that no personal influence could possibly save him, that he
was virtually sentenced by the millions, and that units
could avail him nothing.
Nevertheless, it was not easy, with the face of his
beloved wife fresh before him, to compose his mind to
what it must bear. His hold on life was strong, and it was
very, very hard, to loosen; by gradual efforts and degrees
unclosed a little here, it clenched the tighter there; and
when he brought his strength to bear on that hand and it
yielded, this was closed again. There was a hurry, too, in
all his thoughts, a turbulent and heated working of his
heart, that contended against resignation. If, for a moment,
he did feel resigned, then his wife and child who had to
live after him, seemed to protest and to make it a selfish
thing.
But, all this was at first. Before long, the consideration
that there was no disgrace in the fate he must meet, and
that numbers went the same road wrongfully, and trod it
firmly every day, sprang up to stimulate him. Next
followed the thought that much of the future peace of
mind enjoyable by the dear ones, depended on his quiet
fortitude. So, by degrees he calmed into the better state,
when he could raise his thoughts much higher, and draw
comfort down.
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Before it had set in dark on the night of his
condemnation, he had travelled thus far on his last way.
Being allowed to purchase the means of writing, and a
light, he sat down to write until such time as the prison
lamps should be extinguished.
He wrote a long letter to Lucie, showing her that he
had known nothing of her father’s imprisonment, until he
had heard of it from herself, and that he had been as
ignorant as she of his father’s and uncle’s responsibility for
that misery, until the paper had been read. He had already
explained to her that his concealment from herself of the
name he had relinquished, was the one condition—fully
intelligible now—that her father had attached to their
betrothal, and was the one promise he had still exacted on
the morning of their marriage. He entreated her, for her
father’s sake, never to seek to know whether her father
had become oblivious of the existence of the paper, or had
had it recalled to him (for the moment, or for good), by
the story of the Tower, on that old Sunday under the dear
old plane-tree in the garden. If he had preserved any
definite remembrance of it, there could be no doubt that
he had supposed it destroyed with the Bastille, when he
had found no mention of it among the relics of prisoners
which the populace had discovered there, and which had
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been described to all the world. He besought her—though
he added that he knew it was needless—to console her
father, by impressing him through every tender means she
could think of, with the truth that he had done nothing
for which he could justly reproach himself, but had
uniformly forgotten himself for their joint sakes. Next to
her preservation of his own last grateful love and blessing,
and her overcoming of her sorrow, to devote herself to
their dear child, he adjured her, as they would meet in
Heaven, to comfort her father.
To her father himself, he wrote in the same strain; but,
he told her father that he expressly confided his wife and
child to his care. And he told him this, very strongly, with
the hope of rousing him from any despondency or
dangerous retrospect towards which he foresaw he might
be tending.
To Mr. Lorry, he commended them all, and explained
his worldly affairs. That done, with many added sentences
of grateful friendship and warm attachment, all was done.
He never thought of Carton. His mind was so full of the
others, that he never once thought of him.
He had time to finish these letters before the lights
were put out. When he lay down on his straw bed, he
thought he had done with this world.
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But, it beckoned him back in his sleep, and showed
itself in shining forms. Free and happy, back in the old
house in Soho (though it had nothing in it like the real
house), unaccountably released and light of heart, he was
with Lucie again, and she told him it was all a dream, and
he had never gone away. A pause of forgetfulness, and
then he had even suffered, and had come back to her,
dead and at peace, and yet there was no difference in him.
Another pause of oblivion, and he awoke in the sombre
morning, unconscious where he was or what had
happened, until it flashed upon his mind, ‘this is the day of
my death!’
Thus, had he come through the hours, to the day when
the fifty-two heads were to fall. And now, while he was
composed, and hoped that he could meet the end with
quiet heroism, a new action began in his waking thoughts,
which was very difficult to master.
He had never seen the instrument that was to terminate
his life. How high it was from the ground, how many
steps it had, where he would be stood, how he would be
touched, whether the touching hands would be dyed red,
which way his face would be turned, whether he would
be the first, or might be the last: these and many similar
questions, in nowise directed by his will, obtruded
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themselves over and over again, countless times. Neither
were they connected with fear: he was conscious of no
fear. Rather, they originated in a strange besetting desire
to know what to do when the time came; a desire
gigantically disproportionate to the few swift moments to
which it referred; a wondering that was more like the
wondering of some other spirit within his, than his own.
