A story of the French revolution, by Charles Dickens (a summary by Pat Evert)
Book I – Recalled to Life
The Period
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. France, less favored on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness downhill, making paper money and spending it. In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night. Musketeers went into St. Giles’s, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. Thus did the year 1775 conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures the creatures of this chronicle among the rest.
The Mail
In those days, travelers were very shy of being confidential on a short notice, for anybody on the road might be a robber or in league with robbers. The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guard suspected the passengers, the passengers suspected one another and the guard, they all suspected everybody else. The sound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously up the hill. “I want a passenger.” “What passenger?” “Mr. Jarvis Lorry.” He opened the letter in the light of the coach-lamp on that side, and read – first to himself and then aloud: “wait at Dover for mam’selle.” “Jerry say that my answer was RECALLED TO LIFE.”
The Night Shadows
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. Every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imagining, a secret to the heart nearest it. The messenger road back at an easy trot, stopping pretty often at ale-houses by the way to drink. “It wouldn’t do for you, Jerry. You honest tradesman, it wouldn’t suit your line of business! Recalled!” He was on his way to dig someone out of a grave.
“Buried how long?” The answer was always the same, almost eighteen years.” “You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?” “Long ago.” “You know that you are recalled to life?” “They tell me so.” “I hope you care to live?” “I can’t say.” “Shall I show her to you? Will you come and see her?”
“Eighteen years!” said the passenger, looking at the sun. “Gracious Creator of day! To be buried alive for eighteen years!”
The Preparation
The waiter came in to announce that Miss Manette had arrived from London and would be happy to see the gentleman. A young lady of not more than seventeen. “I received a letter from the Bank, sir, yesterday, informing me that some intelligence or discovery… respecting the small property of my poor father, who I never saw, so long dead. Rendered it necessary that I should go to Paris, there to communicate with a gentleman of the Bank, so good as to be dispatched to Paris for the purpose. That I should go to France, I should esteem it highly if I might be permitted to place myself under the worthy gentlemen‘s protection. It was told me by the Bank that the gentleman would explain to me the details of the business, and that I must prepare myself to find them of a surprising nature. I have done my best to prepare myself.” “I will relate to you miss, the story of one of our customers. He was a French gentleman; a scientific gentleman; a man of great acquirements – a doctor. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the gentleman was of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the gentleman was of repute in Paris. I had the honor of knowing him there. Our relations were business relations, but confidential. I was at that time in our French house, and he had been oh! Twenty years. He married an English lady.” “But this is my father’s story, sir; and I begin to think that when I was left an orphan through my mother surviving my father only two years, it was you who brought me to England. I am almost sure of it.” “Miss Manette, it was I. If Monsieur Manette had not died; if he had been spirited away then the history of your father would’ve been the history of this unfortunate gentleman, the doctor of Beauvais. And when she died, I believe brokenhearted, she left you at two years old to grow to be blooming, beautiful, and happy, without the dark cloud upon you of living in uncertainty, whether your father soon wore his heart out in prison, or wasted there through many lingering years. But he has been… been found. He is alive! Greatly changed, it is too probable; almost a wreck, it is possible, though we will hope the best. Still alive.” A shiver ran through her frame. “You are well on your way to the poor, wrong gentleman, and, with a fair sea voyage, and a fair land journey, you will soon be at his dear side. Only one thing more, he has been found under another name. Better not to mention the subject, anywhere or in any way, and to remove him for a while at all events out of France. All comprehended in the one line, ‘recalled to life’.”
The Wine Shop
A large cast of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. There was a special companionship in it, and observable inclination on the part of everyone to join the luckier or lighter hearted, to frolic, some embraces, drinking of health, and even joining of hands and dancing, a dozen together. The wine was red wine and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris. The time was to come, when the wine too, would be spilled on the street stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there. Hunger was the inscription on the bake shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread. The trade signs and they were almost as many as the shops were, all grim illustrations of Want. Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette, emerging from the wine shop. Monsieur Defarge bent down on one knee to the child of his old master, and put her hand to his lips. “Is he always alone then?” “Yes.” “He is greatly changed?” “Changed!” At last the top of the staircase was gained. “Why! Because he has lived so long locked up, that he would be frightened – rave – tear himself to pieces, die, come to I know not what harm if his door was left open.” “I am afraid of him,” she answered shuttering. “Of my father.” With his back towards the door and his face towards the window, a white haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward, and very busy, making shoes.
