Guide to Contents

A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities

By Charles Dickens

Paraphrased into “Easy English”

By

David Mckay

Copyright 2014

Smashwords Edition

The First Book: Called Back to Life

1. The Year 1775

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom; it was the age of foolishness. It was the spring of great hope; it was the winter of no hope at all. We had everything; we had nothing. We were all going straight to heaven; we were all going straight to hell. In short, the time was much like the present, in that everything rested on who you listened to.

There was a king with a big jaw and a queen with a humble face in England, and there was a king with a big jaw and a queen with a beautiful face in France. In both countries it was perfectly clear to these, the ruling class, that all was well.

It was the year 1775. People then, like people now, looked for revelations. There were magic chickens in some places or spirits knocking on tables in others, that would tell you London or the government were going to be destroyed. But there were revelations also coming to the crown from people who lived across the Atlantic, revelations which had no magic. People would soon see that these revelations were far more important than anything the chickens could tell them.

[The next year, 1776, America broke away from England to become a free country on her own.]

France, which was not as religious as England, was moving smoothly down a hill, spending money as fast as she could print it. Her spiritual leaders entertained her by doing such wonderful things as cutting a boy’s hands off, pulling his tongue out with pliers, and then burning his body while he was still alive, because he did not drop to his knees in the rain when a group of religious leaders walked by him from some distance away. I should think that at the time this was happening there were trees growing in France or in a neighbouring country that were already marked to be used to make a machine with a sharp knife in it and a bag to catch the head of the person killed by it. And I should think that on the farms close to Paris there were at that time rough wagons covered with mud, that would be used to carry people to their death at the mercy of those machines. But the ones planning all of this worked quietly at that time, for fear others would think their plans made them enemies of God or guilty of treason.

There was little in England at that time to be proud of either. People were robbed in their homes and in the streets every night in London. Families were told not to leave the city without moving their furniture to some safe place. Robbers by night became city workers by day. One such robber, who was pointed out by another worker, just shot the man in the head and ran. A mail coach was stopped by seven robbers. The guard killed three of them before running out of bullets, and then he was killed himself, after which the other four robbers finished their job in peace. The Mayor of London was robbed in an open park, in front of all his helpers. Prisoners often started fights with the prison guards, and the police would open fire on them. Robbers cut diamond crosses from around the necks of the rich. And men with guns returned fire on a crowd of smugglers after the smugglers started shooting at them. All of this would happen without anyone thinking that there was anything strange about it.

In the middle of all this, the man whose job it was to hang people, and who was never of any real use to anyone, was always busy: first hanging a long line of mixed criminals, then hanging a man on Saturday for breaking into a house on Tuesday; one day burning marks into the hands of people at the prison, and the next day burning leaflets outside the house of government; today taking the life of an awful killer, and tomorrow taking the life of a man who robbed a small coin from a farm boy.

All these things and a thousand more like them happened around the year 1775. There were the farmer and the woodcutter making their plans for a takeover in France, and there were those two men with faces so much the same and their wives with faces so different, each confidently doing what they believed was God’s will. The year 1775 moved the Great ones — and other less great ones that you will meet in this story — along the road that was to change them all.

2. The Dover Mail

The first person of interest in this story was on his way to Dover on a Friday night in late November. He was walking slowly, along with two other passengers, up the muddy road on Shooter's Hill. Beside them was the Dover Mail coach. They were not walking because they wanted exercise, but because the mud and the hill had forced the horses to stop three times already. Once the horses had even pulled the coach to the side, planning to turn it back down the hill if they could. But that had been when the driver and the guard, with ropes and a whip, had proved that animals do not have a mind of their own. The team of horses had obeyed and returned to their climb.

With their heads hanging and their tails shaking, the animals pushed through the thick mud, moving this way and that as if their legs were about to fall off. Each time the driver would let them stop for a rest, one of the lead horses would shake its head and its whole body as if to say, "It’s not possible; we’ll never make it.” As the horse shook, so did the nerves of the passengers.

Below them was heavy fog. It had moved up to them now, like an evil spirit looking for a place to rest. It was wet and cold, moving like waves on a dangerous ocean. It was so thick that, even in the light of the coach lanterns, one could see but a few yards ahead. The clouds coming from the noses of the tired horses joined with the fog, to make it look like it had all come from them.

The three passengers were covered up to their eyes, and over their ears, and they all were wearing heavy boots. Not one could say what the others looked like, and they did not talk either, as they each tried to hide what they were thinking. In those days, anyone could be a robber or be working for a robber. Every stop on the way had people who were being paid to tell secrets. The guard on the Dover Mail was thinking about that on that Friday night in November, 1775, as he stood on his shelf at the back of the coach, stamping his feet and keeping an eye and a hand on the weapon box. In it were six or eight guns with bullets already in them; and there was a covering of knives at the bottom of the box. The guard did not trust the passengers; the passengers did not trust each other or the guard; and the driver trusted only the horses, and then he only trusted that they were not good enough for the job.

"Whoa!” said the driver. "So then, one more pull and we’ll be at the top, no thanks to you animals, for all the trouble you’ve been.” And then, "Hey, Joe!”

"Hello?” the guard answered.

"What time do you make it?”

"At least ten minutes after eleven.”

"Good God! And still not at the top. Go! Get on with you!”

The horse that had been shaking itself stopped when the whip hit it, and it started climbing again. The others followed. The coach was moving, and the passengers walked close beside it in the deep mud. If any of them had tried to run ahead into the fog, they would have been in danger of being shot by a highway robber.

That last push carried the Dover Mail to the top of the hill. The horses stopped there to breathe deeply. The guard jumped down to set the brake for the trip down the other side, and to open the door for the passengers to climb in.

"Hey, Joe!” the driver called down in a warning voice, from his seat on the top.

"What is it, Tom?” They both stopped to listen.

"Sounds like a horse walking this way, Joe.”

"Running's more like it, Tom,” the guard answered, leaving the door and jumping to his place at the back. "People! In the King’s name, all of you!” he said as he picked up his gun and looked down the hill behind them.

The passenger we are most interested in was standing on the step, and the others were still on the ground. He stayed there, half in and half out. They all looked from the driver to the guard and back to the driver... and they listened. The driver and guard looked behind them, and even the lead horse turned its head and lifted its ears.

Now that the noise of climbing the hill had stopped, it was very quiet. The heavy breathing of the horses shook the coach quietly, in a way that made the coach, too, look worried. Hearts were pumping, and the breathing was that of tired people... if one could say that anyone was breathing at all.

They could hear a fast horse racing up the hill.

"You there! Stop, or I’ll shoot!” the guard cried out.

The horse stopped and from the fog a man’s voice asked, "Is that the Dover Mail?”

"Not your business what it is!” the guard shouted back. "What are you?”

"Is that the Dover Mail?”

"Why do you want to know?”

"I want one of your passengers if it is.”

"What passenger?”

"Mr. Jarvis Lorry.”

The man on the steps showed that it was his name. The others looked at him like he was dangerous.

"Stay where you are,” the guard said to the voice in the fog. "If I have an accident with this gun, you won’t live to know of it. Now, Lorry, you answer him.”

"What’s wrong?” the man on the step shouted back. "Who is it? Is that you, Jerry?”

"I don’t like Jerry’s voice,” the guard said to himself. "Too deep and rough for me.”

"Yes, it is, Mr. Lorry.”

"What’s the problem?”

"A letter from T. and Company.”

"I know this man,” he said to the guard as he stepped down. The other passengers were happy to have him out of the way. They quickly climbed in, shut the door, and pulled up the window.

"Let him come up. There’s no danger," Lorry said.

"I hope not; but I can’t be sure of it either,” the guard said to himself. “Hello there!”

"Hi to you too,” Jerry said in his deep voice.

"Just come at a walk. You hear me? And if you have a gun on your saddle, don’t let your hand go near it. My nerves make me jump a lot, and when I do bullets fly. So let’s look at you.”

The shape of a horse and a rider came slowly out of the cloud, and over to the side of the coach. The rider leaned over to give a small, folded piece of paper to the passenger, looking up at the guard as he did it. His horse was tired, and the horse and its rider were covered in mud, from the horse’s feet to the rider’s hat.

"Guard?” said the passenger with the confidence of a businessman.

The guard, with his right hand ready to shoot, his left on the gun's barrel, and his eye on the rider, answered, "Sir?"

"There's nothing to fear. I'm from Tellson's Bank. You must know Tellson's Bank, in London. I'm going to Paris on business. I'll buy you a drink. May I read this?

"If you do it quickly."

He opened it in the light of the lantern on that side of the coach, and read it, first to himself, and then out loud. "Wait for the woman at Dover.”

“You see, it's not long at all. Jerry, say that my answer is Called back to life."

Jerry moved in his saddle. "That's a strange answer."

"You tell them that; and they'll know that it's from me. Be careful as you go; and good night to you."

With that, the passenger climbed inside the coach. The other passengers did nothing to help him in. They had each secretly tried to hide their watches and money in their boots, and were now trying to make him think that they were asleep. There was no good reason for doing it, but it protected them from having to make a choice about what else to do.

The coach moved off, with the fog becoming thicker as they rolled down the hill. The guard returned his gun to the weapon box.

"Tom!" he called softly over the top of the coach. "Yes, Joe," answered the driver.

"Did you hear what he said?"

"Yes, I did, Joe."

"What do you make of it?"

"Nothing at all, Joe."

"Strange that," the guard said almost to himself. "Because that's just what I made of it too."

Left alone at the top of the hill, Jerry gave his horse a rest, and and cleaned some of the mud off his face.

"Called back to life. That's a strange thing to say," he whispered to himself. "Very strange, I'm sure."

3. Night Shadows

Think about this: Each person is in some way a secret from all others. We are made that way. When I come into a city at night, I know that each house holds a secret. Each room in each house holds a secret. And each person on earth hides in their heart at least one secret from everyone else, even to the one who is closest to them. People are not like books or bodies of water. You may read a page or two of a person, but they will close up long before you know all that is in them. The water that is a person will freeze over before you can see all that hides under it. It is like part of every person is dead to all others, and will never be known. My friend is dead; my neighbour is dead; the love of my life is dead, and in this I too am dead to them. Is there any body buried in this city that is harder for me to know now than are the people who are still alive in it?

In this, the rider on the horse was no different to the King, the head of government, or the richest businessman in London. And the same was true of the three passengers crowded together in the one old mail coach. They each knew as little about the others as they would know if they had been travelling in three different coaches, with many cities between each of them.

The rider on the horse did not hurry back to London. He stopped for drinks on the way; but he kept to himself, and he kept his hat pulled down over his eyes. His eyes were black, but shallow in colour and too close together, like they were each afraid to be alone. His eyes made a triangle with the hat above, and they looked down on a very long scarf that covered the man's throat and chin before dropping down almost to his knees. He would pull the scarf away from his mouth with his left hand, far enough to pour in his drink, and then move it back into place.

"No, Jerry, it would never do," the man said to himself as he was riding slowly toward London. "You cannot change the words when your job is to tell what you were told. He did say, 'Called back to...' But break my head if he wasn't drunk when he said it!"

Jerry was thinking so much about the words that he had been asked to carry, that he took off his hat from time to time to scratch his head.

The horse moved slowly along the road to Temple Bar, where Jerry would tell those words to the night watchman, waiting at the door to Tellson's Bank. Above and around him, the shadows of the night took shapes to him that grew out of what he was thinking. And the horse must have been seeing shapes that grew out of its thinking too, for it would jump to the side in fear from time to time.

At the same time the mail coach rolled roughly along the road in the opposite direction, with its three strangers sleeping inside. The shadows of the night took different shapes for each of them. Their dreams were built on the thoughts that had been going through their heads when they fell asleep.

Tellson's Bank was doing big business in the Dover Mail that night. The bank passenger had one arm through a leather loop on the wall of the coach, which did what it could to stop him from falling over onto the passenger next to him. His eyes were only half shut. Light from the coach lantern, coming through the window, and movements from the passenger opposite him became the lights and movements of a busy bank. The sound of the ropes on the horses were the sound of money. He did more business in five minutes than the whole bank had ever done in three times as long. Then the passenger would go into the strong rooms that were under the bank, carrying in one hand the big keys to the boxes there, and a candle in the other. He would find them safe and strong as they always were.

Part of him was in the bank, and part of him was in the coach. But another part of him was on his way to dig up a person who had been buried for many years. The faces would change in the shadows of the night, and the emotions of the buried man would change. At times the man would be proud, or angry, or sad or broken, and he would be very thin, with the colour of death in his skin.

The passenger knew that the man would be 45 years old, and in every picture, the man's hair had turned white from what he had been through.

"How long have you been buried?” he would ask.

And the answer was always the same: "Almost 18 years.” "Did you lose all hope of someone coming to dig you up?” "Yes, long ago."

"You know that you have been called back to life?"

"Yes, that is what I have heard."

"Do you want to live again?"

"I don't know."

"Should I bring her in? Or do you want to go and see her?"

The answers to this question were many, and often they were quite different. At times they were, "Wait! It would kill me if I saw her too soon.” At times there were quiet tears, and then it was, "Take me to her.” And at other times it was wide open eyes, and a confused look, followed by, "I don't know. I don't understand."

After such talk, the passenger, in his mind, would start digging, first with a shovel, and then with a big key, and then with his hands, trying to dig this poor man out. And when the man was out, with dirt on his face and hair, he would turn to dust, and the passenger would come awake and open the coach window to let the fog and rain touch his cheek and bring him back to what was real.

But even when he was awake, looking out on the fog and rain, seeing the light of the coach on the bushes and trees that moved past the window in jumps and shakes, the night shadows outside would join with the night shadows inside. The real bank, the real business of the past day, the real strong rooms, the real news, and the real words that he sent back with the rider all returned to him. And from the middle of all that, would rise the ghost-like face and he would be talking to it again.

"How long have you been buried?”

"Almost 18 years."

"Do you want to live again?"

"I don't know."

Dig, dig, dig, until an angry movement from one of the other two passengers would lead him to close the window, put his arm back through the leather loop, and watch the other two passengers while his mind returned to the bank and to the place where the man was buried.

"How long have you been buried?"

"Almost 18 years."

"Did you lose all hope of someone coming to dig you up?” "Yes, long ago."

The words were still sounding in his head-- as strongly as any words he had ever heard -- when the sleepy passenger opened his eyes to see that there was light outside, and the shadows of the night were gone.

Dropping the window, he looked out at the sun as it came up. He could see a plough lying in a high field, where its owner had left it the night before, when the horses pulling it had finished for the day. Behind that were trees with leaves of burning red and golden yellow to mark the time of year. The ground was cold and wet, but the sky was clear and the sun was beautiful, bright, and full of peace.

"Eighteen years!" the passenger said to himself. "Good God! To be buried alive for 18 years!"

4. Preparing

Later that morning, when the Mail reached Dover, the head doorman at the King George Hotel opened the door with some special words of welcome. A coach arriving from London in winter was special, and the travellers in it would have been brave to have made the trip.

By that time, there was only one passenger left in the coach to receive the words of welcome; for the two others had left earlier, at other places on the way. The smell inside the coach was not very nice, because of the straw that had been put on the floor... straw that was no longer dry, and that was dirty with mud from the boots of the passengers. The darkness inside the coach and the smell of the dry grass made it seem more like a big house for dogs than a place for people. And Mr. Lorry himself seemed more like a big dog as he shook the straw off his mud covered legs and stepped out in his heavy coat and hat.

"Will there be a ship to France tomorrow, doorman?"

"Yes, sir, if the weather stays clear and the wind does not become any worse. The water level will be best around two in the afternoon. Would you like a bed, sir?"

"I will not go to bed until this evening. But I would like a room, and a barber."

"And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if you please. Show him the Concord room! Take his bag and some hot water there! Take his boots off when he gets there. (You will find a nice fire of coals there, sir.) Send the barber to Concord. Get moving, now, everyone!"

The Concord room was always saved for a passenger on the mail coach, and because passengers on the mail were always covered with coats and scarves from head to foot, workers at the King George Hotel always found it interesting to see what they were like when they came out of the room. They all went in looking the same, but each one was different when they came out.

Because of this, another doorman, two male workers, a few female workers and the woman who owned the hotel were all spaced, by accident you must understand, over the way between the Concord room and the coffee room, when a sixty-year-old man in a very nice brown business suit left the room on his way to breakfast.

The man in brown was the only one in the coffee room that morning. His table was set by the fire, and as he waited for his meal, he was as still as he would be if he was being painted.

His look was one of perfect control, with one hand on each knee, and a loud watch ticking in his pocket like it was competing with the sound of the fire, to see which one was more important. The man had good legs, and he was proud of it, having covered them in top quality, long brown socks. His shoes were clean and neat. He had on a strange little white wig that was clearly not made from real hair. His shirt was not of such good quality as his socks, but it was as white as the tops of the waves that broke on the beach near there, or as the little white sails that one could see on the boats far out in the water. In his perfectly controlled face were two bright eyes that must have been difficult for him to teach, over the years, to hide their feelings, in keeping with the rules of Tellson's Bank. There was a healthy colour in his cheeks, and his face, apart from a few lines to show his age, was free from signs of worry. That may have been because it was his job to think only of other people's worries; and other people's worries are easy to take off, as one can do with other people's clothes.

As often happens to one who is sitting for a painting, Mr. Lorry dropped off to sleep. But when his breakfast arrived, he came awake quickly, moved his chair closer to the table, and said to the waiter. "I'll need a room for a young woman who will be arriving here sometime today. She may ask for me by name, or she may only ask for a man from Tellson's Bank. Please do let me know when she comes."

"Yes, sir. Is that Tellson's Bank in London, sir?” "Yes."

"We often have people from your bank staying here, sir, on their travels between London and Paris."

"Yes, our bank in France is quite big, as is the one in England."

"Yes, sir. You yourself do not travel much?"

"Not these days. It's fifteen years since we... that is, since I... last came here from France."

"Is that true, sir? That was before my time here, sir. In truth, it was before our people's time here, sir. The George was in other hands at that time, sir."

"I believe it was."

"But I would say, sir, that Tellson's was a big business not just fifteen years ago, but more like fifty years ago."

"You can add that three times over if you like, for if you had said 150 years ago, you would not be far from the truth."

"You don't say, sir!"

Opening wide both his mouth and his eyes, the waiter moved back to where he could stand comfortably, and he quietly watched the traveller eat, the way waiters do at all times and in all places.

When Mr. Lorry had finished his meal, he went for a walk. The little town of Dover tried to hide behind the chalk cliffs that dropped down to the beach, while the beach itself was like a desert, with hills of water throwing stones around. The waves did what they liked, and what they liked most was to destroy things. The waves shouted at the town and shouted at the cliffs. The air around the houses smelled so much like fish that one would think that sick fish might go there to breathe the air in the same way that sick people from the town went down to the water for healing. A few people fished in the ocean each day, and many people walked around at night, looking out at the ocean. This happened most when the water level was up. Business people who did no business at all would often become rich quickly without an honest reason for it; and it is strange that no one in the town had any interest in putting up lights at night!

(Dickens is trying to say that the town secretly smuggled things in from across the ocean, under cover of darkness.)

As evening came closer, and the air, which had been so clear that one could see across the ocean to France earlier in the day, turned to clouds, Mr. Lorry's thoughts seemed to take on clouds too. When he was back in the coffee room waiting for his evening meal, his mind was busily digging, digging, digging in the hot red coals on the fire.

A bottle of good red wine after dinner does not hurt the mind of one who digs in hot red coals, apart from putting an end to the digging. Mr. Lorry had stopped his digging sometime earlier, and was pouring the last glass of wine from the bottle with a happy look on his face when he heard the sound of timber wheels on the stone street, just before they turned into the hotel yard.

He put down his glass without touching the wine in it. "She’s here!" he said to himself.

In a few minutes the waiter came to say that Miss Manette had arrived from London, and would like to see the man from Tellson's.

"So soon?"

Miss Manette had been eating on the way and was not hungry. On the other hand, she was hungry to hear what the man from Tellson's had to say, as soon as he was able to see her.

The man from Tellson's finished his glass of wine without feeling, smoothed his strange little wig around his ears, and then followed the waiter to Miss Manette's room. It was a big dark room, with heavy, dark furniture that had been oiled so much that the light of two tall candles went deeply into each board on the table where they were sitting. It was like the candles themselves were buried in the black timber, and one needed to dig the light out of them.

It was so dark that Mr. Lorry, finding his way over the rug, was thinking that the woman must be in a neighbouring room. But when he was past the two candles, he could see her standing there in the same room, beside another table.

She was a young woman, not looking more than 17, still in her riding coat, and still holding her hat by its string. Mr. Lorry's eyes rested on a short, thin, beautiful woman with golden hair and blue eyes that met his own with a questioning look. The smooth skin on her forehead could lift itself in a way that showed a mixture of enthusiastic interest, fear, confusion, and surprise. As he looked at her, he remembered a child whom he had held in his arms on another crossing of the Channel between France and England. It had been very cold. The waves had been high, and little pieces of ice had been thrown at him by the wind. The picture in his mind became invisible as quickly as breathing on the tall mirror behind her would have disappeared from the mirror. And he bowed in her direction.

"Please take a seat, sir.” Her voice was clear and beautiful, with only the softest French sound to it.

"I kiss your hand, Miss," said Mr. Lorry before taking a seat.

"I received a letter from the Bank yesterday, sir, saying that you had learned... or that you had found..."

"Either word will do, Miss."

"...that you learned something about my poor father, whom I have never seen, him being so long dead..."

Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and turned a worried look toward the mirror behind Miss Manette.

"And that I needed to go to Paris, where I would meet a man from the Bank who was going there from here."

"That's me."

"And that is what I thought, sir."

She bowed to his age and wisdom. And then she bowed again.

"Because I have no parents, and I have no friend to go with me, I asked the bank if I could travel with you to Paris. They said you had already left London, but they sent a man to find you, and ask you to wait for me here."

"And I was happy to do that," said Mr. Lorry. "I shall be even happier to travel with you."

"Sir, I truly thank you. I was told that you would tell me more about what I must do; and they said that I should be prepared for a surprise. I have tried to be prepared for anything, but I have a strong interest in knowing what this is all about."

"I can understand that," said Mr. Lorry. "Yes... I...” He smoothed his wig once again.

"It is very difficult to start."

He did not start. He just looked at her. Her forehead lifted itself in that way that showed so many different emotions at once. Then she lifted her hand, like she was trying to touch a shadow.

"Do I know you?"

"Should you?” he asked, opening his hands and projecting them toward her, with a smile as his only argument.

The emotion showing in her forehead became deeper, as she sat down in the chair that she had been standing beside. He watched her as she thought deeply, and when she looked up at him again, he went on:

"Because you live in England now, can I call you Miss Manette?"

"If you like, sir."

"Miss Manette, I am a man of business; and I have a job to do. As you listen, think of me only as a talking machine, for I am not much more than that. If you will let me, I will tell you the story of one of the people that I have served."

"Story?"

He chose not to hear or to answer what she was really asking, as he went on quickly. "Yes, one of the people I have served. He was a French scientist. A doctor."

"Not from Beauvais?"

"Why, yes, from Beauvais. Like your father, Mr. Manette. And like your father, he was well known in Paris. I was proud to have known him there. We secretly did business together. At that time I had been in our French office for about twenty years."

"At that time? May I ask what time that was, sir?"

"I am talking, Miss, of twenty years ago. He married an English woman. His business, like the business of many other French men and families, was fully in the hands of Tellson's Bank. I have served hundreds of people like that in my job. They are not friends, and there are no emotions between us... just business. In short, I have no feelings about these things. I am only a machine. So, to go on..."

"But this is my father's story, sir.” And her forehead was rougher than ever now, as she looked deeply at him. "I am starting to think that, when my mother died, two years after my father, it was you who carried me to England. I am almost sure it was you."

Mr. Lorry touched the shy little hand that had reached out to take his, and he lifted it to his lips, after which he walked with her back to the chair she had left. Then, with his left hand on the back of the chair, he busied his right hand with touching his chin, smoothing his wig, and making movements to go with what he went on to say. She sat looking up at him as he talked.

"Yes, Miss Manette. It was I. And you can see that I was only doing my job when you remember that you have not seen me since. It has been the business of Tellson's Bank to care for you; but I myself have been busy with other people. Feelings? I have no time for them. I spend my whole life, Miss, working for a very big machine that is there only to make money."

After this strange way of talking about his job, Mr. Lorry used both of his hands to smooth the wig (which was not needed, for it could not be smoother or flatter than it was already), and then returned his left hand to the back of the chair.

"As you have seen, the story has been about your father. But now comes a difference. If your father had not died when he did... Don't be afraid! My, how you jumped!"

And she did truly jump. With both of her hands she took hold of his right wrist.

"Please," said Mr. Lorry softly, bringing his left hand over to put it on the shaking hands that were holding his right wrist. "Please control yourself. This is nothing but business. As I was saying..."

But her look made him forget for a second what he was saying. So he started again.

"As I was saying, if Mr. Manette had not died, if he had only disappeared, if he had been carried away secretly, if it had been difficult to say to what awful place he had been taken, if he had an enemy in that country who could fill in papers to have him put in prison with no one knowing where it was, and if his wife had asked the king, the queen, the court, the church to do something with no effect, then the story of your father would be the story of the poor man I served, the doctor from Beauvais."

"I beg you to tell me more, sir.” "I will. I will. Are you up to it?”

"What I am not up to is waiting."

"You sound relaxed. And, yes, you do look relaxed. That's good!" (But he did not sound as confident of this as his words may have seemed.) "Back to business. Think of it as business... business that must be done. Now if this doctor's wife, a strong, brave woman, had been through so much before the birth of her child..."

"The child was a daughter, sir?"

"Yes, a daughter. Just... just... business. Do not worry. Miss, if the poor woman had been through so much before the child was born, that she wanted to shield the child from going through the same things, by letting her believe that her father was dead... No, don't get down on your knees in front of me like that! In heaven's name, why are you doing that?"

"For the truth. Oh good kind sir, for the truth!"

"This is... is... business. You have confused me, and how can I do my job if I am confused? Let us think clearly. If you could, shall we say, tell me how much nine times nine is, or how many shillings are in a pound, it would encourage me to go on. I would be much more confident about how much you are in control of your emotions."

She did not do as he asked, but when he had softly lifted her to the chair, she sat so quietly, and her hands, which were still holding his wrists, were so much more relaxed, that Mr. Jarvis Lorry felt better about going on.

"That's good. Very good. Be brave. Business. You have business before you. Business that will help you. Miss Manette, this is what your mother did with you. When she died -- I believe from a broken heart -- never having stopped in her looking for your father, she left you, at two years of age, to grow up beautiful and happy, without the dark cloud of not knowing how your father was, or if he was dead or alive."

As he said this, Mr. Lorry looked down with loving sadness on her long golden hair, as if he was thinking that it might already be turning grey.

"You know that your parents were not rich, and that what they had has been given to you. We have not found more money or land for you. But..."

He felt her squeezing his wrist, and he stopped. The rough lines on her forehead that so interested him before, became even deeper as they showed her pain and fear.

"But he has been... been found. He is alive. I am sure that he will have been deeply changed. It is possible that his mind has been destroyed by what he has been through, but we'll hope for the best. Yet, he is alive. Your father has been taken to the house of an old servant in Paris. That is where we're going. I will go with you to know if it is truly him, and you will go to bring him back to life, to show him love and help him return to the world.

There was a little shaking that moved through her body, and he could feel it. She said, in a low, clear, but surprised voice, as if she were saying it in a dream, "I am going to see his ghost. It will not be him. It will be his ghost."

Mr. Lorry quietly rubbed the hands that were holding his arm.

"There, there, there! See now? See? You now know the best and the worst. You are now well on your way to see your poor wronged father, and with a good trip over the ocean and a good trip over the land, you will soon be by his sweet side."

In the same low voice, but whispering now, she said again, "I have been free and happy, never thinking about his ghost."

"Only one thing more," said Mr. Lorry quite strongly, hoping that it would bring her back to thinking clearly. "He has been found under another name. We do not know if he is hiding his old name or if he has forgotten it. There is no need to even ask now. There is also no need to know if he has been free and hiding for long, or if he has been a prisoner all this time. There is no need to ask questions of important people now, because it could be dangerous. It would be best not to talk about his past anywhere or in any way, but to take him -- at least for a while -- out of France. Even I, protected by being from England, and Tellson's, which is important to the wealth of that country, try not to say anything about what happened. I do not have any paper on me with writing about this business. What we are doing must be kept secret. Who I am and what I am doing is covered only in four secret words: Called back to life. It could mean anything. But what is happening? You are not listening to a word that I'm saying! Miss Manette!"

Perfectly still and quiet, without even falling back in her chair, she now sat under his hand without any feeling. Her eyes were open and looking at him, with that same strange look on her face, like it was shaped in stone now. She was holding so strongly to his arm that he feared he would hurt her if he tried to pull her hands away. So he did not move, but called out loudly for help.

A wild-looking woman with red hair, dressed in a tight red dress, and wearing a big cylinder-shaped hat, came running into the room, followed closely by some hotel workers. The woman quickly fixed the problem by putting a big strong hand on Mr. Lorry's chest and sending him flying back against the nearest wall.

Mr. Lorry's first thought, as he hit the wall, was that this must be a man, and not a woman.

"Why, look at you all!" shouted the woman, turning to the servants. "Why don't you get something to help, instead of standing there looking at me? Am I really so interesting? Go and get something. You'll hear from me if you don't bring smelling-salts and cold water, and bring it quickly. Do it or you'll hear from me!"

They all left at once, and she softly carried the young woman over to the couch, calling her "Ladybird" and "my little one" and smoothing her golden hair to the side and over her shoulders, with great pride and care.

"And you in brown!" she said, turning angrily to Mr. Lorry, "couldn't you have said what you needed to say without scaring her to death? Look at her, with her beautiful white face and her cold hands. Do you call that being a banker?"

Mr. Lorry was so baffled by a question that he had no answer for, that he could only look on, at a distance, feeling humbled and sorry for Miss Manette, while the strong woman, having scared the workers away with a promise that they would "hear from her" something too awful to name, was able, just by looking at her, to slowly bring the young woman back to life.

"I do hope she'll be okay now," said Mr. Lorry.

"No thanks to you in brown, if she is. My poor sweet thing!"

"I hope," said Mr. Lorry after another time of feeling weak and humble, "that you are here to travel with Miss Manette to France?"

"I don't think so!" answered the strong woman. "If I was to go over the ocean, do you think that God would have put me on an island?"

This being another question that was too hard for Mr. Jarvis Lorry to answer, he left the room to think about it.

5. The Wine Shop

A big barrel of wine had been dropped and broken in the street. The accident had happened in getting it out of the wagon. It had landed with a bang, breaking the metal rings holding it together; and now the barrel was on the stones near the front door of the wine shop, like the shell of a big broken nut.

All who saw it dropped what they were doing and ran to drink what wine they could save. The rough stones in the road, made to cripple any who tried to walk over them, had places between them that were like little lakes, each catching some of the wine. And by each little lake was a group of people pushing to get to the wine. Some men were face down near the wine, getting what they could in their two hands. Some were giving some to women who leaned over their shoulders. Others would put a cup into the liquid, and a few women even put their head scarves into it before squeezing the wine into the mouths of their babies. A few made little walls of dirt to stop the wine from running away. And there were those who, following directions from people leaning out of high windows, ran here and there to where they believed the most wine could be found. Others were happy to pick up pieces of the broken barrel, drink what little was on them and then chew on them, to get the taste of the wine out of the wet timber.

Very little wine was lost, and not only was the wine itself picked up, but an equal measure of mud was picked up with it, making it look like a miracle-working street cleaner had been there.

There was a lot of laughing and many happy voices for as long as the job of cleaning up the wine lasted. The people were not rough with each other, but it was more like they were playing a game. Those who were able to win a good taste of the wine would shake hands, laugh, dance, and hug each other. When the wine was finished, people returned to what they were doing. The man who had left his saw in a piece of timber he was cutting for the fire, returned to his cutting. The woman who had been trying to warm herself and her hungry child by a container of hot coals, returned to the coals. Men without coats who had come into the winter light from the basements where they worked, returned to the basements. And a sadness returned to the street that was more a part of it than was light from the sun.

The wine had been red wine, and it had painted the ground red there in the Saint Antoine part of Paris. Red too were the hands and faces and cold feet of the people who had come. The hands of the man cutting timber left red marks on the branches that he was cutting now. The woman who had given wine to her baby now had a red mark on her head, where the head scarf had been returned. Those who had chewed on the timber pieces of the barrel had wide red marks on both sides of their mouths. And one tall man, rubbing his finger in the bitter seeds at the bottom of the barrel, used them to write BLOOD on a wall.

A time was coming when that red liquid would be poured out on the street too. And many of these same people would have blood on themselves like the red wine that marked their bodies now.

Now that the clouds were back over Saint Antoine, the darkness in that place was heavy. Cold, dirt, sickness, and hunger were the servants of the poor saint after whom the place was named. Antoine's servants were all strong, but hunger was the strongest. These people had been through many troubles, and they were not the kind of troubles that kept old people young. Everywhere you looked, you could see, instead, young people who had been turned into old people because of their troubles. The children had the faces and voices of adults, and adults had the deep lines of old age, all of it coming from that devil called hunger. You could see hunger in the broken clothes hanging on the lines outside the tall houses. Hunger was there in every little piece of firewood that the man was cutting. It looked down on them from the chimneys that had no smoke coming out, and it looked up at them from the street, where there was not the smallest piece of food thrown away. Hunger was there in the bread shop, where only a few very rough loaves of bread could be found, and in the butcher shop, where dead dogs were cooked and made into sausages. You could hear the dry bones of hunger in the chestnuts that were cooking in a turning cylinder, and in the little bowls of rough potato pieces, cooked in a few small drops of oil, that were to be sold for the smallest coin.

The place and its people were equal to the hunger that lived there. It was a narrow bending street with more narrow bending streets coming off of it. All of them were full of bad smells and of sick-looking people dressed in rags like so many scarecrows. But in these people there was also the hope that things could change. Sad and slow as they were, there were still eyes of fire, tight lips (from all that they were holding back) and serious faces. The lines on their faces were like the ropes that they knew could be used to hang them or could be used by them to hang their enemies.

The dangerous stones on the road, with room between them for mud and water, were not made for walking. Down the middle of the road was a channel for rain water, but in a storm, by the time the channel filled, water would already be working its way into many of the houses. Ropes across the road here and there each held one rough lantern, that the lantern-lighter would lower each night, put a light to, and lift back up on the rope. When one looked at all of these lights moving from side to side in the wind, it gave the feeling of being in a storm on a ship. And in real life a storm was building up there that could have serious effects.

The time would come when the thin scarecrows living in that part of Paris would have watched the lantern-lighter so long that they would have started to think of pulling bodies up on those ropes and putting fire to them. But the time was not yet. For now, the scarecrows would shake in the wind while the birds in their beautiful feathers would go on singing their beautiful songs without any interest in the warnings.

The wine shop was a corner shop, better than most, both in its size and in its looks. Its owner had stood outside in his yellow top and green pants, watching as the people raced for the wine.

"It's not my problem," he had said, lifting and dropping his shoulders to show how little interest he had in it all. "The people from the market dropped it, so they'll just have to bring me another."

Then he saw the tall joker writing his word on the wall. He called out to him from across the street, "Say there, what do you think you're doing?"

The man pointed to his joke, proud of what he had written, as is often the way with his kind. But the joke missed its mark and did not bring a laugh. That too is often the way with his kind.

"What now? Do you want to be locked away as crazy?” asked the wine shop owner as he crossed the road. He picked up mud in his hand on the way, and rubbed it over the word. "Why do you write here on the wall? Is there... listen to me... is there no other place where you can write words like this?"