The hours went on as he walked to and fro, and the
clocks struck the numbers he would never hear again.
Nine gone for ever, ten gone for ever, eleven gone for
ever, twelve coming on to pass away. After a hard contest
with that eccentric action of thought which had last
perplexed him, he had got the better of it. He walked up
and down, softly repeating their names to himself. The
worst of the strife was over. He could walk up and down,
free from distracting fancies, praying for himself and for
them.
Twelve gone for ever.
He had been apprised that the final hour was Three,
and he knew he would be summoned some time earlier,
inasmuch as the tumbrils jolted heavily and slowly through
the streets. Therefore, he resolved to keep Two before his
mind, as the hour, and so to strengthen himself in the
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interval that he might be able, after that time, to
strengthen others.
Walking regularly to and fro with his arms folded on
his breast, a very different man from the prisoner, who had
walked to and fro at La Force, he heard One struck away
from him, without surprise. The hour had measured like
most other hours. Devoutly thankful to Heaven for his
recovered self-possession, he thought, ‘There is but
another now,’ and turned to walk again.
Footsteps in the stone passage outside the door. He
stopped.
The key was put in the lock, and turned. Before the
door was opened, or as it opened, a man said in a low
voice, in English: ‘He has never seen me here; I have kept
out of his way. Go you in alone; I wait near. Lose no
time!’
The door was quickly opened and closed, and there
stood before him face to face, quiet, intent upon him,
with the light of a smile on his features, and a cautionary
finger on his lip, Sydney Carton.
There was something so bright and remarkable in his
look, that, for the first moment, the prisoner misdoubted
him to be an apparition of his own imagining. But, he
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spoke, and it was his voice; he took the prisoner’s hand,
and it was his real grasp.
‘Of all the people upon earth, you least expected to see
me?’ he said.
‘I could not believe it to be you. I can scarcely believe
it now. You are not’—the apprehension came suddenly
into his mind—‘a prisoner?’
‘No. I am accidentally possessed of a power over one of
the keepers here, and in virtue of it I stand before you. I
come from her— your wife, dear Darnay.’
The prisoner wrung his hand.
‘I bring you a request from her.’
‘What is it?’
‘A most earnest, pressing, and emphatic entreaty,
addressed to you in the most pathetic tones of the voice so
dear to you, that you well remember.’
The prisoner turned his face partly aside.
‘You have no time to ask me why I bring it, or what it
means; I have no time to tell you. You must comply with
it—take off those boots you wear, and draw on these of
mine.’
There was a chair against the wall of the cell, behind
the prisoner. Carton, pressing forward, had already, with
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the speed of lightning, got him down into it, and stood
over him, barefoot.
‘Draw on these boots of mine. Put your hands to them;
put your will to them. Quick!’
‘Carton, there is no escaping from this place; it never
can be done. You will only die with me. It is madness.’
‘It would be madness if I asked you to escape; but do I?
When I ask you to pass out at that door, tell me it is
madness and remain here. Change that cravat for this of
mine, that coat for this of mine. While you do it, let me
take this ribbon from your hair, and shake out your hair
like this of mine!’
With wonderful quickness, and with a strength both of
will and action, that appeared quite supernatural, he forced
all these changes upon him. The prisoner was like a young
child in his hands.
‘Carton! Dear Carton! It is madness. It cannot be
accomplished, it never can be done, it has been attempted,
and has always failed. I implore you not to add your death
to the bitterness of mine.’
‘Do I ask you, my dear Darnay, to pass the door?
When I ask that, refuse. There are pen and ink and paper
on this table. Is your hand steady enough to write?’
‘It was when you came in.’
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‘Steady it again, and write what I shall dictate. Quick,
friend, quick!’
Pressing his hand to his bewildered head, Darnay sat
down at the table. Carton, with his right hand in his
breast, stood close beside him.
‘Write exactly as I speak.’
‘To whom do I address it?’
‘To no one.’ Carton still had his hand in his breast.
‘Do I date it?’
‘No.’
The prisoner looked up, at each question. Carton,
standing over him with his hand in his breast, looked
down.
‘‘If you remember,’’ said Carton, dictating, ‘‘the words
that passed between us, long ago, you will readily
comprehend this when you see it. You do remember
them, I know. It is not in your nature to forget them.’’
