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 court-yard
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 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
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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 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 him 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.
“Citizen Evremonde,” she said, touching him with her cold
hand. “I am a poor little seamstress, who was with you in La
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Force.”
He murmured for answer: “True. I forget what you were
accused of ?”
“Plots. Though the just Heaven knows 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.”
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
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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.
“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.
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“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 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, counter-signed.”
“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 m an.
“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.”
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
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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
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 gesticulations, 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.”
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“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 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.
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
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Chapter XLIV
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.”
“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
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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 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,
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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!”
