starting to show through those window covers and between those iron bars, that I had a secret to tell him. Ask him, if that is so."

  "It is so," agreed Defarge again.

  "I told him that secret. I hit both of my hands on my chest as I am doing now, and I told him, 'Defarge, I was brought up by people who fish on the beach, and that poor family that was so hurt by the two Evremonde brothers, as that prison paper says, is my family! Defarge, that sister of the boy who was on the ground dying was my sister, and that husband who was killed was my sister's husband. That baby that was never born was their child, that brother was my brother, that father was my father, and those dead are my dead. The job of making someone answer for those things falls to me!' Ask him if it is so."

  "It is so," said Defarge one more time.

  "So tell wind and fire where to stop," returned Madam, "but don't tell me."

  Both of the people hearing the story listened with a sick enthusiasm for the cruel spirit of her anger, and they said as much.

  The other, secret, listener could feel how white she had turned, without looking up at her. Defarge, who was on his own, said a few words for the loving wife of the Marquis, but that only brought from his wife a repeat of the words she had just said. "Tell the wind and fire where to stop; not me!"

  Some people came into the shop, and the group broke up. The Englishman paid for his drink, showed confusion when counting his coins; and asked, as if he was a stranger there, how to find the government building. Madam Defarge took him to the door, putting her arm in his as she pointed out the road. The Englishman had the thought at the time that it might be good for everyone if he were to grab that arm, lift it, and hit under it both sharply and deeply.

  But he went on his way, and was soon standing in the shadow of the prison wall. At the right time, he left there to go see Mr. Lorry in his room again. He found the man walking up and down in great worry and fear. He said he had been with Lucie until just then, and he had only left her for a few minutes to come and keep his meeting with Sydney Carton. Her father had not been seen since he left the bank just before four o'clock. She had some weak hope that his actions might save Charles, but they were very weak. He had been gone more than five hours now. Where could he be?

  Mr. Lorry waited until ten, but when Doctor Manette had not returned, he felt he must go back and see how Lucie was, and return to the bank room again at midnight. Carton could wait for the Doctor by himself in front of the fire.

  He waited and waited, and by midnight the Doctor had still not come back. Mr. Lorry returned with no news of him, and he found none. Where could he be?

  They were talking about this and were starting to hope that the long wait was because the Doctor had found someone to help him, when they heard him coming up the steps. The minute he came into the room they could see that all hope was lost.

  They never learned if he had really been to see anyone or if he had been walking the streets all that time. As he stood looking at them, they asked him no question, because his face told them everything.

  "I cannot find it," he said. "I must have it. Where is it?"

  He had no hat or scarf on, and as he spoke with that sad lost look all around himself, he took off his coat and let it drop on the floor.

  "Where is my bench? I have been looking everywhere for my bench, and I can't find it. What have they done with my work. Time is coming to an end; I must finish those shoes."

  They looked at each other and their hearts died inside them.

  "Come, come!" he said in a weak, crying way. "Let me get to work. Give me my work."

  Receiving no answer, he pulled at his hair and hit his feet on the ground like a confused child.

  "Don't be cruel to a poor lost man," he begged them, with a sad cry. "Just give me my work! What is to become of us if those shoes are not finished tonight?"

  Lost,. In every way lost!

  There was so clearly no hope of being able to say anything that would help him, that they each, as if by agreement, put a hand on his shoulder and encouraged him to sit down in front of the fire, with a promise that he would soon have his work. He dropped into the chair and looked into the fire as tears rolled down his face. As if all that had happened since his days in the room over the wine shop was only a dream, Mr. Lorry saw him return to the same man that Defarge had kept safe many years earlier.

  This awful change filled them both with fear, but they knew it was not a time for giving in to such feelings. The needs of his daughter, who would now be without help from her last hope, were too strong for them to do that. Again, as if by agreement, they looked at one another with the same meaning in their faces. Carton was the first to speak:

  "Our last hope is gone; it never was much anyway. Yes, he should be taken to her; but, before you go, will you listen very closely to me for a minute? Don't ask me why I make the rules I am going to make, or why I ask for the promise for which I am going to ask. I have a reason... a very good one."

  "I trust you on that," answered Mr. Lorry. "Go on."

  The person in the chair between them did not stop moving forward and backward in it, and making sad sounds as he did. Their quiet, serio
us voices were like those of people sitting by the bed of a sick person through the night.

  Carton leaned over to pick up the coat, which was lying at his feet. As he did, a leather container that the Doctor used to hold a list of jobs that he needed to do each day, fell lightly on the floor. He picked it up and there was a folded piece of paper in it. "We should look at this!" he said. Mr. Lorry moved his head to show that he agreed. Carton opened it and cried out, "Thank God!"

  "What is it?” asked Mr. Lorry with great interest.

  "Just a minute! Let me show you something else first.” He put his hand in his coat and took out another paper from it. "That is the paper that makes it possible for me to leave the city. You see... Sydney Carton, Englishman."

  Mr. Lorry held the open paper in his hand as he looked at Sydney's serious face.

  "Keep it for me until tomorrow. I'll see him tomorrow, remember, and I had better not take it into the prison."

  "Why not?"

  "I don't know; I just don't want to take it with me. Now, take this paper that Doctor Manette was carrying. It is the same kind of paper for him and his daughter and her child, and will let them go through all of the gates between here and the border. See?"

  "Yes."

  "He may have asked for it as his last protection against evil yesterday. What is the day on it? But it's not important; don't take time to look now; put it with mine and with your own. Now, listen! I had always thought, before now, that he either had such a paper or that he could easily get one. The pass is good until they ask for it back. But that could soon happen, and I have reason to think that it will."

  "Are they in danger?"

  "They are in great danger. They are in danger of Madam Defarge pointing her finger at them. I have heard it from her own lips. Just tonight I heard her talking and what she said painted a clear picture of the danger. I have not wasted any time, and since then I have been to see our spy friend. He agrees. He knows that a woodcutter, living by the prison wall, is under the control of the Defarges, and he has been talked to by Madam Defarge about having seen her making signs to prisoners.” Sydney Carton never used Lucie's name. "It's easy to see that they'll use the argument that they have used against so many others, which is that they are part of a secret plan against the government. If they do, her life, maybe her child's life, and maybe her father's too -- for both have been seen with her there -- will be in danger. Do not look so awfully afraid. You can save them all."

  "May God help me to do that, Carton! But how?"

  "I am going to tell you how. You are the only one who can make it work, and there could be no better man for the job. This new attack on the Manettes will surely not happen until after tomorrow, not until at least two or three days after, and I think it would be more like a week. You know that people can be killed just for crying over someone who is being killed by the guillotine. She and her father will surely be guilty of that, and this woman (whose evil words against others have been so strong for so long that there are not enough words for telling of it) would wait to add that to her case against them, so she can be twice as sure of having them killed. Do you follow me?"

  "So closely and with so much confidence in the truth of what you are saying that for now I see it as even more important than this other problem," he said, touching the back of the Doctor's chair.

  "You have money, and you can pay for travel to the border as quickly as the trip can be made. Plans for your own trip back to England have been made for some days now. Early tomorrow, get your horses together, so that they will be ready to leave at two in the afternoon."

  "It'll be done!"

  Sydney Carton's way was so strong and full of spirit, that enthusiasm for it moved from him to Mr. Lorry, making the older man think and act like he was young again.