He was drawing his hand from his breast; the prisoner
chancing to look up in his hurried wonder as he wrote,
the hand stopped, closing upon something.
‘Have you written ‘forget them’?’ Carton asked.
‘I have. Is that a weapon in your hand?’
‘No; I am not armed.’
‘What is it in your hand?’
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‘You shall know directly. Write on; there are but a few
words more.’ He dictated again. ‘‘I am thankful that the
time has come, when I can prove them. That I do so is no
subject for regret or grief.’’ As he said these words with his
eyes fixed on the writer, his hand slowly and softly moved
down close to the writer’s face.
The pen dropped from Darnay’s fingers on the table,
and he looked about him vacantly.
‘What vapour is that?’ he asked.
‘Vapour?’
‘Something that crossed me?’
‘I am conscious of nothing; there can be nothing here.
Take up the pen and finish. Hurry, hurry!’
As if his memory were impaired, or his faculties
disordered, the prisoner made an effort to rally his
attention. As he looked at Carton with clouded eyes and
with an altered manner of breathing, Carton—his hand
again in his breast—looked steadily at him.
‘Hurry, hurry!’
The prisoner bent over the paper, once more.
‘‘If it had been otherwise;’’ Carton’s hand was again
watchfully and softly stealing down; ‘‘I never should have
used the longer opportunity. If it had been otherwise;’’ the
hand was at the prisoner’s face; ‘‘I should but have had so
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much the more to answer for. If it had been otherwise—’’
Carton looked at the pen and saw it was trailing off into
unintelligible signs.
Carton’s hand moved back to his breast no more. The
prisoner sprang up with a reproachful look, but Carton’s
hand was close and firm at his nostrils, and Carton’s left
arm caught him round the waist. For a few seconds he
faintly struggled with the man who had come to lay down
his life for him; but, within a minute or so, he was
stretched insensible on the ground.
Quickly, but with hands as true to the purpose as his
heart was, Carton dressed himself in the clothes the
prisoner had laid aside, combed back his hair, and tied it
with the ribbon the prisoner had worn. Then, he softly
called, ‘Enter there! Come in!’ and the Spy presented
himself.
‘You see?’ said Carton, looking up, as he kneeled on
one knee beside the insensible figure, putting the paper in
the breast: ‘is your hazard very great?’
‘Mr. Carton,’ the Spy answered, with a timid snap of
his fingers, ‘my hazard is not THAT, in the thick of
business here, if you are true to the whole of your
bargain.’
‘Don’t fear me. I will be true to the death.’
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‘You must be, Mr. Carton, if the tale of fifty-two is to
be right. Being made right by you in that dress, I shall
have no fear.’
‘Have no fear! I shall soon be out of the way of
harming you, and the rest will soon be far from here,
please God! Now, get assistance and take me to the
coach.’
‘You?’ said the Spy nervously.
‘Him, man, with whom I have exchanged. You go out
at the gate by which you brought me in?’
‘Of course.’
‘I was weak and faint when you brought me in, and I
am fainter now you take me out. The parting interview
has overpowered me. Such a thing has happened here,
often, and too often. Your life is in your own hands.
Quick! Call assistance!’
‘You swear not to betray me?’ said the trembling Spy,
as he paused for a last moment.
‘Man, man!’ returned Carton, stamping his foot; ‘have I
sworn by no solemn vow already, to go through with this,
that you waste the precious moments now? Take him
yourself to the courtyard you know of, place him yourself
in the carriage, show him yourself to Mr. Lorry, tell him
yourself to give him no restorative but air, and to
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remember my words of last night, and his promise of last
night, and drive away!’
The Spy withdrew, and Carton seated himself at the
table, resting his forehead on his hands. The Spy returned
immediately, with two men.
‘How, then?’ said one of them, contemplating the
fallen figure. ‘So afflicted to find that his friend has drawn
a prize in the lottery of Sainte Guillotine?’
‘A good patriot,’ said the other, ‘could hardly have
been more afflicted if the Aristocrat had drawn a blank.’
They raised the unconscious figure, placed it on a litter
they had brought to the door, and bent to carry it away.
‘The time is short, Evremonde,’ said the Spy, in a
warning voice.
‘I know it well,’ answered Carton. ‘Be careful of my
friend, I entreat you, and leave me.’
‘Come, then, my children,’ said Barsad. ‘Lift him, and
come away!’