In saying this, he dropped his clean hand (maybe by accident and maybe not) on the foolish man's heart. The joker pushed it away and jumped high in the air only to come down in a dancing movement, with one shoe pulled off and in his hand. He reached out to the wine shop owner with his shoe.

"Put it on. Put it on. You should call wine wine and leave it at that.” With that, he rubbed his dirty hand on the clothes (if you can call them that) that the joker was wearing, as if to say that he was the reason that the hand had become dirty in the first place. Then he returned across the road and into the wine shop.

This owner was a strong man of thirty, with a thick neck. One could understand him being angry, because it was very cold out and he did not have a coat on (but he carried one over his shoulder). Even the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, leaving his brown arms with no covering to the elbows. He did not wear a hat either, to cover his short dark hair. He was a dark man all over, with good eyes and a good distance between them. On the whole he was friendly, but he was not the kind of person one would want to argue with, or to meet on a narrow road with water on each side.

Madam Defarge, his wife, was sitting in the shop behind the counter, when he came in. She was a heavy woman of about his age with an eye that looked at nothing and everything at the same time. She had a few heavy rings on her fingers, an interesting face, and a quiet spirit. She had an air of confidence about her that would make one think she was not often wrong in anything she did. Not liking the cold, Madam Defarge was covered in animal skins, with a big scarf turned around her head, but not enough to cover the big rings hanging from her ears. She had been knitting, but she had stopped to pick at her teeth with a match stick. She was so busy doing this, with her left hand holding up her right elbow, that she said nothing when her husband came in. She just made a very little cough and lifted her eyebrow by the smallest distance, as if to say that he needed to look around the shop and see if there were any new people who had come in while he was out.

He looked around to see if there was anyone new in the shop, and he saw an older man together with a young woman, both seated in a corner. There were also two people playing cards, two playing dominoes, and three people at the counter talking. As he walked over to the counter, he heard the older man in the corner say to the young woman, "There's our man."

"What the devil do I have to do with him?” Mr. Defarge asked himself. "I don't know him."

He did not show any interest in the new people, but started talking to the three men at the counter instead.

"How is it, Jack?” said one of the three to Mr. Defarge. "Did they drink all of the wine?"

"Every drop, Jack," answered Mr. Defarge.

At this point, Madam Defarge coughed another little cough, and lifted her eyebrows a little more than she did the first time.

"It is not often," said the second of the three to Mr. Defarge, "that many of these poor animals know the taste of wine, or of anything but black bread and death. Isn't that true, Jack?"

"That's true, Jack," Mr. Defarge returned.

At this, Madam Defarge, still quietly using her match stick to clean her teeth, gave another little cough, and lifted her eyebrows a little higher than she had just done.

The last of the three put down his cup, rubbed his lips together and had his say: "Ah, so much the worse for them! Now they will always have that bitter taste in their mouths. The poor cows do live a hard life, do they not, Jack?"

"You're so right, Jack," Mr. Defarge answered.

This is when Madam Defarge put down her match stick, holding her eyebrows up, and moved a little in her seat.

"Stay there!" whispered her husband. "Men... my wife!"

The three men took off their hats to Madam Defarge, and she answered back by bowing her head and giving them a little look. Then she looked quietly around the wine shop, picked up her needles with what looked like a happy spirit, and turned her whole mind to knitting.

"Good men," said her husband, "the room that you had been asking to see is on the fifth floor. The steps leading up to it start in the little closed yard to my left here, close to the shop window. But now, as I remember, one of you has been there already, and so he can show you all the way. You may go, my friends!"

They paid for their wine and left. Mr. Defarge's eyes were studying his wife at her knitting when the old man came from his corner and asked to have a word with him.

"I would be happy to do that," said Mr. Defarge as he walked quietly with him to the door.

Their talk was very short, but very clear. Almost at the first word Mr. Defarge showed serious interest in what he was hearing. In less than a minute, he showed agreement and stepped outside. The old man showed with his hand that he wanted the young woman to follow him, and she too went out the door. Madam Defarge was so busy knitting that she saw nothing.

Mr. Lorry and Miss Manette left the wine shop to join Mr. Defarge at the foot of the steps that he had just pointed out to the other men. The closed yard was dark and full of bad smells. It was the front yard for many floors of rooms holding many more people. At the foot of the steps, Mr. Defarge went down on one knee to the child of his old master, and put her hand to his lips. It was a humble action, but it marked a change in his spirit. Far from being happy and friendly, he became angry, in a dangerous and secret way.

"It's a long climb. It's a little difficult. Better to start slowly.” Mr. Defarge said this to Mr. Lorry like it was an important rule, as they started climbing the steps.

"Is he alone?” Mr. Lorry whispered.

"Alone? God help him, who should be with him?” said the other in the same low voice.

"Is he always alone, then?”

"Yes."

"Because he wants to be?"

"Because he needs to be. He is now as he was when I first saw him, after they found him and asked if I would take him. They made it clear that I would be in danger if I was not very careful."

"Had he changed much?"

"Changed?!" The owner of the wine shop stopped to hit the wall with his hand and say some very rough words. The answer was clear. Mr. Lorry's spirit grew heavier and heavier as the three of them climbed higher and higher.

Such steps today would be hard enough in the older and poorer parts of Paris; but it was much worse then, for any who were not used to being in such a place. Every room in that great nest of rooms that was one tall building, left their rubbish by these steps; that is, if they did not just throw it out of their windows to land in the yard. The three people were now climbing up through a dark tower filled with this awful smell. Giving in to his own worries, and to those of his young friend, whose worries were growing as they climbed, Mr. Jarvis Lorry stopped two times on the way to have a rest.

Each stop was beside an opening with bars, where light could come in. Because other buildings were so close beside them, it seemed that the openings were taking the best air out of that dark tower and bringing the worst air in. One could almost taste the life in the other awful buildings near this one, and the closest sign of healthy air and high hopes, even up here, were the two tall towers of Notre Dame far off in the distance.

At last they reached the top of the steps, where they rested for the third time. But there was one more narrow ladder up to the room in the roof that they were trying to reach. The shop owner, who had been leading them, and keeping to Mr. Lorry's side of the steps as if afraid the young woman would ask him a question, turned around here and, carefully feeling in the pockets of the coat he carried over his shoulder, took out a key

"The door is locked?” asked Mr. Lorry in surprise.

"Oh, yes," Mr. Defarge answered quite seriously.

"You think you need to keep the poor man away from others?"

Mr. Defarge leaned down to whisper into Mr. Lorry's ear. "I think that I need to be in control."

"Why?"

"Why? Because he has lived so long that way, that he would be afraid... go crazy... die... Who knows what would happen if his door was left open?"

"Is that possible?” Mr. Lorry said with surprise.

"Is it possible!" Defarge whispered bitterly. "Yes. And what a world we live in when it is, and when many other things like it are... not only possible, but done. Done, see you! Under that sky there every day. The devil is real and alive. Now let us go on."

These words had been said so softly that not one had reached the young woman's ears. But by now she was shaking under such emotion, and her face showed so much worry and fear, that Mr. Lorry believed he should speak a word or two to encourage her.

"Do not be afraid, Miss! Be brave! Business, remember? The worst will be over in a minute. It's just a question of opening the door, and the worst will be over. Then all the good, the love, and the happiness you bring to him will start to work. Let our good friend help you up the steps. Thank you, friend Defarge. Come now. Business, business!"

They went up slowly and softly. It was only a short distance and they were at the top. There, on turning the corner, they saw three men bending over, with their heads close together by the door. They were busy looking into the room through some small holes in the wall. On hearing the others, they stood and turned to face them, showing themselves to be the three men with the same name who had been drinking in the wine shop.

"I had forgotten them in the surprise of your visit," Mr. Defarge said. "Leave us, boys; we have business here."

The men squeezed by and climbed quietly down the ladder.

There being no other door on that floor, Mr. Lorry asked the owner in a whisper, and with some anger, "Do you make a show of Mr. Manette?"

"I show him in the way you have seen, to a few people whom I choose."

"Is it right to do that?"

"I think it is right."

"Who are the few people, and how do you choose them?"

"I choose them as real men, men with the same name as me... Jack. I choose men who I think will be better off for seeing. That is enough reason for me. You're English; you would not understand. Wait here for a minute."

With a hand out to hold them back, he leaned over to look through a hole in the wall himself. Soon he lifted his head and knocked two or three times on the door, for no other reason than to say that he was there. Then he pulled the key across the door three or four times for the same reason, before putting it in the lock and turning it as loudly as he could.

The door opened slowly into the room. Defarge looked in and said something. A weak voice answered something. Little more than a word could have been said by either.

Mr. Defarge looked back over his shoulder and made a movement to call them in. Mr. Lorry put his arm strongly around the daughter, to help her, because he had the feeling that she was about to faint.

"A... a... a business!" he said, with a tear on his cheek that was not of business. "Come in. Come in."

"I am not afraid of it," she answered, shaking.

"Of it? Of what?"

"I mean of him. Of my father."

Between Defarge calling them in and Miss Manette being so worried, Mr. Lorry did not know what to do. So he pulled the arm that was shaking on his shoulder, over his neck, and half lifted the girl into the room. He put her down just inside the door, where she stood holding onto him in fear.

Defarge pulled the key out of the lock, closed the door, and then locked the door again from the inside. He did it all with as much noise as he could make of it. Then he walked across the room to where the window was and turned around to face the others.

The room had been a place for firewood in the past, and the window was more of a door in the roof than a window, with a rope and timbers to be used for lifting things from the street below. There was no glass in it, and it opened in two halves. To keep out the cold, one half was locked at all times. The other was only open a very little. So little light was coming through that opening that it was difficult, on first coming into the room, to see anything. Only after living there for a long time would anyone be able to do any work that needed good eyes. Yet work of that kind was being done in that room even now; for, with his back toward the door and his face toward the window, where the wine shop owner stood looking at him, a white-haired man sat on a low bench, leaning forward and was very busily making shoes.

6. The Shoemaker

"Good day!" said Mr. Defarge, looking down at the white head that was bending over his shoemaking.

The head lifted for a second and answered with a quiet voice, like he was far away, "Good day!"

"I see you are still hard at work."

After some time, the head lifted again, and the voice said, "Yes. I am working.” This time two tired eyes looked at Defarge before the face dropped again.

The weakness of the voice was both sad and awful. Having worked hard in prison for many years had not helped the man physically, but it was not a physical weakness that was so sad about his voice. The awful truth was that the weakness of his voice had come from being alone for so long. At some point, he had just stopped using it. When words came out, it was like they had been said long ago, and the people in that room were just hearing the last dying sounds of them. There was so little life in those words that they were like a once beautiful colour that has been washed away, leaving only a very weak mark where it had been. It was so low that it was like it was coming from under the ground. And the feeling carried across in those words was of one who had lost all hope. They were like the last words of a lost traveller, dying from hunger away from all friends and family.

A few minutes passed without a sound, as the man went on working. Then the tired eyes looked up again, but not with any interest. It was like he had forgotten that anyone was there, and then he saw again that someone was in front of him.

"I want," said Defarge, who had not stopped looking at the shoemaker, "to let in a little more light. Can you take a little more?"

The shoemaker stopped working, looked at the floor on each side of him, like he was listening for something, and then looked up at the speaker.

"What did you say?"

"Can you take a little more light?"

"I must take it if you choose to let it in.” He said the second word with only the smallest difference to the other words.

The half-door was opened a little more, bringing in a wider line of light, and showing a half-finished shoe on the shoemaker's knees. A few tools and some pieces of leather were at his feet and on the bench. He had a white beard, roughly cut but not very long, a thin, empty face, and surprisingly bright eyes. Any eyes would look big in such an empty face, but this man's eyes were big to start with, and so they looked even bigger now. His yellow shirt was open at the throat, showing his body to be old and thin. He and the rags he was wearing, from his long loose socks to his long, open robe, were all of the same colour now, which is the weak yellow of a dried goat's skin when it is used for paper.

He had put a hand up between his eyes and the light, and one could almost see the light coming through it. He sat for a time like that, with an empty look in his eyes. Each time he looked at the man in front of him, he would first look down at the floor on each side of himself, like he was trying to find where the voice was coming from. And his talking was the same. He would look around and forget what it was that he was going to say.

"Will you finish those shoes today?” asked Defarge, moving his arm to call Mr. Lorry forward.

"What did you say?"

"Do you plan to finish those shoes today?"

"I can't say what I plan. I may, but I don't know."

The question made him remember his work, and return to it.

Mr. Lorry came quietly forward, leaving the daughter by the door. When he had been standing for a minute or two beside Defarge, the shoemaker looked up. He showed no surprise at seeing another person there, but the shaking fingers of one hand went to his lips as he looked (His lips and his nails were of the same grey colour.) and then his hand dropped back to working on the shoe.

"You see, you have a visitor," Mr. Defarge said.

"What did you say?"

"Here is a visitor."

Still holding the shoe, the shoemaker looked up.

"Come!" said Defarge. "Here is a man who knows a well-made shoe when he sees one. Show him that shoe you are working on. Take it, sir."

Mr. Lorry took the shoe in his hand.

"Tell him what kind of shoe it is, and the maker's name."

There was a long wait before the shoemaker answered.

"I cannot remember what it was you asked me. What did you say?"

"I said, could you tell this man something about the shoe?"

"It is a woman's shoe. A young woman's walking shoe. It is what they wear now, but I have not seen them wearing it. I was given a pattern for it.” He looked at the shoe with a touch of pride.

"And the maker's name?” asked Defarge.

Now that he had no work to hold, the old man put the fist of his right hand in the bowl of his left, and then the fist of the left in the bowl of the right, and then passed a hand across his beard. He repeated this over and over without a break. Trying to keep his interest in what was happening was like trying to wake a very weak person from a faint, or to get the last few words from a dying man.

"Did you ask me for my name?”

"Yes, I truly did."

"One hundred and five, North Tower.

"Is that all?"

"One hundred and five, North Tower."

With a tired sound, between a groan and a sad breathing out, he returned to work, until this time Mr. Lorry spoke, looking straight at him as he asked, "Was shoemaking always your job?"

His tired eyes turned to Defarge, like he was asking Defarge to answer for him. When Defarge did not help him, he looked at the ground and then back to the questioner.

"It was not always my job? No, it was not. I learned it here, teaching myself. I asked if I could..."

He fell away again, for quite some time, doing those same movements with his hands all the while. His eyes came slowly back, at last, to the face from which they had left. When they landed on it, he jumped a little and started talking again, like one waking from a sleep and starting to talk about what they did the night before.

"I asked them to let me teach myself. It was a long time coming, but I have been making shoes from that time to now."

As he held his hand out for the shoe that had been taken from him, Mr. Lorry said, still looking straight into his face, "Mr. Manette, do you remember nothing of me?"

The shoe dropped to the ground, and he sat looking at the questioner.

"Mr. Manette.” Mr. Lorry put his hand on Defarge's arm. "Do you remember nothing of this man? Look at him. Look at me. Can you not remember an old banker? Some old business? An old servant? Something from the past, Mr. Manette?"

As the man who had been a prisoner for so many years sat looking, from Mr. Lorry to Mr. Defarge, some long covered pieces of his mind slowly forced themselves through the black fog that covered him. The fog returned and the light soon left his face, but it had been there.

Something like this was also happening on the beautiful young face of the girl who had been moving along the wall to a place where she could see him. She was standing there now, reaching out with hands that before had been lifted only in fear. Now she reached out in love, wanting to hold that ghost-like face to her breast, and to love it back to life and hope.

Darkness took the place of the light that had touched Mr. Manette for a few seconds. He became less interested in the others and then his eyes went looking for the floor again, before picking up the shoe and returning to work.

"Could you see who he was?” Defarge asked in a whisper.

"Yes, for a second," Mr. Lorry answered. "At first I thought he was too far gone, but I have clearly seen for just one second, the face that I once knew so well. But say no more. Let us move back. Say no more."

His daughter had moved away from the wall, and was very near the bench on which he sat. There was something awful about him showing such interest in his work that he did not even know she was there. She was so close that she could have touched him.

Not a word was said. Not a sound was made. She stood there beside him like a ghost, and he leaned over his work.

It happened, after some time, that he needed to change the instrument in his hand for a shoemaker's knife. It was on the side of him that was opposite to where she stood, so he picked it up without seeing her. But when he turned back to his work, he saw the bottom of her dress out of the corner of his eye. He looked up and saw her face. The other men started to move forward, but she stopped them with a movement of her hand. She had no reason to be afraid of him hurting her with the knife, but that was what the others had feared.

He looked up in fear. His lips started to shape words, but no sound came out. Little by little he was able to say, "What is this?"

With tears running down her face, she put her hands to her lips and kissed them to him. Then she put them together over her heart, as she put his head there.

"You are not the prison guard's daughter?”

"No."

"Who are you?"

Not yet trusting her voice, she sat down on the bench beside him. He moved back, but she put her hand softly on his arm. A strange feeling went through him when she did this, and it could be seen going through his body. He put the knife down quietly, and sat looking at her.

Her long golden hair had been pushed back, and fell down in loops over her neck. Moving his hand little by little in that direction, he at last touched the hair, lifted it, and looked at it. In the middle of that action, his mind walked off again, and he returned to his shoemaking. But not for long.

She moved her hand from his arm to his shoulder. After looking at it one or two times, as if to be sure it was really there, he put his work down, reached behind his neck, and took off a dirty old string with a small piece of folded cloth joined to it. He opened it carefully on one knee and took out one or two pieces of long golden hair that he had at some time in the past looped many times around his finger before folding it in the piece of material.

He lifted the girl's hair again and looked at it more closely. "It is the same! How can it be? When was it...? How was it...?"

As he was thinking deeply, he seemed to know that she was thinking deeply too. He turned her so that the light was on her face, and looked at her.

"She put her head on my shoulder that night, when I was asked to come. She was afraid of what it would mean, but I did not see a problem. And when I was taken to the North Tower, they found these hairs on my sleeve. 'You will leave them for me?' I had asked. 'They can never help me to break out, but they can help my spirit to be free.' Those were the words I said. I remember them very well."

He shaped each of these words many times with his lips before they were said. But when he said them, the words were clear, even if they were slow in coming.

"How was this...? Was it you?"

Again, the other two moved to help when they saw him turn to her so quickly and with such feeling. But she sat perfectly still, with him holding her, and only said in a low voice, "Please, good friends, do not come near us, do not speak, do not move!"

"Listen!" he said with surprise. "Whose voice was that?"

He dropped his hold on the girl and put his hands to his head, tearing crazily at the white hair. His emotions soon died down, as everything died down apart from his shoemaking. He folded the hairs back into the cloth, and tried to hide them back over his heart. But he still looked at her, sadly shaking his head.

"No, no, no. You're too young. It can't be. Look at this prisoner. These are not the hands she knew. This is not the face she knew. This is not the voice she ever heard. No, no. She was, and he was -- before the slow years of the North Tower -- far in the past. But what is your name, my little angel?"

Welcoming his softer voice and actions, his daughter fell onto her knees in front of him, with her hands reaching up to his chest.

"Oh, sir, at another time you will know my name and the names of my parents, and how I never knew the history of their hard, hard life. But I cannot tell you now, and I cannot tell you here. All that I can tell you here and now is that I want you to touch me and to bless me. Kiss me. Kiss me, you kind, sweet man!"

His cold white head came together with her bright yellow hair, which warmed and lighted him as if it were the light of liberation.

"If you hear in my voice -- I don't know if you do, but I hope you do -- if you hear in my voice anything that is like a voice that once was sweet music in your ears, cry for it, cry for it! If you feel anything in touching my hair that makes you remember the head of a loved one who put her head on your chest when you were young and free, cry for it, cry for it! If my promise of a home where I will care for you makes you think of a home that was sadly empty while you were away, cry for it, cry for it!

She hugged him closer, around the neck, and moved from side to side with him against her breast, like she was holding a child.

"If I tell you that I have come here to take you to England to be at peace, and it makes you think of how our country here in France was so evil to you, then cry for it, cry for it! And if, when I tell you my name and the name of my father, who is alive, and mother, who is dead... if you learn that I have to beg my father for forgiveness for never having worried about him, because my mother did not tell me about the torture that he was put through, cry for it, cry for it! Cry first for her, and then for me! Good man, thank God! I feel his holy tears on my face, and the sadness that he feels I feel in my heart. Oh see! Thank God for us. Thank God!"

He had joined her on his knees, having given in to her hug; and he dropped his head onto her breast. It was a picture so touching, but so awful in the great wrong and the great pain which had gone before it, that the two looking on covered their faces.

After a long time with no one saying a word, when the man's heart and body had stopped shaking and were at peace, like the peace that comes after a storm, and like the peace that comes at the end of Life, the others moved forward to lift the father and daughter from the ground. He had slowly dropped off to sleep, and she had dropped to the floor with him, so that he could rest his head on her arm, with her hair protecting his face from the light.

"If you can do it without waking him," she said to Mr. Lorry as he leaned over them, "could you get tickets for us to leave Paris today, so he can go to England straight from this room?"

"Think first. Is he ready for such a long trip?” asked Mr. Lorry.

"He is ready for that more than he is ready for more of this awful city and what they have done to him."

"That's true," said Defarge, who was on his knees beside them now, so that he could hear better. "For many reasons it would be best for Mr. Manette to be out of Paris. Do you want me to send for a coach with fast horses?"

"That's business," said Mr. Lorry, who quickly returned to his job as a businessman. "If there is business to do, then I should be the one to do it."

"Then be so kind," Miss Manette asked, "as to leave us here. You see how quiet he is. Surely you cannot be afraid to leave me with him now. There is no reason to be. If you will lock the door to keep others from coming in, I am sure you will find him as quiet when you return as he is now. I will care for him until you return, and then we can take him straight out of here."

Both Mr. Lorry and Defarge were against doing that, wanting at least one of them to stay with the girl. But as they needed to get the coach and horses, as well as travelling papers, and as the day was quickly coming to an end, they agreed to share the jobs between them, and to start at once.

With darkness closing in, the daughter joined her father on the floor, close to his side, and watched him. It became darker and darker, and they both lay quietly, until a light came through the holes in the wall.

Mr. Lorry and Mr. Defarge had made everything ready for the trip. They had brought coats and scarves, bread, meat, wine, and hot coffee. Mr. Defarge put these and the lantern he was carrying on the bench (There was nothing else in the room but the man's thin mattress on the floor.) and he and Mr. Lorry encouraged the old prisoner to wake up, before helping him to his feet.

No person could possibly know the secrets of the man's mind through the scared empty look of surprise on his face. Did he know what was happening? Could he remember what they had said? Did he understand that he was free? These are questions that all the education in the world could not have given an answer to. They tried speaking to him, but he was so confused and so slow with his answers, that they agreed to not push him farther at this time. He had at times, a wild, lost look when he would grab his head strongly with both hands, an action they had not seen him do earlier. But one could still see that he knew his daughter's voice, and he would turn to it each time she spoke.

In the way of one who has been forced to obey for many years, he, without a word, ate what he was given and put on the coat and scarves that they gave him to wear. He was happy for his daughter to put her arm through his, and he took her hand in both of his.

They started down the steps. Mr. Defarge was first, carrying the lantern, and Mr. Lorry was last. They were not far down through the tower of steps leading down from the fifth floor, when he stopped, looking at the roof, and around at the walls.

"Do you remember this place, father? Do you remember coming up here?"

"What did you say?"

But before she could ask her question again, he gave an answer, as if he had heard it a second time.

"Remember? No, I don't remember. It was so long ago."

It was clear to them that he did not remember coming from the prison to the house. They heard him say softly, "One hundred and five, North Tower," and when he looked around, it was clear that he was looking for the strong walls of the prison. When they came to the closed yard, he changed the way he was walking, thinking that a bridge would be lifted, as they had in the prison. Then, when he saw the coach waiting in the street, he dropped his daughter's hand and put his hands to his head again.

There was no crowd in the yard, no head looking out the windows, not even one person walking by in the street. It was strangely quiet. Only one person was there, and that was Madam Defarge, who was leaning against the door, knitting. And she saw nothing.

The prisoner was already inside the coach, followed by his daughter when Mr. Lorry was stopped on the step by Mr. Manette asking, sadly, for his tools and for the half finished shoes. Madam Defarge shouted out that she would get them, and she went, knitting, out of the light from the coach lantern, into the yard, and up the steps. She soon returned with them, handed them in, then returned to lean against the door, knitting. And she saw nothing.

Defarge jumped up on the shelf at the back of the coach and shouted, "To the border!" The driver cracked his whip, and the coach rolled down the street, under the weak lanterns hanging on ropes over their heads.

They rolled under those lanterns -- brighter in the better streets and weaker in the worse -- by lighted shops, happy crowds, busy coffee houses, and theatre doors to one of the city gates. Soldiers were standing with lanterns at the guard house.

"Your papers, travellers.”

"See here, Officer," said Defarge, jumping down and moving away from the coach. "These are the papers for the old man inside with the white head. They were given to me with him, at the...” He dropped his voice, and there was much movement around the army lanterns before one of the lanterns was pushed into the coach at the end of an arm in a uniform. The eyes at the end of the arm looked at the man with the white head in a way that was strangely different from how he looked at other people.

"It is well. Forward!" said the uniform.

"Goodbye!" from Defarge.

And so it went, under weaker and weaker hanging lanterns until they were out under the great covering of the stars.

Under those eternal lights, some so far from earth that the scientists say their light has not even reached our planet yet. Out there, the shadows of the night were wide and black. All through the cold rough night those shadows whispered again to Mr. Jarvis Lorry, who was sitting opposite the buried man who had been uncovered. He was asking himself what abilities had left the man forever and what abilities could be returned to him with time. The old question came to him again:

"I hope you want to be called back to life?” And the old answer: "I cannot say."

The End of the First Book

The Second Book: The Golden Thread

1. Five Years Later

Tellson's Bank in Temple Bar was behind the times, even in 1780. It was very small, dark, ugly, and not at all comfortable. Part of this was because its owners were proud that it was small, dark, ugly, and not comfortable. They would argue that it if were comfortable and not so old, small, dark, and ugly, it would not be the good bank that it was. They used these qualities like a weapon, to prove that they were better than their competition in the banking world. Tellson's, they would say, was not interested in such things as more space and light, or having more beautiful and comfortable furniture. The competition might want to waste money on such things, but not Tellson's.

Any one of the men who owned Tellson's would have kicked his own son out of the family if his son had encouraged him to build a new bank. In this way, Tellson's was much like the country as a whole, for England would often kick out its sons if they talked of changing things that were very wrong, at a time when most people still believed them to be good.

And so it happened that Tellson's was the most perfectly awful bank in England. After forcing a sticky door open that had a bad sound in its throat as it turned, one would fall down two steps into a very little shop, with two little counters, where the oldest men in the world would shake your cheque like it was blowing in the wind, while they studied your name on it through what little light was coming through a dirty little window that was always being hit by mud from the coaches going by on the street outside. The window was made to look worse by the strong iron bars across it.

If you needed to see 'the house' to finish your business, they would put you in a little room out the back, like the one that prisoners stay in before they are hanged. There you could think about all the bad things you have done with your life until 'the house' came with his hands in his pockets to see you.

Your money would come out of, or go into, old drawers that had worms eating away at them, so that some of the powdered timber would go up your nose when they were opened or shut. Paper money had the smell of paper being destroyed by the wet. Silver was forced to live in a place where everything next to it was old and dirty; the effect of living close to such bad neighbours was that a bright piece of silver today would turn grey tomorrow. Papers showing you owned your house would be put on shelves in an old kitchen, and boxes of less important family papers went to the room above, which always had a big dinner table in it, even if no one ever ate there. Even in 1780, the first letters written to you by your old love or by your little children would have just then been moved away from the window, where people had looked through at them with as little feeling for you as one would find in cruelest Africa or India.

At that time putting people to death was the thing to do, all over England. Tellson's too was a part of it. Death is the end to all of life's problems, and so the government chose to fix its problems in the same way. If one signed a false name to an important paper, they were put to death. If one passed counterfeit money they were put to death. If one opened a letter that was not theirs, they were put to death. If one robbed forty shillings, they were put to death. If one was left to hold a horse at the door to Tellson's and then made off with it, they were put to death. Three out of four of the rules used in the courts were made right by putting someone to death. Not that it did the least good in stopping such actions. Truth is, the opposite seemed to happen. But it had a way of putting an end to a lot of paper work if the courts could just put someone to death and be finished with it. And so it was that Tellson's, like other banks at the time, had helped to take so many lives that if the heads that had been cut off had been put one on the other in front of the bank, instead of being buried quietly, they would probably have shut out what little light the ground floor now had.

Pushed into all kinds of dark corners, the oldest of men at Tellson's carried on their business very seriously. If young men worked there at all, the old men would hide them until they, too, became old. A young man must be put in a dark place like a cheese, waiting for him to get the Tellson smell and colour. Only then would he be let out to be seen leaning over big books and adding his pants and shirt to the general weight of the business.

Outside Tellson's -- never in it unless asked in -- was a worker who would take and bring letters and other things when he was needed. When he was not doing that, he was like a living sign for the bank. He was there at all hours when the bank was open, apart from when he was off doing a job for the bank; and when he was doing that, his son would be there in his place. The son was a poor, rough boy of twelve, who looked just like his father. People understood that Tellson's was being kind to keep the man, as it had always been kind enough to keep such a man. His last name was Cruncher, and when he was baptised, he received a first name... Jerry.

The scene is Mr. Cruncher's room, at 7:30 on a windy March morning, in the year of our Lord 1780. (Mr. Cruncher always called the year of our Lord 'Anna Dominoes', maybe thinking that the Christian church started with the invention of dominoes by a woman named Anna.)

Cruncher's rooms were not in a nice part of the city, and there were only two of them, if you can count a very little room with one small piece of glass for a window as the second. But the place was neat and clean. Even as early as it was, the room where Cruncher was still sleeping had been fully cleaned; and between the cups and dishes set out for breakfast, and the rough timber table was a very clean white cloth. Mr. Cruncher was lying under a brightly coloured quilt that made him look like a sleeping clown. He had been sleeping deeply at the start of the scene, but by steps he moved and turned until he lifted his messy head of hair to shout in anger, "Break my head if she's not at it again!"

A neat hard-working woman got up from her knees in a corner. She did it quickly enough and showing enough fear to make it clear that she was the person he was shouting about.

"What?” said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of the bed for a shoe. "You're at it again, aren't you?"

He followed this by throwing a boot at her. It was covered with mud, which is one of the strangest things. He often came home after banking hours with clean shoes, but when he got up the next morning, the same boots were covered with clay.

"What are you up to, Aggerawayter?"

"I was only saying my prayers."

"Saying your prayers, are you? What a nice woman! What do you mean by throwing yourself down and praying against me?"

"I wasn't praying against you. I was praying for you."

"No you weren't. And even if you was, I won't be used like that. Look here! Your mother's a nice woman, young Jerry, up and praying against your father's wealth. You have a faithful mother, you have, my son. You've got a religious mother, you have, my boy: going and throwing herself down and praying that the bread and butter may be taken out of the mouth of her only child."

The younger Cruncher, who was in his shirt, took this badly. He turned on his mother, angry at anyone who would pray away his food.

"And what do you think, you selfish woman," said Mr. Cruncher, "the worth of your prayers is? Name the price you put on them!"

"They only come from the heart, Jerry. They're worth no more than that."

"Worth no more than that?” Mr. Cruncher repeated. "They aren't worth much then. Worth much or not, I won't be prayed against, I tell you. It'll cost me too much. You won't take my luck away by throwing yourself down when I'm not looking. If you must go throwing yourself down, do it to help your husband and child, and not to hurt us. If I had had any but a religious wife, and this boy had had any but a religious mother, I might have made some money last week instead of being prayed against and religiously cut off from good luck. Break my head!" said Mr. Cruncher, who all this time had been putting on his clothes, "if I wasn't, with religion and one awful thing after another, pushed this last week into as bad luck as ever a poor devil of an honest worker met with! Young Jerry, dress yourself, my boy, and while I clean my boots keep an eye on your mother now and then, and if you see any signs of more throwing down, give me a call. For I tell you," and here he turned to his wife once more, "I won't be letting this happen again. I'm shaking like an old coach, as tired as if I was drugged; my nerves are pulled to the point that if it wasn't for the pain, I wouldn't know if I was me or if I was someone else. Yet I'm none the better for it in pocket. And it's my feeling that you've been at it from morning to night to stop me from being the better for it, too. I won't put up with it, Aggerawayter. And what do you say now?"

Angrily answering her with things like, "Oh, yes, you're religious too. You wouldn't put yourself against the interests of your husband and child, would you? Not you!" Mr. Cruncher went about the business of cleaning his boots and making himself ready for work. At the same time, his son, whose hair was as wild as his father's and whose young eyes were close to each other like his father's, watched his mother as he had been told to. He greatly worried her from time to time by racing out of his little room, where he was dressing, to shout, "You're going to throw yourself down, aren't you? Hello, father!" and after giving this false warning, racing back in again with an evil smile on his face.

Mr. Cruncher's spirit was no better when he came to breakfast. He was angry that Mrs. Cruncher thanked God for the food.

"Now, Aggerawayter! What're you up to? Are you at it agin?"

His wife said that she had only "asked a blessing".

"Don't do it!" said Mr. Cruncher, looking around like he believed the bread would disappear under the power of his wife's prayer. "I'm not to be blessed out of my house and home. I won't have my food blessed off my table. Now keep quiet!"

Jerry Cruncher's eyes were red and he was in bad spirits, like he had been up all night at a party that had been anything but friendly. He fought with his food, making sounds like some four-footed prisoner in a zoo. When it was close to nine o'clock, he smoothed himself and did the best he could to cover the truth about himself with a business-like look before leaving for work.

It was not much of a job, even if he liked to call himself an honest worker. His only tool was a little chair without a back, that young Jerry, walking at his father's side, carried every morning to the window of the bank in Temple Bar. After taking some dry grass from the first vehicle to go past, and putting it in his shoes to keep out the cold and wet, that little chair became his office for the day. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on that little chair was as much a part of Temple Bar (and known as well) as anything else that was there.

Arriving well before nine, Mr. Cruncher was able to touch his three-cornered hat to the oldest men in the world as they arrived for work at Tellson's. Jerry would stand beside him when he was not busy fighting with passing boys who were small enough for him to hurt. Father and son, so much the same and with their heads as close to each other as their eyes were, looked quietly out at the people passing by, like two monkeys. The older Jerry added to the monkey look by chewing on a piece of dry grass, and the ever moving eyes of the younger Jerry watched him doing it as much as he watched everything else on the street.

One of the inside workers put his head out the door and said, "Worker wanted!"

"Hooray, father! A job already!"

Wishing his father the best, young Jerry seated himself on the little chair, picked up the piece of dry grass that his father had been chewing, and thought, "Always covered with rust. His fingers are always covered with rust. Where does my father get that iron rust from? He don't get no iron rust here."

2. The Show

"You know the Old Bailey well, I'm sure?” said one of the very old workers to Mr. Cruncher.

"Umm... well... yes, sir," returned Jerry shyly. "I do know it."

"Good. And you know Mr. Lorry?"

"Oh yes, I know Mr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Much better," said Jerry, sounding like one of the witnesses in the old court as he finished, "better than I, as an honest worker, wish to know the Bailey, sir."

"Very well. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and show the door-keeper this letter for Mr. Lorry. He will then let you in."

"Into the court, sir?"

"Into the court."

Mr. Cruncher's eyes seemed to move a little closer to one another, and to ask each other, "What is this leading to?"

As an effect of this thought, he asked, "Am I to wait there, sir?"