The Shoemaker
“Yes, I am working.” So sunken and suppressed it was, like a voice underground. The hollowness and thinness of his face and his confused white hair. “It is a young ladies walking shoe. No, I was not a shoemaker by trade. I learned it here. I taught myself.” He stared at her with a fearful look. “Who are you?” He put his hand to his neck, and took off a blackened string with a scrap of folded rag attached to it. He opened this, carefully, on his knee, and it contained not more than one or two long golden hairs. “It is the same. How can it be! When was it! How was it! What is your name, my gentle angel?” “All that I may tell you, here and now, is, that I pray to you to touch me and to bless me. Kiss me! Oh my dear, my dear!” She held him closer around the neck and rocked him on her breast like a child. “If, when I tell you, dearest, dear, that you’re agony is over, and that I have come here to take you from it, and that we go to England to be at peace and at rest, I caused you to think of your useful life laid waste, and of our native France so wicked to you, weep for it, weep for it! Good gentlemen, thank God! I feel his sacred tears upon my face, and his sobs strike against my heart. O, see! Thank God for us, thank God! All could be arranged for our leaving Paris at once.” No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible at any of the many windows; not even a chance passerby was in the street. An unnatural silence and desertion reigned there.
What subtle powers were for ever lost to him, and what were capable of restoration – the old inquiry: “I hope you care to be recalled to life?” And the old answer, “I can’t say.”
Book II – The Golden Thread
Five Years Later
But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in Vogue with all trades and professions, and not least of all with Tellson’s. Death is nature’s remedy for all things. Cramped in all kinds of dun cupboards and hutches at Tellson’s, the oldest of men carried on the business gravely. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese until he had the full Tellson flavor. “They ain’t worth much, then. Whether or no, I won’t be prayed agin, I tell you. I can’t afford it. I’m not a going to be made unlucky by your sneaking. If you must go flopping yourself down, flop in favor of your husband and child, and not in opposition to ‘em. If I had had any but a unnat’ral wife, and this poor boy had had any but a unnat’ral mother, I might have made some money last week instead of being counter-prayed,” said Mr. Cruncher. It could scarcely be called a trade, in spite of his favorite description of himself as “an honest tradesman.”
A Sight
The gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and villainy were practiced, and where dire diseases were bred. Two jailers, and the prisoner was brought in, and put to the bar. Charles Darnay, stood there before him upon his trial. The accused, who was being mentally hanged, beheaded, and quartered. He was quiet and attentive; watched the opening proceedings with a grave interest. The spectator saw two figures, a young lady of little more than 20, and a gentleman who was evidently her father; a man, of very remarkable appearance in respect of the absolute whiteness of his hair. The whisper went about, “who are they?” “Witnesses against the prisoner.”
A Disappointment
It was certain the prisoner had, been in the habit of passing between France and England, on secret business of which he could give no honest account. “Miss Manette, did he say anything about America? Be particular.” “He tried to explain to me how that a quarrel had arisen and he said that, so far as he could judge, it was wrong and foolish on England’s part. He added, in a jesting way that perhaps George Washington might gain almost as great a name in history as George the third.” “Dr. Manette, has it been your misfortune to undergo a long imprisonment, without trial, or even accusation, in your native country?” He answered in a tone that went to every heart, “A long imprisonment.” “Have you no remembrance of the occasion?” “None. My mind is a blank. I cannot even say what time when I employed myself, in my captivity, and making shoes, to the time when I found myself living in London with my dear daughter here.” Mr. Lorry handed a paper through the throng. “Quick, have you got it?” “Yes sir.” Hastily written on the paper was the word ‘AQUITTED.’ “If you had sent the message, ‘Recalled to Life,’ again,” muttered Jerry, as he turned, “I should’ve known what you meant, this time.”
Congratulatory
Doctor Manette, Lucie Manette, his daughter, Mr. Lorry, the solicitor for the defense and its council, Mr. Stryver, stood gathered around Mr. Charles Darnay congratulating him on his escape from death. “I hardly seem yet,” returned Charles Darnay, “to belong to this world again.”
The Jackal
Those were drinking days, and most men drank hard. It had once been noted at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryver was a glib man, and an unscrupulous, and ready, and a bold, he had not the faculty of extracting the essence from a heap of statements. Although Sydney Carton would never be a lion, he was an amazingly good jackal, and that he rendered suit and service to Stryver in that humble capacity. “The old seesaw Sydney. Up one minute and down the next; now in spirits, and now in despondency!” “How have I done what I have done?” said Stryver; “How do I do what I do?” “Partly through paying me to help you, I suppose. But it’s not worth your while to apostrophize me, or the air, about it; what you want to do, you do. You were always in the front rank, and I was always behind. The picturesque doctor’s daughter, Miss Manette. She was a golden-haired doll!”