The door closed, and Carton was left alone. Straining
his powers of listening to the utmost, he listened for any
sound that might denote suspicion or alarm. There was
none. Keys turned, doors clashed, footsteps passed along
distant passages: no cry was raised, or hurry made, that
seemed unusual. Breathing more freely in a little while, he
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sat down at the table, and listened again until the clock
struck Two.
Sounds that he was not afraid of, for he divined their
meaning, then began to be audible. Several doors were
opened in succession, and finally his own. A gaoler, with a
list in his hand, looked in, merely saying, ‘Follow me,
Evremonde!’ and he followed into a large dark room, at a
distance. It was a dark winter day, and what with the
shadows within, and what with the shadows without, he
could but dimly discern the others who were brought
there to have their arms bound. Some were standing;
some seated. Some were lamenting, and in restless motion;
but, these were few. The great majority were silent and
still, looking fixedly at the ground.
As he stood by the wall in a dim corner, while some of
the fifty-two were brought in after him, one man stopped
in passing, to embrace him, as having a knowledge of him.
It thrilled him with a great dread of discovery; but the
man went on. A very few moments after that, a young
woman, with a slight girlish form, a sweet spare face in
which there was no vestige of colour, and large widely
opened patient eyes, rose from the seat where he had
observed her sitting, and came to speak to him.
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‘Citizen Evremonde,’ she said, touching him with her
cold hand. ‘I am a poor little seamstress, who was with
you in La Force.’
He murmured for answer: ‘True. I forget what you
were accused of?’
‘Plots. Though the just Heaven knows that I am
innocent of any. Is it likely? Who would think of plotting
with a poor little weak creature like me?’
The forlorn smile with which she said it, so touched
him, that tears started from his eyes.
‘I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evremonde, but I have
done nothing. I am not unwilling to die, if the Republic
which is to do so much good to us poor, will profit by my
death; but I do not know how that can be, Citizen
Evremonde. Such a poor weak little creature!’
As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm
and soften to, it warmed and softened to this pitiable girl.
‘I heard you were released, Citizen Evremonde. I
hoped it was true?’
‘It was. But, I was again taken and condemned.’
‘If I may ride with you, Citizen Evremonde, will you
let me hold your hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and
weak, and it will give me more courage.’
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As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a
sudden doubt in them, and then astonishment. He pressed
the work-worn, hunger-worn young fingers, and touched
his lips.
‘Are you dying for him?’ she whispered.
‘And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.’
‘O you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?’
‘Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last.’
The same shadows that are falling on the prison, are
falling, in that same hour of the early afternoon, on the
Barrier with the crowd about it, when a coach going out
of Paris drives up to be examined.
‘Who goes here? Whom have we within? Papers!’
The papers are handed out, and read.
‘Alexandre Manette. Physician. French. Which is he?’
This is he; this helpless, inarticulately murmuring,
wandering old man pointed out.
‘Apparently the Citizen-Doctor is not in his right
mind? The Revolution-fever will have been too much for
him?’
Greatly too much for him.
‘Hah! Many suffer with it. Lucie. His daughter. French.
Which is she?’
This is she.
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‘Apparently it must be. Lucie, the wife of Evremonde;
is it not?’
It is.
‘Hah! Evremonde has an assignation elsewhere. Lucie,
her child. English. This is she?’
She and no other.
‘Kiss me, child of Evremonde. Now, thou hast kissed a
good Republican; something new in thy family;
remember it! Sydney Carton. Advocate. English. Which is
he?’
He lies here, in this corner of the carriage. He, too, is
pointed out.
‘Apparently the English advocate is in a swoon?’
It is hoped he will recover in the fresher air. It is
represented that he is not in strong health, and has
separated sadly from a friend who is under the displeasure
of the Republic.
‘Is that all? It is not a great deal, that! Many are under
the displeasure of the Republic, and must look out at the
little window. Jarvis Lorry. Banker. English. Which is he?’
‘I am he. Necessarily, being the last.’
It is Jarvis Lorry who has replied to all the previous
questions. It is Jarvis Lorry who has alighted and stands
with his hand on the coach door, replying to a group of
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officials. They leisurely walk round the carriage and
leisurely mount the box, to look at what little luggage it
carries on the roof; the country-people hanging about,
press nearer to the coach doors and greedily stare in; a
little child, carried by its mother, has its short arm held out
for it, that it may touch the wife of an aristocrat who has
gone to the Guillotine.