"I am going to tell you. The door-keeper will pass the letter to Mr. Lorry. Do anything you can to make Mr. Lorry see you, and show him where you are going to stand. Then your job is just to wait there until he wants you."

"Is that all, sir?"

"That's all. He wants a worker on hand to take a letter from him if he needs to send one. This letter tells him you're the worker."

As the old man carefully folded and put a name on the letter, Mr. Cruncher, who had been watching quietly, said, "So they must be judging someone for writing bad cheques this morning?"

"Treason!"

"That's death by torture, sir. Oooh! That's awful!"

"It's the law," said the old man, turning his surprised glasses in Jerry's direction. "It's the law."

"It's hard of the law to cut a man up, I think. It's hard enough to kill him, but it's very hard to cut him up, sir."

"Not at all," returned the old man. "Speak well of the law. Take care of your chest and voice, my good friend, and leave the law to take care of itself. Those are my words to you."

"It's the wet, sir, what gets into my chest and voice," said Jerry. "I leave you to judge what a wet way of making a living mine is."

"Well," said the old man, "we all have our different ways to make a living. Some of us have wet ways and some of us have dry ways. Here's the letter. Now go along."

Jerry took the letter, and, secretly feeling less humble than his words showed, he said, "I can see that you too have had a hard life.” He bowed his head, told his son in passing where he was going, and then went on his way.

In those days they hanged people at Tyburn, so the street outside Newgate Prison was not known in the same way that it is today. But the prison was still an evil place, with every kind of bad action and deadly sickness free to move around in it. The sicknesses came into the court with the prisoners, and often they would jump from the prisoner to the judge himself. More than once the judge had marked his own death in marking the prisoner's death, and even died before the prisoner did. For most, the Old Bailey was like a deadly hotel yard, where sick travellers would ride off in wagons and coaches on a rough trip to the other world, covering some two and a half miles of open road. Few, if any, of the people watching along the way would see anything wrong in what was happening. That is how it is when people become used to a thing; and when they become used to it, they make it good in their minds even if it is not. The Bailey was also remembered for the special timbers that were used to hold prisoners by the head and hands while others shouted hateful words at them. It was a smart piece of furniture, because the pain it brought left no marks. Then there was the whipping post, a much loved instrument for making people part of a good and kind world when it was used well. Topping it all off was the blood-money. The Old Bailey was a place where, for a price, one could have another killed. This led to some of the most awful things that could happen under heaven.

On the whole, the Old Bailey was, at that time, a perfect picture of the teaching that "Whatever is, is right," a saying that would be as free from change as it is lazy, if it were not that it would also say of those who came there that none of them had ever been wrong.

Making his way through the crowd at this awful scene of action, with the ability of a man who often moved about secretly, Tellson's small job man found the door he was looking for, and handed in his letter through an opening in it. In those days, one paid for entertainment at the Old Bailey just as they paid to see the crazy people at Bedlam (but the price was higher at the Bailey). Because of this, there were guards at all of the doors -- all, that is, but the door where the criminals were brought in. Those were always wide open.

After some waiting and arguing, the door turned slowly just enough to let Mr. Jerry Cruncher squeeze himself into the court.

"What's up?” he whispered to the man next to him.

"Nothing yet."

"What's coming on?"

"The treason."

"Oh, the torturing one, eh?"

"Ah!" returned the man with enthusiasm. "He'll be pulled through the streets to be half-hanged, and then they'll take him down to be cut before his own face. His intestines will be taken out and burned while he looks on. Then his head will be cut off, and his body cut into four pieces. That's what they'll do."

"You mean, if they think he's guilty?” Jerry added to be sure.

"Oh, they'll find him guilty," said the other. "Don't you fear that."

At this point Mr. Cruncher turned to see the doorman make his way to Mr. Lorry with the letter. Mr. Lorry was at a table close to where the wig-wearing men were. He was not far from the one who was to argue for the prisoner. This man had many papers with him. Almost opposite that man was another with a wig. He had his hands in his pockets, and whenever Mr. Cruncher looked at him, then or later, he was always looking at the roof of the court. After Jerry did some loud coughing and rubbing his chin and lifting his hands, Mr. Lorry, who had stood up to look for him, saw him, moved his head to show that he saw him, and then sat down again.

"What's he got to do with the case?” asked the man Jerry had been whispering to.

"Blessed if I know," said Jerry.

"So what have you got to do with it, then, if one may ask?”

"Blessed if I know that either," said Jerry.

Just then the judge came in, and the talking stopped. From then on, all eyes were on the place where the prisoner would stand. Two policemen, who had been standing there, went out and returned with him.

Apart from the wig-wearing man who was looking at the roof, everyone looked at the prisoner with interest. Together they breathed a storm in his direction. Enthusiastic faces looked around posts and corners to see him better. People in the back stood up, so as not to miss one hair of him. People standing on the court floor stood up on their toes, putting their hands on the shoulders of others, to see every inch of him. Standing out in this group of people, like part of a living wall, was Jerry, breathing the smell of beer toward the prisoner (for he had had just a small drink on the way), and this joined with the beer and spirits and tea and coffee in the breathing of all who looked toward the prisoner, so that it was already turning to water on the big windows behind the prisoner.

What they were looking at was a young man, about 25, good-looking, with white skin, made darker by much time in the sun, and dark eyes. He was well dressed in black or dark grey. His long black hair was tied with a bow at the back of his neck. He was well controlled, bowed to the judge, and stood there quietly.

The kind of interest that the people had in this man was not the kind of interest that said much for people as animals. If he had not been in danger of being tortured to death, if even one part of his torture was to be passed over, by just that much the people would have lost interest in him. The body that was to be destroyed in such an awful way was the thing to see. Whatever reason each person gave for being there, to hide the truth from themselves, their real interest was that of cruel devils.

Quiet in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday said that he was not guilty of what the court said of him (with no end of confusing talk), namely that he had helped in a war against our wonderful, beautiful, peace-loving, and so on leader, our Lord the King, by reason of him having, at different times and in different ways, helped Louis, the French King in his war against our wonderful, beautiful, peace-loving, and so on; that was to say, by coming and going between the country of our said wonderful, beautiful, peace-loving and so on, and the country of the said French Louis, and falsely, cruelly, badly (and many other evil adverbs) telling the said French Louis what forces our said wonderful, beautiful, peace-loving, and so on, King had prepared to send to Canada and North America.

This much Jerry proudly understood, after much thought, to be saying that the one said (and over and over said) Charles Darnay, was standing there to be judged; that the jury was being brought in, and that Mr. Attorney-General was preparing to speak.

The man himself, who was (and who knew he was), in the minds of all the people looking at him, to be tortured, have his head cut off, and be cut into four pieces, did not show fear or any other emotion. He was quietly and seriously listening to all that was being said as he stood there with his hands resting on the horizontal timber bar in front of him.

Over his head was a mirror to throw the light down on him. The faces of many evil people had been seen in that mirror in the past, and they had moved away from the earth and from that mirror at the same time. It may be that the prisoner had a passing thought about others who had been there before him. Be that as it may, a movement of his body made a bar of light land on his face, and he looked up at the mirror. On seeing it, his face turned red.

He then turned his face away, toward the side of the court that was on his left, and his eyes landed on two people. The change in his look was so strong that all those people who had been looking at him turned to look at the same two people.

They could see a young woman who was little more than twenty, and an older man, who seemed to be her father. He was an interesting man, with very white hair, and a look on his face that was hard to put into words. It was the look of one who is thinking deeply, and talking to himself about what he is thinking. When doing this, he looked quite old. But when he pulled himself away from this, as happened now as he said something to his daughter, he became a good-looking man in the best years of his life.

His daughter had one hand through his arm as she sat by him, and her other hand was holding the same arm. She was holding him closely both because of her fear of the scene and because of her sadness for the prisoner. Her forehead had fear and love written all over it, as she could see nothing but the worst of danger for the prisoner. Her feelings were so easy to see that people in the court who had no feeling for Charles Darnay, were touched by her. The whispers went about: "Who are they?"

Jerry, who had seen what he could see, and who was chewing the rust off his fingers in his deep thoughts, pushed his neck out to see if he could hear who they were. The crowd around him whispered questions to each other until they reached a court worker, who whispered the answers back. At last it reached Jerry.

"Witnesses.”

"For which side?”

"Against."

The judge, who had been looking around, brought his eyes back, leaned back in his seat, and looked seriously at the man whose life was in his hand, while Mr. Attorney-General stood up to make the rope, sharpen the axe, and nail together the pieces of the stage on which the prisoner would be hanged.

3. A Sad Ending

Mr. Attorney-General had to tell the jury that the man in front of them, who was young in years, was old in the evil work for which he would die. That his sins had not happened only over a day or two or even over a year, but he had for longer than that, been travelling to and from France on secret business for which he could give no honest reason. That with luck (and people who do that kind of business do not have much luck), he would have been doing it still. But that God had put it into the heart of a brave and honest man to learn the secrets of the prisoner's plans; and when he saw how awful they were, he knew he had no choice but to tell the government about it. That this one who had such love for his country would be coming soon to tell his story in person. That he was a man with a strong and holy spirit. That he had been the prisoner's friend, but when he learned the truth about the man, he chose to give his friend's life over to the courts as proof of his great love for his country. That if statues were put up by the government in Britain today as they were in Greece and Rome in the past, then most surely one would have been made of this wonderful man. That all good qualities, as the jury would know from their understanding of some of the greatest poets (at which the jury dropped their heads, because they did not know of such poets), quickly move from one person to another, and that this was truest of one's love for his country. That the bright light from the Crown witness' good spirit had passed to a servant who worked for the prisoner, and this servant secretly went through his master's papers to find the proof that was needed for this court. That he (Mr. Attorney-General) was prepared to hear the man's lawyer try to find a wrong in the servant who took the papers, but that in a general way, he thought more highly of that servant than he did of his own (Mr. Attorney-General's) brothers and sisters, and looked up to him more than he did to his (Mr. Attorney-General's) father and mother. That he was confident that the jury would feel the same. That the word of these two men, and the papers they would bring with them would show that the prisoner had lists of where the king's men and weapons were to be sent, both over water and over land, and that he had been for some time, giving these lists to a country that was at war with Britain. That the writing in these lists would be quite different from the writing of the prisoner, but that this would only show that the prisoner was very smart about hiding the truth, so much so that he was able to change his writing when making them. That these criminal actions had gone back some five years, so that the prisoner was already doing his evil work as early as a few weeks before the first fighting between Britain and America. That, for these reasons, the jury, being people who love their country (as he knew they were), and being people who would always do what they knew to be right (as, surely, they knew themselves) must surely find the prisoner guilty, and have him killed, even if they did not like the thought of doing it. That they could never put their heads on their pillows; that they could never be at peace with their wives putting their heads on their pillows; that they could never be at peace with their children putting their heads on their pillows; in short, that there could never be any peace for any of them to put their heads on pillows if the prisoner's head was not first taken off. That head, Mr. Attorney-General told them, must, in the name of everything he could think of that was good, be given by them because of his own religious belief that the prisoner was already as good as dead.

When the Attorney-General stopped, a buzz moved around the court like there was a cloud of flies in there waiting for the prisoner to die. When this died down, the man who had perfect love for his country stepped into the witness box.

The Attorney-General's top lawyer, following in the steps of his leader, asked questions of the witness, whose name was Barsad. Mr. Barsad told the court that the story of his good spirit was perfectly the same as Mr. Attorney-General had said. If there was anything wrong with it, it was only that it was too perfectly the same. Having told the court how good he was, Mr. Barsad would have humbly stepped down, but the man with a wig sitting closest to Mr. Lorry asked to speak to him. The man with a wig who was sitting opposite to him was still looking at the roof of the court.

Had he ever given secrets to another country himself? No, he was hurt that anyone would think such a thing. What did he live on? His wealth. Where was his wealth? He didn't remember where it was. What was his wealth made up of? It was not anyone's business what it was made up of. Had he been given it by a relative? Yes, he had. By whom? A little known relative. Little known? Yes, very little known. Had he ever been in prison? Surely not! Never been in a prison for not paying money? He didn't see what that had to do with it. Never in a prison for not paying money, never at any time? Okay, yes. How many times? Two or three times. Not five or six? Maybe. What is his job? A man of wealth. Ever been kicked? Maybe. Often? No. Ever kicked down steps? No way; but did once receive a kick at the top of some steps, and fell down them without any help. Kicked at that time for tricking a man at dice? The man who kicked him said something like that at the time, but he was lying and had been drinking. Sure that the man who did the kicking was not speaking the truth? Yes, very sure. Ever make a living by tricking people at such games? Never. Ever make a living by playing such games? No more than other rich men do. Ever borrow money from the prisoner? Yes. Ever pay him back? No. Was not this being 'friends' with the prisoner very shallow, being forced on the prisoner in coaches, hotels, and ships? No. Sure he saw the prisoner with these lists? Very sure. Knew nothing more about the lists? No. Had not, maybe, made the lists himself? No. Hoping to get anything for being a witness here? No. Not often paid by the government to trick people in this way? Oh, no, no, no. Or paid to do anything for the government? No, no. Promise that? Over and over. No reason for being here apart from his love for his country? None at all.

The good servant, Roger Cly, who had worked for the prisoner, was next. He had started working for the prisoner in good faith four years ago, after meeting him on the ship to France. He had not begged for the job because he was in need -- never thought of such a thing. He started to think that the prisoner was up to something soon after that. In putting out his clothes, when travelling, he had seen lists like the ones handed to the court over and over again.

He had taken them from a drawer in the prisoner's desk. Heavens, no, he did not put them there. He had seen the prisoner give the lists to French men after they landed in France. He loved his country and that is why he gave the papers to the police. No, he had never been in trouble for robbing a silver tea-pot. He had been in trouble for robbing a smaller silver pot, and even then, it was only covered in silver and not solid silver. He had been a friend of the first witness for seven or eight years, but that was not important. He saw no reason to think they had planned anything against the prisoner. And he saw no reason why he too should not be acting out of deep love for his country, just as the earlier witness had acted. He was a true friend of his country, as he hoped others were.

The flies were buzzing again, and Mr. Attorney-General called Mr. Jarvis Lorry.

"Mr. Jarvis Lorry, do you work for Tellson's bank?

"I do."

“On a Friday night in November, 1775, did business force you to travel from London to Dover on the mail coach?”

"It did."

"Were there other passengers in the coach?"

"Yes, two."

"Did they leave the coach when you were sleeping, before it reached Dover?"

"They did."

"Mr. Lorry, look at the prisoner. Was he one of those two passengers?"

"I cannot say that he was."

"Does he look like either of the two passengers?"

"Both were so covered in scarves, and the night was so dark, and we were all so quiet, that I cannot even say that."

"Mr. Lorry, look again at the prisoner. Think of him covered as those two passengers were. Is there anything in his size and shape to make it clear he was not one of them?"

"No."

"So you cannot say for sure that he was not one of the passengers?"

"No."

"So you can say that he may have been one of them?"

"Yes. But I remember them both to have been, like myself, afraid of robbers. The prisoner does not show any fear at all."

"Did you ever see anyone show false fear, Mr. Lorry?"

"Yes, I have seen that."

"Mr. Lorry, look once again at the prisoner. Have you seen him at any time when you knew it was him?"

"I have."

"When?"

"A few days after the trip to Dover, I was returning from France, and the prisoner came on the ship, and travelled with me back to England."

"At what hour did he come on the ship?"

"A little after midnight."

"In the middle of the night. Was he the only passenger to come on at that time of night?"

"He happened to be the only one."

"Never mind about 'happening', Mr. Lorry. He was the only passenger to come on in the middle of the night?"

"He was."

"Were you travelling alone, Mr. Lorry, or with someone else?"

"With two friends. An older man and a young woman. They are here."

"They are here. Did you talk to the prisoner on that trip?"

"Not much. The weather was bad, and the trip was long and rough. I was resting on a couch almost from start to finish."

"Miss Manette!"

All heads turned to the woman everyone had been looking at earlier. She stood up, and her father stood with her, holding her hand, which went through his folded arm.

"Miss Manette, look at the prisoner."

To see such love in the eyes of such a beautiful young woman was harder for the prisoner than all the looks he had received from the crowd. In his mind he was standing alone with her just before he was to be killed, and thoughts about the crowd did not stop him from moving in his place almost like he was reaching out to her. It was difficult for him to control his breathing, as the colour from his lips went to his heart instead. The buzzing of the flies was loud again.

"Miss Manette, have you seen the prisoner before?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where?"

"On the ship, the same one the other witness was talking about, and on the same trip."

"You are the young woman he said he was travelling with?"

"Oh, most sadly, I am!"

The sad sound of her kind spirit hit strongly against the less musical sound of the judge's voice, as he said angrily, "Answer the question, and do not add to it with your own thoughts."

"Miss Manette, did you talk to the prisoner on that trip across the Channel?"

"Yes, sir."

"Remember it?"

The court was very quiet as she started.

"When the man came onto the ship..."

"Do you mean the prisoner?” asked the judge, knitting his forehead into many parallel lines.

"Yes, my lord."

"Then say the prisoner."

"When the prisoner came on the ship, he could see that my father," turning her eyes lovingly toward her father as he stood beside her, "was very tired and not at all well. He was so weak that I was afraid to take him out of the open air. I had made him a bed out in the open, near the steps leading to the rooms, and I sat at his side to take care of him. We four were the only passengers that night. The prisoner was so good as to ask if he could show me how to better protect my father from the wind and the weather. I had not done a very good job of it, because I did not understand how the wind would change after we were out on the open water. He made the changes for me, and showed great kindness for my father. I am sure that he felt this kindness from his heart. That is how we started to talk together."

"Let me stop you for a minute. Had he come onto the ship alone?"

"No."

"How many were with him?"

"Two French men."

"Did they talk together?"

"They did, until the last minute before the ship was to leave, when the others were taken back to the beach in their boat."

"Were any papers like these lists handed between them?"

"Some papers were passed around between them, but I cannot say what kind of papers."

"Like these in shape and size?"

"Maybe, but I really cannot say, because they were standing at the top of the steps, where the light from the lantern was. It was a weak lantern, and they spoke very softly, so I did not hear what they said, and saw only that they were looking at papers.

"Now what did the prisoner say to you, Miss Manette?"

"The prisoner was as open with me -- seeing that I needed help -- as he was kind and good in helping my father. I hope," starting to cry, "that I do not return his help by hurting him here today."

Buzzing from the flies.

"Miss Manette, if the prisoner does not perfectly understand that you are only doing what you have been forced to do here today, he is the only person in this room who does not understand that. Please go on."

"He told me that he was travelling on important secret business that could bring trouble for some people, and because of that, he was using a false name. He said that this business had taken him to France for a few days, and that it might, at times, take him backward and forward between France and England for a long time to come."

"Did he say anything about America, Miss Manette? Tell us clearly what he said."

"He tried to tell me how that war had started, and he said that as far as he could see, it was wrong and foolish for England to be fighting there. He added, in a joking way, that George Washington could end up with a better name in history than King George the Third. But there was no anger in his words. He said it laughingly, and to pass the time."

In a scene of deep emotion, when an actor makes a special face, the people watching will often, without thinking, make the same face. Her forehead showed how seriously worried she was, and each time she stopped for the judge to write down what she was saying, she would see her own look on the faces of the lawyers both for and against the prisoner. In every corner of the court, the people watching had the same serious look, making them little mirrors of the woman herself. The judge looked up from his writing with a very angry look at the woman when she said those awful words about George Washington.

Mr. Attorney-General then let the judge know that he needed to ask some questions of the young woman's father, Doctor Manette, and the judge agreed.

"Doctor Manette, look at the prisoner. Have you ever seen him before?"

"Once. When he came to my place in London, some three or three and a half years ago.

"Can you tell us if he is the man who travelled on a ship with you and your daughter, and if you can remember what he said to your daughter?"

"No, sir, I cannot."

"Is there any special reason why you cannot tell us either of these things?"

He answered in a low voice, "There is."

"Has it happened that you were in prison for a long time, without even so much as a hearing in court, in the country where you were born, Doctor Manette?"

He answered with a sadness that went to every heart. "It was a very long time."

"At the time of the boat trip that we are talking about, was that a short while after you were let out of prison?"

"They tell me it was."

"Are you not able to remember the trip?"

"I remember nothing... nothing from a time -- and I cannot say what time it was -- when I was making shoes in the prison, to a time when I found myself living with my kind daughter here. I knew her to be my daughter when God gave me my mind back, but I cannot even remember how I learned who she was."

Mr. Attorney-General sat down, and the father and daughter sat down.

At this point, something strange happened. The plan was to show that the prisoner went down with a friend in the Dover mail that night five years earlier, but that they left the coach in the middle of the night at a place where they did not stay. The prisoner had then travelled back some twelve miles or more to a place where many soldiers and ships were staying, to get the papers that he was in the court for now. A witness was called up to say that he saw the prisoner drinking coffee in a hotel in that town on the day in question, and to say that he had been waiting there for someone. The lawyer working for the prisoner was questioning the witness without getting anywhere, when the other lawyer, the one who had been looking up at the roof, wrote one or two words on a piece of paper, squeezed it into a little ball, and threw it to the lawyer who was questioning the witness. When there was time to do it, the lawyer opened the piece of paper, looked at it, and then looked at the prisoner with great interest.

"You say again that you are quite sure that it was the prisoner?"

The witness was quite sure.

"Did you ever see anyone who looked very much like the prisoner?"

Not enough like him (said the witness) to make it difficult to tell the difference.

"Look closely at that man, my lawyer friend over there," pointing to the one who had thrown the paper. "And then look at the prisoner. What do you think? Are they not very much the same?"

Apart from the lawyer's hair being rough and his clothes being messy, their looks were so much the same that they not only surprised the witness, but they surprised everyone in the court when the two men were made to stand side by side. The judge being asked to let the lawyer take off his wig, and the judge agreeing after some argument, the two men looked even more surprisingly equal. The judge asked the prisoner's lawyer (Mr. Stryver) if he should not think about having his lawyer friend (Mr. Carton) arrested for the same crime.

Mr. Stryver said no, but he said that he would ask the witness again: If this could happen in the court, could it not have also happened in that hotel he was talking about? Could he really be so confident about who he saw that night? The effect of it all was that the witness lost his confidence, and the Attorney-General lost that part of his proof that the prisoner was guilty.

Mr. Cruncher, by this time, had chewed his fingers enough to make a full lunch of rust as he had followed what was happening. He now watched as Mr. Stryver spoke to the jury, telling them that the man who was believed to have acted out of love for his country was himself a seller of secrets, prepared to see an innocent person die if he could make money from it. He was one of the worst people on earth since the time of Judas, and he even looked a little like Judas himself. The servant who was believed to have been an honest man was in truth a secret friend of the seller of secrets; and together they had learned that the prisoner travelled between France and England on some serious business for his family -- business that was so serious that he was prepared to die before he would put his family in danger by telling it. He said that the words of the young woman had been so bent as to show that it came to nothing more than the kind of foolish talk that would pass between a young man and a young woman on meeting. The only bad thing said, that awful joke about George Washington one day being greater than King George, was so wrong as to be seen as nothing but empty foolish talk. It was a weakness in the government to give in to arguments like what the Attorney-General was using in this case, because it played on the hates and fears of the people for other countries; and the man being used to argue for the government, like so many men who are being used in courts these days, was an evil man who wanted only to make money by helping to get an innocent man hanged. At that point, the judge spoke up and, with a face that was so serious that one could think he was telling the truth, said that he could not sit there and let such things be said about the courts of England.

Mr. Stryver then called for a few witnesses, and Mr. Cruncher had to listen while Mr. Attorney-General turned the clothes that Mr. Stryver had made for the jury inside out, showing how Barsad and Cly were a hundred times better than he had thought them, and the prisoner a hundred times worse. And then came the judge himself, turning the clothes now inside out, now outside in, but on the whole cutting and shaping them into clothes for the prisoner to be buried in.

And then the jury turned to think about all of this, and the great flies returned to buzzing.

Even in all that was happening, Mr. Carton, who had sat so long looking at the roof of the court, did not change his place or the direction in which he looked. His good friend, Mr. Stryver pulled his papers together, whispered to those who sat near him, and from time to time looked worriedly at the jury. The people watching moved together in little groups to whisper. Even the judge stood up and walked up and down on his stage, giving many people to think that he was sick. As all of this was happening, this one man sat, leaning back in his chair, his robe, hanging half off him, with a very big tear in it, his wig put back on roughly, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the roof as they had been all day. His spirit was so wild and lazy that now (when he was not being serious as he had been when he stood beside the prisoner) people were starting to say that it was hard to think of the two as being at all the same. Mr. Cruncher said to his neighbour, "I would put money on it, that he don't get no law work to do. Don't look the kind to get any, do he?"

Yet this Mr. Carton knew what was happening around him better than most people believed. When Miss Manette's head dropped onto her father's chest, he was the first to see it and to say, "Officer! Look to that young woman. Help her father take her out. Can't you see that she is about to faint?"

There were many people feeling sorry for her and for her father as they were leaving. The crowd had seen by the look on Doctor Manette's face when he had talked of his time in prison that it was not easy for him. And that look, which made him seem so much older than he was, stayed on his face like a heavy cloud. As he was leaving the court room, the jury turned back to face the court.

They said that they could not agree, and the head jury man asked if they could leave the court to talk more freely between themselves. The judge (maybe thinking about George Washington) showed some surprise that they were not in agreement, but said that they could leave under guard, and he himself would leave for a break. It was now late in the day and the lanterns were being lighted. It was understood that the jury could be quite some time, so many people left to get food, and the prisoner sat down against the wall where he was being held.

Mr. Lorry, who had gone out with the young woman and her father, now returned and waved his hand for Jerry, who was easily able to come to him now that so many people had left.

"Jerry, if you wish to have something to eat, feel free to do it; but stay close by. When the jury comes in, please come in with them, because I want you to run to the bank with the news when it comes. You will be able to get there much more quickly than me."

Mr. Carton came up at that time, and touched Mr. Lorry on the arm.

"How is the young woman?"

"She is very worried; but her father is helping her through it. She is glad to be out of the court."

"I'll tell the prisoner. It would not be wise for a banker like yourself to be seen with him, you know."

Mr. Lorry turned red, as if he disagreed with the point, but was not going to argue it. Mr. Carton walked toward the bar that was around where the prisoner was seated, and, as that was the way out of the court, Jerry followed him, all eyes and ears.

"Mr. Darnay!"

The prisoner came forward.

"You must be wanting to know what has happened to the witness, Miss Manette. She should be okay now. She was at her worst when she was in here."

"I am very sorry to be the reason for her troubles. Could you tell her so for me, with my sincere thanks?"

"I could. And I will, if you ask me.” Mr. Carton's spirit was one of little or no interest in Mr. Darnay. He was half turned away from the prisoner, with his elbow leaning on the bar.

"I do ask. And you have my sincere thanks."

"What," asked Carton, still half turned, "do you think they'll say?"

"The worst."

"It is the wisest way to see it, and what is probably going to happen. But I think their going out is a good sign."

Because he had to move along, Jerry heard no more. He left them -- so much the same in looks, but so different in spirit -- standing side by side under the mirror above them.

It was a slow hour and a half that Jerry had to wait outside the court. The crowd was rough, but the meat pie and beer were good, and Jerry was just going off to sleep on a hard, rough bench when talk and movement from people around him made him know that things were happening inside the court, and so he moved with the crowd toward the door.

"Jerry! Jerry!" Mr. Lorry was already calling at the door when he got there.

"Here, sir! I had to fight to get back in. Here I am, sir."

Mr. Lorry handed him a paper through the crowd. "Quickly. Have you got it?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Written on the paper were the words Not Guilty.

"If you had said 'Called back to life'," Jerry said as he turned, "this time I would have known what you were trying to say by it."

He had no way to say or even think more than that until he was clear of the Old Bailey, because the crowd came pouring out of the court and almost pushed him over in their anger at the sad ending to such a long day. The loud buzz filled the street like the sound of flies looking for another piece of dead meat to land on.

4. The Winner's Happiness

In the dark roads behind the court, the last of those people who had become a soup of hate, cooking in the Old Bailey all day, was leaving. Doctor Manette and his daughter, Lucie, Mr. Lorry, and the defence lawyer, Mr. Stryver, were, at that same time, standing in a circle around Mr. Charles Darnay -- just freed -- sharing his happiness on having just been saved from death.

Even if the light had been better, it would be difficult to think of Doctor Manette, who was standing straight and tall, as the old shoemaker from the room in Paris. Yet, anyone who looked at him closely would see that there was something strange about him. He would still lose his thoughts at times, and there was often a sadness in his low voice without any good reason. When the reason was clear, as happened in the court when he was questioned about his time in prison, it was easy to understand the change in him. But at other times, without any good reason, one could almost see the shadow of the government prison in Paris, some three hundred miles away, coming over his face.

Only his daughter would be able to pull him out of those sad times. She was the golden thread that held together his past and his present in a way that was stronger than the sadness he felt in both. The sound of her voice, the light of her face, and the touch of her hand almost always helped him through the dark times. But not quite always, for there were times she could remember, not many, when her powers had failed for a while. Yet, for now, she believed that those times were over.

Mr. Darnay had kissed her hand sincerely and with many thanks, and had turned to Mr. Stryver, whom he also thanked warmly. Mr. Stryver, a man of little more than thirty, but looking twenty years older, was fat, loud, red, and free from anything that would keep him from pushing his way into and through a crowd or any other thing standing in his way. It seemed that it was this spirit that had served most to move him up in the world.

Mr. Stryver still had his wig and robe on, and he said, pushing himself up close in front of Darnay, so much so that he squeezed innocent Mr. Lorry right out of the picture, "I'm glad to have saved you so well, Mr. Darnay. It was an awful set of arguments that the Attorney-General used, very awful; not that it would have stopped them from winning on most days."

"I will owe you for life, in more ways than one," said the man who had been a prisoner, taking Mr. Stryver's hand.

"I did my best, Mr. Darnay, and I believe my best is as good as any other man's."

Mr. Stryver was clearly waiting for someone to say that his best had been better than most, and so Mr. Lorry said it, not with much enthusiasm, but more as a way to squeeze back into the circle.

"Do you think so?” said Mr. Stryver. "Well, you have been there all day, and you should know, as you too are a man of business."

Mr. Stryver now worked as hard to shoulder Mr. Lorry back into the group as he had earlier worked to shoulder him out.

"As such," said Mr. Lorry, "I will now ask Doctor Manette to break up this meeting and send us all to our homes. Miss Lucie looks sick and Mr. Darnay has had an awful day. We are all tired."

"Speak for yourself, Mr. Lorry," said Stryver. "I have a night's work to do yet. Speak for yourself."

"I do speak for myself," answered Mr. Lorry," and for Mr. Darnay and for Miss Lucie, and... Miss Lucie, do you not think I may speak for all of us?” He asked her with a look toward her father.

Doctor Manette's face had become locked in a strange look at Darnay, a strong look that turned into one of hate and fear. With this strange look on his face, his thoughts had moved away from what was happening around him.

"Father," said Lucie softly, laying her hand on his. He slowly shook the shadow off, and turned to her.

"Shall we go home, father?"

Breathing in deeply, he answered, "Yes."

The friends of the freed prisoner went their way, thinking, because he himself had told them so, that he would not be free to leave the place until the next day. Most of the lights were put out around the Old Bailey, the iron gates were being closed with much noise, and the court was empty, waiting for the next morning's interest in hanging and whipping and burning with a hot iron. Walking between her father and Mr. Darnay, Lucie Manette stepped out into the open air. A coach was called and the father and daughter left.

Mr. Stryver had left them outside so he could shoulder his way back to the court dressing room to take off his robe and wig. Another person, who had not joined the group or said a word to any of them, but who had been leaning against the wall where its shadow was the darkest, quietly walked out after the Manette's left and watched the coach drive away. He now walked up to where Mr. Lorry and Mr. Darnay were standing on the footpath.

"So Mr. Lorry. Men of business may talk with Mr. Darnay now?"

Nothing had been said about Mr. Carton's part in saving Darnay, because no one but Stryver knew of it. Mr. Carton had his court robe off now, but he did not look any better for it, as he spoke:

"If you knew the war that goes on in the mind of a businessman, Mr. Darnay, when he is pulled between doing what is right and doing what will help his business, you would laugh."

Mr. Lorry turned red, and said with some fire, "You have said that before. But we who work for a business are not our own masters. We must think of the business more than ourselves."

"I know, I know," said Mr. Carton with little interest. "Don't be angry, Mr. Lorry. You're as good as the next businessman, I should think. Better, I would say."

"The truth, sir," said Mr. Lorry, not listening to him, "is that my business is none of your business, if I may say that as one who is much older than you."

"Business? Bless me, I don't have a business," said Mr. Carton.

"It is too bad that you do not, sir."

"I think so too."

"If you did, maybe you would be busy with it now," Mr. Lorry said, pushing his point farther.

"Bless you, Mr. Lorry, but I'm sure I would not be," said Mr. Carton.

"Well, sir!" cried Mr. Lorry, who was quite angry that the man showed so little interest in what he was saying, "business is a very good thing, and something others think well of. And, sir, if business stops us from doing or saying some things, then Mr. Darnay, as a young man who understands life, you must know how to make room for that in your thinking. Good night, Mr. Darnay, and may God bless you, sir! I hope that you have been saved today for a rich and happy life. Coach, here!"

Just a little angry with himself as well as with the lawyer, Mr. Lorry climbed into the coach and headed off to Tellson's. Carton, who had the smell of wine on him, laughed and turned to Darnay.

"This is a strange day that puts the two of us together. This must be a strange night for you, standing here on these street stones with one who is so much like you in looks."

"I hardly feel yet that I am a part of this world," returned Darnay.

"I am not surprised. Only a short while ago you were well on your way to another world. You speak very softly."

"I am feeling a little weak."

"Then why the devil don't you get something to eat? I ate when we were waiting for that stupid jury to say which world you should be in. Come with me and I'll show you to the closest hotel, where you can get a good meal."

Pulling Darnay's arm through his own, he led him through a few streets and up a covered walk into a hotel. Here they were taken to a little room where Charles Darnay was soon building up his strength with a good meal and a good wine. Carton sat at the same table, opposite to him, with a separate bottle of wine and his rough way still about him.

"Do you now feel a part of the world again, Mr. Darnay?"

"I am very confused about time and place, but I do feel that."

"It must make you feel very good.” He said it bitterly, and again filled his glass, which was a big one. "As for me, I would really like to forget that I am part of this earth. It has nothing in it for me -- apart from wines like this -- and I have nothing for it. So we are very different in that way. In truth, I am starting to think that we are not the same in anything, you and I."

Confused by all that happened that day, and feeling that his being there with this awful man was like a dream, Charles Darnay did not know how to answer. In the end, he did not answer at all.

"Now that your dinner is finished," Carton said after some time, why don't we drink to someone? You name it."

"Drink to someone? To whom?"

"Just say it. It's on the end of your tongue.”

"Miss Manette, then!"

"Miss Manette, then!"

Looking straight in the other man's face, while drinking to Miss Manette, Carton threw his glass over his shoulder against the wall, where it broke into pieces. Then he shook the bell and asked for another.

"That was a beautiful young woman to give to a coach in the dark, Mr. Darnay!" he said, filling his new glass.

A small look of anger and a smaller word, "Yes", were Darnay's answer.

"She's a nice young woman to be crying for you and feeling sorry for you! How does it feel? Is it worth the danger of almost losing your life to receive such love, Mr. Darnay?"

Darnay said nothing.

"She was very happy to hear what you said when I gave it to her. Not that she showed it, but I think she was."

This made Darnay remember that this man had freely helped to save his life. So he changed the talk to that, and thanked him for his help.