Hundreds of People
Mr. Jarvis Lorry walked along the sunny streets where he lived, on his way to dine with the Doctor, after several relapses into business absorption, Mr. Lorry had become the Doctors‘s friend, and the quiet street corner was the sunny part of his life. “I don’t want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of Ladybird, to come here looking after her,” said Miss Pross.” “Do dozens come for that purpose?” “Hundreds,” said Miss Pross. “I began it, Miss Pross?” “Didn’t you? Who brought her father to life?” “Oh! If that was beginning it,” said Mr. Lorry. “But it really is doubly and trebly hard to have crowds and multitudes of people turning up after him, I could have forgiven him, to take Ladybird’s affections away from me. There never was, nor will be, but one man worthy of Ladybird,” said Miss Pross; and that was my brother Solomon, if he hadn’t made a mistake in life.” “Let me ask you – does the Doctor, in talking with Lucie, never refer to the shoe making time?” “Never. And yet he keeps that bench and those tools beside him?” “Do you suppose,” Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing twinkle in his bright eye, as it looked kindly at her, “that Dr. Manette has any theory of his own, preserved through all those years, relative to the cause of his being so oppressed; perhaps, even to the name of his oppressor?” “He is afraid of the whole subject.”
Monseigneur in Town
Monsignor, one of the great lords in power at the court, held his fortnightly reception in his grand hotel in Paris. Monsignor, after generations of great luxury and expense, was growing poor. Everybody was dressed for a fancy ball that was never to leave off. The show being over, there was soon, but one person left of all the crowd. ‘I devote you,’ said this person, stopping at the last door on his way, and turning in the direction of the sanctuary, “to the devil!” He was a man of about 60, handsomely dressed, haughty in manor, and with a face like a fine mask. He went downstairs into the courtyard, got into his carriage, and drove away.
The monsignor raced through the city carelessly. “Killed!” Shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him’ “Dead!” Monsignor the Marquis ran his eyes over them. All, as if they were mere rats come out of their holes. He took out his purse. “It is extraordinary to me,” said he “that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up.” To the child’s father, Defarge said, “Be a brave man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so than to live. It has died in a moment without pain.” “They call me Defarge. Monsieur the Marquis, vendor of wine.” So much life in the city ran into death.
Monseigneur in the Country
A beautiful landscape, with the corn bright in it, a prevalent tendency towards an appearance of vegetating unwillingly – a dejected disposition to give up, and wither away. The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, poor Tavern, poor stable yard for relays of post horses, poor fountain. All its people were poor. Expressive sips of what made them poor, were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be paid there, until the wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed. “Monsignor, I looked at the man. He swung by the chain of the shoe – the drag. Monsignor, he was whiter than the miller, all covered with dust, white as a Spectre, tall as a Spectre!”
The Gorgon’s Head
It was a heavy, massive building, the Château of Monsieur the Marquis, with a large stone courtyard. As if the Gorgon’s head had surveyed it when it was finished, two centuries ago. Monsignor sat down alone to his sumptuous and choice supper. His nephew had arrived. He was to be told, said Monsignor that supper awaited him then and there, and that he was prayed to come to it. He had been known in England as Charles Darnay. “France in all such things is changed for the worse. It causes us real inconvenience. All very bad, very bad! We have so asserted our station, both in the old time, and in the modern time also,” said the nephew gloomily, “that I believe our name to be more detested than any name in France. Sir,” said the nephew, “we have done wrong, and are reaping the fruits of wrong.” “We have done wrong?” Repeated the Marquis. “My friend, I will die, perpetuating the system, under which I have lived.” “This property and France are lost to me, said the nephew, sadly; “I renounce them. I would abandon it and live otherwise and elsewhere. It is little to relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery and ruin!” The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, and had added the one stone face wanting; the stone face for which it had waited through about 200 years. It laid back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was like a fine mask, suddenly startled, made angry, and petrified. Driven home into the heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife. Round its hilt was a frill of paper on which was scrolled: “Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.”
Two Promises
Mr. Charles Darnay was established in England as a higher teacher of the French language who was conversant with French literature. In this age, he would’ve been a professor; in that age, he was a tutor. So, with great perseverance and untiring industry, he prospered. He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. Now a year later, and he had never yet, by so much as a single spoken word, disclosed to her the state of his heart. He sought an opportunity of opening his mind to Dr. Manette. The doctor now was a very energetic man, indeed, with great firmness of purpose, strength of resolution, and vigor of action. “Dear Doctor Manette, I love your daughter, fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. I look only to sharing your fortunes, sharing your life and home, and being faithful to you to the death. Not to divide with Lucie her privilege as your child, companion, and friend; but to come in aid of it, and bind her closer to you, if such a thing can be.” “Have you any reason to believe that Lucie loves you?” asked the doctor. “None. As yet, none.” “I give the promise,” said the doctor, “without any condition. I believe your object to be, purely, and truthfully, as you have stated it. I believe your intention is to perpetuate, and not to weaken, the ties between me and my other and far dearer self. If she should ever tell me that you are essential to her perfect happiness, I will give her to you.” “I wish that I may the better deserve your confidence, and have no secret from you.” “Tell me when I ask you, not now. If your suit should prosper, if Lucie should love you, you shall tell me on your marriage morning. Do you promise?” “Willingly.”