‘Behold your papers, Jarvis Lorry, countersigned.’
‘One can depart, citizen?’
‘One can depart. Forward, my postilions! A good
journey!’
‘I salute you, citizens.—And the first danger passed!’
These are again the words of Jarvis Lorry, as he clasps
his hands, and looks upward. There is terror in the
carriage, there is weeping, there is the heavy breathing of
the insensible traveller.
‘Are we not going too slowly? Can they not be
induced to go faster?’ asks Lucie, clinging to the old man.
‘It would seem like flight, my darling. I must not urge
them too much; it would rouse suspicion.’
‘Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued!’
‘The road is clear, my dearest. So far, we are not
pursued.’
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Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms,
ruinous buildings, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, open
country, avenues of leafless trees. The hard uneven
pavement is under us, the soft deep mud is on either side.
Sometimes, we strike into the skirting mud, to avoid the
stones that clatter us and shake us; sometimes, we stick in
ruts and sloughs there. The agony of our impatience is
then so great, that in our wild alarm and hurry we are for
getting out and running—hiding—doing anything but
stopping.
Out of the open country, in again among ruinous
buildings, solitary farms, dye-works, tanneries, and the
like, cottages in twos and threes, avenues of leafless trees.
Have these men deceived us, and taken us back by another
road? Is not this the same place twice over? Thank
Heaven, no. A village. Look back, look back, and see if
we are pursued! Hush! the posting-house.
Leisurely, our four horses are taken out; leisurely, the
coach stands in the little street, bereft of horses, and with
no likelihood upon it of ever moving again; leisurely, the
new horses come into visible existence, one by one;
leisurely, the new postilions follow, sucking and plaiting
the lashes of their whips; leisurely, the old postilions count
their money, make wrong additions, and arrive at
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dissatisfied results. All the time, our overfraught hearts are
beating at a rate that would far outstrip the fastest gallop of
the fastest horses ever foaled.
At length the new postilions are in their saddles, and
the old are left behind. We are through the village, up the
hill, and down the hill, and on the low watery grounds.
Suddenly, the postilions exchange speech with animated
gesticulation, and the horses are pulled up, almost on their
haunches. We are pursued?
‘Ho! Within the carriage there. Speak then!’
‘What is it?’ asks Mr. Lorry, looking out at window.
‘How many did they say?’
‘I do not understand you.’
‘—At the last post. How many to the Guillotine today?’
‘Fifty-two.’
‘I said so! A brave number! My fellow-citizen here
would have it forty-two; ten more heads are worth
having. The Guillotine goes handsomely. I love it. Hi
forward. Whoop!’
The night comes on dark. He moves more; he is
beginning to revive, and to speak intelligibly; he thinks
they are still together; he asks him, by his name, what he
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has in his hand. O pity us, kind Heaven, and help us!
Look out, look out, and see if we are pursued.
The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying
after us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole
wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far, we are pursued
by nothing else.
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XIV
The Knitting Done
In that same juncture of time when the Fifty-Two
awaited their fate Madame Defarge held darkly ominous
council with The Vengeance and Jacques Three of the
Revolutionary Jury. Not in the wine-shop did Madame
Defarge confer with these ministers, but in the shed of the
wood-sawyer, erst a mender of roads. The sawyer himself
did not participate in the conference, but abided at a little
distance, like an outer satellite who was not to speak until
required, or to offer an opinion until invited.
‘But our Defarge,’ said Jacques Three, ‘is undoubtedly a
good Republican? Eh?’
‘There is no better,’ the voluble Vengeance protested
in her shrill notes, ‘in France.’
‘Peace, little Vengeance,’ said Madame Defarge, laying
her hand with a slight frown on her lieutenant’s lips, ‘hear
me speak. My husband, fellow-citizen, is a good
Republican and a bold man; he has deserved well of the
Republic, and possesses its confidence. But my husband
has his weaknesses, and he is so weak as to relent towards
this Doctor.’
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‘It is a great pity,’ croaked Jacques Three, dubiously
shaking his head, with his cruel fingers at his hungry
mouth; ‘it is not quite like a good citizen; it is a thing to
regret.’