"I don't want thanks, and I have done nothing to receive it," was Carton's answer. "It was nothing to do, in the first place, and I don't know why I did it, in the second. Mr. Darnay, let me ask you a question."

"Gladly. It is a small return for your help."

"Do you think that I like you?"

"Really, Mr. Carton," he answered, worried about where this was leading, "I have not asked myself this question."

"So ask yourself now."

"You have acted like you do, but I don't think you do."

"I don't think I do," said Carton. "But I do think you have understood me well."

"All the same," Darnay went on, reaching to ring the bell, "I hope there is nothing in that to stop me from paying for our drinks, and leaving without bad blood on either side."

"Nothing at all," Carton answered. "Are you going to pay for everything?” When Darnay said he was, Carton said to the servant,

"Then bring me another bottle of this same wine, and wake me at ten."

When he had paid the waiter, Charles Darnay stood up and wished Carton a good night. Without returning the wish, Carton stood up and with a touch of anger in his way of looking at Darnay, said, "A last word, Mr. Darnay; do you think I am drunk?"

"I think you have been drinking, Mr. Carton."

"Think? You know I have been drinking."

"Since I must say so, yes, I know it."

"Then you shall also know why. I am a bored worker, sir. I care for no one on earth, and no one on earth cares for me."

"That is very sad. You might have used your abilities better."

"Maybe so, Mr. Darnay; maybe not. But don't let your serious face lift you up too much. You don't know what it may come to. Good night!"

When he was alone, this strange man took a candle, walked over to a mirror on the wall, and looked at himself closely in it.

"Do you like the man?” he whispered, looking at his own face. "Why should you like a man who looks like you? There is nothing in you to like; you know that. Ah, be gone with you! How you have changed! A good reason to like the man is that he has showed you where you have failed, and what you could have been. Change places with him, and would you have been looked at with as much love by those blue eyes as what he received? Come out with it and speak the truth. You hate him."

He returned to his wine, finished it all in a few minutes, and fell asleep on his arms with his hair hanging across the table.

5. The Wild Dog

In those days men were often given to drinking, and it is a sign of how much we have changed to say that what a man could drink in one night then without anyone thinking badly of him would greatly surprise a person today. Well educated lawyers were not one step behind people in any other job when it came to drinking, and Mr. Stryver was shouldering his way to the front in this part of being a lawyer as well as he had ever done in the drier parts of being a lawyer.

By winning cases at a number of courts, Mr. Stryver had been doing well on the lower steps of a ladder leading to a much higher target. In the garden of wigs that was his work place, he was like a great sunflower reaching to be taller than all around him, in the hope that one day he could take the place of the judge himself.

Some lawyers had once said that Mr. Stryver was able, willing, and brave enough to break any rule to get to the top, but that he did not have the ability to find the most important point in an argument when preparing a case. But of late, he had changed in a surprising way. The more business he got, the better he became at getting to the point that was most needed; and he could stay up as late as he liked partying with his friends, and still put his finger right on what was needed the next morning.

Sydney Carton, the laziest of men, was Stryver's great helper. The beer and wine that these two men went through would have been enough to sail a ship in, but Carton was always there with Stryver in any court he visited, with his hands in his pockets, looking at the roof of the court. They went to the same places, and would drink far into the night, with word being that Carton often walked home drunk well after the sun had come up, like a cat that had been out all night. For those who were interested in the man, word soon went around that Carton, who would never be a lion, had learned to be a wild dog, living off the work of his lion-like friend, Stryver.

"Ten o'clock, sir," said the man at the hotel when he had tried to wake him. "Ten o'clock, sir."

"What is that?"

"Ten o'clock, sir."

"What do you mean? Ten o'clock at night?” "Yes, sir. You told me to call you."

"Oh, yes, I remember. Very well, very well."

After trying weakly a few times to get back to sleep, wisely made difficult by noises from the owner, who was at the fireplace pushing and pulling coals and pieces of timber, Mr. Carton got up, put his hat on, and walked out. He went through a few streets before coming to Mr. Stryver's rooms.

Mr. Stryver's office worker, who never helped at these late meetings, had gone home, and Stryver himself opened the door. He had open house shoes and a sleeping robe on, and no scarf around his throat. He had that wild burned look about his eyes, which can be seen in all those of his class who lived too freely.

"You are a little late, my rememberer," said Stryver.

"Close enough. I may be fifteen minutes late."

They went into a dark room with books covering the walls and papers everywhere, where a fire was burning, and a kettle was on it. In the middle of all the papers was a table with wine and spirits on it, as well as sugar and lemons.

"I see that you have had your bottle, Sydney."

"Two tonight, I think. I have been eating with our man from today, or watching him eat; it's all the same."

"That was a very good point, Sydney, that you brought up today. It helped us destroy the witness who said he had seen our man. How did you come by it? When did you see it?"

"I saw that he was very good looking, and I was thinking that I could have been very much like him with a little luck."

Mr. Stryver laughed until his big stomach was shaking. "You and your luck, Sydney! Get to work, get to work."

In a quiet, angry way, the wild dog opened his coat and went into the next room, returning with a pot of cold water, a bowl, and a cloth or two. Putting the cloths in the water and then squeezing them a little, he folded them on his head, sat down at the table, and said, "I'm ready now."

"Not much to work on tonight, my rememberer," said Mr. Stryver happily as he looked through his papers.

"How much?"

"Only two."

"Give me the worst first."

"There they are, Sydney. Fire away!"

The lion then rested back on the couch on one side of the drinking table, while the wild dog sat at his own paper-covered table on the other side of it, with the bottles and glasses close at hand. They both went to the drinking table as often as they liked, but each in a different way. The lion, half lying down with one hand in his belt, and looking at the fire or at times looking with little interest at some paper; the wild dog with a knitted forehead and serious face, so deep into his work that his eyes did not even follow the hand that reached out for a glass and brought it to his lips. Two or three times the business was so difficult that the wild dog needed to get up and put more water on the cloths. From these trips to the pot and bowl, he would return with a strange wet hat that was made to look more foolish by the serious way that he went back to his work.

At last, the wild dog had fixed a small meal for the lion and he gave it to him. The lion took it with care, reading some parts and talking them over after the wild dog told him which parts he should study most seriously. When the meal was fully talked over, the lion put both hands in the belt of his pants and lay himself down to think. The wild dog then gave himself new life with a deep drink for his throat, and more water for the cloths on his head before starting to work on a second meal for the lion. By the time the lion had finished with that one, it was after three in the morning.

"And now that we've finished, Sydney, pour yourself a tall drink," said Mr. Stryver.

The wild dog took the cloths off his head, shook himself, exercised his arms and legs a little, and then did as he had been told.

"You were quite right, Sydney, with how to handle those crown witnesses today. Every question cut right to the root."

"I'm always right, am I not?"

"I won't argue that. But what has made your spirit so rough? Have another drink to smooth it."

"He made a sound to show he disagreed, but he obeyed when it came to having another drink.

"Good old Sydney Carton from Shrewsbury School," said Stryver, looking him over as he thought about him, past and present. "Good old Carton, up one minute and down the next. Now in high spirits; now wanting to die."

"Ah, yes!" the other returned, breathing out sadly. "The same Sydney with the same luck I have now. Even then I did exercises for the other boys, but not my own."

"And why not?"

"God knows. It was just my way, I think."

He sat with his hands in his pockets and his legs projecting out in front of him, as he looked at the fire.

"Carton," said his friend, squaring up with him as if the fireplace was where one learned to work hard, and the kindest thing he could do for Carton was to shoulder him into it. "Your way was always a crippled way. You never knew what you wanted. But look at me."

"Oh be gone with you!" returned Sydney with a lighter, more friendly laugh. "Don't you start preaching at me!"

"How have I done what I've done?” said Stryver. "How do I do what I do?"

"Partly by paying me to do it for you. But it is a waste of time to ask such foolish questions. You do what you want to do. And you always wanted to be the leader, while I was happy to be the follower."

"I had to get into the lead. I wasn't born there, was I?"

"I wasn't there when you were born; but I would say yes, you were born in the lead.” At this he laughed, and then they both laughed.

"Before Shrewsbury, at Shrewsbury, and ever since Shrewsbury, you just dropped into your class, and I dropped into mine. Even when we studied together in Paris, you were always somewhere, and I was always... nowhere."

"And why was that?"

"I think it may have been because of you. You were always driving and breaking and pushing and shouldering to the point where I had nothing left to do but to rest and to rust. But it is boring to talk about one's past when the sun is almost up. Turn me in some other direction before I go."

"Well, then, let's have a drink to the beautiful witness," said Stryver, lifting his glass. "Tell me that isn't a good direction."

He must not have thought so, because his spirits dropped again. "Beautiful witness?” he said softly. "I've had enough of witnesses today and tonight. Who are you talking about?"

"The beautiful doctor's daughter, Miss Manette.”

"She? Beautiful?"

"Isn't she?"

"No."

"Don't be foolish. Everyone in the court loved her."

"To hell with the love of the court. What made the Old Bailey the judge of who is beautiful? She was just a doll with golden hair."

"Do you know, Sydney," Stryver said with a sharp eye, and pulling his hand across his red face, "do you know, that I had the feeling at the time that you were very interested in this doll with the golden hair. You were the first to see what happened to her when she was feeling faint."

"First to see? If a girl, doll or not, faints just a few feet from a man's nose, he can see it without a telescope. I'll drink to her, but I won't say that she was beautiful. And that's all for me. I'll not have another drink tonight. It's time I went to bed."

When Mr. Stryver took Carton out to the steps, carrying a candle to show him the way, the day was starting to show like it was coming through a dirty window. Outside the house, the air was cold and sad, the grey sky cloudy, the river dark, and the whole scene like a desert of death. Dirt from the streets moved in circles with the early morning winds like a warning to the city about a wild sand storm coming from far away.

Feeling empty, inside and out, this man stopped on a quiet piece of garden in the middle of a wide road to see in his mind, one who was sincere, hard-working, and faithful. He lived in a beautiful city, where all the good things of life were his, where the waters were full of hope, and where love looked kindly on him. But in a second the vision was gone. He climbed to a room at the top of a square of houses, threw himself down in his clothes on a messy bed, and wet the pillow with his tears.

Sadly, sadly, the sun came up. It came up on nothing sadder than the man with good abilities and good feelings, who, not able to make himself follow rules and not able to see what it was doing to him, chose instead to let it eat away at him.

6. Hundreds of People

Doctor Manette's quiet rooms were on a quiet street corner not far from Soho Square. On a clear Sunday afternoon, four months after Mr. Darnay had been found innocent of treason, Mr. Jarvis Lorry was walking along the sunny streets from where he lived toward the Doctor's house, to have dinner with him. Over and above all of his interest in business, Mr. Lorry had found time to become the Doctor's friend, and the quiet street corner had become the sunny part of his life.

On this beautiful afternoon there were three reasons for Mr. Lorry to be walking over to the Doctor's house. The first was that he often went for walks with the Doctor and Lucie before dinner on clear Sundays. The second was that on cloudy or rainy Sundays he often stayed inside with them as a friend of the family, talking, reading, or looking out the window. And the third was that today he had his own little questions that needed answers, and from what he knew of the Manettes, this would be a good time to get his answers.

There was not a nicer corner to be found in London, than the one where the Doctor lived. The windows of the Doctor's rooms looked out on the corner, and in those days there were few buildings around it. One could see trees and wild flowers, and there were peaches growing not far from there. The clean air of the country was free to move about, instead of slowly dying out like a lost beggar in a jungle of buildings.

In the early part of the day, the summer sun was quite bright there on the corner. But later in the day, when it was becoming hot, the corner would be in shadows; not dark shadows but a cool, quiet, and friendly place where one could listen to the sounds of busy streets not far away.

It was the perfect place for a ship to come and hide from the storms of life; and the two floors of a very big house where the Doctor had his rooms had become that ship. There were signs to say that other businesses were going on in the same building, but there was very little sound from them by day, and even less by night. In a building at the back, on the other side of a closed in yard where a tree with big green leaves grew, it was said that church pianos were made. And a sign, projecting like a giant golden arm from the front wall said that gold and silver could be made into jewelry there, as if the man doing it had changed himself into gold and was promising to do the same to others who came to visit him. Very little was ever seen or heard of these businesses, or of the man who was said to live alone at the top of the building, or of a half-blind man who made parts for coaches who was said to have an office below. At times one would see a worker walking through the building while putting his coat on, or a stranger looking for someone, or the sound of a tool hitting something in the distance, either from across the yard or from the golden giant. But these were only little happenings that proved the bigger rule, which was that the sparrows in the big tree in the yard and the quiet sounds of movement off in the distance had their way on that corner from Sunday morning until Saturday night.

Doctor Manette received patients here who heard of his ability in whispers from others who had been there. His education, hard work, and ability were enough to bring all the people he needed to make as much as he wanted.

Mr. Jarvis Lorry knew these things, and was thinking about them when he pushed the door bell of the quiet house on the corner on that beautiful Sunday afternoon.

"Is Doctor Manette at home?”

"He will be soon."

"Is Miss Lucie at home?” "She will be soon."

"Is Miss Pross at home?"

Maybe, but she was not sure, because the servant did not yet know if Miss Pross wanted to make that known.

"As I am at home myself, I will go up," said Mr. Lorry.

The Doctor's daughter would not have remembered anything from the country where she was born, but she still had the French ability to make much of very little. As simple as the furniture was, she had added a few cheap but nice little things that had the effect of making the whole scene quite beautiful. Her good taste could be seen in everything in the room. As Mr. Lorry looked around, it was like even the chairs and tables were asking if he liked the place.

Each floor had three rooms, and the doors between them had been left open to let the air move freely between them. Mr. Lorry, smiling to himself, walked from room to room. The first room was the best one. In it were Lucie's flowers, and birds, and books, and desk, and work table, and box of paints. The second was the Doctor's office, also used for meals. The third, made alive by light coming in through the movement of the big tree outside the window, was the Doctor's bedroom, and there in the corner was the Doctor's old shoemaking bench and box of tools, much as they had been in the room on the fifth floor of the dark house by the wine shop in the Saint Antoine part of Paris.

"Now why would he keep that?” Mr. Lorry asked himself quietly as he stopped in front of the bench. "It must only make him think of that awful time in his past."

"And why should you ask a question like that?” came a voice behind him, making him jump. It had come from Miss Pross, the wild woman in red, the one with the strong hand, whom he had first met at the King George Hotel in Dover. They had since become much better friends.

"I would have thought...” Mr. Lorry started.

"Really? You would have thought?” said Miss Pross, and Mr. Lorry left it at that.

Then she said sharply, yet in a in a way that was to show she was not angry at him, "How do you do?"

"I'm well, thank you," Mr. Lorry answered kindly. "How are you?"

"Nothing to be proud of," said Miss Pross.

"Is that true?"

"Yes, it is.” said Miss Pross. "I am very worried about Ladybird."

"Is that true?"

"Mercy me! Do say something besides 'Is that true?' or you will worry me to death," said Miss Pross, whose way (so opposite to her size) was to be short with those around her.

"Really, then?” Mr. Lorry said, as a way of changing his answer.

"Really is bad enough," returned Miss Pross, "but better. Yes, I am very much put out."

"May I ask why?"

"I don't want dozens of people who are not at all good enough for Ladybird to come here looking after her," said Miss Pross.

"Do dozens of people come for that reason?"

"Hundreds," said Miss Pross.

'It was the way of this woman (as has been for others both before and since) when questioned about saying more than what was true to make it worse, and by doing it, adding to the sin.

"My, my!" said Mr. Lorry, as the safest thing he could think of to say.

"I have lived with my sweet one -- or my sweet one has lived with me, and never paid me for it -- which she surely should never have done.-- since she was ten years old. But it's really very hard now."

Not seeing clearly what was so hard about it, Mr. Lorry just shook his head, using that important part of himself to hide from having to give a clear answer.

"So many people who are not in the least measure good enough for Ladybird, are always turning up," said Miss Pross. "When you started it..."

"I started it, Miss Pross?"

"Didn't you? Who brought her father back to life?”

"Oh, if that was starting it...” said Mr. Lorry.

"Well, it wasn't ending it, was it? I say, when you started it, it was hard enough, not that I have any argument with Doctor Manette, apart from him not being good enough for such a daughter, which he cannot help, for there is no one who could be good enough for her. But it really is two or three times harder to have crowds of people turning up after him to take Ladybird's love away from me."

Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous of Lucie, but he also knew by this time that, under her rough covering, she was one of those kind people -- and they are always women -- who will, for love alone, make themselves willing slaves to qualities in others that are not really there. He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart. It is so free from any thought of making money, that his own feeling about Miss Pross was that she was much nearer to being an angel than many women who were much more beautiful and who had wealth at Tellson's.

"There never was, and there never will be but one man good enough for Ladybird," said Miss Pross, "and that was my brother Solomon, if only he had not made one wrong choice."

Mr. Lorry had learned enough from Miss Pross' history to know that her brother Solomon was a hard-hearted man who had robbed her of all that she owned, only to waste it on a plan to get rich that did not work, and then he had left her, without any feeling of guilt about what he had done. Miss Pross' belief in him (taking off very little for his 'one wrong choice') was a serious part of why Mr. Lorry thought so highly of Miss Pross.

"As we happen to be alone for a while, and are both busy people," he said when they were back in the sitting room and seated, "let me ask you -- does the Doctor, in talking with Lucie, ever, even now, talk about the time when he made shoes?"

"Never."

"And yet he keeps that bench and those tools beside him?"

"Ah!" returned Miss Pross, shaking her head. "But I didn't say that he does not talk about it to himself."

"Do you think he thinks about it much?"

"I do," said Miss Pross.

"Do you picture...?” Mr. Lorry had started when Miss Pross cut him short with:

"Never picture anything. Stay with what is real."

"You are right. Do you think... you do go so far as to think at times, do you not?"

"Now and then," said Miss Pross.

"Do you think," Mr. Lorry went on with a laughing smile in his bright eye, as it looked kindly at her, "that Doctor Manette has any understanding after all these years, of what the reason was for him being put in prison, or maybe even who was behind it?"

"I don't think anything about it but what Ladybird tells me.”

"And that is...?"

"That she thinks he does."

"Now don't be angry at me asking all these questions; because I am a slow man of business, and you too are a woman of business."

"A slow woman?” Miss Pross asked quietly.

Wishing he had not said slow, Mr. Lorry answered, "No, no, no. Surely not. But to return to business... Is it not strange that Doctor Manette, who is clearly innocent of any crime, should never touch on that question? He and I have done business for many years, and we have now become close friends, yet I am not saying that he should talk of it with me. But what about his daughter, whom he loves so much, and who loves him so much? Believe me, Miss Pross, I am not asking about this without a reason. I have a very strong interest in this."

"Well, to the best of my understanding and my best is still bad," said Miss Pross, who was softer now, "he's afraid to talk about it."

"Afraid?"

"It's easy to see why he should be. It's an awful thing to remember. His mind was changed by it, and there is so much he cannot remember. He can never be sure it will not happen again. I should think that alone would make him not want to talk about it."

It was a wiser answer than Mr. Lorry had been looking for. "True," he said, "and awful to think about. Yet I fear that it may not be good for Doctor Manette to close everything up inside his head. The truth is that it is this worry that has brought me to talk alone with you now."

"Can't be helped," said Miss Pross, shaking her head. "Touch that nerve, and he quickly changes for the worse. Better to leave it alone. In short, we must leave it alone, like it or not. At times he gets up in the middle of the night and we can hear him from above there walking up and down, up and down in his room. Ladybird has learned that at those times he is, in his mind, back in prison. She comes down here quickly when that happens, and they go together, walking up and down, up and down until he is over it. But he never says a word of his real reason for being up, and she finds it best not to ask. They just walk together without talking, up and down, up and down, until her love and her being there brings him back to himself."

Miss Pross had said not to picture things that are not real, but in her saying "up and down" so many times, it was clear that she was picturing what Doctor Manette was going through.

It has been said that the corner was a place where sound travelled well, and it was interesting that, just as Miss Pross talked of walking up and down, the sound of steps could be heard from a distance.

"Here they are!" said Miss Pross, standing up to end their talk. "And now we will have hundreds of people coming soon!"

It was such an interesting corner in the way that sound travelled across it, that, as Mr. Lorry stood at the window waiting for the father and daughter to arrive, it seemed like they would never get there. The sound would die out, like they had gone away; and then other steps would come in their place before dying away too just when it seemed that they were there. All the same, father and daughter did at last arrive, and Miss Pross was ready at the street door to receive them.

Miss Pross was interesting to watch, taking off her love's hat for her as she was coming up the steps, touching it with the ends of a cloth, and blowing the dirt off it, then folding her coat and smoothing her rich hair with as much pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hair if she had been the proudest and most beautiful of women. It was nice to see Ladybird hugging Miss Pross and thanking her and asking her not to go to so much trouble for her. This last line she did not say very seriously, or Miss Pross would have been hurt, and surely would have gone to her room and cried. The Doctor, too, was nice to watch, as he looked on at the two of them, telling Miss Pross that she was being too kind to Lucie when his own eyes and words showed that he too was as kind to Lucie as Miss Pross, and would be kinder if it were possible. And last, there was Mr. Lorry himself in his little wig, who looked at it all with a big smile on his face, as he thanked his good luck that he had found such a nice family to be his friends in his old age.

But no, the hundreds of people that Miss Pross had promised would follow the others, were not there!

Time for dinner came, and still no hundreds of people. Miss Pross, whose job it was to care for the lower rooms, always did her job well. Her meals, made from simple food, were so well cooked and so well served, half French and half English, that nothing could be better. When Miss Pross made friends, she did so for practical reasons. She had looked around Soho to find some poor French people who, for a few coins, would tell her how to make the best French dishes. From these poor sons and daughters of France, she had learned to be such a good cook that the servants there at the house believed she was like a god, who could send out for a chicken, a rabbit, or a few vegetables from the garden and change them into anything she liked

On Sundays Miss Pross would eat at the Doctor's table, but on other days she would always eat alone, either in the lower rooms or in her own room on the second floor, a blue room where no one but her Ladybird ever went. On this day, probably as an effect of Ladybird's sweet spirit, Miss Pross was much softer than was her way most of the time, and so the meal, too, was much nicer for everyone.

It was a hot day, and so after dinner, Lucie asked if they could go out back, under the big tree, to drink their wine. Because everything moved around her anyway, the others agreed, and she carried the wine out as a special kindness to Mr. Lorry. She had, some time ago, given herself the job of keeping Mr. Lorry's wine glass filled, and she did that on this day too, as they sat talking under the big tree. The backs and ends of houses looked at them, and the tree itself whispered to them in its own way, above their heads, as they talked.

Still, the hundreds of people did not come. But Mr. Darnay did come, when they were out under the tree. And yet he was only one person.

Doctor Manette received him kindly, as did Lucie. But Miss Pross started shaking about in her head and body and left to go to her room. It often happened that she had this problem, which she called "a touch of the shakes".

The Doctor was at his best, and looked especially young. At times like this, it was easy to see how Lucie looked like him. As they sat side by side, with her leaning on his shoulder, and him resting his arm on the back of her chair, it was quite nice to see how much they looked the same.

They had been talking about the old buildings of London, and Doctor Manette had been speaking confidently, when Mr. Darnay asked, "Tell us, Doctor Manette, have you seen much of the Tower?"

"Lucie and I have been there, but only for a short time. We have seen enough of it to know that there must be much to see there; little more."

"I have been there, as you remember," said Darnay with a little smile, but also with a little red colour coming to his face to show his anger. "I was there for a different reason, and not for a reason that left me free to see much of the place. But they told me an interesting thing when I was there."

"What was that?” Lucie asked.

"When they were making some changes to the building, the workers opened up a part of the prison that had been covered over for many years. Every stone on the inside wall was covered with writing, cut into it by the prisoners -- names, years, prayers, and things they were angry about. On a stone in one corner of the wall, one prisoner, who must have been killed, had cut his last work, just three letters. They were done with some very poor instrument, and done quickly, with a weak hand. At first, they believed them to be D.I.C.; but, on looking more closely, they found the last letter to be G. There was no history of a prisoner with three names starting with those letters, and many people tried to say who the prisoner might be. At length, someone said that the letters might be a word in themselves: DIG. They looked closely at the floor under it, and in the dirt under a stone, they found what was left of a piece of paper and a small leather bag that had been burned. It was not possible to read what he said, but it was clear that a prisoner had written a secret on the paper before hiding it there."

"Father!" Lucie shouted. "You look sick!"

He had quickly put his hands to his head and there was a look of fear on his face. It was so strong that it scared them all.

"No, my sweet, not sick. There are big drops of rain falling and they made me jump. It would be best if we were to go in."

He returned quickly to a good spirit, and rain really was falling in big drops now. He showed the back of his hand with rain on it. But he said nothing about Darnay's story, and as they went into the house, Mr. Lorry's business eye either saw or thought he saw on the Doctor's face, as the Doctor turned toward Mr. Darnay, the same special look that had been on it when he had turned toward him in the court house.

He was so quickly back to his old ways that Mr. Lorry started to question his business eye. When he stopped under the golden arm on the way back to their rooms, Doctor Manette was as solid as the arm itself as he said that he was still not able (and maybe would never be able) to stop from jumping when he was surprised, as the rain had just surprised him.

It came time for some tea, and Miss Pross brought it in, with another touch of the shakes when Mr. Carton came by. There were yet no hundreds of people, but Mr. Carton did make two.

The night was so warm that even with the rain and with the doors and windows open, they were not comfortable because of the heat. When they had finished their tea, they all moved to one of the windows and looked out at the night. Lucie sat by her father; Darnay sat beside her; and Carton leaned against a window.

When wind from the coming storm came into the room, the white curtains flew up in the air like wings on a ghost.

"The rain drops are still falling, big, heavy, and few," said Doctor Manette. "It comes slowly."

"But it comes surely," said Carton.

They spoke quietly, as people watching and waiting often do; and especially as people in a dark room watching and waiting for lightning always do.

Out in the streets, people were running to find cover before the storm broke. On that corner, where sound travelled so well, one could hear many steps of people running, but there was not one person there.

"So many people, and yet not one out there," said Darnay, when they had listened for a while.

"Isn't it interesting, Mr. Darnay?” asked Lucie. "At times I have sat here in the evening listening, until I have started to think... but even remembering my foolish thoughts makes me shake tonight, when all is so black and serious..."

"Let us shake too. Tell us what you have thought."

"It will seem nothing to you. Such thoughts are only real to the people who have them, I think. Words cannot make them real for others; but I have at times sat here alone at night, listening, until I started to believe that the steps I was hearing were the steps of all the people who will come into our lives."

"If that is so, then there is a great crowd coming our way one day," Sydney Carton added in his sad way.

The steps did not stop, and they moved more and more quickly. The sound came over and over there at the corner; some, as it seemed, under the window, some, as it seemed, in the room, some coming, some going, some turning away, some stopping; all far off in the street, and not one that they could see.

"Are all of these coming to all of us, Miss Manette, or will some be for one and some for another?"

"I don't know, Mr. Darnay. I told you it was a foolish thought, but you asked for it. When the thought has come to me, I have been alone, so I believed the steps were coming only into my life and into the life of my father."

"I take them into mine too!" said Carton. "I ask no question, and agree with all that you have said. There is a great crowd coming toward us, Miss Manette, and I see them... by the lightning.” He added the last words after there was a bright explosion of lightning that showed him leaning back in the window.

"And I hear them!" he added again, after the noise that followed the lightning. "Here they come, fast, dangerous, and angry!"

It was the sound of the rain that these last words marked, and it stopped him, because no voice could be heard in it. A great lightning storm followed, and there was not a minute's break in the noise and light and rain until the moon came up at midnight

The great bell of the church was hitting one in the morning when Mr. Lorry, helped by Jerry, who was carrying a lantern in the now clear night air, left to walk back toward his home. There were some dark streets on the way, and because Mr. Lorry was always afraid of robbers, he always had Jerry come for him. But this time, Jerry had been two hours late in getting there.

"What a night this has been! Almost a night, Jerry, to bring the dead back to life," said Mr. Lorry.

"I never see the night myself, sir -- and don't think I ever will -- that would do that," answered Jerry.

"Good night, Mr. Carton," said the businessman. "Good night, Mr. Darnay. Shall we ever see such a night together again?"

Maybe. And maybe see the great crowd of people with all its noise and anger coming toward them too.

7. Sir in the Town

Once every two weeks, Sir the Governor, one of the top men in the government of France, would hold a party at his great hotel in Paris. Sir was, on the day in question, in his secret room, the holiest of holy places for all of the worshippers who were partying in the many other rooms of the hotel. He was about to drink a cup of hot chocolate. The Governor was a man who found it easy to swallow many things, for there were some who said that he was quickly swallowing all of France, but his morning chocolate could not so much as get into his throat without the help of four strong men besides the cook.

This is true. It took four men, all four dressed most beautifully, and the most important one not able to live without at least two gold watches in his pocket, in keeping with the perfect pattern set out by Sir himself, to bring the happy chocolate to the Governor's lips. One servant carried the pot of chocolate into his holy room; a second mixed it by turning around and around a special little instrument that he carried with him; a third handed the Governor a cloth with which to cover himself; and a fourth (he of the two gold watches) poured the chocolate into the Governor's cup. It would not be possible for Sir to do away with even one of these men and still be able to hold his head up before the heavens. His family name would have been deeply marked if he had so much as tried to drink chocolate with the help of only three men; and if he should have tried to do it with only two, he would have surely died.

The night before, Sir's entertainment had been music and jokes, with food on the side. Food and entertainment were his on most nights, and always in company with beautiful people. So open was Sir the Governor to what others said, that the jokes and music had far more effect on him and his thinking than all the boring rules and needs of France. Doing things in this way was destroying France, as always happens in countries where the leaders are like that -- just as it did for England in the days when one of its leaders just up and sold it.

Sir's general plan for government business was to let it go on in its own way; and for any one part of that government business the plan was that it should all go his way, giving him more power and filling his pockets more fully. As for what his way was, his plan, both general and special, was that the world was made to let him do what he liked to do. The Bible verse for his business (which only has one little word changed in it) is this one, "The earth is mine and all that is in it," says Sir the Governor.

Yet, Sir had slowly been having more problems with things going wrong both in his family business and in his government business, and so he joined with a controller-general to fix both problems. His government business was in trouble because he could not make anything of it, and so he needed to give it to one who could. His family business was in trouble because he had been spending more than he was making, and so he needed a rich relative to help him out. He had a sister whom he had given to the Catholic Church; but just before she finished her studies, he pulled her out and gave her as a gift to a very rich controller-general who was poor in those qualities that it takes to get a wife. This same controller-general was in the next room, holding a stick with a golden apple on the top of it, while all others bowed down to him. All, that is, apart from Sir's family, who looked down on him with the greatest feelings of hate. And his own wife was a part of that group.

A very rich man was the controller-general. He owned thirty horses, twenty-four male servants, and six body women to look after his wife. As one whose job it was to take money from anyone he could, the controller-general was the one person in Sir's hotel that day who most lived up to what his job asked of him.

For all the beautiful furniture, clothes and jewelry in those rooms, which were all the best that could be found anywhere at the time, the party-goers there were not, on the whole, ones who could do any real work. If you were to put them beside the poor scarecrows in rags who were not so far away that the watching towers of Notre Dame could not see them both, the scarecrows would have been, by far, the better workers, and done more to help Sir the Governor in a real way. There were army officers who knew nothing about the army; officers on ships who knew nothing about ships; government managers who knew nothing of government; and church leaders who had loose tongues and lived looser lives; all of them quite wrong for the jobs they had, and all living a lie. All of these people were from the class that Sir was in, and because of it, they took any job that they could use in a selfish way. But there were an equal number of people at the party who were not a part of Sir's class, but who were also not real people and not people who had travelled by any straight road to any true end. There were doctors who had made great wealth by selling strange mixtures as medicines for sicknesses that were not even real. They were there, being smiled at by the rich patients that they had used to make their wealth. There were planners who would promise to fix every little problem that touched the government, but who never fixed even one real sin. They came to the Governor's parties to whisper their empty promises into any ears they could find that would listen. Men of wisdom, who talked nothing but foolishness about how they were going to make a better world, talked with men of science who believed they could make gold through magic. Men from families of the highest class, which at that time and at this time as well, is marked by showing no interest toward anything that is really important to real people in the real world, talked themselves sick at the Governor's hotel. The homes that each of these people came from were such that people looking for secrets to tell Sir the Governor (who were about half of the people there) would have a hard time finding one real mother in any of them. Apart from the act of giving birth to a baby that was not wanted -- which is not enough to make one a real mother -- the wives of these men had nothing to do with their children. It was left to the poor women to care for their children, while the mothers themselves partied on even after their children had children, always trying to look like they were in their twenties.

The sickness of hypocrisy crippled every person who came there to kiss up to Sir the Governor. In the farthest rooms were half a dozen people who had, for a few years, been thinking that something was not right in the country. Half of this half dozen had become members of a strange group of people who turned in on themselves looking for answers in one emotion or another. Even now they were asking themselves if they should shout, cry, or roll on the floor to warn the Governor about what they could feel was coming soon. The other three had joined a different group, that worked at fixing the problem through finding "the center of truth". They believed that the world had moved away from the center of truth (and it did not take much to prove that argument) but they said that we had not yet gone past the border of the circle. To keep the world under control, and to point people back to the center they would go without eating and talk to spirits. Many of these people were known to have talked at length with spirits, and through that to have fixed up many of the problems in the country, not that any of the answers came in a way that anyone else could see.

But the good news was that everyone at Sir the Governor's great hotel was perfectly dressed. If the day when God is to judge the world could only be a dress day, everyone there would be right for eternity. Such shaping and powdering and sticking up of the hair, such beautiful skin, covered and fixed with the best pastes and powders, such brave swords to look at, and such careful interest to how they smelled would surely be enough to keep them saved forever. The men from the best families had little pieces of gold hanging here and there and making noises like little bells as they moved ever so smoothly from place to place. The sound of those bells and the movement of so much expensive material made a wind that must have touched Saint Antoine and his great hunger so far away.

How one dressed was the safest way to keep everyone in their place. All of Sir's friends were dressed for a top class party that was to never stop. From the king's house, through to the courts, and the managers of government, and all of the country (apart from the scarecrows) the top class party look was the way to be. It went down even to the man whose job it was to kill people for the country. To keep the country beautiful, the rules said that he must wear powdered, shaped hair, a coat with gold stitching, special shoes, and special white socks that reached to his knees. When hanging a prisoner, or pulling his body apart on the wheel -- The axe was not used at this time. -- Mr. Paris, as he was often called by others doing the same job in other French cities, did his job dressed in this beautiful way. And who in the crowd at Sir's party in the year of our Lord, 1780, could possibly have believed that any government with such a beautiful man, could not have lasted longer than the stars themselves?

Sir the Governor, having taken the weight off his four helpers by drinking his chocolate, had other workers throw open the doors of his holiest of holy places, so that he could explode out of it. And as he did, what acts of love and humble service, what bowing and shaking in front of him, what kissing up the people did to him. If there was anything they could do to show their love for God, they did it for Sir, which may be one reason of many why the worshippers of Sir the Governor never had time for God.

Giving a word of promise here and a smile there, a whisper to one happy slave, and a wave of the hand to another, the Governor moved happily through his rooms to the farthest borders of the circle of truth. There he turned and came back by the same way that he went, until he was safely back inside his secret room, protected by his chocolate angels once again.

The show being over, the movement of cloth and gold bells turned into a storm, as people crowded down the steps to leave. There was soon only one person left of all the crowd, and he, with his hat under his arm and his tobacco box in his hand, walked slowly by the mirrors on his way out.