A Companion Picture
“Now, look here! I intend to marry,” said Stryver, inflating himself at his friend as he made the punch. The young lady is Miss Manette. Now, Sydney, old boy, I want to say a word to you about your prospects. You are in a bad way, you know; you really are in a bad way. You don’t know the value of money, you live hard, you’ll knock up one of these days, and be ill and poor; you really ought to think about a nurse.”
The Fellow of Delicacy
“I am going to make an offer of myself in marriage to your agreeable little friend, Miss Manette, Mr. Lorry,” said Mr. Stryver. “No understand me,” pursued Mr. Lorry as a man of business. “I am not justified in saying anything about this matter, for as a man of business, I know nothing of it, but, as an old fellow, who has carried Miss Manette in his arms, who is the trusted friend of Miss Manette, and of her father, too, and who has a great affection for them both, I have spoken.” Unprepared as he was for the large pill he had to swallow, Mr. Stryver got it down. “I am really very much obliged to you for allowing me to sound you, and for giving me your advice; you know the young lady better than I do; you were right, it never would have done.”
The Fellow of No Delicacy
“In the hour of my death, I shall hold sacred the one good remembrance – and shall thank and bless you for it – that my last avowal of myself was made to you, and that my name, and faults, and misery were gently carried in your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy! For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you, said Mr. Carton. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father’s face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!”
Knitting
This had been the third morning in succession, on which there had been early drinking at the wine shop of Monsieur Defarge. There had been more of early brooding than drinking. “The tall man is lost, and he is sought – how many months? Nine, ten, eleven? No matter the number,” said Defarge. “He is well hidden, but at last he is unluckily found. Go on!” “I see no more than that they are six soldiers with a tall man bound. He remains up there in his iron cage some days. The village looks at him by stealth, for it is afraid. They whisper at the fountain, that although condemned to death, he will not be executed; they say that petitions have been presented in Paris, showing that he was enraged and made mad by the death of his child; they say that a petition has been presented to the King himself. They even whisper that because he has slain Monsignor, and because Monsignor was the father of his tenants – serfs – what you will – he will be executed as a parricide. The name of that prisoner was Damiens, and it was all done in open day, and in the open streets of this city of Paris.”
Still Knitting
A rumor lived in the village of Saint Antoine – had a faint and bare existence there, as it’s people had – that when the knife struck home, the faces changed, from faces of pride to faces of anger and pain; also, that when that dangling figure was hauled up forty feet above the fountain, they changed again, and wore a cruel look of being avenged, which they would henceforth bare forever. In the stone face over the great window of the bed chamber, where the murder was done, two fine dints were pointed out in the sculptured nose, which everybody recognized, and which nobody had seen of old. “There is another spy commissioned for our quarter. There may be many more, but he knows of one. John Barsad,” said Defarge. “He shall be registered tomorrow,” said Madame Defarge. “It does not take a long time, for an earthquake to swallow a town. Eh well! Tell me how long it takes to prepare the earthquake?” “A long time, I suppose,” said Defarge.
“There is much sympathy and anger in Saint Antoine, touching the unhappy fate of poor Gaspard,” said the spy. “No one has told me so,” said Defarge, shaking his head. “I know nothing of it. You seem to know this quarter well; that is to say, better than I do?” observed Defarge. “Not at all, but I hope to know it better. I am so profoundly interested in its miserable inhabitants. Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married. But not to an Englishman; to one who, like herself is French. To marry the nephew of Monsieur, the Marquis, for whom Gaspard was exalted to that height of so many feet; in other words, the present Marquis. But he lives unknown in England, he is no Marquis there; he is Mr. Charles Darnay.” All the women knitted. They knitted worthless things; but the technical work was a mechanical substitute for eating and drinking.
One Night
Lucie was to be married tomorrow. She had reserved this last evening for her father, and they sat alone under the plane tree. “My future is far brighter, Lucie, seen through your marriage, then it could have been – nay, then it ever was – without it. How could my happiness be perfect, while yours was incomplete? My thoughts, when they were wildest, never rose near the happiness that I have known with you, and that we have before us.” She timidly laid her hand on his dear breast, and put up a prayer that she might ever be as true to him as her love aspired to be, and as his sorrows deserved.