‘See you,’ said madame, ‘I care nothing for this Doctor,
I. He may wear his head or lose it, for any interest I have
in him; it is all one to me. But, the Evremonde people are
to be exterminated, and the wife and child must follow
the husband and father.’
‘She has a fine head for it,’ croaked Jacques Three. ‘I
have seen blue eyes and golden hair there, and they
looked charming when Samson held them up.’ Ogre that
he was, he spoke like an epicure.
Madame Defarge cast down her eyes, and reflected a
little.
‘The child also,’ observed Jacques Three, with a
meditative enjoyment of his words, ‘has golden hair and
blue eyes. And we seldom have a child there. It is a pretty
sight!’
‘In a word,’ said Madame Defarge, coming out of her
short abstraction, ‘I cannot trust my husband in this
matter. Not only do I feel, since last night, that I dare not
confide to him the details of my projects; but also I feel
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that if I delay, there is danger of his giving warning, and
then they might escape.’
‘That must never be,’ croaked Jacques Three; ‘no one
must escape. We have not half enough as it is. We ought
to have six score a day.’
‘In a word,’ Madame Defarge went on, ‘my husband
has not my reason for pursuing this family to annihilation,
and I have not his reason for regarding this Doctor with
any sensibility. I must act for myself, therefore. Come
hither, little citizen.’
The wood-sawyer, who held her in the respect, and
himself in the submission, of mortal fear, advanced with
his hand to his red cap.
‘Touching those signals, little citizen,’ said Madame
Defarge, sternly, ‘that she made to the prisoners; you are
ready to bear witness to them this very day?’
‘Ay, ay, why not!’ cried the sawyer. ‘Every day, in all
weathers, from two to four, always signalling, sometimes
with the little one, sometimes without. I know what I
know. I have seen with my eyes.’
He made all manner of gestures while he spoke, as if in
incidental imitation of some few of the great diversity of
signals that he had never seen.
‘Clearly plots,’ said Jacques Three. ‘Transparently!’
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‘There is no doubt of the Jury?’ inquired Madame
Defarge, letting her eyes turn to him with a gloomy smile.
‘Rely upon the patriotic Jury, dear citizeness. I answer
for my fellow-Jurymen.’
‘Now, let me see,’ said Madame Defarge, pondering
again. ‘Yet once more! Can I spare this Doctor to my
husband? I have no feeling either way. Can I spare him?’
‘He would count as one head,’ observed Jacques Three,
in a low voice. ‘We really have not heads enough; it
would be a pity, I think.’
‘He was signalling with her when I saw her,’ argued
Madame Defarge; ‘I cannot speak of one without the
other; and I must not be silent, and trust the case wholly
to him, this little citizen here. For, I am not a bad witness.’
The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with each
other in their fervent protestations that she was the most
admirable and marvellous of witnesses. The little citizen,
not to be outdone, declared her to be a celestial witness.
‘He must take his chance,’ said Madame Defarge. ‘No,
I cannot spare him! You are engaged at three o’clock; you
are going to see the batch of to-day executed.—You?’
The question was addressed to the wood-sawyer, who
hurriedly replied in the affirmative: seizing the occasion to
add that he was the most ardent of Republicans, and that
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he would be in effect the most desolate of Republicans, if
anything prevented him from enjoying the pleasure of
smoking his afternoon pipe in the contemplation of the
droll national barber. He was so very demonstrative
herein, that he might have been suspected (perhaps was,
by the dark eyes that looked contemptuously at him out of
Madame Defarge’s head) of having his small individual
fears for his own personal safety, every hour in the day.
‘I,’ said madame, ‘am equally engaged at the same
place. After it is over-say at eight to-night—come you to
me, in Saint Antoine, and we will give information against
these people at my Section.’
The wood-sawyer said he would be proud and flattered
to attend the citizeness. The citizeness looking at him, he
became embarrassed, evaded her glance as a small dog
would have done, retreated among his wood, and hid his
confusion over the handle of his saw.
Madame Defarge beckoned the Juryman and The
Vengeance a little nearer to the door, and there
expounded her further views to them thus:
‘She will now be at home, awaiting the moment of his
death. She will be mourning and grieving. She will be in a
state of mind to impeach the justice of the Republic. She
will be full of sympathy with its enemies. I will go to her.’
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‘What an admirable woman; what an adorable woman!’
exclaimed Jacques Three, rapturously. ‘Ah, my cherished!’
cried The Vengeance; and embraced her.