Stopping at the last door on the way and turning toward the secret room, this person said, "I give you to Satan!"

With that, he shook the tobacco dust from his fingers as if he was shaking dust from his feet, and quietly walked down the steps.

He was a man of about sixty, well dressed, proud in his actions, and with a face like a thin mask. His face was so white that you almost could see through it. Each part of it was clear and sharp. The look on his face never changed. His nose was beautifully shaped, but just above each opening was a small concave place that would move in and out. It was the only part of his face that ever changed. At times they would change colour. When they moved quickly in and out, they added a cruel look to the whole face. When looking closely at his face, one could see that what made the little changes in the nose so strong was that the mouth and eyes were too perfectly horizontal and too thin. But on the whole, it was a good-looking face.

The owner of that face walked down the steps and into the yard, climbed into his coach, and left. Not many people had talked with him at the party. He had stood apart by himself. Even Sir the Governor had been warmer than him. It seemed, as the coach moved through the streets, that he liked to see the poor people jump out of the way of his horses, with many of them almost being knocked over. The driver acted like he was at war with the people in the street, and his master showed nothing in his words or actions to say that he had any problem with this dangerous way of driving. Others had often said, even in that city without ears and at that time when most were without a voice, that in the narrow streets without footpaths the hard driving of the coaches crippled many in a cruel way. But few cared enough for that to think of it a second time, and in this, like in everything else, the poor were left to live with their problems in whatever way they could.

With a wild noise and shaking and with no thought for the danger, the coach raced through the streets and around corners making women shout in fear before it, and making men pull each other and their children out of its way. At last, flying around a corner by a fountain, one of its front wheels hit something with a sound to make one sick. There was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses lifted themselves up on their back legs before falling over.

If it were not for the horses falling, the driver probably would not have stopped at all. Coaches would often drive off, leaving the people they had hit behind them; and why not? But the driver was afraid, and he jumped down quickly. All at once there were twenty different hands pulling at the ropes on the horses.

"What's wrong?” the man inside asked quietly, as he looked out. A tall man in a night hat had lifted something from under the feet of the horses and had put it at the foot of the fountain. Now he was down in the mud and wet, crying over it like a wild animal.

"I'm sorry Sir the Marquis!" said a humble man in rags. "It is a child."

"Why does he make that awful noise? Is it his child?"

"I'm sorry, Sir the Marquis... It is too bad... yes."

The fountain was some distance from the coach, as the street was much wider there. As the tall man jumped up from the ground and came running at the coach, Sir the Marquis put his hand, for a second, on the handle of his sword.

"Killed!" shouted the man at the top of his voice, as he put both arms straight above his head. Then, looking at Sir the Marquis, he said "Dead!"

The people pushed in and looked at Sir the Marquis. There was no anger showing in their many eyes, only an interest in seeing what would happen next. They did not say anything either. After the first shouts, they had been quiet, and stayed that way. The voice of the humble man who had first said that it was a child was flat and controlled. Sir the Marquis ran his eyes over them all like they were mice coming out of holes.

He took out his money bag.

"It is strange to me," he said, "that you people cannot take care of yourselves and of your children. One or the other of you is always in the way. How do I know what this has done to my horses? Here! Give him that."

He threw out a gold coin for the driver to pick up, and all of the heads pushed forward to look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again, with a cry of great pain, "Dead!"

He was stopped by another man arriving, while the others moved back to make way for him. On seeing him, the poor man fell on his shoulder, crying loudly and pointing to the fountain, where some women were leaning over the shape that was lying there, and moving softly around it. They too were as quiet as the men.

"I know, I know," said the man who had just arrived. "Be brave, Gaspard! It is better for the poor thing to die so than to live. She has died in a second, without pain. Could she have lived for an hour as happily?"

"You are a wise man, you there," said the Marquis, smiling. "What do they call you?"

"They call me Defarge.” "What is your job?"

"Sir the Marquis, I sell wine."

"Pick that up, wise man and seller of wine," said the Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, "and spend it as you will. The horses there... are they okay?"

Without taking another look at the crowd, Sir the Marquis leaned back in the seat and was just leaving with the air of a man who has by accident broken some small thing, but who has easily been able to pay for it, when his rest was broken by a coin flying into the coach and hitting the floor.

"Stop!" said Sir the Marquis. "Hold the horses. Who threw that?"

He looked back at where Defarge the seller of wine had been standing, but the poor father was on his face on the footpath in that place, and the person standing there beside him now was a dark fat woman, and she was knitting.

"You dogs!" said the Marquis, but he said it smoothly, and with no change to his face apart from the two sides of the end of his nose as he breathed in and out. "I would gladly drive over any of you, and end your life. If I knew which one of you threw at the coach, and if that trouble maker was close enough, he would be killed under my wheels."

So scared were the people, and so long had they known what one could do to them, both under the law and outside it, that not a face or a hand or even an eye was lifted. Not one man. But the woman who was knitting lifted her head without fear and looked the Marquis in the eye. He was too proud to let her know that he saw it; his eyes of hate moved over her and over all the other rats. He then leaned back in his seat again, and gave the word, "Go on!"

He went on, and other coaches came after him: the government leader, the planner, the controller-general, the doctor, the lawyer, the church leader, the singer, the joke teller, the whole crowd from the party in one long line came racing by. The rats were out of their holes now, looking, and they stayed looking on for hours. Soldiers and police often moved between them and the vehicles, making a wall that they were to stay behind and that they could look through. The father had long ago carried away his child, and the women who had stayed by the dead child when it was lying at the foot of the fountain sat there now watching the water run, and the coaches roll by. The one woman who had stood up, knitting, was still knitting as faithful as death. The water from the fountain ran; the river ran; the day ran into evening; and so much life in the city ran into death, each obeying the rule that says time and movement of the ocean wait for no one. And before long the rats were sleeping close together again in their dark holes, while the party went on into the night. All things went on to where they should one day finish.

8. Sir in the Country

The land itself was beautiful. The corn was bright even if there was not much of it. There were cheaper grains growing where the corn should have been growing; and there were places with poor peas and poor beans and other rough vegetables growing in the place of wheat. With the plants, as with the people growing them, there seemed to be little enthusiasm for life, almost a wish to die off.

Sir the Marquis, in his heavy coach with four horses and two drivers, pushed slowly up a steep hill. A touch of colour on the cheeks of the Marquis did not prove that he was less than part of the highest class, for the colour was not coming from any feeling on his part. It was the effect of light from the sun, something that he could not control.

The sun, as it was going down, was so strong when they reached the top of the hill, that the man in the coach was covered with a deep red colour. "It will die out," said the Marquis, looking at his hands. "Soon."

And it is true that just then, the sun dropped below the line of the earth. When the heavy brake was put on the wheel, and it was going down the other side, with a burning smell and a cloud of dust, the red colour disappeared quickly. The sun and the Marquis both went down together. By the time the brake was taken off, the red colour was gone.

But the coach was yet to travel over some rough open country, through a little village at the bottom of the hill, with a big slow turn on the other side before going up again, past a church tower, a windmill, a forest for hunting, and a big tall rock with a building on it that was used as a prison. The Marquis looked ahead to all of these things as the air turned dark, with the look of one who was coming close to home.

The village had one poor street, with a poor building for making beer, a poor building for making leather, a poor building to drink beer in, a poor yard for horses, a poor fountain, and all the other poor things that made up a poor village. All of its people were poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors preparing onions and the like for their evening meal, while others were at the fountain washing leaves and grasses and any other thing that they could eat. There were many signs to show what made them so poor. A tax for the government, a tax for the church, a tax for their village leader, a village tax and a country tax were all to be paid here or there, as the signs said, until one wondered if all the different taxes would one day eat up the whole village.

There were few children to be seen, and no dogs. As for the men and women, they had two choices: life that was little more than staying alive down in the village by the windmill, or prison and death up on the big, tall rock.

With a shouted warning from a man riding ahead of the coach, and the sound of the whips flying like snakes over the heads of the two men on the coach horses, the Marquis came into the village as if he was coming with the gods of anger at his side. The coach pulled up at the post office next to the fountain, to change horses, and the poor people stopped what they were doing to look at him. He looked at them and saw, without knowing it, the slow sure wearing away of their tired faces and bodies that would make people from England believe for the next hundred years that everyone from France was thin and hungry even when it was no longer true.

Sir the Marquis was looking at all the humble faces bowing in front of him like he and others like him had bowed in front of Sir the Governor at the hotel (but these bowed only to obey, not to ask for gifts), when a rough road worker joined the group.

"Bring that man here!" said the Marquis to the man who had just arrived on a horse, with the mail for the post office.

The man was brought, with his hat in his hand, and the other men closed around to look and listen, as the people had done at the fountain in Paris.

"Didn't I pass you on the road?"

"Sir, it is true. I was blessed to have you pass me on the road."

"First at the bottom of the hill, and again at the top of the hill. Is that right?"

"Sir, that is right."

"What were you looking at so seriously, when I passed you?"

"Sir, I was looking at the man.” He bent down a little, and with his rough blue hat he pointed under the coach. All of his neighbours bent down to look under the coach too.

"What man, you pig? And why are you looking there?”

"I'm sorry, sir. He was hanging by the brake chain.”

"Who?” shouted the traveller.

"Sir, the man."

"May the devil carry these stupid people away! What was his name? Surely, you know all the men in these parts. Who was it?"

"Mercy, sir! He was not from this part of the country. In my whole life, I have never seen him before."

"Hanging by the chain, you said? Was he dead?"

"If I may say so, sir, that was the strange thing about it. His head was hanging over... like this!"

He turned himself in line with the coach and leaned back with his face looking up at the sky, and his head hanging down, then he stood back up, almost dropping his hat, and bowed.

"What was he like?"

"Sir, he was whiter than the man who makes the flour. All covered in dust like a ghost!"

Talk of a ghost had a strong effect on the crowd, but, without looking at each other, all eyes stayed on the Marquis, to see if he had a reason to be afraid of ghosts too.

"Truly, you did well," said the Marquis sweetly. He must not let such dirty people see him acting in fear. "To see a robber trying to get into my coach and not even open that big mouth of yours. That's awful! Send him away, Mr. Gabelle!"

Mr. Gabelle was the owner of the post office and a tax collector as well, who had come out to help with the questioning. He had been holding the sleeve of the road worker's coat.

"Go on! Get out of here!" said Mr. Gabelle.

"Hold this stranger if he tries to stay in your village tonight, and find out what his reason is for being here, Gabelle."

"Sir, I am blessed to be able to help you."

"Did he run away, man? Where is that awful man?"

The awful man was under the coach with half a dozen friends, pointing to the chain with his blue hat. Some half a dozen other friends quickly pulled him out and held him up for the Marquis.

"Did the man run away, stupid? When we stopped to put the brake on? Did he run away?"

"Sir, he jumped over the side of the hill, head first, the way a person goes into the river."

"Do like I told you, Gabelle. Now, let's go!"

The half dozen who were looking at the chain were still in the way of the wheels, like stupid sheep. The wheels started to roll so quickly that they were lucky to save their skin and bones. They had little more than that to save, or they might not have been so lucky.

The coach raced out of the village, but slowed down when it came to the hill outside the village. Soon it was moving no faster than a person could walk, moving slowly from side to side as it pushed up the hill in the many sweet smells of a summer night. The two drivers, with a thousand little flies around their heads in the place of the gods of anger who had been riding with them earlier, worked on fixing the ends of their whips. The Marquis' servant walked by the horses, and the mail carrier walked ahead on his horse, but was close enough to talk with the other riders.

At the steepest part of the hill, there was a small piece of ground for burying people. A new cross had been put there, with a piece of timber that had been cut to look like Jesus hanging on it. It was rough, but one could see that the man who shaped it had shaped it from his own life, because it was very thin.

A woman was on her knees in front of this sign of great pain that had long been growing worse, but was not yet at its worst. She turned as the coach came closer, jumped up and went to the door of the coach.

"It is you, sir! Sir, I beg you."

With a word to show he was not happy, but with no change to his face, Sir looked out.

"How then! What is it? Always asking for something!"

"Sir, for the love of the great God! My husband, the forest worker."

"What of your husband, the forest worker? Always the same with you people. He cannot pay something?"

"He has paid all, sir. He is dead."

"Well! He's quiet. Do you think I can bring him back for you?”

"Not now sir! But he's over there, under a hill of old grass.”

"So?"

"Sir, there are so many little hills of old grass."

"Again, so?"

She looked old, but was really young. Everything about her showed that her heart was breaking. She squeezed one rough hand in the other, and then put one of them on the carriage door, touching it lovingly, like it was a person.

"Sir, please listen to me! Sir, listen to what I am asking. My husband died without enough food. So many die without enough food. So many more will die without enough food."

"Again, I say, so? Can I feed them all?"

"Sir, the good God knows; but I'm not asking for that. What I am asking is only that a little piece of stone or timber, with my husband's name on it, be put over him to show where he is lying. Without it, people will soon forget where he is. They will never be able to find it after I die from the same thing. They will put me under some other hill of poor grass. Sir, there are so many, and the number is growing so quickly because there is so much hunger. Sir! Sir!"

The servant had pushed her away from the door, and the horses were made to move more quickly, until she was left far behind, and Sir, again travelling with the gods of anger, was quickly covering the short distance between there and his castle.

The sweet summer smells were all around him, and because smells are like the rain, falling on all equally, the dirty, tired group in rags at the fountain, not far away, were able to smell them too. The road worker, with the help of his blue hat, without which he was nothing, was still telling them about the man like a ghost, for as long as they would listen. One by one they lost interest and went to their houses, where little lights could be seen in the windows. As the night grew later, and the lights in the windows were put out, it was like they shot up into the sky to join the stars, and not like they were just put out.

The shadow of a big house with a high roof and many tall trees was on Sir the Marquis by that time; and the shadow gave way to the light of a torch, as his coach stopped, and the great door of his castle was opened to him.

"Has Mr. Charles arrived from England yet?” he asked. "No sir, not yet."

9. The Gorgon's Head

It was a heavy group of buildings, this castle of the Marquis', with a big yard of small stones in front of the two wide stone steps curving from opposite sides up to the stone verandah in front of the big front door. All in all, everywhere one looked there was stone work, with stone cylinders in the fence around the verandah, big stone pots, stone flowers, stone faces, and stone lion heads. It was like the head of the Gorgon had looked over the place after it was built, two centuries earlier.

(*Gorgon was a woman from an old Greek story, who had snakes for hair, and who was able to turn people into stone just by looking at them.)

Up the wide steps the Marquis walked, with a torch being carried in front of him. It was so quiet that even the flame on the torch (and on the other torch waiting for him at the door) burned like they were in a closed room, and not like they were burning in the open night air. The only sounds were the sound of a bird in the barn, and the sound of water from the fountain dropping into a big stone bowl. It was one of those nights when the air would stop breathing for a long time, then breathe out very slowly before stopping again.

The big door closed loudly behind Sir the Marquis, and he walked across a room that was far from friendly. Many hunting weapons were hanging on the wall: spears, swords, and knives. It was even less friendly when one saw that there were heavy whips and sticks for hitting horses, which had also been used to kill some poor people when they made their lord angry.

Passing by the bigger rooms, which were dark and closed for the night, the Marquis, with the torch carrier leading the way, climbed the steps to the second floor, where his rooms were. There were his bedroom and two other rooms. They were tall cool rooms with no rugs on the floor, and big dogs sleeping in front of the fireplaces. They had the best of furniture and everything that a rich marquis in a rich country could ask for. At this time in French

history, when Louis the Fourteenth was leading the country, beautiful French furniture was at its best.

A table was set for two in one of the side rooms, a round room in one of the castle's four covered towers. The windows had thin parallel stone-coloured boards turned at an angle to stop sun or rain from coming in, but they did not stop the cool night air.

"For my brother's son?” said the Marquis, looking at the food on the table. "They said he hasn't arrived."

But the servants had understood that he was coming with the Marquis.

"I see! I don't think he'll come tonight. But leave the table as it is, and I'll eat in about fifteen minutes."

Fifteen minutes later, Sir was ready. He sat down to the best of food, looking toward the window as he ate. He had just finished his soup and was putting a glass of wine to his lips when he put it down.

"What is that?” he asked quietly, looking seriously at the horizontal lines of black and grey stone.

"Sir? What is what?"

"Outside the window. Open the window."

It was done.

"Well?"

"Sir, it's nothing. The trees and the night are all that are here."

The servant who was talking had opened the boards all the way, looked out into the empty darkness, and then turned to face his master.

"Good," said his master, without emotion. "Close them again."

That too was done, and the Marquis went on with his meal. He was half finished when he stopped again, his glass in his hand, because he had heard the sound of wheels. A coach was travelling quickly, and it stopped in front of the castle.

"Ask who it is."

It was his brother's son. He had been a few miles behind Sir early in the afternoon. He had travelled much more quickly, but not fast enough to catch up with him on the road. He had learned how close he was by asking at the post offices on the way.

Sir told the servants to ask the young man to come eat with him. He soon arrived. He had been known in England as Charles Darnay.

The Marquis welcomed him with a cool smile, but they did not shake hands.

"You left Paris yesterday, sir?” asked the young man as he took a seat at the table.

"Yesterday. And you?”

"I came today."

"From London?”

"Yes."

"You have been a long time getting here," said the uncle with a smile.

"But I came straight here."

"Forgive me. I did not mean a long time travelling. I mean that you took a long time getting around to travelling at all."

"I was not able to come sooner because of...” and the young man stopped for a second before finishing, "...other business."

"As I can see," said the smooth uncle.

For as long as a servant was with them, they said no more. But when coffee had been served and they were alone together, the young man looked his uncle in the face and started the talk.

"I have returned, sir, as you must know, for the same reason I left. What I have been looking for has put me in great danger; but I hoped that I would have been brave enough even if it had ended in my death."

"Not your death," said the uncle. "You do not need to say, in my death."

"I do not believe, sir," returned the other, "that if it had taken me to the point of death, you would have cared to stop it."

The two marks in the Marquis' nose moved, and the lines of his cruel face grew longer in answer to what he heard. He made a movement with his hand as if to say that he would not have been so cruel as to let his nephew die, but it was so clearly being done to look good that it did not change the young man's belief.

"Truth is," said the nephew, "I am not sure that you would not have acted to put me in even more trouble than I was in."

"No, no, no," said the uncle kindly.

"Whatever the truth is," the nephew went on, looking at his uncle with little faith in anything he might say, "I know that you would have done anything you could to stop me."

"My friend, I told you so," said the uncle with a small movement in the two marks. "Do you remember me saying so, long ago?"

"I remember."

"Thank you," said the Marquis, very sweetly.

The sound of his voice would hang in the air, much like the sound of a musical instrument.

"In effect, sir," the young man went on, "I believe it has been your bad luck and my good luck that I have not been put into a prison here in France."

"I don't quite understand," returned the uncle, taking little drinks of his coffee. "Can I ask you to say what you mean by that?"

"I believe that if you were not in trouble yourself with the government, and had not been under the shadow of that cloud for years, a secret letter would have put me in a prison for good."

"It's possible," said the uncle, at perfect peace with what he was saying. "For the good name of the family, I could see the point in doing that to you. Please try to overlook that."

"I see that, happily for me, your meeting with the Governor the day before yesterday was a cold one."

"I would not say happily for you, my boy," answered the uncle, with friendly good taste. "I am not so sure that it would not truly help you to have time alone to think about where your actions are leading you. But it is a waste to talk about such a thing because, as you say, that door is not open to me. These little instruments that can be used to protect the good name of a family, these ways of controlling people like yourself come now only by begging and by knowing the right people. So many ask for such help, but so few get it. It was not always like that, but France is changing for the worse in all such things. Our fathers and grandfathers had the power of life and death over these evil people. From this room, many such dogs have been taken out to be hanged. In the next room (my bedroom) one man that I know of was stabbed to death for being so proud as to speak up for his daughter. His daughter! Can you believe that? We are losing so much of the power that should be ours. A new teaching is coming in. Just trying to do what is our right could (I am not going so far as to say that it would) bring serious problems. It's all bad, very bad!"

The Marquis breathed a small measure of tobacco dust in through his nose, and shook his head. He was as proudly sad about where the country was heading as it was possible for him to be without forgetting that he was still a part of the country, and that, as such, there was still much hope for the future.

"We have tried so hard to do what we think is our right to do, both in the past and in the present," said the nephew, sadly, "that I believe our name is the most hated name in all of France."

"Let us hope so," said the uncle. "Hating the high is how the low show their place... and ours."

"There is not," the young man carried on, "a face in all of this country around us that looks at us with any feeling better than fear... as our slaves."

"And this is a good thing," said the Marquis. "It shows how great our family is. Only through this fear, and through them becoming our slaves, have we been able to become as great as we are. Ha!"

With this, he breathed in another measure of tobacco dust, and crossed his legs.

But when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, covered his eyes sadly with his hand, to think about what was being said, the thin mask looked at him differently, and with a stronger mixture of hate and interest than the wearer was comfortable with.

"Control is the only teaching that is eternal. This look of fear that you talk about from these slaves," pointed out the Marquis, "will keep the dogs obeying the whip as long as this roof," looking up at it, "shuts out the sky."

And that might not have been so long as what the Marquis believed it would be. If he could see this castle, and fifty like it, in a few years' time, he might not have been able to even find where his room used to be in the coals of the burned out building. As for the roof that he talked of so proudly, he might have found it shutting out the sky in a different way, when the metal in it was melted down and turned into bullets, that would be used to close the eyes forever of the bodies that thousands of guns would fire into.

"For the present," said the Marquis, "I will fight for the good name of our family even if you will not. But you must be tired. Shall we end our talk for the night?"

"One minute more."

"An hour if you like."

"Sir," said the nephew, "We have done wrong, and now we are paying for it."

"We have done wrong?” the Marquis asked with a smile, quietly pointing, first to the young man and then to himself.

"Our family has. Our wonderful family, whose name is important to both of us, but in such different ways. Even when my father was alive, we did a world of wrong, hurting everyone who came between us and what we wanted. But why do I need to speak of my father, when you are equally wrong? Can I separate my father's brother, who will now lead our family, from himself?

"It is only death that has made me leader!" said the Marquis.

"And that death has left me tied to a family that preaches fear," answered the nephew. "I am a part of that family, yet I can do nothing to change it. I am trying to obey the last thing my sweet mother said, and the last look in her eyes, which were begging me to show mercy, and to be fair to the people we have hurt. I am tortured by the truth that I cannot do anything to change this family."

"Trying to get those changes from me, my nephew," he said, pointing his finger into the young man's chest, as they stood beside the fireplace, "will be a waste of time. Believe me."

Every line in his white face was cruelly and closely squeezed together as he looked quietly at his nephew with his tobacco box in his hand. Once again, he touched him on the chest, as if his finger was a sword and he was running him through with it, and said, "My friend, I will die fighting for things to stay as they are for us."

When he had said that, he took one last measure of tobacco and put the box in his pocket.

"Better to be a thinking animal," he added, after ringing a small bell on the table, "and to take what God has given you. But I see, Mr. Charles, that you are lost."

"This land and France are lost to me," said the nephew sadly. "I don't want anything to do with them."

"Are they really yours to throw away? France maybe, but what of this land? It is a small thing, but is it yours?"

"I was not trying to say it was mine yet. But if it passed from you to me tomorrow..."

"Which I am proud to say will probably not happen."

"But even if it came to me in twenty years..."

"You give me that long?," asked the Marquis. "But still, I like that better than tomorrow."

"... I would leave it and live somewhere else and in some other way. It is nothing to throw away. What is it but a desert of sadness and pain?"

"You think so?” said the Marquis, moving his eyes over all the wealth that was around them.

"To the eye it is nice enough, here; but when one looks at the spirit behind it, in the open light, and through the eye of God, it is a broken tower of waste, pain, debt and hunger, that is built on robbing and hurting others.

"You think so?” said the Marquis again, in a way that showed he was happy to have it be like that.

"If it ever becomes mine, I will put it in the hands of someone who is better able than me to free it slowly (if such a thing is possible) from the weight that holds it down, so that the children of the poor people who cannot leave it and who have long been squeezed as far as they can go, may not have it so bad. But it is not for me to do. There is a curse on this land."

"And you?” said the uncle. "Forgive my interest. Do you plan to keep living without all of this?"

"To do that, I must do what others in France have had to do, even with people like you at their backs, and that is to work."

"You mean in England?"

"Yes. That way, the family name is safe, sir, from me in this country. And it cannot be hurt in any other country, because I don't use it in any other country.

The bell had the effect of putting a light on in the next bedroom, and it could now be seen through the door between the two rooms. The Marquis looked in that direction and listened for the steps of the servant leaving.

"You must love something in England, for you have not made any wealth there," he said, turning his quiet face to his nephew with a smile.

"As I have already said, it is partly because of you that I live there. But I find it a safe place to hide as well."

"Those proud English people say that there are many who hide there. Do you know another French man who is hiding there? A doctor?"

"Yes."

"With a daughter?"

"Yes."

"Yes," said the Marquis. "You must be tired. Have a good night."

As he bent his head in his nicest way, there was a secret smile on his face, and a secret meaning in his words that were clear to his nephew. At the same time, the thin lines of his face and the markings in his nose moved in a way that was not so different from a very good-looking devil.

"Yes," answered the Marquis. "A doctor with a daughter. Yes. And so the new teaching starts. You look tired. Good night!"

It would have been as easy to change one of the stone faces outside the building as it would have been to get the Marquis to change his feelings. The nephew looked at him and saw nothing as he passed him on the way to the door.

"Good night!" said the uncle. "I look forward to seeing you again in the morning. Sleep well!" Turning to the servant, he said, "Lead my nephew to his bedroom there!" And then, to himself he added, "And burn my nephew in his bed if you will," before ringing the bell and calling another servant to take care of himself.

When his servant was finished and had left, the Marquis walked around his room in his robe, preparing himself for sleep on that hot, quiet night. He was wearing soft house shoes, and so his walking was as quiet as that of a tiger; and he himself looked like an evil person in a story who could change himself into a tiger.

He walked from end to end of his very big bedroom, going over the happenings of the day's trip. The slow climb up the hill as the sun was going down, the sun going down at the top of the hill, looking down on the windmill, the prison on the tall rock, and the little village at the bottom, the poor people at the fountain, and the road worker with his blue hat pointing to the chain under his coach. That fountain there had made him think of the fountain in Paris, that dead child lying on the step with women bending over it, and the tall man with his arms up, crying, "Dead!"

"I am cool enough now," said Sir the Marquis to himself, "and so I may go to bed."

Leaving only one light burning on the stones in front of the fireplace, he let the thin curtain down around himself and listened to the night breathe out deeply after being quiet for a long time. He rested there before falling asleep.

The stone faces on the outside wall looked without seeing at the black night for three heavy hours. For three heavy hours the horses in the barn made noises and they hit against their feed boxes, the dogs barked, and the night birds made sounds that were quite different to the sounds poets say they make. But it is the way with such birds never to say what we tell them to say.

For three hours the stone faces of the castle, faces of both lions and people, looked blindly out at the night. Darkness as deep as death covered the land, adding its own quiet to the quieting dust on all the roads. In the darkness one could not tell one pile of dry grass from another where the poor dead people were buried. The shape on the cross could have come down off it, and no one would have known. In the village, taxers and those who were taxed were all fast asleep. Maybe they were dreaming of food, as hungry people often do, or of rest, as slaves and cows in a yoke must do. In their sleep, the thin people of the village were full and free.

Water went on coming out from that fountain in the village, and from the fountain at the castle too, over those three hours, like the minutes that had been melting away from the start of time. Then the grey water in both turned to the colour of ghosts, and the eyes of the stone faces started to open.

The sky became lighter and lighter until, at last, the sun touched the tops of the trees and poured its light over the hill. In the bright light of the sun, the colour of the water turned to blood, and the stone faces became red. The song of the birds was loud and high; and outside the great window of the Marquis' bedroom one little bird was singing its sweetest song with all of its strength. At this, the nearest stone face seemed to open its eyes wider, drop its mouth open, and look with great surprise.

Now that the sun was fully up, movement started in the village. Windows opened, and the bars were taken off doors, as people stepped out into the cold sweet morning air. The work of the day started. Some to the fountain; some to the fields; men and women here to dig and look; men and women there to care for the animals, and to take their thin cows out to the side of the road to look for food. In the church and at the Cross, one or two people were on their knees, while the cows, doing what they could to answer those prayers, ate on the grass at their feet.

The castle was later to wake, as always was its way. It was slow about doing so, but it was also sure. First the hunting knives and spears turned red, and then they just became very bright in the morning sunlight; now doors and windows were being thrown open; horses turned around in the barn, looking over their shoulders at the light pouring in through the door; leaves moved in the wind at the bottom of windows with iron bars on them; and dogs pulled hard at their chains, waiting to be let free.

All of these little actions were part of life each morning. But that was surely not true of the big bell that was ringing in the castle. And it was not true of the people running up and down steps. It was not true of the people standing on the verandah, or running in different directions, or putting saddles on horses and riding away.

It is not clear what wind carried the news to the old road worker who was already at work on the top of the hill on the other side of the village. His cloth-covered dinner (not much to carry) was lying on a pile of stones, with not enough in it to even interest the crows. Had the birds, carrying the grains of news from the castle dropped one on him, as they often did with seeds? It is not clear; but he did start running down the hill like he was running to save his life, kicking up dust all around him; and he did not stop until he reached the fountain at the bottom.

Everyone in the village was at the fountain, standing about in their sad way, and whispering quietly, but showing no emotion apart from some surprise and a sad interest. The cows were back in the village, tied to anything that was near, or lying on the ground, chewing at anything they may have been able to find before the bell started ringing. Some people from the castle, and some from the post office, and all those who did the taxing had weapons now and were on the opposite side of the road not really knowing what they should do. Already the road worker was there in the middle of about fifty friends, hitting his chest with his blue hat. What was the meaning of this, and what was the meaning of Mr. Gabelle being lifted up onto a horse behind another rider, and the two of them, not worrying about the extra weight for the horse, racing off together?

The meaning was that there was one stone face too many up at the castle.

The Gorgon had looked at the building again in the middle of the night and had added one more stone face, one that it had been waiting for two hundred years to add.

That face was lying on Sir the Marquis' pillow. It was like a thin mask, with a look of surprise turned to anger, and then turned to stone. In the heart of the body that was joined to that face was a knife; and around the handle of it was tied a piece of paper with these words on it. "Drive him quickly when you take him to be buried. This is from Jack."

10. Two Promises

Twelve more months had come and gone. During this time, Charles Darnay had started a job in England, teaching French. At that time there were no jobs for teachers of French in the universities of England. But he taught young men who had the time and interest to learn a language that could be used in many other countries around the world. Because of his great understanding of French writings, and because of his perfect English as well, he was able to teach his students to love the language and all that went with it. It was not easy to find such teachers at that time, as kings and other members of the King's family (those who knew such a language) were not the kind of people to take up teaching. Mr. Darnay was a teacher who could give his students much more than what they could learn from a dictionary. Because of this, many people came to know of his ability. And because of things happening in France at that time -- things that Charles Darnay knew and understood well, and things about which many people had an interest -- his work grew and his wealth grew with it.

When he had returned to London, he had not expected to walk on gold footpaths or to sleep on a bed of flowers. If he had been looking for this, he would not have been able to do as much as he had been able to do. It was because he had been willing to work so hard that he had done so well.

He often taught students at Cambridge University, where he was like a smuggler, bringing in this living language from Europe instead of the dead languages of Greece and Rome. Yet most of the time he stayed in London.

From the time when it was always summer in the Garden of Eden to the days when it is almost always winter here in our country, the world of a man has always gone the one way, which is the way of love for a woman. And Charles Darnay, too, was going that way.

He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. He had never heard a voice so sweet and lovely as her voice. He had never seen a face so beautiful as her face was when she saw him so close to death. But so far, he had not said anything to her about it. It had been a year since his uncle was killed in that solid stone castle, far across the waves and down that long dirt road from where he now lived, and in all that time he had not said one word to Lucie about the feelings he had for her.

He had his reasons for waiting so long. But it was another summer day when he travelled to that quiet corner in Soho on returning to London from Cambridge, this time with a plan to open his mind to Doctor Manette. It was near the end of the day, and he knew that Lucie would be out with Miss Pross.

He found the Doctor reading in an arm-chair by the window. The strength that had pulled Doctor Manette through his past troubles, had slowly returned to him. He was now quite strong in mind and body. There were times when he would still feel down, but they were becoming fewer and fewer and farther and farther apart.

He studied much, was able to work long hours with little sleep, and was always happy and friendly. To him, Charles Darnay now came visiting. On seeing him, the Doctor put his book down and held out his hand.

"Charles Darnay! I am happy to see you. We have been counting on your return these past three or four days. Mr. Stryver and Sydney Carton were both here yesterday, and both said they were surprised that you had not returned.

"It is kind of them to take such interest in me," he said, a little coldly toward them, but very warmly toward the Doctor. "Miss Manette..."

"Is well," said the Doctor as he stopped short, "and hearing about what you have been doing will be of interest to us all. She has gone out on some business for the house, but she will be home soon."

"Doctor Manette, I knew she would not be home. It is why I have come, because I wish to speak to you alone."

"Yes?” said the Doctor, trying not to show his deep interest. "Bring your chair here and speak on."

Charles quickly brought a chair over, but did not find the speaking to be as easy.

"I have had the happiness, Doctor Manette, of being here so much over the past year and a half," he started at length, "that I hope what I am going to say will not be..."

He was held there by the Doctor putting out his hand to stop him. After holding it like this for a little while, Doctor Manette said, as he pulled his hand back:

"Is it Lucie you want to talk about?"

"She is."

"It is difficult for me to speak of her at any time. It is even more difficult for me to hear one speak of her as I think you are going to speak, Charles Darnay."

"I want only to talk of my love, Doctor Manette!" he said humbly.

"I believe it. To be fair to you, I believe it."

It was easy to see that the Doctor was holding back. It was also so easy to see that he was doing it because he did not want to hear what Darnay was going to say, that the younger man waited before saying:

"Should I go on, sir?” Another long wait.

"Yes, go on."

"You know what I want to say, but you cannot know how sincerely I say it, or how deeply I feel it, without knowing the secrets of my heart, or the hopes and fears and worries that I have been carrying for some time. Doctor Manette, I love your daughter sincerely, deeply, without selfish interest. If ever there was love in the world, it is my love for her. You have loved in the past; let your old love speak for what I feel!"

The Doctor sat with his face turned away, and his eyes on the ground. At the last words, he reached out his hand again, hurriedly, and cried:

"Not that, sir! Let it be! I beg you, do not make me remember that!"

His cry was so much like the cry of one in real pain that it stayed in Charles Darnay's ears long after he had stopped crying. A movement in his hand seemed to be asking Darnay to wait, and so he stayed there saying nothing.

"Please forgive me," said the Doctor in a quiet voice after some time. "I do believe you love Lucie; you can be sure of that."

He turned toward the younger man in his chair, but did not look at him or lift his eyes. His chin dropped onto his hand, and his white hair dropped over his face.

"Have you talked to Lucie about it?”

"No."

"Written to her?"

"Never."

"It would not be fair of me to hide my understanding that you have held back out of kindness for her father. And her father thanks you."

He held out his hand, but his eyes did not go with it.