Nine Days
The marriage day was shining brightly, and they were ready outside the closed door of the Doctor’s room, where he was speaking with Charles Darnay. The door of the Doctor’s room opened, and he came out with Charles. He was so deadly pale, which had not been the case when they went in together – that no vestige of color was to be seen in his face. In a neighboring church, Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette were happily married. Miss Pross, with a terrified face, was at his ear. “O, me, O me! All is lost!” she cried. “What is to be told to ladybird? He doesn’t know me, and is making shoes!” Two things at once impressed themselves on Mr. Lorry, as important above all others; the first, that this must be kept secret from Lucie; the second, that it must be kept secret from all who knew him. Mr. Lorry resolved to watch him attentively, with as little appearance as possible of doing so. He therefore made arrangement to absent himself from Tellson’s for the first time in his life, and took his post by the window in the same room. The time went very slowly on, and Mr. Lorry’s hope darkened, and his heart grew heavier again, and grew yet heavier and heavier every day, for nine days. Mr. Lorry passed through this anxious time. The shoemaker, whose hand had been a little out at first, was growing dreadfully skillful, never been so nimble and expert, as in the dusk of the ninth evening.
An Opinion
Mr. Lorry rubbed his eyes and roused himself; but he doubted, when he had done so, whether he was not still asleep. For going to the door of the Doctor’s room and looking in, he perceived that the shoemaker bench and tools were put aside again, and the doctor himself sat reading at the window. He was in his usual morning dress, and his face which Mr. Lorry could distinctly see, though still very pale, was calmly, studious and attentive. “My dear Manette, it is the case of a shock from which he has recovered, so completely, as to be a highly intelligent man, capable of close application of mind, and great exertion of body. But unfortunately, there has been,” he paused and took a deep breath – “a slight relapse.” The doctor in a low voice, asked of how long duration? “Nine days and nights. It is known only to myself, and to one other who may be trusted.” The doctor grasped his hand, and murmured, “That was very kind. That was very thoughtful! I think it probable,” said the doctor, “that the relapse was foreseen, and very much dreaded,” he said with an involuntary shudder. “You see too,” said the doctor, tremulously, “it is such an old companion.” “I would not keep it,” said Mr. Lorry. Come! Give me your authority, like a dear, good man. For his daughter’s sake, my dear Manette.” “In her name, then, let it be done; I sanction it. But, I would not take it away while he was present. Let it be removed when he is not there; let him miss his old companion after an absence.” And on the 14th day, he went away to join Lucie and her husband. On that night, Mr. Lorry went into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer, attended by Miss Pross carrying a light. The burning of the body, previously reduced to pieces convenient for the purpose, was commenced without delay in the kitchen fire; and the tools, shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden.
A Plea
“I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with Mr. Carton always, and very lenient on his faults when he is not by,” said Lucie. “I would ask you to believe that he has a heart. He very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding. I am sure that he is capable of good things, gentle things, even magnanimous things.” The supplication touched him home. “I will always remember it, dear Heart! I will remember it as long as I live.”
Echoing Footsteps
Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to force their way into anybody’s life, the footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar off, as the little circle sat in the dark London window. As a whirlpool of boiling waters has a center point, so, all this raging circled round Defarge’s wine shop. Alarm bells ringing, drums beating, the sea raging, and thundering on its new beach, the attack began. Cannon, muskets, fire and smoke; but, still the deep ditch, the single drawbridge, the massive stone walls, and the eight great towers. Slight displacements of the raging sea, made by the falling wounded. Of all these cries, and ten thousand incoherences, “The prisoners!” was the cry most taken up by the sea that rushed in. “One hundred and five North Tower, show it me,” said Defarge. “Stop! Look! A.M.! Alexandre Manette.” The hour was come, when Saint Antoine was to execute his horrible idea of hoisting up men for lamps to show what he could be and do. Saint Antoine’s blood was up, and the blood of tyranny and domination by the iron hand was down. The loudly echoing footsteps of Saint Antoine escorts through the Paris streets in mid July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine. Now heaven defeat the fancy of Lucie Darnay, and keep these feet far out of her life!
The Sea Still Rises
Madame Defarge wore no rose in her head, for what the great brotherhood of Spies had become, even in one short week. There was a change in the appearance of Saint Antoine; the image had been hammering into this for hundreds of years, and the last finishing blows had told mightily on the expression.
Fire Rises
Far and wide lay a ruined country, yieldIng nothing but desolation. Every green leaf, every blade of grass and blade of grain, was as shriveled and poor as the miserable people. Everything was bowed down, dejected, oppressed, and broken. “The château is on fire; valuable objects may be saved from the flames by timely aid! Help, help!” The officers looked towards the soldiers who looked at the fire; gave no orders; and answered, with shrugs and biting of lips, “It must burn.” The château was left to itself to flame and burn. Monsieur Gabelle came down bringing his life with him.
Drawn to the Loadstone Rock
Three years of tempest were consumed. Monseigneur, as a class, had dissociated himself from his being so little wanted in France, as to incur considerable danger of receiving his dismissal from it and his life together. “My dear Charles,” said Mr. Lorry, “you are to remember, that getting things out of Paris at this present time, no matter what things, is next to an impossibility. Now, everything is stopped. I really go tonight, for the case has become too pressing to admit of delay.”