‘Take you my knitting,’ said Madame Defarge, placing
it in her lieutenant’s hands, ‘and have it ready for me in
my usual seat. Keep me my usual chair. Go you there,
straight, for there will probably be a greater concourse
than usual, to-day.’
‘I willingly obey the orders of my Chief,’ said The
Vengeance with alacrity, and kissing her cheek. ‘You will
not be late?’
‘I shall be there before the commencement.’
‘And before the tumbrils arrive. Be sure you are there,
my soul,’ said The Vengeance, calling after her, for she
had already turned into the street, ‘before the tumbrils
arrive!’
Madame Defarge slightly waved her hand, to imply that
she heard, and might be relied upon to arrive in good
time, and so went through the mud, and round the corner
of the prison wall. The Vengeance and the Juryman,
looking after her as she walked away, were highly
appreciative of her fine figure, and her superb moral
endowments.
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There were many women at that time, upon whom the
time laid a dreadfully disfiguring hand; but, there was not
one among them more to be dreaded than this ruthless
woman, now taking her way along the streets. Of a strong
and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of
great determination, of that kind of beauty which not only
seems to impart to its possessor firmness and animosity, but
to strike into others an instinctive recognition of those
qualities; the troubled time would have heaved her up,
under any circumstances. But, imbued from her childhood
with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred
of a class, opportunity had developed her into a tigress.
She was absolutely without pity. If she had ever had the
virtue in her, it had quite gone out of her.
It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die
for the sins of his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them.
It was nothing to her, that his wife was to be made a
widow and his daughter an orphan; that was insufficient
punishment, because they were her natural enemies and
her prey, and as such had no right to live. To appeal to
her, was made hopeless by her having no sense of pity,
even for herself. If she had been laid low in the streets, in
any of the many encounters in which she had been
engaged, she would not have pitied herself; nor, if she had
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been ordered to the axe to-morrow, would she have gone
to it with any softer feeling than a fierce desire to change
places with the man who sent here there.
Such a heart Madame Defarge carried under her rough
robe. Carelessly worn, it was a becoming robe enough, in
a certain weird way, and her dark hair looked rich under
her coarse red cap. Lying hidden in her bosom, was a
loaded pistol. Lying hidden at her waist, was a sharpened
dagger. Thus accoutred, and walking with the confident
tread of such a character, and with the supple freedom of a
woman who had habitually walked in her girlhood, barefoot
and bare-legged, on the brown sea-sand, Madame
Defarge took her way along the streets.
Now, when the journey of the travelling coach, at that
very moment waiting for the completion of its load, had
been planned out last night, the difficulty of taking Miss
Pross in it had much engaged Mr. Lorry’s attention. It was
not merely desirable to avoid overloading the coach, but it
was of the highest importance that the time occupied in
examining it and its passengers, should be reduced to the
utmost; since their escape might depend on the saving of
only a few seconds here and there. Finally, he had
proposed, after anxious
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consideration, that Miss Pross and Jerry, who were at
liberty to leave the city, should leave it at three o’clock in
the lightest- wheeled conveyance known to that period.
Unencumbered with luggage, they would soon overtake
the coach, and, passing it and preceding it on the road,
would order its horses in advance, and greatly facilitate its
progress during the precious hours of the night, when
delay was the most to be dreaded.
Seeing in this arrangement the hope of rendering real
service in that pressing emergency, Miss Pross hailed it
with joy. She and Jerry had beheld the coach start, had
known who it was that Solomon brought, had passed
some ten minutes in tortures of suspense, and were now
concluding their arrangements to follow the coach, even
as Madame Defarge, taking her way through the streets,
now drew nearer and nearer to the else-deserted lodging
in which they held their consultation.
‘Now what do you think, Mr. Cruncher,’ said Miss
Pross, whose agitation was so great that she could hardly
speak, or stand, or move, or live: ‘what do you think of
our not starting from this courtyard? Another carriage
having already gone from here to-day, it might awaken
suspicion.’
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‘My opinion, miss,’ returned Mr. Cruncher, ‘is as
you’re right. Likewise wot I’ll stand by you, right or
wrong.’
‘I am so distracted with fear and hope for our precious
creatures,’ said Miss Pross, wildly crying, ‘that I am
incapable of forming any plan. Are YOU capable of
forming any plan, my dear good
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