"I know," said Darnay humbly. "How can I not know, Doctor Manette, after seeing the two of you together day after day, that between you and Miss Manette there is a love so special, so sweet, so much a part of the things you have each been through, that there could be few with such strong love, even when one talks of fathers and their children. I know, Doctor Manette -- How can I not know? -- that together with the love of a daughter who is now a woman, there is in her heart all the love and desire for you of a little child. I know that, as she had no parents when she was very young, the strength in her adult love for you now is mixed with the need for you and the faith in you that she would have had if she had known you when she was a young child. I know perfectly well that if you had returned from the dead she would not think of you any more as a holy gift from God than what she does now. I know that when she hugs you, the hands of a baby, a girl, and a young woman are, all three, around your neck. I know that when she loves you she is loving her mother and all that she went through, and she is loving you as you were when you were my age, and all that you went through. I have known this, day and night, ever since I started coming here."

Her father sat without saying a word, with his face bent down. He was able to hide all other signs of his feelings apart from that he was breathing more quickly.

"Good Doctor Manette, it was because I knew this and because I have always been able to see this holy light around the two of you, that I have waited and waited for as long as it was possible for me to wait. I have always felt, and I feel it now too, that if I bring my love into the picture, it will touch your history with something that is not quite as good as what you now have. But I love her. Heaven is my witness that I love her!"

"I believe it," her father answered sadly. "I have thought so before now. I believe it."

"But do not believe," said Darnay, on hearing the sadness in the old man's voice and the meaning that had for him, "that even if my luck were such that she should one day become my wife because of what I am now saying, that I would breathe even one word of this now if I knew that at any time it would separate her from you. It would never work, and it would never be right. If I had even one such thought in my heart, or if I should ever have such a thought in my heart, I would not now be able to touch your great hand."

With this, he put his hand on the Doctor's hand.

"No, good Doctor Manette. Like you, I freely chose to leave France. Like you, I was forced to make that choice by the awful things that are happening there. Like you, I am trying, by my work here, to build a happier future. I want only to share your life, your home, and your good luck, being faithful to you to the point of dying for you. I am not asking to come between you and Lucie. I am asking to be able to help her in her place as your child and friend and to tie her even closer to you if that is possible."

His touch was still there on her father's hand. Answering it for a second or two, but not coldly, her father now rested his hands on the arms of his chair, and looked up for the first time since their talk had started. One could see in his face that a fight was going on. It was a fight with that look that he had so often shown in the past, a look of dark and deep fear.

"You speak with such feeling and strength, Charles Darnay, that I thank you with all my heart, and will open all my heart -- or almost all my heart -- to you. Do you have any reason to believe that Lucie loves you?"

"None. As yet, none."

"Is your reason for talking to me now so that you can find that out?"

"Not at all. I cannot even start to hope for such information just yet. But if our meeting goes well today, then maybe I can start to hope for an answer in a few weeks."

"Are you looking for me to help you in what you are planning to do?'

"I am not asking for that, sir. But I have thought it possible that you might be able to, if you think it is okay, to give some help."

"Are you asking me to promise you anything?”

"Yes, I am."

"What is it?"

"I understand well that, without you, I could have no hope. I understand well that, even if Miss Manette did feel for me as I feel for her -- Do not think that I believe that to be true. -- I could have no place in her heart if she had to go against her love for her father."

"If that is true, how do you see things going?"

"I know full well that a word from you would be enough to make her go against her own heart in choosing me or anyone else. Because of that," Darnay said, humbly but strongly, "I would not ask you to do that, not even to save my life."

"I can see that. Charles Darnay, you never know where love may grow. It can happen between people who are very much the same and it can happen between people who are very different. When they are close, the seeds of love can be very difficult to see. In this, my daughter Lucie, is so secret from me that I cannot even come close to knowing what she feels about you.

"May I ask, sir, if you think there is...” When he stopped, her father finished the question for him.

"Is there another man who is interested in her?"

"Yes, that is what I wanted to ask."

Her father thought for a little while before he answered:

"You have seen Mr. Carton here yourself. Mr. Stryver comes here too, at times. If there is anyone, it could only be one of these two."

"Or both," said Darnay.

"I was not thinking of both. I should not think it would be either. Do you want a promise from me? Tell me what it is."

"It is that, if Miss Manette should bring to you at any time, on her own, word of a secret interest in me, then you will tell her of my love for her, and tell her that you believe I am honest about it. I hope that you think well enough of me that you would not say anything against me. I ask nothing more than this. Whatever you ask from me in return, I will do it here and now."

"I give my promise," said the Doctor, "without asking anything from you in return. I believe that you are being very honest and very sincere in what you have said. I believe that you want to make the ties between me and my daughter stronger, and not to make them weaker. If she ever tells me that she thinks she can find happiness with you, I will give her to you. If there were... Charles Darnay, if there were..."

The young man had taken his hand with deep thanks. Their hands were joined as the Doctor went on:

"...any thoughts, any reasons, any fears, either new or old, that I had against the man she loved -- as long as they did not come from something that he freely chose to do -- they would all be rubbed out if it would make her happy. She is everything to me; more to me than any pain that I have felt, more to me than any wrong that I may receive, more to me... Enough! This is foolish talk."

So strange was the way that the Doctor stopped talking, and so strange was his way of looking when he had stopped, that Darnay felt his own hand go cold in the hand that slowly stopped holding his, and that let it drop.

"You said something to me," said Doctor Manette, breaking into a smile. "What was it you said to me?"

Darnay did not know how to answer, until he remembered having said something about giving the Doctor something in return for his promise to speak up for him if needed.

"Your faith in me should be returned with full honesty on my part. My present name, which is almost the same as my mother's name, is not, as you will remember from when I was in court, my real name. I want to tell you what my real name is, and why I am in England."

Stop!" said the Doctor from Beauvais.

"But I want to tell you, so that you will have more reason to trust me. I do not want to have any secrets from you."

"Stop!"

For a second the Doctor even put his two hands over his ears, and for another second he put them on Darnay's lips.

"Tell me when I ask you, not now. If you get what you want, if Lucie happens to love you, you can tell me on the morning of your wedding. Will you just promise me that?"

"Willingly."

"Then give me your hand on that. She will be home soon, and it is better that she not see us together tonight. Go! God bless you!"

It was dark when Charles Darnay left him, and it was an hour later and darker when Lucie came home; she hurried into the room alone -- for Miss Pross had gone straight up to her room -- and was surprised to see that he was not in his chair reading.

"Father!" she called. "Father, where are you?"

There was no answer, but she heard a soft hammering sound in the bedroom. Going to his door, she looked in and came running back in fear, crying to herself, with her blood running cold, "What can I do? What can I do?"

A short time later, she hurried back and knocked lightly on the door, calling to him softly. At the sound of her voice, the noise stopped. He soon came out, and they walked up and down together for a long time.

She came down from her room later that night, to look in on him when he was asleep. He was sleeping heavily, and his box of cobbler tools were all back in their place

11. Someone to Live With

"Sydney," said Mr. Stryver, on that same night (Or should we say morning?) to his wild dog, "mix us another bowl of drink. I have something to say to you."

Sydney had been working extra hours that night and the night before, and the night before that, and a good many other nights, trying to finish off Mr. Stryver's cases before the long holidays came up. Now they were finished at last. Everything had been cleared away, freeing them until November, when fogs in the weather and fogs in the court would return, bringing them more business.

Sydney was as tired and drunk as ever for all of his hard work. It had taken extra wet cloths for his head to pull him through the night. And an equal measure of extra wine was needed before the cloths. He was in bad shape because of it, as he pulled the cloth off his head and threw it into the bowl which he had been using to keep it wet for the past six hours.

"Are you mixing that other bowl of drink?” asked Stryver the fat one, with his hands in his belt, and looking around from where he was lying on his back on the couch.

"I am."

"Now, listen! I'm going to tell you something that will surprise you and that may make you think I'm not as smart as you thought. I am planning to get married."

"Are you?"

"Yes. And not for money. What do you think of that?"

"I don't think anything. Who is she?"

"See if you can say who it is."

"I am not even going to try, not at five o'clock in the morning, with my brains cooking in my head.

"Well, then I'll tell you," said Stryver, sitting up slowly. "Sydney I don't have much hope of making you understand, because you are such a selfish dog."

"And you," returned Sydney, who was busy adding alcohol to

the juice, "are such a sweet and musical spirit!"

"Come now!" answered Stryver, laughing proudly, "I don't say that I am an expert at love (for I hope I know better than to be), but I am a softer person than you."

"You are luckier than me, if that is what you mean."

"I don't mean that. I mean I am a man of more... more...”

"Well, say class, while you are at it," Carton helped him.

"I will say class. What I mean is that I am a man," said Stryver, pushing his chest out at his friend, who was making the drink, "who tries to be kind, who goes to more pain to be kind, who knows better how to be kind, to a woman, than you do."

"Keep going," said Sydney Carton.

"No, but I must say one thing.” Stryver, shook his head in his pushy way. "I'll have this out with you. You have been at Doctor Manette's house as much as, or more than I have. I've been embarrassed at how selfish and angry you have been when there. Your actions are like those of a dog that hides out of guilt. On my life and soul, I have been embarrassed by you, Sydney!"

"It should be a big help to a man who works in the courts to be embarrassed about anything," returned Sydney. "You should thank me for that."

"You won't get away with it by being foolish," answered Stryver, pushing to the side the smart answer that Carton had given him. "No, Sydney, it is my job to tell you, and tell you to your face, for your own good, that you act like a devil around that class of people. You are not a nice person to be around."

Sydney finished off a tall glass of the drink he had made and laughed.

"Look at me!" said Stryver, standing up straight. "I have less need to be kind than you do, because I don't need anyone's money. So why do I do it?"

"So far I have never seen you do it," Carton said quietly.

"I do it because it works, and because it's right. And look at me. I'm doing well."

"You're not doing well with telling me who you're going to marry," answered Carton with a foolish air. "I wish you would. As for me, will you never understand that I'm never going to change?"

He asked the question with some show of anger.

"You have no business fighting change," was his friend's answer, which was not said in a very friendly way.

"As I understand it, I have no business to be on the earth at all," said Sydney Carton. "So who is the woman?"

"Now don't let my news make you feel bad, Sydney," said Mr. Stryver, preparing him for what he was about to say, with a great show of being friendly, "because I know that you don't mean half of what you say. And if you did, it would not be important. I'm saying this, because you once spoke of this woman in a rough way."

"I did?"

"Truly, and in these rooms."

Sydney Carton looked at his drink and looked at his stupidly happy friend, finished his drink and looked again at his stupidly happy friend.

"You called the young woman a golden-haired doll. The young woman is Miss Manette. If you had been a person with a little more feeling for such things, I would have been hurt by what you said, but I was not. You have no understanding of what you are talking about, and so I was no more hurt than I would be if someone with no eye for art said something bad about a picture I own, or if someone with no ear for music said something bad about some piece of music that was mine."

Sydney Carton was going through the drink very quickly now.

"Well, now I've said it, Syd," said Mr. Stryver. "I don't care about her wealth; she is a beautiful thing; and I have made up my mind to do what makes me happy. On the whole, I think I have enough wealth to do that. She will have in me a man with more than enough money, and a good future. It is very lucky for her, but she should be lucky, for she's a good person. Are you surprised?"

Carton, still drinking, answered, "Why should I be surprised?”

"So you think it's okay?"

Carton, still drinking, answered, "Why shouldn't I think it's okay?"

"Well!" said his friend Stryver. "You've taken it more easily than I'd expected. And you show less interest in her having no money than I had thought you would. But then you know well by now that I'm a difficult man to change. Yes, Sydney, I have had enough of this way of living, with no change from it. I feel it is a good thing for a man to have a home where he can go when he feels like it. (And if he doesn't, then he can stay away from it.) And I feel that Miss Manette will do herself well in any place where she finds herself. Everyone will think well of me for having her at my side. So I have made up my mind. And now, Sydney, old boy, I want to say a word about your life. You are in a bad way, you know, a really bad way! You don't know how important money is. You live a rough life. You will break down one of these days and find yourself sick and poor. You really should be thinking about a nurse."

Looking down on Sydney because he was much richer, made Stryver look twice as big as Sydney, but four times as cruel.

"Now what I think you should do is look this problem in the face. I have looked my problem in the face in a different way, and you must do the same, in your different way. Marry! Find someone who can take care of you. Don't worry that you do not like being around women, or that you often misunderstand them or that you are too rough for them. Find someone. Someone whom you can trust, who has a little wealth. Find someone who has a house that they rent out, or who takes in people for meals and a room. Marry her, as a way of protecting yourself. That's what you need to do. Think about it, Sydney."

"I'll think about it," said Sydney.

12. A Man of Class

Mr. Stryver, having made up his mind to generously give himself to the lucky Doctor's daughter, wanted to tell her of his plan (and by doing so, fill her with happiness) before leaving town for his holiday. If he told her now, then they would have more time to work together on choosing a day for the wedding, either in September or in December.

He had not a fear in the world that he would lose this case. If he argued with the jury about what it would mean for her in wealth (and that is the only argument ever worth using) it was as good as won. There was not one weak line in his reasoning. He could see himself as a witness, with another lawyer trying to find a hole in his argument. The lawyer would have to give up trying in the end. The jury would not even need a minute to think about it. When the hearing was over, Stryver the Lion was sure that he never had a stronger case.

With this in mind, Stryver planned to start his holiday by taking Miss Manette to the Gardens, or some other nice place in London and there tell her the good news.

So he left his place in Temple to shoulder his way to Soho. Anyone watching him as he walked proudly and quickly down the road toward Soho, to the danger of all weaker people in the way, would have seen how safe and strong he was in his belief.

Because he would be walking past Tellson's on the way, and because he did business there, and because he knew Mr. Lorry was a close friend of the Manettes, it seemed wise to stop in and tell Mr. Lorry the good news that he was taking to Soho. He opened the sticky door with the bad sound in its throat, went down the two steps, pushed past the two old men working in the front, and found Mr. Lorry sitting in a very little room at the back with books full of lines and numbers. The one window in that room had vertical bars on it, like it too should be filled with numbers between the lines.

"Hello!" said Mr. Stryver. "How do you do? I hope you're well!"

It was a strange thing about Mr. Stryver, that he always seemed to be too big for any place or space. He was so much too big for Tellsons that the old workers in the farthest corners looked up with a spirit that disagreed with him being there, as if he was squeezing them against the wall. The "House" himself, proudly reading a newspaper some distance away from Stryver, looked over the top of it as he would if Stryver had used his head to hit the man strongly in the stomach.

Humble Mr. Lorry modestly used the voice that he would have wished Stryver to use as he said, "How do you do, Mr. Stryver? How do you do, sir?” and shook his hand. There is a special way that all of the workers at Tellson's shake hands with the people who come there, making it clear that it is not them that is shaking the hand, but it is Tellson and Company that is doing it.

"Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver?” asked Mr. Lorry in his business-like voice.

"Why, no thank you; this is a friendly visit, Mr. Lorry. I have come to talk about something quite apart from business."

"Oh, is that true!" said Mr. Lorry, leaning closer to hear, but with one eye on the "House" off in the distance.

"I'm going...” said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidently on the desk. It was a big double desk, but when Mr. Stryver did this, it seemed the desk was not half big enough for him. "I'm going to ask your lovely friend, Miss Manette, to marry me, Mr. Lorry."

"Oh my!" cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin and looking at his visitor without knowing what to say.

"Oh my, sir?” repeated Stryver, pulling back. "Oh my, sir? What does that mean, Mr. Lorry?"

"My meaning," answered the man of business, "is, as you must know, friendly and kind, and it does say much about your good name. In short, my meaning is everything you could want. But... really, you know, Mr. Stryver...” Mr. Lorry stopped and shook his head at him in the strangest way, as if he was being forced to secretly add, "You know, there really is much too much of you!"

"Well!" said Stryver, hitting the desk with his angry hand, opening his eyes wider, and breathing deeply, "if I understand you, Mr. Lorry, I'll be hanged!"

Mr. Lorry made a little movement to his wig as a way to buy time, and chewed the feather end of his pen.

"To hell with it, sir!" said Stryver, looking strongly at him. "Am I not good enough?"

"Oh yes, truly! Yes. Oh yes, you are good enough!" said Mr. Lorry. "If you say good enough, you are good enough."

"Am I not rich?” asked Stryver.

"Oh, if it comes to being rich, you are rich," said Mr. Lorry.

"And getting richer?"

"If it comes to that," said Mr. Lorry, happy to say so many good things about Mr. Stryver, "everyone knows you're that."

"Then what on earth is your meaning, Mr. Lorry?” cried Stryver, looking sad.

"Well, I... Were you going there now?” asked Mr. Lorry.

"Straight!" said Stryver, banging his fist on the desk.

"Then I think I would not if I were you."

"Why?” said Stryver. "Now, I'll put you in a corner," shaking a finger at him like he was a policeman. "You're a man of business, so you must have a reason. Tell me why. Why wouldn't you go?"

"Because," said Mr. Lorry, "I wouldn't go on such a trip without good reason to believe I would get what I wanted."

Stryver shouted a few angry words to show his surprise. Mr. Lorry looked quickly toward House, then back at the angry Stryver.

"Here you are, a man of business, a man of years, knowing much about life, and working in a bank," said Stryver; "and after giving three good reasons for me being able to win my case, now you tell me that there is no reason to win? And you have said this with your head on.” Mr. Stryver said this as if it would be okay for Mr. Lorry to say the same thing with his head off.

"When I talk about winning or losing, I am talking about how the young woman thinks; and when I speak of reasons to make her agree, I am thinking of reasons that go with her way of thinking. The young woman, my good sir," said Mr. Lorry, softly touching the Stryver arm, "the young woman. She must come first."

"Then you mean to tell me, Mr. Lorry," said Stryver, with his elbows pointing out, "that you honestly believe the young woman we are talking about is stupid?"

"That is not true. I mean to tell you, Mr. Stryver," said Mr. Lorry, turning red, "that I will not hear one wrong word against that young woman from any lips; and that if I knew any man -- and I hope I do not -- whose taste was so rough and whose spirit was so strong that he could not hold himself back from saying something bad about her at this desk, not even Tellson's could stop me from giving him a piece of my mind."

The need to be quiet at the same time that he was angry had been dangerous for Mr. Stryver's arteries when he had heard what Mr. Lorry thought. But now it was Mr. Lorry's turn, and, for all of his quiet ways, his arteries were in no better shape than were Mr. Stryver's.

"That is what I think about it, sir," said Mr. Lorry. "So I hope you understand me."

Mr. Stryver had picked up a measuring stick and chewed on it for a time before hitting it lightly on his teeth as he was thinking. In the end, he said:

"This is something new to me, Mr. Lorry. You clearly said that I should not go up to Soho and give myself -- myself, Stryver of the King's Bench?"

"Do you want me to help you, Mr. Stryver?"

"Yes, I do."

"Very good. I have done that, and you have thrown it back at me."

"And all I can say of it is," laughed Stryver with an angry laugh, "that this -- ha, ha! -- is worse than anything, past, present, or future."

"Understand me," went on Mr. Lorry. "As a man of business, I have no right to say anything about this. As a man of business, I know nothing of it. But as an old friend, who has carried Miss Manette in his arms, who is a close friend of Miss Manette and of her father too, and who has great love for them both, I have spoken. Remember that I was not telling you what I think, but what she would think. Do you think I don't know what I'm talking about?"

"I'm not saying that," said Stryver. "I cannot change the way other people think. I can only think clearly for myself. But there are some people who I thought were smart, and now you are telling me that they are foolish. What you are saying surprises me, but I agree, that you know them better than me."

"What I have said was in my own words, Mr. Stryver. And understand me, sir," said Mr. Lorry quickly turning red again, "I will not -- not even in Tellson's -- let any man breathing put his words into my mouth."

"Okay! I'm sorry!" said Stryver. "Please forgive me."

"I forgive you. Thank you. Now, Mr. Stryver, what I was about to say: It could be embarrassing for you to find that you are wrong about what will happen. It could be embarrassing for Doctor Manette to have the job of telling you that. It could be very hard for Miss Manette to have the job of telling you No. But you know how close I am with the family. If you like, without saying that I am acting for you, I could ask a few questions to find out for sure what her thinking would be on this. If you still want to ask her, you could do it; but if I find out that it will not work, and if you believe me, it could save all of you a lot of pain. What do you think?"

"How long would you keep me waiting?"

"Oh, it would only be a few hours. I could go down to Soho tonight and come to your place after I finish."

"Then I agree," said Stryver. "I won't go yet. I'm not so enthusiastic that I can't wait that long. So I agree, and I will be looking for you tonight. Good morning."

Then Mr. Stryver turned and exploded out of the bank, making such a wind on the way, that it took all of the strength of the two old men working behind the counter to stay on their feet as they bowed to him on his way out. Those two old men bowed so often that people must have believed that they never stopped bowing, even when the office was empty.

The lawyer was smart enough to know that the banker would not have gone so far as to say what he had said if he was not sure of it. He was not prepared for the sour medicine that he had to swallow, but he swallowed it all the same. "And now," said Mr. Stryver, shaking his lawyer's finger at the world in general, when the medicine was down, "my way out of this is to put you all in the wrong."

It was part of the art that this Old Bailey lawyer used in his job. "You'll not put me in the wrong, young woman," said Mr. Stryver; "I'll be the one to do that to you."

And so, when Mr. Lorry came by that night, as late as ten o'clock, Mr. Stryver, with books and papers everywhere, seemed to have forgotten all about the subject they had been talking about that morning. He even showed surprise when he saw Mr. Lorry at the door, and seemed to be very busy with many other things.

"Well!" said the friendly visitor, after a full half-hour of trying to bring the talk around to what he was there for. "I have been to Soho."

"To Soho?” repeated Mr. Stryver, coldly. "Oh, to be sure! What am I thinking of!"

"And I am very sure," said Mr. Lorry, "that I was right in what I said to you. My feeling has been proved, and so I repeat what I have already said before."

"I promise you," returned Mr. Stryver, in the friendliest way, "that I am sorry for you and sorry for her poor father. I know this must always be a sore subject for the family, and I will say no more about it."

"I don't understand," said Mr. Lorry.

"I shouldn't think you would," answered Stryver, shaking his head softly, as if it would smooth everything over. "It's not important. Don't worry about it."

"But it is important," Mr. Lorry argued.

"No, it isn't, I tell you. I believed that there was some smartness where there was none. I thought there was some desire to get ahead when it was not there. You have protected me without anyone being hurt. Young women have done foolish things like this before, and they have ended up poor and alone because of it. I am sad for her that it is dropped, because there was to be nothing in it for me. For myself, I am glad that it is dropped for the same reason. But it has not hurt me. I have not said anything to her, and, between ourselves, I am not sure, after thinking about it, that I should ever have even thought to help her. Mr. Lorry, you cannot control the pride and foolishness of stupid young women; don't even try, or you will always be failing. Now, please, say no more about it. I tell you, I feel sad for others, but for myself, I have no problem with it. I owe you much for having helped me. You know the young woman better than I do, and you were right, it never would have worked."

Mr. Lorry was so surprised, that he looked quite stupidly at Mr. Stryver, who was shouldering him toward the door, at the same time that he talked like he was being very generous, kind, and friendly toward someone who had done wrong. "Make the best of it, my good friend," said Stryver. "Say no more about it. Thank you again for helping me. Good night!"

Mr. Lorry was out into the night before he knew where he was. Mr. Stryver was lying on his couch, smiling at the roof.

13. A Man of No Class

If there was ever a time when Sydney Carton looked good, it was not during times when he visited with Doctor Manette. During the past year he had visited many times, and he had always been the same sour, lazy, quiet person, with no interest in others. He could speak well if he had wanted to, but the cloud of selfish interest that travelled with him wherever he went was almost never cut through by the light to whatever was hiding inside of him.

And yet he did care for something, if nothing more than the stones that made up the streets and footpaths around the house in Soho. Many nights, when the wine stopped making him happy, he would walk around without clear direction on the streets of Soho. Many mornings, when the sun was close to coming up, he was out there all alone. And he was often still there when the first light of the sun was competing with the shapes and colours of the tallest buildings in the city. It may be that those quiet times helped him to remember better things, things he would forget and never find if he was not in that special part of the city. Of late, his bed in Temple Court was seeing less and less of him. Often after only a few minutes on the bed, he would get up and go like a ghost off to Soho.

One day in August, when Mr. Stryver (after telling his wild dog that he "had thought better of that marrying plan") had taken his high class ways to another town, and when the picture and smell of flowers in the city streets had in them the ability to help the worst of people (making the sick feel well again, and the old feel young again), Sydney's feet were still walking on those stones in Soho. From being one who could never stay with a thing long enough to finish it, his feet seemed to take on a new mind, a mind that took him to the Doctor's door.

He was taken up the steps to where Lucie was working alone on some papers. It was always difficult for her to relax around him, and so she was embarrassed to have him there sitting in a chair near her table. But when she looked up at his face as they were each saying hello, she could see a change in it.

"I'm afraid you are not well, Mr. Carton!"

"No, I'm not. But the way I live, Miss Manette, is not a healthy way. What more can you look for in one who has wasted his life as I have?"

"Is it not... Forgive me, for asking this without thinking. Is it not wrong to live such a life?"

"God knows it is!"

"They why not change it?"

Looking kindly at him again, she was surprised and hurt to see that there were tears in his eyes. They were in his voice too, as he answered:

"It is too late for that. I will never be better than I am. I will only sink lower and grow worse."

He leaned an elbow on the table and covered his eyes with his hands. They both said nothing, but the table was shaking.

She had never seen this soft side of him, and she did not know what to do or say. He understood this, without looking at her, and so he said:

"Please forgive me, Miss Manette. I am like this because of what I want to say to you. Will you hear me out?"

"If it will do you any good, Mr. Carton, if it will make you happier, it would make me very glad!"

"God bless you for your sweet spirit!"

He uncovered his face after a little while and spoke clearly.

"Don't be afraid to hear me. Don't pull back from anything I say. I am like one who died young. All my life has been wasted."

"No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it is still to come. I am sure that you can be much much more than you are now."

"I hear what you are saying, Miss Manette. I know better. In the secret place of my awful heart, I know better. But I will never forget what you have just said."

"If it had been possible, Miss Manette, for you to return the love of the man who is in front of you now... a man who has wasted his life and destroyed his body through alcohol -- he would know, even now, that the happiness he would feel from that would not have stopped him from making you sad, embarrassing you, destroying you, and pulling you down with him. I know that there is no reason for you to feel that kind of love for me. I do not ask for that, and I even thank God that you cannot."

"But isn't there a way that I can help you without that, Mr. Carton? Can't I call you back -- Forgive me again! -- to a better way? Is there nothing I can do to thank you for being honest with me just now? I know that what you have said was said in confidence," she said humbly after waiting a short while before saying it, with sincere tears in her eyes. "I know you would not say this to anyone else. Can I turn it to something good for yourself, Mr. Carton?"

He shook his head.

"To nothing. No, Miss Manette, to nothing. If you will listen just for a little longer, you will have done for me all that you can do. I want you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. I have not been so far gone that I could not see in you and your father and in this home that you have built up together, something that lifted my spirit from the darkness that I had thought I was buried in. Since meeting you, I have heard old voices that I thought I would never hear again, calling on me to remember the good times, and to not give up hope for better ones to come. There have been whispers encouraging me to feel sorry about my actions, and thoughts about starting over, shaking off the lazy and selfish ways of the past, returning to the fight for all that is good. But it is all a dream, a dream that ends in nothing and leaves the sleeper where he was. But I want you to know that you are the one who put these thoughts into my head."

"Will nothing at all come of it? Oh, Mr. Carton, please try again!"

"No, Miss Manette. Through it all, I have known that I am not able to live up to those dreams. On top of that, I have selfishly wanted you to know how much effect your spirit has had on me, cold ashes that I am. You have started a fire in me, a fire which will help no one, but a fire all the same."

"Since I have made you, Mr. Carton, sadder than you were before you knew me..."

"Don't say that, Miss Manette! If anyone could have saved me, it would have been you. You're not the reason I will grow worse."

"Since the feelings you have now are in some way the effect of knowing me -- That is what I mean, if I can make myself clear. -- can I not use my power to help you in some way? Do I have no power for good with you at all?"

"The most good that I could possibly do, Miss Manette, is what I have come here to do. Let me remember through what I have left of my awful life, that I opened up to you alone of all people with the truth about myself, and that you were able to feel sorry for me."

"Remember too that I begged you again and again with all my heart, to believe you are able to do better than this, Mr. Carton!"

"Do not beg me any more, Miss Manette. I know myself better than you, and I know what I am able to do and what I am not able to do. I am sorry to have made you feel sad. I will finish quickly. Will you let me believe, when I remember this day, that the last time I opened my heart to someone it was to someone with a perfect and innocent spirit, and that she would never share it with anyone?"

"If that is what you want, I will do it. Yes."

"Not even to the one you come to love most in this world?"

"Mr. Carton," she answered, after fighting with this thought for a few seconds, "the secret is yours, not mine. I promise to keep it."

"Thank you, and again, God bless you."

He put her hand to his lips and moved toward the door.

"Do not fear, Miss Manette, that I will ever tell anyone about this meeting. I will never say one word about it again. If I were dead, I could not be quieter about it. And in the hour of my death I will remember this one thing as holy -- and I will thank you and bless you for it -- that my last act of honesty was made to you, and that you carry kindly in your heart my name with all my wrongs and sadness. Apart from this, may your heart be filled with light and happiness!"

He was so different to how he had ever seemed, and it was so sad to think of how much he had thrown away, and how much he forced out of his mind each day, that Lucie Manette cried deeply for him as he stood looking back at her.

"Do not be sad!" he said. "I am not worth such feelings, Miss Manette. An hour or two from now, and the low friends and the low actions that I hate, but give in to, will make me of less worth than any poor soul that walks the streets. Do not be sad! But, inside myself I will always be toward you what I am now, even if on the outside I go back to acting like I did before. The second last thing I ask of you is that you believe what I have just said."

"I will, Mr. Carton."

"And the very last thing I ask is this, and with it I will take a visitor away from you who is so opposite to you, and who is separated from you by a space that can never be bridged. There is no point in saying it, I know, but it comes up out of my soul. For you, and for anyone whom you love, I would do anything. If my work was of a better kind that it could be used, at any cost, to help you, I would pay any price to help you or those you love. Try to remember me, at some quiet times, as deeply sincere in this one thing. The time will come, and it will not be long in coming, when new ropes will tie you even more closely to the home that you have made so beautiful. They will be the most loving ropes, and they will fill your heart with happiness. So, Miss Manette, when the picture of a happy father's face looks up at you, and you see yourself growing again in a little child at your feet, think from time to time that there is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you!"

He said "Goodbye!" and a last "God bless you!" and he left.

14. An Honest Worker

Before the eyes of Mr. Jerry Cruncher, sitting on his little chair in Fleet Street, with his ugly son beside him, there moved, every day, long lines of vehicles and people. Who could sit on anything in Fleet Street during the busy hours of the day and not lose their ability to think or hear clearly just from watching those two great lines of movement, one going east, and one going west!

With a piece of straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher watched the two rivers of opposite movement like some uneducated farmer watching a little river on his land, for fear that it would dry up. But for Jerry, there was no thought that the movement would ever dry up. And he would have felt bad if it did, because from those two rivers he made a little money each day. He would lead shy women (most of them fat and old) from Tellson's side of the rivers safely across to the opposite side. In the short time that he was with these women, he would always show so much interest in them and be so moved by knowing them that he would say he wanted to have a drink to their good health, and they would give him money to be used to do it.

It happened one day that there were so few people on the street and so few women running late, and his money was so low that he started to think that Mrs. Cruncher must be throwing herself down on her knees again. And just then he looked up to see a strange group of people coming down Fleet Street. It was some kind of a funeral, and it seemed that there was a crowd of people who were angry about it.

"Young Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his son, "it's a burying."

"Hooray, father!" cried young Jerry.

For his father there was a secret meaning behind this shout, and he did not like it. So he hit the young man on the ear.

"What do you mean? What are you hooraying at? What are you trying to say to your father, you waste of a boy! This one boy is getting to be too many for me!" said Mr. Cruncher, looking young Jerry over. "Him and his hoorays! Don't let me hear no more of you, or you'll feel some more of me. You hear?"

"I weren't doing no hurt," young Jerry argued, rubbing his cheek.

"Drop it then," said Mr. Cruncher. "I won't have none of your no hurts. Get a top of that there seat and look at the crowd."

His son obeyed him, and the crowd came closer. They were shouting and making other angry noises around two dirty old coaches, one carrying the body, and one carrying only one friend of the dead person, dressed as one does when going to a funeral. The man in the second coach did not seem to be happy with what was happening, as more and more people moved around the coach, putting him down, making faces, and shouting out: "Go on! Selling secrets! Yeah, treason!" There were many other words that were too rough to print here.

Funerals were always interesting to Mr. Cruncher. He would always take special interest when one passed Tellson's. So one could understand that this one, with a wild crowd around it was of special interest. He asked the first man to reach him:

"What is it, brother? What's it about?"

"I don't know," returned the other man, putting his hands to his mouth all the same, and shouting with a surprising heat and the greatest feeling, "Treason, yeah! How awful!"

At length, another man, with more information about the case pushed into him, and from this person, he learned that the funeral was for one Roger Cly.

"Was he guilty of treason?” asked Mr. Cruncher.

"Old Bailey, treason, yes," returned the man. "How awful! Away with him! Old Bailey, treason!"

"What do you know!" Jerry said in surprise. "I've seen him before. Dead, is he?"

"Dead as meat," returned the other, "and he can't be too dead for that too. Pull him out, there! Both of them! Pull them out!"

What he was asking for was better than any other plan that the crowd had (because they had none), and so the people crowded around the two vehicles until they could no longer move. They too started shouting, "Pull them out! Pull them out!"

When they opened the door of the second coach, the man in it jumped out and was in their hands for a very short time. He was so alert and made such good use of that time that he was soon running up a side street, after losing his coat, hat, hand scarf, and other things that show one has come to cry at a funeral.

The people happily destroyed these pieces of his clothes, while the shop owners quickly closed up their shops. In those days, a crowd like this would stop at nothing, and it was feared by all. They had already opened the coach with the body in it when one of the smarter people in the crowd came up with a different plan: They would make a party out of burying it! Again, because there were so few thinkers there, any plan was happily received. Eight people jumped into the coach, with a dozen more outside it. As many as were able climbed on top of the coach with the body in it. One of the first ones inside the empty coach was Jerry Cruncher, who was careful to hide his messy head of hair from Tellson's by pushing into the far side of the coach.

The men driving the coach, who were there to do the burying, disagreed with these changes in the plans, but the river, being dangerously near, and someone from the crowd saying that the cold water in it could be used to bring some better thinking on the part of the drivers, it was not long before they changed their mind. The new plan called for a man who cleans chimneys to drive the first coach, with the real driver beside him to show the way. A man who sells pies was the new driver of the second coach, again with the real driver beside him. Before the group had moved far down the street they came to a man with a bear that could dance and do tricks. He and the bear were added to the crowd, and the bear, a black one, added a special touch to make the movement even more interesting.

So, with much beer drinking, pipe smoking, song singing, and many jokes about how sad they were, the wild crowd moved on, adding ever more people as they went, and forcing shops to close their doors and windows as they went. They were going to a church called Saint Pancras in the Fields. After some time they reached their target. They all forced their way into the burying ground and buried the body in their own way, to finish off their party.

With the job finished, and the crowd looking for other entertainment, another smart member (or maybe the same one as before) believed it would be fun to take hold of people on the street and say that they too had been found guilty of treason, just for the fun of scaring them. In this way, they ran after and roughly handled dozens of innocent people who had never been near the Old Bailey. From this it was easy for the wild crowd to change their sport to one of breaking windows, and then to breaking into pubs. At last, a few hours later, after a few summer houses had been pulled down and some fences broken to make weapons for the worst members of the crowd, word moved through the crowd that the police were coming. On hearing this, the crowd melted away, piece by piece. It is unclear if the police were coming or not, but this is the pattern for most such crowds.