  "You have a good heart. Did I tell you that there is no better person for this job? Tell her tonight about the danger to herself, her child, and her father. Don't forget the child and father, because she would gladly lay her own head down beside her husband's.” His voice shook a little as he said this, but then he went on. "For her child and her father, make it clear to her that she must leave Paris with them at that time. Tell her that it was her husband's last act to set it up for them. Tell her that there is more resting on this than she has the confidence to hope for or believe. Do you think that her father, even in his sad spirit at the present, will go along with what she says?"

  "I am sure of it."

  "I thought so. Quietly and slowly bring everyone together here in the yard, even to the point of you taking your own seat in the coach. Then, the second I come to you, take me in and drive away."

  "Do I understand that I should wait for you at all costs?"

  "You have my pass in your hand with the others, you know, so please do save my place. Do not wait for anything else, only for me to be in my seat, and then off to England!"

  "So," said Mr. Lorry, grabbing his confident, strong hand, "it does not all rest on one old man. I will have a young enthusiastic man at my side."

  "With God's help you will! Promise me seriously that nothing will make you change the plans that we have now agreed on with one another."

  "Nothing, Carton."

  "Remember these words tomorrow: If you change the plan, or if you are too slow in following it -- for any reason -- no lives can be saved, and many lives will be lost."

  "I will remember them. I hope to do my part faithfully."

  "And I hope to do mine. Now, goodbye!"

  He said it with a serious smile, and he even put the old man's hand to his lips, but he did not leave just then. Instead, he helped to lift the man who was sitting in front of the dying fire enough to get a coat and hat on him, and to tempt him to leave the house by saying that they would go together to find where the bench and his work were hiding, as he was still begging to find them. He walked on one side of the old man, protecting him on the way to the yard of the house where that other sad heart was waiting through the awful night. He was, himself, very happy at that time as he thought about the time when he had opened his own empty heart to her. He went into the yard and stayed there alone for a few minutes, looking up at the light in the window of her room. Before he went away, he breathed a blessing toward it, and a last goodbye.

  13. Fifty-Two

  In the black prison by the court, those who were to be killed were waiting for their death. Their number was the same as the number of weeks in a year. Fifty-two were to roll that afternoon on the waves of the city to the eternal ocean. Even before they had left their rooms, new people were being lined up to take their places; before their blood ran into the blood that was poured out yesterday, the blood that was to mix with theirs tomorrow was already being set apart.

  Fifty-two people were being counted out. From the seventy-year-old land owner, whose wealth could not buy his life, to the twenty-year-old dressmaker who had not been protected by being poor either. Sicknesses, growing out of things that people do or that they don't do, will come to people of all classes; and the awful confusion about what is right that came from living for many years under a cruel and selfish government of hate, had the effect of hurting people from all classes too.

  Charles Darnay, alone in his prison room, had kept himself going without trying to hide from the truth that he had seen in the court. In every line of the letter they had read out at the court, he could hear how his life was going to end. He knew quite well that no action from a person here or a person there was going to change what was the will of millions of people.

  But it was not easy, with the face of his loved wife still clear in his mind, to think about what was ahead for him. It was very difficult to let loose of the strong hold that he had on life. Little by little he could open one fist, but then the other one would squeeze even more tightly; and when he would work on opening that hand, then the first hand would close again. His mind was also working hard against letting go, because it see
med selfish for him to stop thinking about his wife and child, who would have to live after him.

  But all of this was only how he thought at first. Before long, other thoughts came to make him stronger. He knew he had done nothing wrong, and he knew there were many other innocent people who were going through the same thing. Next followed the thought that it would be easier for those he loved if he could be strong and at peace about what he was going to face. So, by steps, he moved to a spirit that was more relaxed, that could think much higher thoughts, and that could find strength from above.

  Before it was yet fully dark, on the night before he was to die, he had come this far in his thinking about death. He had been able to buy pen and paper and a light, so he sat down to write until the prisoners would be forced to put out their lights.

  He wrote a long letter to Lucie, telling her that he had never heard of her father being in prison until she had told him of it, and he did not know about the awful things his father and uncle had done until that paper was read out in the court. He had already told her that he could not tell her his real last name because it was the one thing her father had asked him not to do if he wanted to marry her, and it was now clear to both of them why he had asked it. He asked her, for the good of her father, never to ask if he had remembered the secret papers in the prison that Sunday under the big tree in the yard when he heard the story about the prison tower in London. If he had remembered it, he would have surely believed that it had been destroyed along with the prison, because it was not listed with other things owned by prisoners of the past that had been found there; and that list had been made known to all the world. He begged her -- but added that he knew he did not need to -- to make her father's pain easier by using every kindness she could think of to show him that he had done nothing wrong, but had done everything he could for the two of them. Next to remembering his own love for her, and fighting to overcome the sadness she was feeling by loving their sweet child, he begged her, because they would all meet in heaven, to be kind to her father.

  To her father himself he wrote much the same things, but he added that he was putting his wife and child into the old man's care. He said this very strongly, with the hope that it would pull him out of any dangerous feelings he might be having to return to the confusion that had been his in the past.

  To Mr. Lorry he gave the job of helping all of them, and he talked of business needs for the family. When he finished with that, adding many words of thanks and warm love as a friend, he was finished. He never thought to write to Carton. His mind was so full of the others that he never once thought of him.

  He had time to finish these letters before the lights were put out. When he lay down on his straw bed, he believed that he had finished with this world.

  But it called him back in his sleep, and showed itself in beautiful ways. Free and happy (for no clear reason), he was back in the old house in Soho (but it was nothing like the real house), with Lucie again. She told him it was all a dream, and that he had never gone away. There was a break in the dream and then another one. In this one, he had died and come back to her, dead and at peace, yet there was no difference in him. Another break without any dream, and then he was awake in the early morning light, not knowing where he was or what had happened, until it came into his mind, "This is the day of my death!"

  This is how he had passed the hours leading up to the day when the fifty-two heads were to fall. And now, while he was at peace, hoping that he could quietly and bravely meet the end, his mind started going over things again, and it was difficult to control his thoughts.

  He had never seen the instrument that would be used to end his life. How high it was from the ground, how many steps it had, where he was to stand, how he would be touched, if the hands that touched him would be red with blood, which way his face would be turned, if he would be first, or maybe last: These and many questions like them -- in no way coming because he wanted to think about them -- forced their way into his mind over and over again. They were not coming from fear; he did not feel that he was afraid. They seemed to come from a strange interest in knowing what he should do when the time came... an interest that was far too big for the short time that it would take in the end. This interest was more like some strange spirit inside of him than it was like his own spirit.

  The hours went on as he walked up and down in his little room, listening to the clock sound out the hours that he would never hear again. Nine gone forever, ten gone forever, eleven gone forever, twelve coming up. After a hard fight with the latest foolish thoughts that had come into his head, he found a way to stop them. He walked up and down, softly saying their names to himself. The worst part of the fight was over. He could walk up and down, free from thoughts that were not important, by praying for himself and for them.

  Twelve gone forever.

  He had been told that the last hour would be at three o'clock, and he knew they would call for him sometime before that, because the carts moved heavily and slowly through the streets. So he planned to keep two o'clock before his mind as the hour when he needed to be strong. That way he could use the last hour to help others to be strong.