June 21, 1792. Monsieur heretofore the Marquis. From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearer and nearer to destruction, I send you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, the assurance of my dolores and unhappy service. You’re afflicted, Gabelle.”
Gabelle’s letter: the appeal of an innocent prisoner, in danger of death, to his justice, honor, and good name. His resolution was made, Charles must go to Paris. Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must sail on until he struck. That night – the 14 of August – Charles sat up late and wrote two fervent letters; one was to Lucie, explaining the strong obligation he was under to go to Paris, and showing her, at length, the reasons that he had, for feeling confident that he could become involved in no personal danger there; the other was to the Doctor, confiding Lucie, and their dear child to his care, and dwelling on the same topics with the strongest assurances. To both he wrote, that he would dispatch letters in proof of his safety, immediately after his arrival. He left his letters with a trusty porter, to be delivered half an hour before midnight, and no sooner; took horse for Dover; and began his journey. “For the love of heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honor of your noble name!” was the poor prisoners cry with which he strengthened his sinking heart, as he left all that was dear on earth behind him, and floated away for the Loadstone Rock.
Book III – The Track of a Storm
In Secret
Charles Darnay began to perceive that for him along these country roads there was no hope of return until he should have been declared a good citizen at Paris. He could not have felt his freedom more completely gone. The banishing of all emigrants, and condemning all to death who return. The fields had yielded no fruits of the earth that year. “You are consigned, Evremonde, to the prison of La Force. Emigrants have no rights, Evremonde.” “ Indeed I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so changed, so sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost. Will you render me a little help?” “None,” Defarge spoke. Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel separation from his wife and child, he arrived at the prison of La Force. He was confined alone, in secret.
The Grindstone
Tellson’s Bank, established in the Saint Germain quarter of Paris, was in a wing of a large house. The house belonged to a great nobleman who had lived in it until he had made a flight from the troubles. Monsignor’s house had been first sequestered and then confiscated. What money would be drawn out of Tellson’s henceforth, and what would lie there, lost and forgotten; what plate and jewels would tarnish in Tellson’s hiding places, while the depositors rusted in prisons, and when they should have violently perished. Against two of the pillars were fastened two great flaring flambeaux, and in the light of these, standing out in the open air, was a large grindstone. “Thank God,” said Mr. Lorry, clasping his hands, “that no one near and dear to me is in this dreadful town tonight. May he have mercy on all who are in danger!” Lucie and her father entered the house! Lucie with her arms stretched out to him, and with that old look of earnestness, so intensified. “What is this?” cried Mr. Lorry, breathless and confused. “What is the matter? Lucie Manette! What has happened? What has brought you here? What is it?” With a look fixed upon him, in her paleness and wildness, she panted out in his arms imploringly, “O my dear friend! My husband!”
Hatchets, knives, bayonets, swords, all brought to be sharpened, were all red with blood. Some of the hacked swords were tied to the wrists of those who carry them, with strips of linen and fragments of dress: ligatures various and kind, but all deep of the one color. “They are,” Mr. Lorry whispered the words, glancing fearfully round at the locked room, “murdering the prisoners. If you are sure of what you say; if you really have the power you think you have – as I believe you have – make yourself known to these devils, and get taken to La Force. It may be too late, I don’t know, but let it not be a minute later!”
The Shadow
“Yes. I come from Dr. Manette,” said Defarge. Mr. Lorry brought Defarge and his wife to see Lucie. They delivered a letter from Charles:
Dearest, – take courage. I am well, and your father has influence around me. You cannot answer this. Kiss our child for me.
She turned from Defarge to his wife, and kissed one of the hands that knitted. It was a passionate, loving, thankful, womanly action, but the hand made no response – dropped cold and heavy, and took to its knitting again. “Is that his child?” said Madame Defarge, stopping in her work for the first time, and pointing her knitting-needle at little Lucie, as if it were the finger of Fate. “Yes, madame,” answered Mr. Lorry; “this is our poor prisoner’s, darling daughter, and only child.” “For my sake, then, be merciful to my husband. For my child’s sake! She will put her hands together and pray you to be merciful. We are more afraid of you than of these others. As a wife and mother,” cried Lucie, most earnestly, “I implore you to have pity on me and not to exercise any power that you possess, against my innocent husband, but to use it in his behalf. O sister-woman, think of me. As a wife and mother!” “That dreadful woman seems to throw a shadow on me and on all my hopes.”