Mr. Cruncher did not join in the other sports. Instead, he stayed behind in the church yard, to talk to and encourage the men who had been driving the coach before the trouble started. The place seemed to make him relax. He was able to get a pipe at a pub near there, and he smoked it while looking in through the bars on the fence around it, seriously studying the place where Roger Cly had been buried.

"Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher to himself as he often did, "you seed that there Cly that day in court, and you seed with your own eyes that he was a young one, and well made too."

Having finished his pipe and thought a little longer, he turned back, wanting to be at his place in front of Tellson's before closing time. It is not clear if his thinking about right and wrong had made him sick, or if he was not sick at all, or if he just wanted to visit an important man, but on his way home he stopped in to see an important doctor who he often visited.

Young Jerry had shown great interest in filling in for his father; he reported that no jobs had come up during that time. The bank closed, the very old men who worked there came out, the time was marked, and Mr. Cruncher and his son went home to tea.

"Now, I tell you where it is!" said Mr. Cruncher to his wife, on coming in. "If, as a honest worker my work goes wrong tonight, I will know that you have been praying against me, and I'll work you for it just the same as if I seen you do it."

Mrs. Cruncher shook her head sadly.

"Why, you're at it before my face!" said Mr. Cruncher, with signs of angry worry.

"I'm saying nothing."

"Well, then, don't think nothing. You might as well drop as think. You may as well go against me one way as another. Stop them both."

"Yes, Jerry."

"Yes, Jerry," repeated Mr. Cruncher sitting down to eat. "Ah! It is Yes, Jerry. That's about it. You may say Yes, Jerry."

Mr. Cruncher had no clear meaning in what he was saying, but he used her own words, as people often do, to let her see that he did not think they were good enough.

"You and your Yes, Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out of his bread and butter, and acting like he was adding something very special to it by picking up a very little piece that fell in the plate. "Ah! I think so. I believe you."

"You were going out tonight?” asked his good wife, when he took another bite.

"Yes, I am."

"Can I go with you, father?” his son asked quickly.

"No, you may not. I'm a going, as your mother knows, fishing.

"There's a lot of rust on your fishing stick, is there not, father?”

"Never you mind."

"Will you be bringing fish home, father?"

"If I don't, you'll have little to help you tomorrow," returned the man, shaking his head. "Anyway, that's questions enough for you. I'm not going out until long after you go to bed."

For what was left of the night, he kept a very careful watch over Mrs. Cruncher, keeping her busy with his angry talk, to stop her from thinking any prayers that could be used to hurt his plans. He encouraged his son to keep her busy with talk too, and made her life hard by saying anything bad that he could think of about her, just so she would not have time to think or pray. The most religious person could not show more faith in the power of prayer than he did in the way he feared his wife praying. It was like a person who does not believe in ghosts being afraid of a ghost story.

"And mind you!" said Mr. Cruncher. "No games tomorrow! If I, as an honest worker, am able to bring home a piece or two of meat, I'll have none of your not touching it and eating only bread. If I, as an honest worker, am able to buy a little beer, I'll have none of you saying that you only want water. When you go to Rome, do as Rome does. Rome will be an ugly friend to you if you don't. I'm your Rome, you know."

Then he returned to talking about his problems.

"With you flying in the face of your own food and drink! I don't know how hard you will make it for us to get food and drink here, by your dropping tricks and your cruel actions. Look at your boy: he is yours, isn't he? He's as thin as a stick. Do you call yourself a mother and not know that a mother's first job is to fill her boy out?"

This touched young Jerry's heart, who pushed his mother to do her first job, and whatever else she did or did not do, above all things to give special interest to that first job of a mother, so kindly and wisely pointed to by his other parent.

This is how the evening went with the Cruncher family, until young Jerry was told to go to bed, and his mother was given the same rule. They both obeyed. Mr. Cruncher got through the first part of the night smoking pipes, and did not start his trip until one in the morning. About that time, he got up from his chair, took a key out of his pocket, opened a locked cabinet, and brought out a bag, a strong iron bar of a good size to carry, a rope and chain, and other things like that to be used to do his 'fishing'. Pulling these things around himself in a way that was easy to carry, he said one more angry word to Mrs. Cruncher, put out the light, and left.

Young Jerry, who had not taken his clothes off when he went to bed, left a short time after his father. Under cover of darkness, he moved out of the room, down the steps, and out into the streets. He had no worries about getting back into the house later, because many people lived in it, and the door was always open.

Pushed on by a deep interest in knowing the secrets of his father's honest work, young Jerry stayed as close to walls and door openings as his eyes were to each other. He stayed close enough to see his loved parent without being seen himself. His loved parent had not gone far before he was joined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, and the two walked on together.*

(*Izaak Walton wrote a book on fishing at that time.)

In less than half an hour they were on an open road, past the winking eyes of lanterns and the more than winking eyes of the watchmen. Out here, another "fisherman" joined the first two so quietly that young Jerry could have believed that the second man had changed to two by magic.

The three went on, and young Jerry went on, until the three stopped where the ground on one side of the road was much higher than the road itself. There was a low brick wall on the high ground, with a low iron fence on top of that. The three turned up a narrow road leading to the side, where the low wall grew to be eight or ten feet high. Hiding at the corner, young Jerry saw, by the light of the moon, the shape of his loved parent climbing over an iron gate. He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, and then the third. They all dropped softly on the ground inside the gate, and lay there for a while, maybe listening. Then they moved away on their hands and knees.

It was now young Jerry's turn to move up to the gate, which he did. He looked in through the bars to see the three fishermen moving on all fours through some long grass! The white stones marking where people were buried there -- for this was a big church burying ground -- looked like ghosts watching the men. And the church tower looked over it all like a giant ghost. The men had not moved far before they stopped and stood up. And then they started to fish.

They fished with a spade at first. A short while later, the loved parent pulled out another tool. Whatever tools they used, they worked hard with them, until the ringing of the church bell filled young Jerry with such fear that he turned and ran, with his hair sticking up as much as his father's.

The great interest he had held for so long about what his father did when he went out at night soon stopped him in his run, and led him back to the gate. When he looked in, he could see that they were still fishing, but that they now had a bite. There were sounds of movement down below, and they were bent over as if pulling at something very heavy down in the hole. Little by little the weight broke away from the dirt that was still holding it down, and came to where young Jerry could see it. He knew what it would be, but when he saw his loved parent about to force it open, he became so filled with fear about what he would see that he ran off again and never stopped until he had run a mile or more.

Even then he would not have stopped for anything less important than breathing, it being a race with a ghost that he was running, and a race he wanted badly to finish in one piece. He could picture in his mind the box with the body in it standing up on its narrow end and jumping along after him as he ran. Always he could see it moving close behind him, and at times going by beside him, maybe reaching out to take hold of his arm. It was not a runner to let get near him. It was a devil that could be in many places at the same time too, so that at the same time that he believed it was running behind him, he also stayed out of the dark side roads for fear it would be hiding in them and would drop quickly on him like a wild kite without a tail. It was hiding in the openings for doors at the side of the road too. And in any shadows on the road, where it would lie on its back trying to make him fall over it. All this time it was still running after him, and getting closer and closer, so that when the boy reached his own door he had reason for being half dead. Even then it would not leave him, but followed him up to his room, jumping from step to step. It moved into the bed beside him, and was lying heavily on his chest when he fell asleep.

Sometime between the first sign of light and the sun coming up, young Jerry was pulled from his troubled sleep by the sound of his father in the family room. Something had gone wrong, or so that is what young Jerry was thinking from seeing his father holding Mrs. Cruncher by the ears and hitting her head against the board at the head of their bed.

"I told you I would," said Mr. Cruncher, "and I did."

"Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!" his wife begged.

"You put yourself against me making anything from my business," said Jerry, "and when you do that, me and the men I work with lose out. You was to love and obey; why the Devil don't you?"

"I try to be a good wife, Jerry," the poor woman argued with tears.

"Is it being a good wife to fight against his business? Is it loving your husband to hate his business? Is it obeying your husband to not obey him on things to do with his business?"

"You hadn't taken to that awful business back then, Jerry."

"It's enough for you," answered back Mr. Cruncher, "to be the wife of an honest worker, and not fill your female mind with thoughts about when he started his business or when he didn't. A loving and obeying wife would let his business alone. Call yourself a religious woman do you? If you're a religious woman, then give me one who isn't religious. You have no more feeling for what a wife should do than the bottom of this Thames River has for a building. In both cases, such a thing has to be knocked into place."

The argument was all done in a quiet voice, and ended with the honest worker kicking off his clay covered boots, and lying down on the floor. After taking a secret look at him lying on his back with his rust covered hands under his head for a pillow, his son lay himself back down too, and fell asleep again.

There was no fish for breakfast and not much of anything else either. Mr. Cruncher was angry, and kept the cover of an iron pot beside him to throw if he needed to stop Mrs. Cruncher from praying over the food. He was clean and dressed in time to head off with his son for what most people believed was his "honest work".

Young Jerry, walking with the seat under his arm at his father's side along sunny crowded Fleet Street, was a very different Young Jerry from the boy who ran home through the darkness the night before, in fear of the awful ghost that was running after him. His mind was sharp with the new day, and his fears from the night before were gone, two things that made him much like others walking down Fleet Street in London on that beautiful morning.

"Father," said young Jerry as they walked along, being careful to keep distance between himself and his father, with the chair between them, "What is a Dig it Up Man?"

Mr. Cruncher came to a stop before he answered. "How should I know?"

"I thought you knowed everything, father," said his rough son.

"Hmm, well!" returned Mr. Cruncher, moving on again, and lifting his hat to let his rough hair fall out. "He's a worker."

"What's he make, father?” asked the sharp young Jerry.

"What he makes," said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his mind, "is things to be used by scientists."

"Persons' bodies, isn't it, father?” asked the bright boy.

"I believe it is something like that," said Mr. Cruncher.

"Oh father, I would so like to be a Dig it Up Man when I'm quite growed up!"

Mr. Cruncher relaxed. But he shook his head like someone preaching about right and wrong. "It will rest on what you do with your abilities. Learn to never say no more than what you can help to nobody. Do this and there is no telling now what you may come to be then.” As young Jerry raced ahead to put the chair in place for his father, Mr. Cruncher added to himself, "Jerry, you honest worker, there's hope that the boy may one day be a blessing to you, and make up for the troubles his mother has brought."

15. Knitting

The drinking had started earlier than most days at Mr. Defarge's wine shop. As early as six in the morning sickly yellow faces had looked in through the windows and been able to see other faces inside bending over glasses of wine. Mr. Defarge sold a watered down wine at the best of times, but there was even more water in the glasses at this time. From the look on the faces of the people drinking there, it was a sour wine too, because they were not smiling. An air of laughing and singing was not jumping out of Mr. Defarge's grape juice on this morning; instead, only a slow burning fire could be seen hiding behind the drinks.

This had been the third morning in as many days that the drinkers had come there so early. It had started on Monday, and this was now Wednesday. There was more thinking than drinking happening, and many men had come to listen and whisper who could not have paid one coin for the drinks, not even to save their soul. But they had as much interest in what was happening as they would have had if they could buy whole barrels of wine. They moved from seat to seat and corner to corner, swallowing talk instead of drinks, with greedy looks on their faces.

For all the people there, the owner of the shop was nowhere to be seen. But the people there were not looking for him. No one asked about him, and no one was surprised to see only Madam Defarge in her seat, watching over the wine sales with a bowl of small coins in front of her, which were as rough and knocked about as the people from whose poor pockets they had come.

It may be that spies had visited the wine shop at that time. If they had, they would have seen that other interests had stopped. Such people were always looking for secrets, from the prisons to the home of the king himself. Card games had stopped. The people playing dominoes were now building little houses with them as they talked of other things. Drinkers would draw shapes on the table in the little wine that fell from their glasses. Madam Defarge herself picked at the pattern on her sleeve with a little stick, and saw and heard something far off in the distance that others could not see or hear.

It was like this, in Saint Antoine's wine shop, for the whole morning. It was noon when two men, covered with dust, walked through Saint Antoine's streets, under the saint's hanging lanterns. One was Mr. Defarge, and the other a road worker in a blue hat. Thirsty and dirty, the two men came into the wine shop. Their coming had started a fire inside Saint Antoine, a fire that moved from face to face at most doors and windows. Yet no one followed them, and no one said a word when they came into the shop. But they did all turn to look and listen.

"Good day, friends!" said Mr. Defarge.

Maybe it was a sign for them to talk, because he received many Good days in return.

"The weather's not good at all," said Defarge, shaking his head.

On hearing this, they all looked at one another and then down at the floor, without saying anything. All but one man, who stood up and walked out.

"My wife," said Defarge to Mrs. Defarge, but loudly enough for the others to hear: "I have travelled a few miles with this good road worker, called Jack. I met him, by accident, a day and a half's travel outside of Paris. He is a good boy, this road worker, called Jack. Give him a drink, wife!"

A second man stood up and left. Madam Defarge put wine before the road worker called Jack, who took off his blue hat to the crowd, and had a drink. Inside his shirt, he carried rough dark bread. He ate it between drinks, and sat there chewing and drinking near Madam Defarge's counter. A third man stood and went out.

Mr. Defarge poured himself some wine too, but not as much as he had given to the stranger, for whom the drink was very special. He stood waiting for the man from the village to finish his breakfast.

He looked at no one and no one looked at him, not even Madam Defarge, who was now hard at work knitting.

"Have you finished your meal?” he asked after some time.

"Yes, thank you."

"Come, then! You can see the room that I said you would stay in. You will be very happy with it."

Out of the wine shop, into the street; out of the street into the yard; out of the yard and up some steep steps. Out of the steps and into a little room under the roof -- a room where a white-haired man had sat in the past, on a low bench, leaning forward and busily making shoes.

No white-haired man was there now; but the three men were there, the ones who had left the wine shop one by one. Between them and the white-haired man far off in London, was that hole in the wall through which they had looked in at him in the past.

Defarge closed the door carefully and spoke in a quiet voice.

"Jack One, Jack Two, Jack Three! This is the witness I, Jack Four, went to meet. He'll tell you all you need to know. Speak, Jack Five!"

The road worker, blue hat in hand, rubbed it on his dark forehead and said, "Where should I start, sir?

"Start," was Mr. Defarge's wise answer, "at the start."

"I saw him then, sirs," started the road worker, "a year ago this summer, under the Marquis' coach, hanging by the chain. Here is how he looked. I was finished for the day, with the sun going to bed, and the Marquis' coach was going very slowly up the hill. He was hanging from the chain -- like this."

Again the road worker went through the story, which he should have known perfectly by now from having told it so many times over the past year in his village.

Jack One cut in and asked if he'd ever seen the man before.

"Never," answered the road worker, returning to the vertical.

Jack Three asked how he later knew who the man was.

"By how tall he was," said the road worker softly, and with his finger against his nose. "When Sir the Marquis asked later that night, 'Say, what is he like?' I answered 'Tall as a king'."

"You should have said short as a dwarf," returned Jack Two.

"But what did I know? He had not done anything yet, and he had never told me of his plan. Look! If I had known that, I would not have said anything. Sir the Marquis could point at me, standing near our little fountain, and say, 'To me! Bring that man!' And believe me, sirs, I would have said nothing."

"He's right there, Jack," Mr. Defarge said to the one who had questioned the road worker.

"Good!" said the road worker, looking like he did not know what was happening. "The tall man was gone, and they looked for him -- how many months? Nine, ten, eleven?"

"The number is not important," said Defarge. "He had been hiding well, but in the end it was just his bad luck that he was found. Go on!"

"I was again at work on the side of the hill, and the sun was again about to go to bed. There I was putting my tools together to walk down to my house in the village below, where it is already dark, when I lift my eyes and see coming over the hill six soldiers. In the middle of them is a tall man with his arms tied -- to his sides -- like this!"

With the help of his always ready hat, he acted the part of a man with his elbows tied together behind him.

"So I stand to the side, sirs, by my pile of stones, to watch the soldiers and their prisoner go by (for it is a quiet road, that, where anything of interest is well worth stopping for), and at first, as they were coming toward me, I see no more than that they are six soldiers and a tall man tied up, and that they are almost black to me, with a red border on the side where the sun was going down behind them. Also, I see their shadows going out on the ground and up against the cliff on the opposite side of the road, like giants. And I see that they are covered with dust, and that the dust moves with them as they come, step, step, step! But when they get quite close to me, I see who the tall man is, and he sees me and knows who I am. Ah, but he would have been happy to throw himself over the side of the hill on the down side of the road again, as he had done on the evening when I first saw him, close to that same place!"

The labourer talked like he was there now, and it was clear that he could see it clearly in his mind; maybe he had not seen much in his life.

"I do not let the soldiers know that I know who the tall man is; he does not show the soldiers that he knows me; we do it, and we know it, with our eyes. 'Come on!' says the leader of the group, pointing to the village. 'Bring him quickly to his death!' and they bring him faster. I follow. His arms are sore from being tied so tightly, his timber shoes are big and slow, and he is crippled. Because he is crippled, and slow, they drive him forward with their guns -- like this!"

He acts the part of a man being forced forward by the timber end of their guns.

"As they go down the hill like crazy men running a race, he falls. They laugh and pick him up again. His face is bleeding and covered in dust, but he cannot touch it. And they laugh at that too. They bring him into the village, and all the village run out to look. They take him out past the windmill and up to the prison. All the village see the prison gates open in the darkness of the night -- and swallow him -- like this!"

He opened his mouth wide as he could, and shut it loudly as his teeth hit together. Seeing that he didn't want to destroy the effect by opening it again, Defarge said, "Go on, Jack."

"All the village," the road worker went on, standing up on his toes, and speaking in a low voice, "falls back; all the village whispers by the fountain; all the village sleeps; all the village dreams of that sad one behind the locks and bars of the prison on the steep rocky hill, never to come out of it, but to die. In the morning, with my tools on my shoulder, eating my piece of black bread as I go, I do a walk around the prison on my way back to work. There I see him, high up, behind the bars of his high iron cage, still covered in blood and dust, and looking out. He has no free hand to wave to me. It is too dangerous for me to call out to him. He looks at me like he is a dead man."

Defarge and the other three looked darkly at each other. The looks on all of their faces are dark, controlled, and full of hate as they listened to the story coming from this man from the country. The spirit of all of them, while secret, was one of strength too. They had the air of a rough court; Jack One and Two sitting on the old mattress, each with his chin resting on his hand and his eyes on the road worker; Jack Three, equally interested, on one knee behind them, with his hand always moving across the nerves around his mouth and nose; and Defarge standing between them and the story teller, whom he had put in the light of the window, looking first from him to them and then from them to him.

"Go on, Jack," said Defarge.

"He stays up there in his iron cage for some days. The village looks at him secretly, for it is afraid. But from a distance, it looks up at the prison on the steep rocks; and in the evening, when the work of the day is finished and they come together by the fountain, all faces are turned toward the prison. In the past, they were always looking toward the building where news and mail were received, but now they looked toward the prison. They whisper at the fountain that while it is said that he will die, it is going to wait on someone in Paris who is saying that the man was angry because of the death of his child. They say that someone is asking the King himself. What do I know? It's possible. Maybe yes, maybe no."

"Listen to this, Jack," Number One of that name seriously put in. "A letter was given to the King and to the Queen. All of us here, apart from you, saw the King take it, in his coach, on the street, sitting beside the Queen. It's Defarge, whom you see, who, in danger of losing his life, ran out in front of the horses with the letter in his hand."

"And hear this too, Jack!" said Number Three, who was down on one knee, his fingers still moving over his face like he was hungry for something, but not for food or drink. "The guards, on horse and on foot, circled around Defarge and hit him. You hear?"

"I hear, sirs."

"Go on then," said Defarge.

"On the other hand, they whisper at the fountain," the man from the country went on, "that he was brought to our part of the country to be killed, and that nothing will stop it. They even whisper that because he has killed Sir, and because Sir is the father of his workers, he will be killed as one who has killed his own father. One old man says that his right hand, holding the knife, will be burned off before his face. He says that, into cuts that will be made in his arms, his chest, and his legs, there'll be poured hot oil, melted metal, and other chemicals. And in the end, his body will be pulled into four parts by four strong horses. That old man says all this was done to a prisoner who tried to kill King Louis Fifteen. But how do I know if he is telling the truth? I have no schooling."

"Listen again, Jack!" said the man with a hand moving over his face. "The name of that prisoner was Damiens, and it was all done in open day, in the open streets of this city of Paris, and the worst thing about the crowd of people who came to watch was that rich, well-dressed women who were enthusiastic about staying until the end -- until the end, Jack, after it was dark, when he had lost two legs and an arm, and still breathed! Yes, it happened… years ago. How old are you?"

"Thirty-five," said the road worker, who looked sixty.

"It happened when you were more than ten years old. You could have seen it."

"Enough!" said Defarge seriously. "Long live the Devil. Go on."

"Well, some whisper this, and some whisper that. They speak of nothing else; even the fountain seems to dance to their music. At last, on Sunday night when all the village is asleep, soldiers come down from the prison, hitting the end of their guns on the stones of the little street. Workers dig, workers hammer, soldiers laugh and sing. In the morning, by the fountain there is a hanging stage forty feet high, poisoning the water."

The road worker looked not at the roof, but through it, and pointed like he could see the hanging stage somewhere in the sky.

"All work is stopped. We all come together there. Nobody leads the cows out; the cows are there with us. At noon, the drums sound. Soldiers have walked into the prison during the night and they come with him now, tied as before, and with a ball of cloth in his mouth, tied like this, with a tight string, making him look almost like he was laughing.” He showed them by using his hands to pull the corners of his mouth up toward his ears. "On the top of the stage is the knife he had used to kill the Marquis, standing on its handle. He is hanged there, forty feet high -- and is left hanging there, poisoning the water."

They looked at one another as he rubbed his face with his blue hat. Just telling the story had started him sweating.

"It's awful, sirs. How can the women and children get water? Who can go there to talk in the evening under the shadow of his body hanging up there? When I left the village on Monday evening, as the sun was going down, the shadow of that body reached across the church, the windmill, the prison -- it seemed to go across the whole earth, sirs, to where the sky meets the ground!"

The hungry man chewed one of his fingers as he looked at the other three, and his finger shook with the feeling that was on him.

"That's all, sirs. I left as the sun went down (like I had been warned to do), and I walked on, that night and half of the next day, until I met (as I was warned I would) this friend. With him, I came on, now riding and now walking, through the rest of yesterday and through last night. And here you see me!"

"After a dark, sad minute with no one saying a word, the first Jack said, "Good! Your actions and your story have been good. Will you wait for us for a little while, outside the door?"

"I would be glad to," said the road worker, and Defarge led him to the top of the steps where he sat and waited while Defarge returned to talk with the others.

The three were standing and their heads were close together when Defarge came back into the room.

"What do you say, Jack?” asked Number One. "Do we add this name to the list?"

"Add him, to be destroyed," returned Defarge.

"Wonderful!" said the hungry man.

"The castle and all the family?” asked the first?

"The castle and all the family," said Defarge. "Destroy them."

The hungry man repeated with great happiness, "Wonderful!" and started chewing on another finger.

"Are you sure," asked Jack Two of Defarge, "that no trouble will come from the way we keep the list? I know it's safe, because no one apart from ourselves can read it; but will we always be able to read it... or I should say, will she?"

"Jack," returned Defarge, pulling himself up tall, "If my wife had tried to keep the list in her mind alone she would not lose a word of it, not even part of a word. But knitted in her own language, it will always be as clear as the sun. Trust Madam Defarge. It would be easier for the weakest person that has ever lived to kill himself than to have even one letter of his name or of his evil actions fall from the list that Madam Defarge is knitting."

There were words of agreement, and then the hungry man asked, "Is this country labourer to be sent back soon? I hope so. He is very stupid, and I think that makes him a little dangerous."

"He knows nothing," said Defarge, "at least nothing more than would have him hanged from the same height. Let him stay with me. I will take care of him, and put him back on the road to his home. He wants to see how the rich live -- the King, the Queen, and the Court. Let him see them on Sunday."

"What?” shouted the hungry man with his eyes wide open in surprise. "You think it is a good sign that he wants to see the King's family and other rich people?"

"Jack," said Defarge, "carefully show a cat milk if you want it to thirst for it. And carefully show a dog the animal that it must kill if you want it to bring it down one day."

Nothing more was said, and the road worker, who was already asleep on the top step, was encouraged to lay himself down on the mattress in the room and have a rest. He needed no pushing, and was soon asleep.

For a slave like that poor labourer, there were many worse rooms in Paris that he could have stayed at, and so he was happy with it, apart from a strange fear he had of Mrs. Defarge. Madam Defarge herself sat knitting at her counter all day, showing no interest in the road worker that could mark him as being part of something secret. The way she was able to do that made him shake in his timber shoes each time he looked at her. In himself he was thinking that if she could show no sign of what he knew she knew, she could just as easily say that he killed someone and have him killed in return without any show of emotion.

So when Sunday came, the road worker was not happy (even if he said he was) to have Madam Defarge coming with her husband and himself to Versailles. It was equally troubling to have her knitting in the coach all the way there. And on top of that it was worrying to have Madam Defarge in the crowd, still with her knitting in her hands, in the afternoon when they waited to see the coach that would bring the King and Queen through the streets.

"You work hard, Madam," said a man near her.

"Yes," answered Madam Defarge. "I have much to do."

"What do you make, Madam?"

"Many things."

"Like what?"

"Like," returned Madam Defarge quietly, "cloths to cover dead bodies."

The man quickly moved away from her, and the road worker used his little blue hat to cool his face, feeling that things were too close and too hot there in that crowd. If he needed a King and a Queen to lift his spirits, he soon had them, as the big-faced King and his beautiful Queen came by in their golden coach, followed by the most important people from their court... a crowd of laughing women and beautiful men, in jewelry and expensive cloth, and powder and all of them, male and female, with proudly beautiful looks that showed they had no interest in anyone but themselves. The road worker was so full of all that he was seeing that he could not control himself. He cried Long live the King! Long live the Queen! Long live everybody and everything! like he had never heard of all the Jacks and their beliefs. Then there were gardens, fountains, beautiful open walking places, green grass by a river, more King and Queen, more beautiful men and women, and more Long live them all! until he was moved to tears with all the emotion. Through all this, which lasted a good three hours, there were others around him shouting too, and Defarge kept his hand on his neck, as if holding him back from flying at the people he was worshipping, and hurting them.

"Very good!" said Defarge when it was over. "You're a good boy!"

The road worker was, at this time, starting to think that he had acted in a way that would make the Jacks angry; but this word from Mr. Defarge encouraged him.

"You are the man we want," said Defarge in his ear. "You make these stupid people believe they will be loved forever; and when they do, then they act even more selfishly, not knowing that this is the very thing that will bring them to their end."

"Hey!" cried the road worker, thinking about what Defarge had said. "That's true."

"These stupid people know nothing. While they hate you and would kill you and a hundred like you before they would lose even one of their horses or dogs, they only know what your voice tells them. Let it trick them a little longer. It cannot trick them too much."

Madam Defarge looked without feeling or interest at the man and moved her head to show she agreed.

"As for you," she said, "you would shout and cry for anything if it made a show and a noise, would you not?"

"To be honest, Madam, I think so. At least for now."

"If you were given a big pile of dolls and you were to tear them to pieces for what you could get from them, you would take the ones that were the richest, and the ones with the most beautiful clothes. Tell us! Wouldn't you do that?"

"Yes, truly, Madam."

"Yes, and if you were given many different birds, and you were to tear them to pieces, for what you could get from them, you would take the ones with the most beautiful feathers first, would you not?"

"It's true, Madam."

"You have seen both dolls and birds today," said Madam Defarge with a wave of her hand toward the place where they had earlier been watching the King and Queen. "Now, go home!"

16. Still Knitting

Madam Defarge and her husband returned happily to the heart of Saint Antoine, while one man on his own, and wearing a blue hat, walked through the night and through the dust over the many tiring miles toward that point where the castle of Sir the Marquis, now dead and buried, listened to the whispering trees. The stone faces of the castle now had so much time to listen to the trees and to the fountain, that the few thin people from the village who, in looking for weeds to eat or dry sticks to burn, came close enough to see the big open yard and the wide stone steps at the front of the castle, left knowing full well that the stone faces had changed in an important way. The saying in the village -- a weak saying like that of the people who lived there -- was that when the knife went into Sir the Marquis, the faces changed from being proud to being angry and hurt. It went on to say that when that man was hanged from forty feet above the fountain, the look on the statues changed to show cruel happiness at what had happened to him; and they would stay that way forever. In the stone face over the great window of the bedroom where the killing took place, there were found two little concave marks on each side of the nose (like Sir the Marquis had), which nobody could remember it having before. And at those times when two or three of the poor village people left the crowd to go and look at the stone statue of Sir the Marquis, a thin finger would not have pointed to it for a minute before they all ran into the forest in fear, like the lucky rabbits who were able to live there.

Castle and poor little house, stone face and hanging body, red blood on the stone floor and clean water in the village fountain... that whole part of the country -- or, if you like, all of France itself -- was only as big as a hair, from side to side, in the light of the night sky. That is how the whole world is, with all of its best and worst, when measured by the size of just one star. And just as scientists can take a piece of light and break it down into the different colours in it, so some other greater Mind may be able to read in the little light coming from this earth of ours, every thought and act, every good spirit and bad spirit, for every person living on it.

The Defarges, husband and wife, moved slowly, under the light of the stars, in that coach they had paid to ride in, toward the gate of Paris. There was the same old stop at the guard house, where a soldier would hold a lantern up to see them and ask them questions. Mr. Defarge stepped out, knowing one or two of the soldiers there, and one of the police. The policeman he knew very well, and he hugged him warmly.

When Saint Antoine had again folded his dark wings around the Defarges, and they, having left the coach at a stop near the border of Saint Antoine, were picking their way on foot through the black mud and rubbish of his streets, Madam Defarge spoke to her husband:

"Tell me, my friend, what did Jack the policeman tell you?"

"Very little tonight, but all that he knows. There is a new secret policeman working in our part of town who is trying to find information for the government. There may be others, but there is at least one."

"Oh well!" said Madam Defarge, lifting her eyebrows with a cool business air, "We will need to add him to the list. How do you say his name?"

"He is English."

"So much the better. His name?"

"Barsad," said Defarge, making it sound French by the way he said it. And then he gave her the letters for it.

"Barsaid," repeated Madam. "Good. And his Christian name?"

"John."

"John Barsad," repeated Madam, after saying it softly to herself first. "Good. And do you know what he looks like?"

"Age, about forty; about five feet nine; black hair; dark skin for a white man; on the whole good-looking; dark eyes; thin, long face; nose like that of an eagle, but not straight, having a strange bend toward his left cheek; and a look of one with evil plans."

"Oh, my God! It is as good as a picture!" said Madam, laughing. "It will all be in the list tomorrow."

They turned into the wine shop, which was closed, because it was the middle of the night, and Madam Defarge went straight to her place at the desk, counting what little money they had taken in while away, counting the barrels, going through the books and adding some numbers of her own, and in every other way making sure the servant who had been watching the place had done his job well, before he was free to go to bed. Then she poured out the coins in the bowl for a second time and started tying them up in her scarf, in a chain of separate knots, to keep them safe during the night. All this time, Defarge, with his pipe in his mouth, walked up and down, quietly looking on, but never saying anything, which is more or less how he acted toward her in all that they did.

The night was hot and the shop, being closed and being near very dirty houses, had a bad smell to it. Mr. Defarge was in no way an expert at smells, but the smell of the wine was always stronger than the taste, and the same was true of the whiskey and other stronger drinks that he sold. He tried to blow the mixture of smells away as he put down his smoked-out pipe.

"You are tired," said Madam, lifting her eyes as she tied the money. "The smells are no worse than at other times."

"I am a little tired," her husband agreed.

"You are a little sad too," said Madam, whose fast eyes were never so busy with studying the books that they did not have a look or two for him. "Oh, you're worried about the men!"

"But my love...” started Defarge.

"But my love!" repeated Madam, moving her head strongly. "But my love! You are a weak one tonight!"

"Well, then," said Defarge, as if a thought was being squeezed out of him, "it is taking so long."

"It is taking a long time," repeated his wife. "And when has it not taken a long time? Paying someone back always takes a long time; it is the rule."

"It does not take a long time to hit a man with lightning," said Defarge.

"How long," asked Madam quietly, "does it take to make and save up the lightning? Tell me that."

Defarge lifted his head to think, as if he could find the answer.

"It does not take a long time," Madam went on, "for an earthquake to swallow a town; but tell me how long it takes to prepare the earthquake."

"A long time, I would think," said Defarge.

"But when it is ready, it happens, and it breaks into pieces everything that stands in its way. Until then, it is always preparing, even when we cannot see or hear it. That is your hope. Keep it in mind."

She tied some coins into her scarf with a look in her eyes like she was killing someone by squeezing their throat.

"I tell you," said Madam, reaching out with her right hand to show what she was saying, "that even if it is a long time on the road, it is on the road, and it is coming. I tell you that it never stops and it never turns back. I tell you that it is always coming closer. Look around and think about the lives of all the people we know; think about the faces of all these people; think about the anger that all of the Jacks are working to let loose and are becoming clearer by the hour about how to do that. Can such things go the distance? How stupid of you to think that they cannot!"

"My brave wife," Defarge returned, standing in front of her with his head bent forward a little, and his hands joined at his back, like a humble student listening to his teacher. "I am not questioning all of this. But it has lasted a long time, and it is possible... you know well, my wife, that it is possible, that it may not come during our lives."

"So? What then?” said Madam, tying another knot like she was squeezing the throat of another enemy.

"Well," said Defarge with a spirit that was partly sorry and partly arguing, "we will not be there to see it."

"But we will have helped it," returned Madam, making a strong movement with her right arm. "Nothing that we do now will be wasted. I believe with all of my heart that we will see it. But even if we do not, even if I knew for sure that we'd not see it, just show me the neck of a rich evil leader, and still I would..."

Then Madam, with her teeth squeezed tightly together, tied a very awful knot for sure.

"Wait!" cried Defarge, turning a little red as if he believed she was saying that he was afraid. "I too, my love, will stop at nothing."

"Yes, but it is your weakness that at times like this you need to see things happening to keep yourself going. Keep the anger alive with what I have said. When the time comes, you can let loose a tiger and a devil and they will do their work, but for now, keep a chain on them both. Don't show your feelings, but always keep them ready."

Madam pushed home the seriousness of what she was saying by hitting her little counter with the chain of coins as if she was knocking its brains out, and then putting the heavy scarf under her arm in a sweet way, and quietly saying that it must be time to go to bed.

At noon the next day this wonderful woman was in her same place in the wine shop knitting away without stopping. There was a red flower lying beside her on the counter, and if she now and then looked at it, it did not in any way take her away from her real interest. There were a few people, drinking or not drinking, standing or seated, around the shop. The day was very hot, and lots of flies were looking in the sticky glasses around Madam for something to drink, only to fall dead at the bottom of them. Their deaths had no effect on the other flies, out walking around, who looked at them in the coolest way (as if they themselves were elephants or some other very different animal with no interest in the deaths of other flies), until they too had died. It is interesting to think about how little thought flies give to such things! It may be that the King and all who were closest to him were acting in the same way that sunny summer day!

A man coming in the door threw a shadow on Madam Defarge which she felt to be a new one. She put down her knitting and started to put the flower in her head scarf even before looking up at the stranger.

Interestingly, the second Madam Defarge picked up the flower, people stopped talking, and one by one they started to leave the wine shop.

"Good day, Madam," said the visitor.

"Good day, sir."