  Walking up and down with his arms folded on his chest, he was a very different man from the prisoner who had walked up and down at La Force. He was not surprised when he heard the clock mark one o'clock. The hour had passed as any other hour. Seriously thanking God for his new control, he thought, "Only one more hour now," and he turned to walk again.

  Steps on the stone floor outside his door. He stopped.

  The key was put in the lock and turned. Before the door was opened, or as it opened, a man said softly in English, "He has never seen me here. I have stayed out of his way. You go in alone; I'll wait close by. Waste no time!"

  The door was quickly opened and closed, and there stood before him face to face, quiet, looking into his eyes with a little smile on his face and a finger on his lips to warn him, Sydney Carton.

  There was something so alive and special in his look that, at first, the prisoner did not think he was real, that he was a ghost that had come from inside his mind. But he spoke, and it was really his voice; he shook his hand, and it was really his hand.

  "Of all the people on earth, you did not think it would be me?” he asked.

  "I didn't believe it was you. I almost cannot believe it now. You are not...” -- And fear quickly returned to his mind. -- "a prisoner?"

  "No. By accident, I have found some power over one of the guards here, and that is why I am standing here in front of you. I have come from her... your wife, good Darnay."

  The prisoner squeezed his hands together.

  "She has asked for you to do something."

  "What is it?"

  "She has begged seriously and deeply, in the saddest voice... the voice you remember and love so much."

  The prisoner turned his face partly away.

  "You have no time to ask me why I bring it, or what it means; I have no time to tell you. You must just do it... Take off those shoes you are wearing and put on these of mine."

  There was a chair against the wall of the room, behind the prisoner. Carton, moving as fast as lightning, set him down in it and stood over him, wearing no shoes himself.

  "Put these shoes on. Take them and move. Quickly!"

  "Carton, there is no way to get out of this place; it can never be done. You will only die with me. It is foolishness."

  "It would be foolish for me to ask you to run away, but have I asked you to do that? When I ask you to go out through that door, then you tell me that I am crazy, and you can stay here. Change that tie for this of mine, and that coat for this of mine. While you do that, let me take this cloth from your hair, and shake out your hair like mine!"

  He moved so quickly and with such strong confidence and action that his control over Darnay seemed like a miracle. He forced all these changes on him, and the prisoner was like a young child in his hands. />
  "Carton! Good Carton! You're crazy. It can't work; it'll never happen; it has been tried before and always they have been stopped. I beg you not to add your death to the pain of mine."

  "Do I ask you, my good friend, to go through the door? When I ask for that, you can say No. I see you have pen and ink and paper on this table. Is your hand relaxed enough to write?"

  "It was when you came in."

  "Relax it again, and write what I tell you to write. Quickly, my friend. Quickly!"

  Putting his hand on his confused head, Darnay sat down at the table. Carton, with his right hand inside his shirt, stood close beside him.

  "Write just what I say."

  "Whom is it to?"

  "To no one.” Carton still had his hand in his shirt.

  "Do I put the day on it?"

  "No."

  The prisoner looked up at each question. Carton, standing over him, with his hand in his shirt, looked down.

  "If you remember," said Carton, waiting for him to write that, "the words that passed between us long ago, you will easily understand this when you see it. I know you remember them. It is not like you to forget them."

  He was pulling his hand out from under his shirt. The prisoner looked up at one point in his hurried surprise as he wrote, and the movement of the hand stopped, closing around something.

  "Have you written forget them?” Carton asked.

  "I have. Is that a weapon in your hand?"

  "No. I am not armed."

  "What is it in your hand?"

  "I'll show you soon. Write on. There are only a few words more.” He started again, "I'm glad the time has come that I can prove them. My doing it should not be reason for anyone to feel sad.” As he said these words with his eyes closely watching the writer, his hand slowly and softly moved down close to the writer's face.

  The pen dropped from Darnay's fingers onto the table, and he turned his head with an empty look in his eyes.

  "What smell is that?” he asked.

  "Smell?"

  "Something that crossed me?"

  "I don't smell anything. There can be nothing here. Take up the pen and finish. Hurry. Hurry!"

  As if he could not remember clearly, or his mind was confused, the prisoner was fighting to think about what he was doing. He looked at Carton with clouded eyes and his breathing had changed. Carton, with his hand back under his coat, looked straight into his eyes.

  "Hurry, hurry!"

  The prisoner bent over the paper again.

  "If this had not happened...” Carton's hand was again, carefully and secretly moving down. "...I never would have been able to help you. If this had not happened...” His hand was at the prisoner's face. "...I would have had more to answer for. If it had not happened...” Carton looked at the pen and could see it was making lines that were not letters.

  Carton's hand did not return to his coat. The prisoner jumped up with a look to show that he disagreed, but Carton's hand was close and strong against his nose, and Carton's left arm was around his waist. Darnay fought with the man who had come to give his life for him, for only a few seconds, but a minute or so later he was lying flat on the ground, fully 'asleep'.

  Quickly, but with his hands as true to what he was doing as his heart was, Carton dressed himself in the clothes the prisoner had put to one side, pulled back his hair, and tied it with the piece of cloth that the prisoner had been wearing. Then he called softly, "Come in here! Come in!" and the spy came in.

  "You see?” said Carton, looking up as he went down on one knee beside the body on the floor, putting the paper in his shirt: "Is this so dangerous?"

  "Mr. Carton," the spy answered with a shy movement of his fingers, "the danger is nothing, in the middle of all that is happening here, as long as you are true to your part of the promise."

  "Don't be afraid of that. I will be true to the death."

  "You must be, Mr. Carton, if the count of fifty-two is to be right. If you go dressed like that, I have nothing to fear."

  "Have no fear! I will soon be in a place where I cannot hurt you, and others will soon be far away from here, with God's help. Now get someone to help take me to the coach."

  "You?” asked the spy with a worried look.

  "Him, man. The one who is me now. You will go out through the same gate you used to come in with me?"

  "Yes."

  "I was weak and faint when you brought me in, and I am fainter now that you are taking me out. The last talk with my friend has been too much for me. Such a thing has often happened here... too often. Your life is in your own hands. Quickly! Call for help!"

  "Do you promise not to turn on me?” asked the spy, who was shaking, as he waited for one last second.

  "Man, man!" returned Carton, hitting his foot on the ground. "Haven't I already made a holy promise, that you should want to waste more time now? Take him to the yard that we were at yesterday. You put him in the coach, and show yourself to Mr. Lorry. Tell him to give no medicine apart from air, and to remember my words from last night, and what he promised last night. Then you can drive away!"

  The spy left, and Carton sat at the table, resting his forehead on his hands. The spy returned quickly with two men.

  "How sad!" one of them said, studying the body on the floor. "So sick because his friend won a reward in the game of Saint Guillotine?"

  "A good countryman," said the other, "would have fainted if this rich man had not been marked for death."

  They lifted the sleeping body, put it on a cloth bed that the two men could carry, and bent over to carry it away.

  "The time is short, Evremonde," said the spy in a warning voice.

  "I know it well," answered Carton. "Be careful with my friend, I beg you, and leave me."

  "Come, children," said Barsad. "Lift him and come with me."

  The door closed, and Carton was left alone. Listening as well as he could, he waited for any sound that would show that there were problems. There was none. Keys turned, doors banged, steps moved along floors in the distance. No cry was heard, no running movement. Breathing more freely in a little while, he sat down at the table and listened again until the clock showed it was two.