Calm in Storm
Doctor Manette did not return until the morning of the fourth day of his absence. Eleven hundred defenseless prisoners of both sexes and all ages had been killed by the populous in that time. He presented himself to this tribunal, as having been for eighteen years a secret and unaccused prisoner in the Bastille. Charles Darnay had been brought before the lawless court, and examined. He was to remain in that Hall of Blood until the danger was over. The Doctor felt that in that sharp fire, he had slowly forged the iron which could break the prison door of his daughter‘s husband, and deliver him. The Doctor was soon the inspecting physician of three prisons, and among them La Force. He saw her husband weekly. This new life of the Doctor’s was an anxious life, sustaining pride in it. He knew himself to be invested through that old trial and forces, to which they both looked for Charles’s ultimate safety and deliverance, he became so far exalted by the change, that he took the lead and direction, and required the weak, to trust him as the strong. A revolutionary tribunal in the capital, prisons gorged, with people who had committed no offense, and could obtain no hearing; these things became the established order and nature of appointed things. Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it had been before the general gaze from the foundations of the world – the figure of the sharp female called La Guillotine. It’s superseded the cross. It sheared off heads so many, and the ground it most polluted, were a rotten red. Among these terrors, and the brood belonging to them, the Doctor walked with a steady head: confident in his power, cautiously persistent in his end, never doubting that he would save Lucie’s husband at last. Charles had lain in prison one year and three months when the Doctor was thus steady and confident. No man better known than he, in Paris at that day; no man in a stranger situation. In the exercise of his skill, the appearance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all other men. As if he had indeed been recalled to life some 18 years before, or were a spirit moving among mortals.
The Wood-Sawyer
One year and three months. During all that time, Lucie was never sure, from hour to hour, but that the Guillotine would strike off her husband’s head the next day. The solemn prayer at night for one dear prisoner especially, among the many unhappy souls in prison and the shadow of death. “My dear, there is an upper window in the prison, to which Charles can sometimes gain access at three in the afternoon. He might see you in the street, but you will not be able to see him.” From that time, in all weather, she waited there two hours. She never missed a single day. “Charles is summoned for tomorrow, and removed to the Conciergerie. Your suspense is nearly ended, my darling; he shall be restored to you within a few hours; I have encompassed him with every protection. I must see Lorry.” Above a heap of dust and ashes in the court, ran the letters National Property. Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death!
Triumph
The dread tribunal of five Judges, Public Prosecutor, and determined Jury, sat every day. Their lists went forth every evening, and were read out by the jailers of the various prisons to their prisoners. “Charles Evremonde, called Darnay.” Looking at the jury and the turbulent audience, he might have thought that the usual order of things was reversed, and that the felons were trying, the honest men. The lowest, cruelest, the worst populous of a city, were the directing spirits of the scene. “Take off his head!” cried the audience. “An enemy to the republic!” At every vote (the jurymen voted aloud and individually), the populace set up a shout of applause. All the voices were in the prisoner’s favor, and the President declared him free. “And now speak to your father, dearest. No other man in all this France could have done what he has done for me.”
A Knock at the Door
The innocent were so constantly put to death on vague suspicion and black malice, it was so impossible to forget that many as blameless as her husband and as dear to others as he was to her, every day shared the fate from which he had been clutched. “Is there any prospect yet, of our getting out of this place?” “I fear not yet. It would be dangerous for Charles yet.” A blow was struck upon the door. “Tell me how and why am I again a prisoner?” “He is accused by Saint Antoine.” “Of what?” asked the doctor. “Well! Truly, it is against the rule. But he is denounced – and gravely – by the citizen and citizeness Defarge. And by one other.”
A Hand at Cards
“My English brother Solomon,” mourned Miss Pross casting up her tear fraught eyes, “that had the makings in him of one of the best and greatest of men in his native country, an official among foreigners, and such foreigners! I would almost sooner have seen the dear boy lying in his -.” “Barsad,” said Sydney Carton, striking in. The spy, who was pale, turned paler. “Could you favor me, in confidence, with some minutes of your company – at the office of Tellson’s Bank, for instance? Come come, Mr. Barsad!” exclaimed Sydney. “Don’t be ungrateful. But for my great respect for your sister, I might not have led up so pleasantly to a little proposal that I wish to make for our mutual satisfaction.” John Barsad, or Solomon Pross, walked at his side. “Mr. Barsad, he went on in the tone of one who really was looking over a hand at cards: “Sheep of the prisons, emissary of Republican committees, now turnkey, now prisoner, always spy, and secret informer, so much the more valuable here for being English that an Englishman is less open to suspicion of subordination in those characters than a Frenchman, represents himself to his employers under a false name. That’s a very good card, Mr. Barsad, now in the employ of the Republican French government, was formerly in the employ of the aristocratic English government, the enemy of France and freedom. That’s an excellent card. Inference clear as day in this region of suspicion, that Mr. Barsad, still in the pay of the aristocratic English government, is the spy of Pitt, the treacherous foe of the Republic, crouching in its bosom, the English traitor and agent of all mischief so much spoken of and so difficult to find. That’s a card not to be beaten. Come into the dark room here, and let us have one final word alone.”
