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
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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.
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
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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 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.
But, it beckoned him back in his sleep, and showed itself in
shining forms. Free and happy, back in the old house in Soho
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(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 no wise directed by his will,
obtruded 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 the eccentric action of
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A Tale of Two Cities
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 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 moment, the prisoner misdoubted him to be an apparition
of his own imagining. But, he spoke, and it was his voice; he took
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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 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.
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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.”
“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
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A Tale of Two Cities
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?”
“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
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prisoner’s face; “‘I should but have had so 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 to 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 his 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?”
“M. 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.”
“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?”
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“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.