  Other sounds started, but he was not afraid of these, for he knew their meaning. A few doors were opened, one after the other, and the last one was his own. A guard, with a list in his hand, looked in, just saying, "Follow me, Evremonde!" and he followed into a big dark room, some distance from there. It was a dark winter day, and between the shadows inside and the shadows outside, he could not clearly see the others who were brought there to have their arms tied. Some were standing; some were sitting. Some were crying, and moving around in fear. But these were few; most were quiet and not moving, looking down at the ground.

  As he stood by the wall in a dark corner, while some of the fifty-two were brought in after him, one man stopped in passing, to hug him, as one who knew him. He was afraid at the time that the man would know he was not Evremonde, but the man went on. A short time after that, a young woman, almost a girl, with a sweet, thin face with not a touch of colour to it, and big, wide open, patient eyes, stood up from where he had seen her sitting and came to talk to him.

  "Countryman Evremonde," she said, touching him with her cold hand. "I am a poor little dressmaker, who was with you in La Force."

  He answered softly, "True. I forget what you were there for."

  "Planning to take over the government. But a fair God knows that I am innocent of that. How can they believe it? Who would think of using a poor little weak girl like me?"

  The sad smile with which she said it so touched him that tears started from his eyes.

  "I am not afraid to die, Countryman Evremonde, but I have done nothing. I am willing to die if the new government, which will do so much good for us poor will be helped by it; but I do not know how that can be, Countryman Evremonde. Such a poor weak little person!"

 
His heart grew warm and soft for this poor girl, as the last thing on earth that he would have such feelings for.

  "I heard you were freed, Countryman Evremonde. I had hoped it was true."

  "It was. But I was taken again and sent here."

  "Can I ride with you, Countryman Evremonde? Will you let me hold your hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and weak, and it will help me to be brave."

  As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw them change quickly, first to a little confusion, and then strong surprise. He squeezed her hungry, tired young fingers, and touched his lips.

  "Are you dying for him?” she whispered.

  "For him and his wife and child. Say nothing, okay?”

  "Oh, do let me hold your brave hand, stranger."

  "Say nothing more! Yes, my poor sister, to the end."

  The same shadows that were falling on the prison, were falling, at that same time, in the early afternoon, on the city gate, with the crowd around it, when a coach leaving Paris came up to be looked at.

  "Who is this? Who is in there? Papers!"

  The papers are handed out and read.

  "Alexander Manette. Doctor. French. Which is he?"

  This is he. The poor old man with his mind going in strange directions was pointed out.

  "It looks like the Countryman Doctor is not in his right mind. Has the sickness of the war been too much for him?"

  Far too much for him.

  "Ha! Many have felt like that. Lucie. His daughter. French. Where is she?"

  This is she.

  "Yes, it must be. Lucie, the wife of Evremonde, is it not?"

  It is.

  "Ha! Evremonde has another place where he must be today. Lucie, her child. English. This is she?"

  She and no other.

  "Kiss me, child of Evremonde. Now, you have kissed a good freedom fighter, something new in your family, so remember it! Sydney Carton. Lawyer. English. Which is he?"

  He is lying here, in this corner of the coach. He, too, is pointed out.

  "It seems the English lawyer has fainted."

  It is hoped he will be feeling better in the open air. It is said that he is not in good health, and that he has sadly separated from a friend who was not liked by the new government.

  "Is that all? It is nothing much, that! Many are not liked by the new government, and must look out through the little window. Jarvis Lorry. Banker. English. Which is he?

  "I am he. I must be, as I am the last."

  It is Jarvis Lorry who has answered to all of the earlier questions. It is Jarvis Lorry who has stepped down and stands with his hand on the coach door, answering to a group of guards. They walk slowly around the coach and climb slowly to the top to see what few suitcases are being carried on the roof. The local people who are waiting there push closer to the coach doors and greedily look in. A little child, carried by its mother, has its short arm held out for it by her, so that it can touch the wife of a rich man who was killed by the guillotine.

  "Here are your papers, Jarvis Lorry, I've put my name on them."

  "Can we leave, countryman?"

  "You can leave. Forward, driver! Have a good trip!" "Goodbye to you, countrymen... And the first danger is over!"

  These are again the words of Jarvis Lorry, as he puts his hands together and looks up. There is fear in the coach, there is crying, there is the heavy breathing of the sleeping traveller.

  "Are we not going too slowly? Can't you get them to go faster?” asks Lucie, hanging on to the old man.

  "It would look like we are running from something, love. I must not push them too much. It would make them think the worst."

  "Look back, look back and see if we are being followed!"

  "The road is clear, love. So far they are not following us."

  Houses in twos and threes pass by, a farm here and one there, broken down buildings, places for making colours, leather, or other things, open country, long lines of trees without any leaves on them. The hard rough road is under us, the soft deep mud on either side. Sometimes we fall into the mud when trying to go around the stones that shake us so. Sometimes we stick in the mud. When that happens the pain of waiting is so great that in our wild fear and hurry we want to get out and run, hide, do anything but stop.

  Out of the open country and back again to broken down buildings, a farm here or there, places that make colours, leather, and other things, houses in twos and threes, long lines of trees without any leaves. Have these men tricked us, and taken us back by another road? Isn't this the same place again? Thank heaven, no. Just another village. Look back, look back and see if we are being followed! Quiet! The post office.

  Slowly, our four horses are taken out; slowly, the coach stands in the little street without any horses and feeling like it will never move again; slowly, the new horses come to be seen, one by one; slowly, the new drivers follow, chewing on and folding together the strings on their whips; slowly, the old drivers count their money, get the wrong sums, and come to numbers that they are not happy with. All the time, our hearts are so full of emotion that they are moving so fast that they would win in a race against the fastest horse ever born.

  At length, the new drivers are in their saddles and the old ones are left behind. We are through the village, up the hill, and down the hill, and on the low wet grounds. Without warning, the drivers start talking quite loudly and the horses are pulled up, almost on their backsides. Are we being followed?

  "Hey! You in the coach. Speak up!"

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

  "How many did they say?"

  "I don't understand you."

  "At the last post office. How many went to the guillotine today?"

  "Fifty-two."

  "I said so! A brave number! My friend countryman here said it was only forty-two. Ten more heads are worth having. The guillotine works well. I love it. On forward! Go!"

  The night comes on dark. He moves more; he is starting to wake up, and to say things. He thinks they are still together. He asks him, by his name, what he has in his hand. Oh, think of us, kind Father, and help us. Look out, look out and see if we are being followed.

  The wind is hurrying after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is running after us, and the whole wild night is trying to get us; but so far, we are being followed by nothing more.

  14. The Knitting Done

  At the same time that the fifty-two were waiting to leave the prison, Madam Defarge was holding a darkly secret council with The Punisher and Jack Three, who had served on the jury. Madam Defarge was not talking to them in the wine shop this time, but in the little shop of the woodcutter who had been a road worker in the past. The woodcutter himself did not take part in the meeting, but waited instead at a place near where they were talking, told not to speak until he was needed, and not to say what he thought until he was asked.

  "But our Defarge," said Jack Three, "is surely a good freedom fighter, eh?"

  "There is no one better," the loud-mouthed Punisher said in her high voice, "in France."