The Game Made
Mr. Cruncher knuckled his forehead, as Sydney Carton and the spy returned from the dark room, ‘Adieu, Mr. Barsad, said the former; our arrangement thus made, you have nothing to fear from me. If it should go ill with the prisoner, I have insured access to him, once.’ Mr. Lorry, who had never seen the better side of Mr. Carton, was wholly unprepared. “I have secured to myself, the love and attachment, the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by!” said Mr. Carton. He stopped at a chemist’s shop. “You will be careful to keep them separate, citizen? You know the consequences of mixing them?” “Perfectly.” Sydney Carton drank nothing but a little coffee, ate some bread, and, having washed and changed to refresh himself, went out to the place of trial. “Charles Evremonde, called Darnay. Released yesterday, accused and retaken yesterday. Indictment delivered to him last night. Suspected and denounced enemy of the Republic, Aristocrat, one of a family of tyrants, one of a race proscribed, for that they had used their abolished privileges to the infamous oppression of the people. Three voices: Ernest Defarge, wine vendor of Saint Antoine. Therese Defarge, his wife. Alexandre Manette, physician.” “Who and where is the false conspirator who says that I denounce the husband of my child!” “I confide this paper, in the writing of Dr. Manette, to the hands of the President.
The Substance of the Shadow
I, Alexandre Manette, unhappy prisoner, do this last night of the year 1767, in my unbearable agony denounce to the times when all these things shall be answered for. I denounce them to Heaven and to Earth.
A terrible sound arose when the reading of this document was done. Little need to show that this detested family name had long been anathematized by Saint Antoine. At every juryman’s vote, there was a roar. Unanimously voted. Back to the Conciergerie, and Death within four and twenty hours!
Dusk
The wretched wife of the innocent man, thus doomed to die, fell under the sentence, as if she had been morally stricken. But she must uphold him in his misery and not augment it. Then, issuing from the obscure corner from which he had never moved, Sydney Carton came and took her up. The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, “A life you love.”
Darkness
For the first time in many years, Sydney Carton had no strong drink. “I swear to you, like Evremonde!” said Madame Defarge. “This is the certificate which enables me to pass out of this city. Look at it. You see – Sydney Carton, an Englishman? Put it up carefully with mine and your own. Your preparations have been completed for some days, to return to England. Early tomorrow have your horses ready, so that they may be in starting trim at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. For the sake of her child and her father, press upon her the necessity of leaving Paris, with them, and you, at that hour. Tell her that it was her husband’s last arrangement. Tell her that more depends upon it than she dare believe, or hope. You have my certificate in your hand with the rest, you know, and will reserve my place. Wait for nothing, but to have my place occupied, and then for England!”
Fifty-two
Charles Darnay, alone in a cell. “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. The door was quickly opened and closed, Sydney Carton. “I come from her – your wife, dear Darnay. You have no time to ask me why I bring it, or what it means. You must comply – take off those boots you wear and draw on these of mine.” 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. The spy presented himself. “Now, get assistance and take me to the coach. Him, man, with whom I have exchanged. The parting interview has overpowered me.” “The time is short, Evremonde,” said the spy, in a warning voice. “I know it well, answered Carton. “Be careful of my friend.” 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. A young prisoner-lady recognized Carton, “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.” There is terror in the carriage, there is weeping, there is the heavy breathing of the insensible traveler. “Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued!” The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is plunging us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far, we are pursued by nothing else.
The Knitting Done
“I care nothing for this Doctor,” said Madame Defarge. “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 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. I will go to her.” 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. Madame Defarge looked coldly at Miss Pross, and said, “The wife of Evremonde; where is she? I will tear you to pieces,” said Madame Defarge. “I am stronger than you, I hold you till one or other of us, faints or dies!” Miss Pross looked up, struck out a flash and a crash, and stood alone. The furious woman whose body lay lifeless on the ground.
The Footsteps Die Out For Ever
“Evremonde will be dispatched in a wink, and she not here! See her knitting in my hand, and her empty chair ready for her. I cry with vexation and disappointment! The ministers of Saint Guillotine are robed and ready. Crash! A head is held up.
“But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, where I am naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor should I have been able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that we might have hope and comfort here today. I think you were sent to me by Heaven.” “Or you to me,” says Sydney Carton. “Keep your eyes upon me, dear child, and mind no other object.” She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it. They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man’s face ever beheld there. “I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see Lucie, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side-by-side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honored and held sacred in the other’s soul, then I was in the souls of both. It is a far, far better thing that I do, then I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, then I have ever known.”
Hidden in Plain Sight 