  "Peace, little Punisher," said Madam Defarge, putting her hand on her helper's lips with a look that was a little angry. "Listen to what I say. My husband, good countryman, is a good fighter and a brave man. He has worked well for the new government, and people have confidence in him. But my husband is not perfect, and he is so weak as to back out of what we plan for the Doctor."

  "It is sad," said Jack Three, shaking his head to show he was losing trust in the man, as he put his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth. "It is not quite like a good countryman; it is something we should not feel good about."

  "See," said Madam, "I care nothing for this Doctor. 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 destroyed, and the wife and child must follow the husband and father."

  "She has a good head
for it," said Jack Three. "I have seen blue eyes and golden hair there, and they looked good when Samson held them up.” For such a rough, stupid man, he talked like he was an expert.

  Madam Defarge looked down and thought for a little while.

  "The child too," pointed out Jack Three, who liked the sound of his own words when he thought about them, "has golden hair and blue eyes. And we do not often have a child there. It is beautiful when we do!"

  "In a word," said Madam Defarge, coming out of her thoughts, "I cannot trust my husband with this one. Not only do I feel, since last night, that I cannot tell him about my plans, but I also feel that if I wait too long, he will warn them, and they will run."

  "This must never happen," said Jack Three. "No one must get away. We do not have half enough as it is. We should have a hundred and twenty a day."

  "In a word," Madam Defarge went on, "my husband does not have the reason that I have for going after this family until they are all dead, and I do not have his reason for showing some kindness to this Doctor. So I must act on my own. Come over here, little countryman."

  The woodcutter, who looked up to her and down on himself in fear for his life, came forward with his hand on his red hat."

  "As for those movements she was making with her hands, little countryman," said Madam Defarge seriously, "making to the prisoners, are you ready to tell others about it even today?"

  "Yes, yes, why not!" cried the woodcutter. "Every day, in all weather, from two to four, always moving her hands, sometimes with the little one, sometimes without. I know what I know. I have seen it with my eyes."

  He moved his hand in many directions as he talked, as if trying to show them some of the strange movements that she used.

  "Clearly a plan to destroy the government," said Jack Three. "Anyone can see through it."

  "Will the jury believe it?” asked Madam Defarge, letting her eyes turn to him with a dark smile.

  "You can trust the country-loving jury, good countrywoman. I can answer for all of them."

  "Now, let me see," said Madam Defarge, thinking again. "One more time! Can I let this Doctor live to keep my husband happy? I have no feeling either way. Can I let him live?"

  "He would count as one head," pointed out Jack Three in a low voice. "We really do not have enough heads. I think it would be sad not to take him."

  "He was making movements with her when I saw her," argued Madam Defarge. "I can't talk against one without talking against the other, and I must not be quiet, trusting the whole case to him, this little countryman here. For I'm not a bad witness."

  The Punisher and Jack Three competed with each other in their enthusiasm for saying how she was the most wonderful of witnesses. The little countryman, not to be left out of the competition, said that she was a witness straight from heaven.

  "He must face the truth," said Madam Defarge. "I cannot let him get off! You will be there at three o'clock; you will watch today's group being killed? I'm talking to you!"

  She was talking to the woodcutter, who hurried to say he would be there, adding that he was the truest lover of his country, and that he would be the saddest of all lovers of the country if anything stopped him from being able to smoke his afternoon pipe while watching the funny government barber. He was so strong in saying this that one could think (and by the dark angry eyes that looked at him out of Madam Defarge's head, one maybe did think) that he had his own fears about joining them, every hour of the day.

  "I," said Madam, "will be equally busy at the same place. After it's over, say at eight tonight, come to me in Saint Antoine, and we will give information against these people at my group meeting."

  The woodcutter said he would be proud and happy to help her. When the countrywoman looked at him, he turned shy. Like a small dog trying to get away from something, he pulled back to his pile of sticks, where he could hide behind the handle of his saw.

  Madam Defarge called the jury man and The Punisher closer to the door, and there told them more about her plan:

  "She will be at home now, waiting for the time of his death. She will be crying for him. She will be acting in a way that shows she is against the government. She will be feeling sad for its enemies. I will go to her."

  "What a wonderful woman; what a smart woman!" cried Jack Three happily. "Oh, my loved one!" cried The Punisher, and hugged her.

  "Take my knitting," said Madam Defarge, putting it in her helper's hands, "and have it ready for me in my seat. Keep my chair for me. You go straight there, because there will probably be a bigger crowd than other days today."

  "I will happily obey my boss," said The Punisher with enthusiasm, as she kissed her cheek. "You will not be late?"

  "I'll be there before it starts."

  "And before the carts arrive. Be sure you are there, my soul," said The Punisher, calling after her, for she had already turned into the street. "Before the carts arrive!"

  Madam Defarge waved her hand weakly to show that she had heard and could be trusted to arrive in good time, and then pushed on through the mud, and around the corner of the prison wall. The Punisher and the man from the jury, looking after her as she walked away, liked very much both the look of her and the spiritual qualities that were a part of her.

  There were many woman at that time, who were changed in an awful way by what was happening; but there was not one of them more awful than this cruel woman who was now making her way through the streets. She was strong and without fear, wise in her timing, and ready to carry through with whatever she started. There was something in her that not only filled her with a strong hate, but that let others see how strong her hate was. There was nothing that could have stopped her from becoming a leader in those troubled times. But she had the added help of what had happened to her as a child. All her life she had thought about how wrong it was that she had lost her family, and all her life she had learned to hate the rich class. Added to what was happening at the time, it changed her into a tiger. She had not the smallest piece of soft feeling for anyone. If she had ever had such a feeling in the past it was quite gone now.

  It was nothing to her that an innocent man was going to die for the sins of his father and uncle. She saw not him, but them. It was nothing to her that his wife was to be a widow, and his daughter was to grow up without a father. That was not enough punishment in her eyes. They were her enemies, and because of that, they had no right to live. Asking her for mercy was a waste of time, because she had none, not even for herself. If she had been killed in any of the fights that she had been a part of, she would not have felt sorry for herself. If she had been told that she must die under the axe tomorrow, she would have no soft feeling for the others dying in that way now; but she would want to put the man who sent her there in the same place.

  Madam Defarge carried such a heart under her rough robe. In a strange way, the robe, which she was wearing (also in a rough way), went well with her. Her dark hair looked good under her rough red hat. Hiding in her breast was a small gun. Hiding under her belt was a sharp knife. Dressed like this, and walking with such confidence, plus the free and easy movement of a woman who, as a child, always walked without shoes or socks on the brown sand by the ocean, Madam Defarge made her way along the streets.

  At that same time, the coach had been waiting for the last person to arrive before it could leave Paris. When plans were being made the night before, Mr. Lorry gave much thought to the problem of taking Miss Pross in the same coach. If there were too many people, the coach would move more slowly, and there would be more time wasted at each stop, when so many passengers would be asked to show their papers. Every second was important, and so, after much worry and much thought, he had asked for Miss Pross and Jerry, who were free to leave the city at any time, to go at three o'clock in a very light, fast coach. By travelling without bags, they would soon be up with the others. As they took the lead, they could ask ahead of time for horses to be ready for the coach co
ming behind them. This would be a big help at night, when things always moved most slowly.

  Seeing in this plan the hope of being a real help with the problem of getting away, Miss Pross was very happy to go along with it. She and Jerry had watched the coach leave, after learning who it was that her brother Solomon brought to it, had waited some ten awful minutes for it to get away, and were now finishing up their plans to follow it, even as Madam Defarge, making her way through the streets, was coming closer and closer to the rooms where they were now talking, and which were empty of anyone else.

  "Now what do you think, Mr. Cruncher," asked Miss Pross, whose worries were so great that it was difficult for her to talk, or stand, or move, or live. "What do you think about us not leaving from the yard? Another coach having already left from here today, it could make people think we are up to something."

  "What I thinks, Miss," returned Mr. Cruncher, "is as you're right. Same way, know that I'll stand by you, right or wrong."

  "I am so confused with worry and hope for our good friends," said Miss Pross, crying wildly, "that I cannot make a plan. Are YOU able to make a plan, good Mr. Cruncher?"

  "About some life in another world after I die, Miss," returned Mr. Cruncher, "I hope so. About any present use of this here blessed old head of mine, I think not. Would you do me the kindness, Miss, to hear two promises before God that I wants to put down here now in this trouble?"

  "Oh, for the love of God!" shouted Miss Pross, still crying wildly. "Say them quickly and be done with it, like a good man."

  "First," said Mr. Cruncher, who was shaking all over, and who spoke with a very white and serious face, "for them poor things well out of this here trouble, never no more will I do it that I was doing, never no more!"

  "I am quite sure, Mr. Cruncher," returned Miss Pross, "that you will never do it again, whatever it is, and I beg you not to think that you need to say anything more about it."

  "No, Miss," returned Jerry. "It will not be said to you. Second, for them poor things well out of this, never no more will I stop Mrs. Cruncher from throwing herself down, never no more!"

  "Whatever that may be in your house," said Miss Pross, trying to dry her eyes and relax, "I trust that it is best if Mrs. Cruncher should be the one to do it. ... Oh, my poor loved ones!"

  "I go so far as to say, Miss, more than that," went on Mr. Cruncher, with an awful way of sounding like a preacher, "... and let my words be took down and took to Mrs. Cruncher through yourself... that my feelings about throwing down is so much changed that I only hope with all my heart that Mrs. Cruncher may be throwing down at this present time."

  "There, there, there! I hope she is, my good man," cried Miss Pross, who was fighting with many different emotions, "and I hope she finds it is all that she hopes it will be."

  "May God stop it," went on Mr. Cruncher, even more seriously and even more slowly, and even more sounding like a preacher, "that anything what I have ever said or done should be in the way of my serious wishes for them poor people now! May God stop it, as we should all be throwing ourselves down (if we was in any way able to) to get them out of this here awful danger! May God stop it, Miss! What I say is STOP it!" This was how Mr. Cruncher finished, after not being able to find a better way to end it.

  And still Madam Defarge, working her way along the streets, came closer and closer.

  "If we ever get back to our home land," said Miss Pross, "you can trust me to tell Mrs. Cruncher as much as I can remember and understand of what you have so well said. Whatever else, you can be sure I'll tell her you were very sincere at this awful time. Now, please, let us think! My good Mr. Cruncher, let us think!"

  Still, Madam Defarge, working her way along the streets, came closer and closer.

  "If you were to go first," said Miss Pross, "and stop the vehicle and horses from coming here, and were to wait somewhere for me, wouldn't that be best?"

  Mr. Cruncher agreed.

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

  Mr. Cruncher was so confused that he could not think of any other place name but Temple Bar. Sadly, Temple Bar was hundreds of miles away, and Madam Defarge was very near now.

  "By the door of the big church," said Miss Pross. "Would it be far out of the way to pick me up near the biggest door, between the two towers?"

  "No problem, Miss," answered Mr. Cruncher.

  "Then, like the best of men," said Miss Pross, "go straight to the post office now and make that change."

  "I don't feel good," said Mr. Cruncher, holding back and shaking his head, "about leaving you. We don't know what's to happen."

  "Heaven knows we don't," returned Miss Pross, "but have no fear for me. Pick me up at the big church at three, or as near it as you can, and I'm sure it'll be better than leaving from here. I feel very sure of that. There! Bless you, Mr. Cruncher! Think not of me, but of the lives that both of us want to help!"

  These few words, and Miss Pross' hands begging him as they squeezed his, was enough to give Mr. Cruncher confidence to act. Moving his head in a way to encourage them both, he went off to change the plans, leaving her alone to do what she had to do.

  Miss Pross felt good to have come up with a plan and to see it starting to take shape. She was also glad to have time to fix the way she looked so people in the streets would not take special interest in her. She looked at her watch and it was twenty minutes past two. No time to lose; she must get ready at once.

  Afraid, in her great worry, to be alone in the empty rooms, and of faces that she pictured hiding behind every open door in them, Miss Pross got a bowl of cold water and started to wash her eyes, which were red from crying. Her fears troubled her so much that she did not want the water to hide anything from her, so she would keep stopping and clearing her eyes of water, so she could look around. In one of those looks she jumped back in surprise and shouted out, for she saw someone standing in the room.

  The bowl fell to the floor, broken; and the water crossed the floor to the feet of Madam Defarge. By strange hard ways, and through much blood those feet had come to meet that water.

  Madam Defarge looked coldly at her and said, "The wife of Evremonde. Where is she?"

  Miss Pross knew at once that all of the doors being open would be a sign that the others had left, so her first act was to close them. There were four doors in that room, and she closed them all. She then put herself in front of Lucie's bedroom.

  Madam Defarge's dark eyes followed her through these fast movements, and rested on her when they were finished. There was nothing beautiful about Miss Pross. Years had not taken away her wild hard look; but she was, like the other woman, also very strong. She measured every inch of Madam Defarge with her eyes.

  "By the look of you, you could be the devil's wife," breathed Miss Pross. "But you'll not get the better of me. I'm an Englishwoman."

  Madam Defarge looked at her with proud anger, but still knowing what Miss Pross knew now, which is that the two of them were in a stand-off. She saw a tight, hard, woman before her who was as strong as wire, just as Mr. Lorry had seen in her a woman with a strong hand in the past. She knew well that Miss Pross was a very close friend of the family. Miss Pross knew well that Madam Defarge was the family's worst enemy.

  "On my way over there," said Madam Defarge with a little movement of her hand toward the place of death, "where they are holding my chair and my knitting for me, I have come to say hello in passing. I would like to see her."

  "I know that what you want is evil," said Miss Pross. "And you can trust that I'll stand my ground against it."

  Each one used her own language. Both did not understand the other. Both very carefully tried to work out from the face and actions of the other what the meaning of the strange words was.

  "It'll do her no good to hide from me now," said Madam Defarge. "Good people who love this country 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 screws pulling the wires tight on a bed," returned Miss Pross, "and I was a strong English bed, they would not pull even the smallest piece of timber out of me. No, you evil foreign woman; I'm equal to anything you can give out."

  It would not be possible for Madam Defarge to follow what Miss Pross was trying to say, but she understood enough to know that she was not having the effect that she wanted to have.

  "Stupid pig-like woman!" said Madam Defarge with an angry look on her face. "I take no answer from you. I will see her. You tell her that, or move out of the way of the door and let me go to her!" She said this with an angry movement of her right arm.

  "I never thought," said Miss Pross, "that I would ever want to understand your stupid language; but I would give all that I have, apart from the clothes I'm wearing, to know if you know any part of the truth about what has happened here."

  They both kept their eyes fixed on the other. Madam Defarge had not moved from where she stood when Miss Pross first saw her; but now she came forward one step.

  "I am from England," said Miss Pross. "I have no other hope. I don't care two cents for myself. I know that the longer I keep you here, the greater hope there is for my Ladybird. I will not leave enough dark hair on your head to grab if you put a finger on me!"

  So Miss Pross said, with a shake of her head and a sharp look in her eye after every line, breathing only at the end of the line. So said Miss Pross, who had never hit anyone in her life.

  Her deep emotions made her brave, but tears came with them. This was a kind of confidence that Madam Defarge knew so little of that she understood the tears to mean she was weak. "Ha, ha!" she laughed. "You poor animal! What are you worth! I'll talk to the Doctor.” She lifted her voice and called out, "Countryman Doctor! Wife of Evremonde! Child of Evremonde! Anyone but this crazy woman, give an answer to Countrywoman Defarge!"

  It may have been because there was no answer, or something in the look on Miss Pross's face, or just a thought in her own head apart from the other two, but something whispered to Madam Defarge that they were gone. She opened three of the doors quickly and looked in.

  "Those rooms are all in a mess. Things have been put away quickly. There are things on the floor. There is no one in that room behind you! Let me look."

  "Never!" said Miss Pross, who understood the shout as perfectly as Madam Defarge understood the answer.

  "If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be followed and brought back," said Madam Defarge to herself.

  "As long as you don't know for sure if they're in that room, you won't know what to do," said Miss Pross to herself. "And you won't know it if I can stop you from knowing it. But knowing or not knowing, you won't leave here while I can hold you."

  "I've lived on the streets from the start, and nothing has stopped me. I'll tear you to pieces, if need be, to move you away from that door," said Madam Defarge.

  "We are alone at the top of a high house in a yard that is away from other houses. No one will hear us. And I pray for strength to keep you here, for every minute you are here is worth a hundred thousand pounds to my love," said Miss Pross.

  Madam Defarge moved toward the door. Miss Pross, without thinking at the time, grabbed her around the waist with both her arms and held her tight. Hitting and kicking was not going to help Madam Defarge. Miss Pross, using the powerful hold of love, always so much stronger than hate, held her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the fight that they had. The two hands of Madam Defarge hit and cut her face, but Miss Pross, with her head down, still held her around the waist, hanging on with more strength than a drowning woman.

  Soon Madam Defarge's hands stopped hitting and reached for her waist. "It's under my arm," said Miss Pross from her buried face. "You will not be able to pull it out. I am stronger than you, and I thank heaven for it. I will hold you until one or the other of us faints or dies!"

  Madam Defarge's hands were at her breasts. Miss Pross looked up, saw what it was, and hit at it. There was a loud bang and an explosion of light, and then she was standing alone, not able to see from the smoke.

  All this happened in a second. The smoke cleared, leaving an awful quiet. The smoke left the room like the soul of the angry woman whose body was lying dead on the floor.

  The first effect of what had happened was for Miss Pross to go around the body, as far as she was able, run down the steps, and call out for help, which never came. Luckily, she came to herself about what would have happened if someone had come, and went back to the room in better control of herself. It was awful to go in through the door again, but she did, and she even went near the body to get her hat and other things that she needed to wear. She put these on out on the steps, first closing and locking the door and taking out the key. She then sat down on the steps for a few minutes to breathe and cry before getting up and hurrying away.

  She was lucky to have a cloth at the front of the hat to hide her face, for she could not have walked down the street without someone stopping her to ask if she was okay. She was also lucky that she often looked strange in the way she dressed, and so the way she was now did not seem so very different. She needed both of these things to help her, because the marks from Madam Defarge's fingers were deep on her face, some of her hair was pulled out, and her dress (quickly smoothed with shaking hands) had been pulled in a hundred different ways.

  As she crossed the bridge, she dropped the door key in the river. Arriving at the big church a few minutes before the coach, and waiting there, she started thinking what if the key was already taken in a net, what if someone could tell what house it was from, what if the door was opened and the body found, what if she was stopped at the city gate, sent to prison, and punished for killing someone! In the middle of these worried thoughts, the coach arrived, took her in, and took her away.

  "Is there any noise in the streets?” she asked Mr. Cruncher.

  "The same noises that there always are," he answered, looking surprised by the question and by how she looked.

  "I don't hear you," said Miss Pross. "What are you saying?"

  There was no good in Mr. Cruncher repeating what he had said; Miss Pross could not hear him. "So I'll just shake my head," thought Mr. Cruncher, who was surprised. "She can at least see that.” And she did.

  "Is there any noise in the streets now?” asked Miss Pross again a short while later.

  Again Mr. Cruncher shook his head to show there was.

  "I don't hear it."

  "You lost your hearing in just one hour?” said Mr. Cruncher, chewing this over in his mind. "What's happened to her?"

  "I feel," said Miss Pross, "as if there was a loud bang and an explosion, and that explosion was the last thing I should ever hear in this life."

  "Blessed if she isn't in a strange shape!" said Mr. Cruncher, who was becoming more and more confused. "What can she have been taking to keep herself going? Listen! There's the sound of them awful carts! Surely you can hear that, Miss?"

  "I can hear," said Miss Pross, seeing that he was talking to her, "nothing. Oh, my good man, there was first a great bang, and then all was quiet, and that quiet does not seem to be going away, like it will never be broken again as long as I live."

  "If she don't hear the sound of those awful carts, now very close to the end of their trip," said Mr. Cruncher, looking over his shoulder, "I think that she really won't ever hear anything else in this world."

  And the truth is that she never did.

  15. The Footsteps Die Out Forever

  Along the streets of Paris the death carts roll with a hard empty sound. Six of them, carrying the day's wine for Guillotine. All the hungry evil animals that man could think of from the time when he first recorded his thoughts had come together in this one, the guillotine. And yet there in France, with its good weather and good earth, there is no leaf, root, branch, or seed that could be more sure of growing into a full plant than it was that this awful mach
ine would grow there. Squeeze people out of shape again, using hammers like those used there, and the same effects will come of it. Plant the same seeds of greedy freedom and cruel force again, and it will surely bring the same fruit again.

  Six carts roll along the streets. If Time could change these carts back to what they would have been before, they could be seen as the coaches of kings with full control over everyone, the furniture of marquis, the clothes of their fat evil wives, the churches that are not my father's house but a hiding place for robbers, the rough little homes of millions of hungry poor people! But the great magician who makes things under God's rules never changes them back to what they were before. "If your shape is changed by the will of God," say the prophets to those who have been changed by other forces, in the wise stories of Arabia, "then you must stay that way! But if you have only been changed by magic tricks, then you can go back to how you were in the past!" Without change and without hope, the carts roll along.

  As the serious wheels of the six carts go around, they seem to be like ploughs, cutting a long line through the crowds on the streets. Lines of faces are thrown to this side and to that, and the ploughs move by them all. People in the houses have seen so many of these carts that the windows of many of them are empty, and in others, what the people are doing with their hands does not stop while their eyes look out at the faces in the carts. Here and there, someone in a house may have a visitor who has come to see the show.

  Then they point their fingers with the spirit of an expert, to this cart and to that, and seem to be saying something about who sat there yesterday, and who was there the day before.

  For the riders in the carts, some see this, and everything else on their last ride, with a look that shows no emotion. Others show some interest in the ways of life and people. Some, seated with their heads hanging down are lost for words and hope. Again, there are some who are so much thinking about the people watching them that they look back at them like actors on a stage. A few close their eyes and think, trying to bring their thoughts together. Only one, and he is a sad one who seems to be crazy, is so broken and drunk by what has happened that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole number does anything by look or action to ask for mercy from the people.

  There is a guard of a few men riding on horses beside the carts, and faces are often turned up to some of them. They are asked questions, and it always seems to be the same question, for it is always followed by people pushing toward the third cart. The men on horses beside that cart often point out one man in it with their swords. They all want to know which one he is. He stands at the back of the cart with his head bent down to talk with a very young woman who sits on the side of the cart and holds his hand. He has no interest in those looking on, as he is just talking to the girl. Here and there in the long street shouts are lifted against him. If they have any effect on him at all, it is only to bring a quiet smile, as he shakes his hair a little more losely around his face. He cannot easily touch his face because his arms are tied.

  On the steps of a church, waiting for the carts to arrive, stands the prison sheep... the spy. He looks into the first of them: not there. He looks into the second: not there. He is already asking himself, "Has he turned me in?” when his face clears as he looks into the third.

  "Which one is Evremonde?” asks a man behind him. "That one. At the back there."

  "With his hand in the girl's?"

  "Yes."

  The man cries, "Down with Evremonde! To the guillotine, all of the rich class! Down with Evremonde!"

  "Quiet. Quiet!" the spy begs him shyly.

  "And why not, countryman?"

  "He is going to pay the price. It will be over in five minutes. Let him be at peace."

  Because the man is still saying, "Down with Evremonde!" the face of Evremonde turns for a second toward him. Evremonde then sees the spy and looks with interest at him before moving on by.

  The clocks are saying that it is three o'clock, and the line that has been ploughed through the crowd is turning around now to come up into the place of death, and the end. The lines of people thrown to this side and that now break up and come together behind the last cart as it moves on. They are all following it now to the guillotine. In front of the guillotine, sitting in chairs, like they were at a garden party, are a number of women busily knitting. On one of the front chairs, The Punisher is standing and looking around for her friend.

  "Therese!" she cries in her high voice. "Has anyone seen her? Therese Defarge!"

  "She has never missed it before," says a knitting sister.

  "No, and she will not miss it now," cries The Punisher angrily. "Therese."

  "Louder," the woman says.

  Yes! Louder, Punisher, much louder, and still she will not be able to hear you. Louder still, Punisher, with a little curse or two added, and still it will not bring her. Send other women up and down to look for her hanging back somewhere, and yet, even these women who have worked hard for the movement, will probably not choose to go far enough to find her!

  "Bad luck!" cries The Punisher, hitting her foot on the chair, "and here are the carts! Evremonde will be dead in a minute, and she is not here! I have her knitting here in my hands, and her empty chair is waiting for her. I am so sad and angry that I think I will cry."

  As The Punisher comes down from the chair to do it, the carts start to empty out what they are carrying. The servants of Saint Guillotine have their robes on and are ready. Crash! A head is held up and the knitting women who did not lift an eye to look at it when it could speak, count One.

  The second cart empties and moves on, and the third comes up. Crash! And the knitting women, never stopping their work, count Two.

  The one they think is Evremonde steps down, and the dressmaker is lifted out next after him. He has not let loose of her patient hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. He kindly turns her so her back is to the crashing instrument that keeps being pulled up and then falling. She looks into his face and thanks him.

  "If it were not for you, good stranger, I would not be so relaxed, because most of the time I am weak and filled with fear. Without you, I would not have been able to lift my thoughts to the One who died so that we could have hope here today. I think God sent you to me."

  "Or God sent you to me," says Sydney Carton. "Keep your eyes on me, child, and do not think of anything else."

  "I am thinking of nothing while I hold your hand, and I will think of nothing when I let it go if they are fast."

  "They will be fast. Do not be afraid!"

  The two stand in the crowd that is quickly growing thin, 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 same spiritual Mother, so very different in other ways, have come together on the highway of death, so that they can go home together, where they will rest in her love.

  "Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last question? I don't understand, and it troubles me... just a little."

  "Tell me what it is."

  "I have a cousin, my only living relative. Like myself, her parents are dead too. She is five years younger than me, and she lives in a farmer's house in the south country. Because we were poor, we were separated. She knows nothing of what has happened to me here -- for I cannot write -- and if I could, how would I tell her? Is it better for her not to know?"

  "Yes, yes. It's 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 strength, is this: If the new government really does good to the poor, and if they are less hungry, and in all other ways their life is better, she may live for a long time. She may even live to be old."

  "So what do you want to know, little sister?"

  "Do you think," and those trusting eyes which have been through so much, fill with tears and the lips open a litt
le more and start to shake, "that it will seem like a long wait for me to see her, when we are in the better land where I trust both you and I will go by God's mercy?"

  "It cannot be a long time, my child, because there is no Time in that place, and no trouble either."

  "That is very encouraging! There is so much that I do not know. Am I to kiss you now? Is it my time?”

  "Yes."

  She kisses his lips. He kisses her lips. They seriously bless each other. Her hand does not shake when it leaves his. Nothing worse than a sweet, confident strength shows in her patient face. She is the next before him. She is gone. The knitting women count Twenty-Two.

  "I am Life and the Giver of Life, said the Lord. He that believes in me, even if he dies, he will still live again; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

  The sound of many voices, the turning of many heads, the forward movement of many at the borders of the crowd so that the whole crowd like one big wave moves toward him, all disappear. Twenty-three.

  They said of him around the city that night that it was the most relaxed face of any man they had ever seen there. Many added that he looked like a prophet or a king.

  One of the other people they talked about from the same group was a woman who had, not long before he stepped up, asked to be able to write down what she was thinking before she died. If he had done the same thing, and if he was a prophet, this is what he would have said:

  "I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Punisher, the man from the jury, the judge, long lines of new leaders who have taken the place of the old ones, all dying from this instrument of punishment before it is finished. I see a beautiful city and a great people coming up from this hell, and in their fight to be really free, in their winnings and in their losings, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and the evil of the time that gave birth to it, slowly paying its price and wearing out.

  "I see the lives for which I gave my life, living in peace, doing good, being rich and happy in that England which I will never see again. I see Her with another child on her breast, and he has my name. I see her father, old and bent, but apart from that, in his right mind, helping many others through his work, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years' time making them all rich with all that he owned, as he goes quietly to his reward.

  "I see that there is a place for me in their hearts, and in the hearts of their children and their children's children for a long time to come. I see her, an old woman, crying for me on the day that marks this day. I see her and her husband, at the end of their lives, lying side by side in their last bed on earth, and I know that each did not think of the other more highly and as more holy than they both thought of me.

  "I see that child who was lying on her breast, the one with my name, moving up in the world in the same job that I once had. I see him doing so well that my name is made beautiful by the light that comes from him. I see the dirt I put on that name disappearing. I see the one who is the Judge of all judges and the most loved man who ever lived, bringing a boy who has my name, and his mother's forehead and golden hair, to this place -- at a time when this will be a beautiful place again, with no sign of the ugly things that are happening here now -- and I hear him tell the child my story, with a soft and breaking voice.

  "It is a far far better thing I do than I have ever done. It is a far far better rest I go to than I have ever known.”

  THE END

 

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