That much she said out loud; but to herself she added, "Age, about forty; about five feet nine; black hair, dark skin for a white man, on the whole good-looking; dark eyes, thin, long face; nose like that of an eagle, but not straight, having a strange bend toward his left cheek; and the look on his face is one of evil plans. Good day, one and all!"

"Be good enough to give me a small glass of the strongest old wine you have, and a mouthful of cool clean water, Madam."

Madam did very nicely what was asked.

"Very good drink, this, Madam!"

It was the first time someone had said something so nice about the drink, and Madam Defarge knew enough about its past to know that it was not as he said. All the same, she said that the wine would be glad to hear that, and returned to her knitting. For a few seconds the visitor watched her fingers, and then used the break from talk to look around the shop itself.

"You are a very good knitter, Madam."

"I have done a lot of it."

"A beautiful pattern too!"

"You think so?” Madam asked with a smile.

"Very much so. May I ask what it is for?"

"A way to use my time," said Madam, still looking at him with a smile while her fingers went on moving.

"Not to be used?"

"Maybe, and maybe not. I may find a use for it one day. If I do... well,...” said Madam, breathing in and moving her head as part of a serious game she was playing with him, "I'll use it!"

Strangely, the people of Saint Antoine did not seem to like that red flower on Madam Defarge's head. Two men, who had come in separately, and who were about to buy drinks, when seeing the flower acted like they had been hoping to meet a friend who was not there, and they went away. At the same time, all of the people who had been there when the stranger first came in, were now gone.

The man working secretly for the government had seen all of this, but he could not work out why it had happened. And they had all left in a way that did not seem to be planned, like it was only by accident that they all chose this time not to be there.

"JOHN," thought Madam to herself, reading over her work as her fingers knitted, and as her eyes looked at the stranger. "Stay long enough, and I will have knitted BARSAD before you leave."

"Are you married, Madam?” "Yes."

"Children?"

"No children."

"Is business bad?"

"Yes, very bad. The people are too poor."

"Oh the poor sad people! So badly used by the rich, as you say!"

"No, as you say," Madam answered, quickly knitting in an extra something after his name... something that would not help him in the future.

"Forgive me, it was I who said it; but surely you think so too, don't you?"

"I think?” returned Madam in a high voice. "I and my husband have enough to do to keep this wine shop open without thinking. All we think of here is how to live. That is what we think of, and it gives us, from morning to night, enough to think about without confusing our heads with thoughts for others. I should think for others? Oh, no!"

The man, who was there to pick up anything he could use against them, did not let it show on his face that she had won that one. But he stood, with his elbow leaning on Madam Defarge's little counter, like one who is relaxed and talking about nothing important, while taking a small drink from time to time from his glass of strong wine.

"A bad business this killing of Gaspard, Madam. Ah, poor Gaspard!" He said this breathing out sadly like he had a great feeling for the man who had been hanged above the fountain.

"Truly," returned Madam coolly and lightly, "if people use knives in such a way, they must pay for it. He knew before he did it what price he would have to pay; now he has paid the price."

"I believe," said the man, dropping his soft voice to one that would go with sharing a secret, and using every muscle in his face to show that he was angry about the hanging, and that he was one of those who wanted change, "...I believe there is much love for the poor man, and anger at what happened to him, here in this part of the city. Just between you and me!"

"Is there?” answered Madam without any feeling. "Is there not?"

"Oh, here is my husband!" said Madam Defarge.

As the owner of the wine shop walked in the door, the man working secretly for the government touched his hat and said with a smile, "Good day, Jack!" Defarge stopped where he was, and looked closely at him.

"Good day, Jack," the man repeated, but not with so much confidence or so much of a smile this time.

"You have tricked yourself, sir," returned the owner of the shop. "You must have me confused with someone else. That is not my name. My name is Ernest Defarge."

"It's all the same," said the stranger in a foolish but confused way. "Good day!"

"Good day," answered Defarge dryly.

"I was saying to Madam, with whom I was having a nice talk before you came in, that they say there is -- and it does not surprise me -- strong feelings of sadness and anger in Saint Antoine touching the sad death of poor Gaspard."

"No one has told me about it," said Defarge, shaking his head. "I know nothing of it."

Having said that, he moved behind the little counter and stood with his hand on the back of his wife's chair, looking over the counter at the man whom they both did not like, and whom they both would have gladly killed.

The stranger, who knew his business well, did not change his spirit, but emptied his glass of wine, had a little drink of water, and then asked for another glass of wine. Madam Defarge poured it for him, returned to her knitting again, and hummed a little song to herself.

"You seem to know this part of the city well, that is to say, better than I do," Defarge pointed out.

"Not at all. But I do hope to know it better. I am deeply interested in the sad people who live here.

"Ha!" Defarge said to himself.

"Talking to you, Mr. Defarge, has made me remember," went on the visitor, "that I have some very interesting information that is tied up with your name."

"Really?” said Defarge, showing no interest.

"Yes, it's true. I know that when Doctor Manette was let out of prison, you, as his old servant, had the job of caring for him. He was brought here. Do you see how much I know about it?"

"Surely it is what happened," said Defarge. A touch from his wife's elbow as she was knitting was enough to tell him to agree, but to say as little as possible.

"It was to you," said the man, "that his daughter came; and it was from your care that his daughter took him, helped by a man in a neat brown suit. What was his name? He wears a little wig. Lorry! That's it! From the bank of Tellson's and Company, over in England."

"Yes?” said Defarge.

"You don't hear much about them now?” asked the stranger.

"No," said Defarge.

"In effect," Madam Defarge put in, looking up from her work and her little song, "we never hear about them at all. We received news that they had arrived safely, and since then maybe a letter or two. But they have taken their road in life, and we have taken ours. We do not write to each other."

"Perfectly true, Madam," answered the visitor. "She is going to be married."

"Going to? She was beautiful enough to have been married long before now. It seems to me that you English people are very cold."

"Oh, so you know that I am English."

"I can hear it in the way you talk," returned Madam, "and what the tongue says is what the man is."

He could tell that she did not like him any more for being English, but he made the best of it and turned it to the side with a laugh. After finishing his drink, he added:

"Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married; but not to anyone from England. She is going to marry one who, like yourself, was born in France. And speaking of Gaspard (Ah, poor Gaspard! It was so cruel!) -- it is a strange piece of news that she is going to marry the nephew of the man whom Gaspard killed. In other words, she is going to marry the new Marquis. He lives in England, without anyone knowing that he is a Marquis. He goes by the name of Charles Darnay now, and not his true name of Evremonde.

Madam Defarge did not change, as she went on knitting. But the information had an effect on her husband that one could feel. Try as he did, to hide his feelings by using a match to light his pipe, he was worried, and it showed in the shaking of his hands. The stranger would not be doing the job he was sent there for if he did not see this, and remember it later.

Having hit a sore nerve with this one piece of information, and with no one else coming in for him to question, Mr. Barsad paid for his drink and left, taking time to say very nicely that he looked forward to talking with Mr. and Madam Defarge again sometime. For some minutes after he left, the husband and wife stayed as they were, thinking that he could return.

"Can it be true," said Defarge in a low voice and looking down at his wife as he stood smoking, with his hand on the back of her chair: "what he said of Miss Manette?"

"Coming from him," said Madam Defarge, with the confidence she always had, "it is probably false. But it could be true."

"If it is...” Defarge started, and then stopped.

"If it is?” repeated his wife.

"...And if it happens, as we hope, that we live to win our war, I hope, for her, that God will keep her husband out of France."

"God will lead her husband," said Madam Defarge, with the same confidence, "and take him where he needs to go. God will lead him to the end that is right for him. That is all I know."

"But it is very strange -- at least for now, is it not very strange," said Defarge, almost begging his wife to see the truth in what he was saying, "that, after all of our love and care for her father, and for her, that her husband's name should now be written under your hand now, next to the name of that dog who has just left us?"

"Stranger things than that will happen when the time comes," answered Madam. "I have both names here, to be sure, and they are both here for a good reason. That is enough."

She rolled up her knitting when she had said those words, and then she took the flower out of her head scarf. Either Saint Antoine knew by magic that it was gone, or he had been watching secretly to see it go. Either way, the Saint now had confidence to walk in, and very soon after that, the wine shop was back in business.

In the evening, when Saint Antoine would turn its in side out, sitting on the steps, leaning out the windows, or standing on the corners of the dirty streets and yards, to breathe the night air, Madam Defarge, with her work in her hand, would often move from place to place and from council to council. She was a kind of missionary -- and there were many like her -- that the world would be better off never to have. All of the women knitted. They knitted things that were of no worth, but the work they were doing was something to make them forget about eating and drinking. Their hands moved in place of their mouths and stomachs. If they stopped, then the pain in their stomachs was too much.

But, as their fingers moved, their eyes moved too, and their thoughts. And as Madam Defarge moved from group to group, all three moved more quickly and with more anger in every little knot of women that she talked to and left behind.

Her husband smoked at his door, looking after her with love. "A wonderful woman," he said to himself, "a strong woman, a great woman, a woman great enough to scare anyone!"

Darkness closed around Saint Antoine, and with it came the ringing of church bells, and the far off sound of the army drums in the buildings where the King and all of his men lived, as the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness swallowed them up. But another darkness was closing in as surely, and with it, the bells that were now making such a nice sound all over France, would soon be melted into cannons. The sound of the drums would be trying to drown out the shouting of angry voices, on a night as strong as power and wealth, freedom and life. So much was closing in around these knitting women that they too were closing in around something else -- a machine, not yet made, where they would be sitting, knitting, and counting the heads as they dropped.

Midpoint

17. One Night

Never did the sun go down more beautifully on the quiet corner in Soho than it did one very special evening when the Doctor and his daughter sat under the big tree together. Never did the moon come up with a nicer smile over London than it did on that same night when it looked down on their faces through the leaves of the big tree in the yard behind their rooms.

Lucie was to be married the next day. She had saved this evening for her father, and they sat alone under the tree.

"Are you happy, father?"

"Yes, very happy, my child."

They had been there for a long time, but they had said little. When there was enough light to work or read, she had not worked and she had not read to him as she did most nights. This night was too special for either work or reading.

"I too am very happy tonight, father. I am deeply happy in the love that heaven has blessed me with -- both my love for Charles and his love for me. But if my life were not to still be used for you, and if our being married were to take me even the length of a few streets away from you, I would be sadder now than I could tell you. Even as it is..."

Even as it was, she could not control her voice enough to finish what she had started.

In the sad light of the moon, she hugged him by the neck, and put her face on his chest. The light of the moon -- like the light of the sun, and the light of life -- is always sad as it comes and as it goes.

"Father, my love, can you tell me this one last time, that you are very very sure that no new love of mine and no new service that I must do will ever come between us? For myself I am sure, but I want to know that you are too. In your heart, do you have this confidence?

Her father answered with such confidence and trust that he could never have been doing it falsely, "Quite sure, my love! And more than that," he added, as he kissed her softly, "my future is even better because of you marrying Charles, than what it could have been... no, than it has ever been, without it."

"If I could hope for that, father..."

"Believe it, my love, for it is true. Think about how clear this truth is. As young and loving as you are, you could not know how much I have worried about you wasting your life."

She reached her hand toward his lips, but he took it away and repeated the word.

 

"Yes, wasted, my child... pulled away from the life that others of your age would live, all because you wanted to care for me. Your love for me could not see how much I have worried about that. But just ask yourself, how could my happiness be perfect when I knew that you were missing out on an important part of life?"

"If I had never seen Charles, father, I would have been quite happy with you."

He smiled at how she had said, by accident, that without Charles, her happiness now would not be full, and he answered:

"But, my child, you did see him. And if it had not been Charles, it would have been someone else. Or if it had not been another, I would have been the reason for you not seeing, and then the dark part of my life would have moved from me to you."

Apart from when they were in the court, this was the first time that he had ever talked to her about the pain of his past. It was a strange feeling for her to hear this, and she remembered the words for a long time after that.

"See!" said the Doctor from Beauvais, with his hand reaching up toward the moon. "I have looked at her through the prison window when her light only gave me sadness. I have looked at her when it was such torture to think of her light touching all that I had lost, that I would hit my head against the prison walls, trying to kill myself. I have watched her at times when I had no feeling and almost no life, and the best I could think of was how many horizontal lines I could draw across her, and how many vertical lines I could cross them with.” He added in a voice like he was back there now, "It was twenty each way, I remember. And the last one was difficult to squeeze in."

The strange feeling she had about hearing him talk of his past grew stronger as he talked on. But there was nothing to make her afraid in the way he was doing it now. He was only using it to say how happy he was now that it was over.

"I have looked at her a thousand times, thinking about the child who was not yet born when I was taken away. Had it been born alive? Or did it die from what its poor mother went through? Was it a son who would one day fight for his father? (There was a time when all I wanted was to hurt those who had hurt me.) Was it a son who would never know his father's story, who might even grow to believe that his father had chosen to leave him. Or would it be a daughter, who would one day grow into a woman?"

She moved closer, and kissed his cheek and his hand.

"I had pictured my daughter, to myself, as knowing nothing about me, and never thinking of me. I thought ahead, through the years of her life, as she grew into a woman, until she one day married a man who would know nothing of me. It would be like I had never lived, and their children would be without any thought of me."

"My father! Even to hear that you thought about such a daughter who never was real makes me feel like I am that child."

"You, Lucie? It is because of all you have done to bring me back that I even think such thoughts under the moon here tonight. Now, what was I just saying?"

"That this daughter knew nothing of you, and she thought nothing of you."

"Yes. But on other nights when the moon was out and I was feeling more of a sad peace, as any emotion growing out of pain can do, I had thoughts of her coming to me in the prison, and leading me into the liberty that was on the other side of the walls. I would see her often in the light of the moon, just as I see you now, but I could never hold her in my arms. She stood in the space between the door and the little window. But do you understand that this person was not the child that I was just talking about?"

"You mean that person was not... was not the one you thought about?"

"No. What I saw was something else. It stood before my confused look, but it never moved. The child that was in my mind was the more real one. I had no way of knowing what she would look like, apart from knowing that she would look like her mother. That other shape looked like her mother too, as you do right now, but it wasn't the same. Do you follow me, Lucie? I don't think you could. I think you would need to have lived as a prisoner alone for many years to understand a thing like this."

The peace he had in talking about the past at this time made Lucie's blood run cold.

"At those times when I was at peace, I would think of her coming to lead me to the home where she lived with her husband. It was full of things to make her remember her lost father. My picture was in her room, and I was in her prayers. Her life was busy, happy, and of help to many. But my sad history was part of it all."

"I was that child, father! I am not half as good, but in my love, that was me."

"And she showed me her children" said the Doctor from Beauvais. "They had heard of me, and they had been taught to think sadly of me. When going by a prison, they would stay far away from its angry walls, look up at its bars, and speak in whispers. In my thoughts she was never able to keep me free. She would lead me back to the prison after showing me such things. But I would find peace in crying when it was over. I would fall on my knees and bless her."

"I hope that I am that child, Father. But will you bless me with as much emotion tomorrow?"

"Lucie, I have remembered those old thoughts in the way I have tonight as a way of loving you better than words can tell, and of thanking God for my great happiness. My thoughts, when they were the wildest, never gave me such happiness as I have now here with you."

He hugged her, giving her to God, and humbly thanking God for giving her to him. Not long after that, they went into the house.

No one had been asked to come to the wedding, apart from Mr. Lorry. There was not even another young woman to help Lucie on the day... only sad old Miss Pross. The wedding had made no change in where she lived, because they had been able to rent the rooms above, where they had always believed someone lived whom they never saw. And they wanted nothing more.

Doctor Manette was very happy as they sat down for something to eat with Miss Pross. He was sad that Charles was not there and half wanted to argue with the foolish belief that the man must not be there on the night before the wedding. He had a special drink for Charles instead.

It came time for Lucie to go to bed, and so they all separated. But in the middle of the night, Lucie came quietly down the steps to look into her father's room. She was still not fully over her fears for him.

But everything was in its place, and all was quiet. His white hair was like a picture of peace on the smooth pillow, and his hands were folded together on top of the blanket. She left her candle in a corner, moved over to him without making a sound, and kissed him softly on the lips. Then she leaned over and looked lovingly at him.

His time in prison had been like rivers cutting many lines in his face. But his strength was such that it had covered many of them, and the change was there even when he was asleep. A more wonderful face, in its quiet, strong, and often secret fight with an invisible enemy, was not to be found in any other sleeping person that night.

She shyly put her hand on his chest and said a prayer, asking God to help her stay as true to him as her love hoped for and as his pained past needed. Then she pulled back her hand and kissed his lips again before leaving the room. As the sun came up, the shadows of the leaves on the big tree in the yard moved across his face as quietly as her lips had moved in praying for him.

18. Nine Days

The wedding day was a very sunny one, and the wedding party were waiting outside the door of the Doctor's room, where he was having one last talk with Charles Darnay. The others were ready to leave for the church: Beautiful Lucie, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross. To Miss Pross the wedding had changed little by little in her mind from being a very sad happening to being one that filled her with happiness, apart from her one belief that her brother Solomon would have been a better husband for Lucie.

"And so," said Mr. Lorry, who could not get enough of looking at Lucie in her modest but beautiful wedding dress, and who had been moving around her to see it from every direction, "and so it was for this, sweet Lucie, that I brought you across the Channel as a baby! Lord bless me! How little I thought about it at the time! How lightly I thought about what it would mean for Mr. Charles!"

"You knew nothing about him then," said the down-to-earth Miss Pross, "so how can you even talk about such a thing? Don't be so foolish!"

"Really? Well, don't cry about it," said Mr. Lorry softly.

"I'm not the one crying," said Miss Pross. "You are!"

"I, Miss Pross?” By this time, Mr. Lorry was not afraid to play games with her at times.

"You were, just now. I saw you. And I'm not surprised. Such a gift as you have given them is enough to make anyone cry. There wasn't a fork or spoon in the box that I did not cry over when your gift arrived last night. I cried until I wasn't able to see them."

"I thank you very much," said Mr. Lorry. "But the truth is that I did not think such a little gift needed to be secret. Oh no! This is a time that makes a man think about all that he has lost. My, my, my! To think that any time over the past almost fifty years, there could have been a Mrs. Lorry."

"Not at all," came from Miss Pross.

"What? You think there never could have been a Mrs. Lorry?" asked the man of that same name.

"Rubbish!" answered Miss Pross. "From the time you were born you were never cut out to be married."

"Well," said Mr. Lorry, smiling as he moved his wig just a little, "that may be true."

"And even before you were born, you were not cut out to be married," said Miss Pross, pushing her point farther.

"Then I think," said Mr. Lorry, "that it was not fair, and that someone should have asked me before making the pattern for my life. But enough of this! Now, sweet Lucie," he said, putting his arm around her, "I hear them moving in the next room, and Miss Pross and I, as two thinking people, have only a few seconds to say something that you should be happy to hear. We want you to know that you are leaving your father in hands that are as sincere and loving as your own; we will do all we can think of to care for him. Over the next two weeks, while you are in and near Warwickshire, even Tellsons will be of second interest to me. And when, after two weeks, he comes to join you for another two weeks together in Wales, you will be able to say that we have sent him to you in the best health and the happiest spirit. I hear them coming to the door, so let me kiss you as an old man who will never be married, and bless you before he comes and takes you away from me."

For a second he looked at her beautiful face and the lines on her forehead that had so interested him when he first met her, and then he touched her golden hair with his brown wig as he kissed her with such true, soft love that if it was old, it was only because it was as old as Adam.

The door of the Doctor's room opened, and he came out with Charles Darnay. He was so deadly white -- which he had not been when they went in together -- that there was no colour at all in his face. But the way he acted had not changed, and it was only Mr. Lorry's wisdom that could see some of the old shadows of fear that had passed over him once again, like a cold wind.

He gave his arm to his daughter and took her down the steps to the waiting coach, which Mr. Lorry had rented for the day. The others followed in another coach, and soon, in a church near there, with no strangers looking on, Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette were happily married.

On top of the diamond-like tears that each of the people in that little group brushed away with happy smiles after the wedding, there were real diamonds, very bright and giving off much light, on Lucie's hand. The diamonds had just been freed from a dark corner in one of Mr. Lorry's pockets. They all returned home for breakfast, which went well. Then the golden hair of the daughter and the white hair of the shoemaker, that had met in the little room in Paris, came together again in the light of the morning sun at the door of the house as they were about to separate.

It was not easy for them to separate, but it was over quickly. Her father made it easier as he softly pulled away from her hug, by saying in a friendly way, "Take her, Charles! She's yours!"

She waved to him from the window of the coach, and with that, she was gone.

Because the house was on a quiet corner, and because the wedding was such a small one, there were only the three -- the Doctor, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross -- left alone. When they moved out of the sun and into the cool bottom rooms of the house, Mr. Lorry saw that a serious change had come over the Doctor, as if the golden arm outside the jewelry shop had fallen on him.

It was the Doctor's way to hide his feelings, and so it would be easy to understand some sadness showing now that Lucie was gone, But it was the old look of fear that worried Mr. Lorry, and when Doctor Manette put his hands to his head and walked off into his bedroom with a lost, sad look, after they had climbed the steps to his rooms, it made Mr. Lorry remember the night they had left Mr. Defarge's wine shop with him so many years before.

"I think," Mr. Lorry whispered to Miss Pross, "that we should not speak to him now, or do anything to stop him. I need to drop in at Tellson's and when I return, we can take him for an outing in the country, eat there, and after that, he should feel better."

It was easier for Mr. Lorry to drop in at Tellson's than it was to drop out, so he was two hours getting away. When he returned, he climbed the old steps on his own, without the servant leading him. On reaching the Doctor's rooms, he could hear a soft knocking.

"Good God!" he said in surprise. "What is that?"

Miss Pross, with a look of fear on her face, whispered in his ear. "Oh me! Oh me! All is lost!" she cried, squeezing her hands together. "What will we say to Ladybird? He doesn't know me, and he's making shoes again!"

Mr. Lorry said what he could to encourage her, and then he himself went into the bedroom. The bench was turned toward the light, as it had been when he had seen the shoemaker at work before. His head was bent down and he was very busy.

"Doctor Manette, my good friend! Doctor Manette!"

The Doctor looked up for a second, half like he was asking a question and half like he was angry at being pulled away from his work. And then he bent over his work again.

He had taken off his coat, and opened his shirt at the throat, as it used to be when he worked in the prison. Even the old worried look of his face had returned. He worked hard, as if he was in a hurry to finish something that he had been pulled away from.

Mr. Lorry looked at the work that was in his hand, and saw that it was a woman's shoe of the size and shape that he had been working on when he was in Paris. He picked up another one that had been lying beside him, and asked what it was.

"A young woman's walking shoe," he said without feeling or even a look. "It should have been finished long ago. Put it down."

"But, Doctor Manette, look at me."

He obeyed in the old way of a slave, but did not stop working as he looked up.

"You know me, my good friend. Think again. This is not what you do for a living. Think, my good friend!"

Nothing would make him say anything more. He would look up, just for a second or two at a time, when he was asked to do so; but nothing would pull even one word out of him. He worked and worked and worked, without saying a word; and words fell on him like words on a wall or on the air. One little piece of hope that Mr. Lorry could see was that at times he would look up even when he was not asked, like he himself was trying to understand what was happening.

There were two things that Mr. Lorry believed were important at this time. One was that they must keep this secret from Lucie, and the other was that they must keep it secret from all who knew him. Working together with Miss Pross he was able to meet the second target by telling people that the Doctor was not well, and that he needed a few days of full rest. To help in hiding the secret from his daughter, Miss Pross was to write a letter saying that he had been called away on business, and telling her that he had written a short letter to tell her about it, and that it had gone out with the same mail.

These steps, which were wise ones to take even if there was never going to be a change, Mr. Lorry took in the hope that Doctor Manette would soon come to himself. If that should happen soon, Mr. Lorry had another plan which he would use if Miss Pross thought it was okay.

Hoping that Doctor Manette would be better soon, so that he could use this other plan, Mr. Lorry agreed to watch him closely, but to do so without him feeling watched, if possible. So he took time off from Tellson's for the first time ever, so that he could spend all his time in a seat by the window in the same room as Doctor Manette.

It was not long before he learned that there was no point in trying to talk to the Doctor. Each time he tried, it only worried him more; so he dropped that on the first day and reasoned that it would be best just to be there, saying nothing, but showing by his being there that he was not going to give in to the Doctor's belief that he was back in prison. So he stayed there in his seat by the window, reading and writing, and showing in any friendly way that he could that it was not a prison.

Doctor Manette took what food and drink were given to him, and then worked on until it was too dark to see, which was half an hour after Mr. Lorry would not have been able to see enough to read or write, not even to save his life. When he put his tools down for the night, Mr. Lorry stood up and asked him:

"Would you like to go out?"

He looked down at the floor on each side of himself, in the same old way, looked up, and then repeated in the old, soft voice:

"Out?"

"Yes, for a walk with me. Why not?"

He did not try to answer, and said not one other word either. But Mr. Lorry thought he could see, as the Doctor leaned forward on the bench in the early darkness, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, that in some cloudy way he was asking himself, "Why not?” The wisdom of this man of business was such that he saw an opening here, and he planned to keep a good hold on it.

Miss Pross and he each took half of the night in which to look in on the Doctor from the next room from time to time. He walked up and down for a long time before climbing into bed. But when he did, at last, lay down, he quickly fell to sleep. And he was up early in the morning to return to his work.

On the second day, Mr. Lorry gave him a friendly hello, called him by name, and talked about things that they had been doing over the past few days. He gave no answer, but it could be seen that he heard what was said, and even in his confusion, he was thinking about it. This encouraged Mr. Lorry to then have Miss Pross come into the room at times during the day. When she did, they would quietly talk about Lucie and about her father (who was there to hear it all) in the same way that they would if there was nothing wrong. They did this without any special show of emotion, not for a long time and not so often as to make the old man angry. It lifted Mr. Lorry's spirits to believe that Doctor Manette was looking up more often and could see that what was happening around him was not the same as what was happening inside his head.

When it was dark, Mr. Lorry asked as he had the night before: "Good Doctor, would you like to go on an outing?"

As before, he repeated, "Out?

"Yes, for a walk with me. Why not?"

This time, when there was no answer, Mr. Lorry left the room, acting like he was really going out. He returned an hour later. During that time, the Doctor had moved to the seat by the window, and was sitting there looking down at the tree in the yard; but when Mr. Lorry returned, he moved quietly back to his bench.

After that, things moved slowly. Mr. Lorry's hopes grew darker, and his heart heavier as the days went by. The third day came and went, then the fourth, and the fifth. Five days, six days, seven days, eight days, nine days.

Mr. Lorry passed through this worrying time with his hopes becoming weaker and weaker. But the secret was well kept, and Lucie was happy, knowing nothing of it. Mr. Lorry could not help but see that the shoemaker, whose work had been a little rough at first, was becoming very good at his work, that he had never been so serious about his work, and that his hands had never been so fast and so good at what they were doing as they were in the early evening of the ninth day.

19. Help from the Doctor

Being very tired from watching and worrying, Mr. Lorry fell asleep during his early morning watch that night. On the tenth morning he was surprised by the sun coming strongly into the room, because the last thing he remembered was dark night, just before he fell deeply asleep.

He rubbed his eyes and forced himself more fully awake; but when he had done this, he found it hard to believe he really was awake. For, going to the door of the Doctor's room and looking in, he saw that the shoemaker's bench and tools had been put away again, and that the Doctor himself sat reading at the window. He was wearing his morning clothes, and his face (which Mr. Lorry could clearly see), apart from still being very white, was at peace as he read.

Even when he was sure that he was awake, Mr. Lorry was in confusion for a short time, thinking that maybe the shoemaking of the past days had been a dream; for didn't his eyes show him his friend wearing the right clothes and doing the right thing for this time of day; and was there any proof in the room that the change that he remembered so strongly had really happened?

But when he asked himself the question, the answer came just in him being there. How did it happen that he had been sleeping in his clothes on the couch in Doctor Manette's office, and why was he there now asking himself these questions outside the Doctor's bedroom so early in the morning?

A few minutes later Miss Pross stood whispering at his side. If he needed more proof, her talk would have been it; but by that time, his head was clear and he needed none. He told her that they should wait until it was time for breakfast, and then they could meet the Doctor as if nothing strange had happened. If he looked to be in his right mind, then Mr. Lorry would do what he had been hoping to do, and that was to get help from the Doctor himself.

Miss Pross agreed to his plan, and that is what they did. Because he had more than enough time to prepare for breakfast, Mr. Lorry came to the table with a nice white shirt and clean pants. The Doctor was told that it was time for breakfast, and he came as he always had done in the past.

From what they could understand, without being too forward in asking him, it seemed that the Doctor believed his daughter's wedding had taken place only yesterday. A word or two from the others about what day of the week it was and what day of the month it was, said as part of small talk about the day, started the Doctor thinking and counting, and it worried him a little. But in every other way, the Doctor was so much himself that Mr. Lorry chose to get the help that he was looking for. And the help he was looking for was from the Doctor himself.

When breakfast was finished and cleared away, and he and the Doctor were alone together, Mr. Lorry said, with deep feeling:

"My good Manette, I need your help, in secret, on a very strange case in which I am deeply interested. I mean only that it is strange for me; maybe for you it will not be strange at all."

Looking at his hands, which had become coloured by his work with the leather, the Doctor showed signs of being troubled. But he listened well. It was not the first time he had looked at the colour on his hands like that.

"Doctor Manette," said Mr. Lorry, touching him kindly on the arm, "this case is about a close friend of mine. Please think about it seriously and give me wise answers, for the good of my friend, and, above all, for his daughter... for his daughter, my good Manette."

"If I understand," said the Doctor, "your friend has been through something that has had an effect on his mind?"

"Yes!"

“Tell me clearly," said the Doctor. "Do not leave anything out."

Mr. Lorry could see that they understood each other, and so he started.

"My good friend, it is the case of something very difficult that happened a long time ago, very deep and very serious in its effect on his feelings and on his... his... as you say it, his mind. Yes, his mind. It was a great weight that he carried. One cannot say how long he carried it, because I believe he does not even know himself, and there is no other way for me to find out about it. It is a case that he slowly got over, in some way that he himself cannot put into words, as I once heard him say very well himself in front of many people. But he was so fully healed in his mind that he was able to live and work as a very smart and very healthy man who was always adding to what he had learned. But, sadly, there has been," and he stopped to breathe in deeply, "a little return to the old problem."

The Doctor, in a low voice, asked, "For how long?

"Nine days and nights."

"How did it show itself? I am thinking," he said, looking again at his hands, "that he returned to doing something that was a part of the pain in his past?"

"That's true."

"Now, did you ever see him," asked the Doctor, clearly and without emotion, but in the same low voice, "engaged in that same action in the past?"

"Once."

"And when he returned to doing it, was he in most ways or in all ways the same as he had been in the past?"

"I think in all ways."

"You spoke of his daughter. Does his daughter know of what happened?"

"No. It has been kept from her, and I hope will always be kept from her. It is known only to myself, and to one other person, who is able to keep it secret."

The Doctor took his hand and said softly, "That was very kind. That was very smart!" Mr. Lorry squeezed his hand in return, and both of them were quiet for a little while.

"Now, my good Manette," said Mr. Lorry, at length, in his kindest and most loving way, "I am only a businessman, and not able to understand these difficult problems. I do not have the kind of information that is needed; I do not have the know-how; so I need your help. There is no other person on earth whom I could trust as I trust you. Tell me, how does a return to the old problem like this happen? Is there danger of it happening again? Is there a way to stop it from happening again? What should I do if it happens again? How does it happen? What can I do for my friend? No one could ever have wanted so much to help someone as I do for my friend, if only I knew how. I don't know how to start in such a case. If your wisdom, and what you have learned from your work, can point me in the right direction, I might be able to do a lot; but without help, I can do very little. Please talk about it with me; please help me to see it a little more clearly, and teach me how I can help."

Doctor Manette sat thinking for some time after hearing these deeply moving words. Mr. Lorry did not push him.

"I think it may be," the Doctor said, forcing himself to say something, "that the return to the past that you have talked about, my good friend, was something that your friend saw coming."

"Was he afraid of it?” Mr. Lorry asked.

"Very much.” As he said it, his body shook a little.

"You cannot know how much such a person would be afraid of it happening again, and how difficult -- almost impossible -- it is for him to say even one word about the thing that troubles him so."

"Would he," asked Mr. Lorry, "be helped if he could force himself to talk about that secret fear to anyone, when it comes to him?"

"I think so. But it is, as I have told you, almost impossible. I even believe it, in some cases, to be quite impossible."

"Now," said Mr. Lorry, softly putting his hand on the Doctor's arm again, after a short time during which both of them were quiet, "what do you think started this return to the past?"

"I believe," returned Doctor Manette, "that there had been a strong and surprising return to the train of thoughts that were the reason for the problem in the first place. Something which was a part of that past pain was remembered in a very strong way, I think. He probably has been fearing this for some time, maybe knowing that a special time was coming when he would have to face it. He tried to prepare himself for it, but it was not enough. It may even be that what he went through trying to prepare himself made him less able to carry it when the time came."

"Would he remember what happened during the time when he returned to the past?” asked Mr. Lorry, feeling a little worried that this could be asking too much.

The Doctor looked around the room with an empty look, shook his head, and answered in a low voice, "Not at all."

"Now, let's talk about the future," said Mr. Lorry, pointing the way.

"As to the future," said the Doctor, who returned to his more confident spirit, "I would have great hope. As it pleased Heaven in its kindness to bring him out of this so quickly, I would have great hope. He, giving in to the weight of something he had been afraid of for so long, and then returning to his right mind after the cloud had emptied its storm on him, I would hope that the worst is over."

"Well, well! That is very encouraging. I am thankful for that!" said Mr. Lorry.

"I too am thankful!" repeated the Doctor, bending his head as if praying.

"There are two other points," said Mr. Lorry, "on which I need your help. Can I go on?"

"You cannot help your friend in any better way.” The Doctor gave him his hand.

"To the first, then. He studies a lot, and works very hard at it. He does it as part of his job. Do you think that he is doing too much?"

"I don't think so. It may be the way he is, just wanting to always be busy. Some of it may just be the way he is, and some of it may be because of his past. The less he is busy with healthy things, the more he may be in danger of turning in the other direction. He may have studied himself to see that he needs to be kept busy."

"Are you sure that he is not pushing himself too hard."

"I think I am quite sure of it."

"My good friend Manette, if he did push himself too much now..."

"My good friend Lorry, I don't think that could easily happen. There has been a strong effect on him in one direction, and he needs an equally strong pull in the other direction."

"Forgive me for pushing this, but let us say for a minute that he did push himself too hard. Would it lead to him breaking down in the same way again?"

"I don't think so," said Doctor Manette with strong confidence. "I do not think that anything apart from that one train of thought would bring it back again. I think that from now on, nothing but some very strong surprise along that same line could bring it on again. After what has happened, and after his coming through it, I find it difficult to believe there could be anything new that could happen which would have such an effect. I hope, and I almost believe, that there is nothing left which could do it."

In some ways he spoke shyly, as one who knew how easy it is for just one small thing to destroy the mind, but in other ways he spoke with confidence, as one who had won that confidence through a hard fight in his own life. Doctor Manette's friend did not want to do anything to destroy that confidence, and so he talked with more enthusiasm than he really felt about how happy he was to hear that. And then he came to his last and most important point. He believed it to be the most difficult of all, and yet, remembering the talk he had had with Miss Pross one Sunday morning, and remembering what he had seen over the last nine days, he knew that he must face it.

"The work this man was doing when the sickness was on him, and that we are so happy to see he has stopped doing," said Mr. Lorry, clearing his throat, "we can call... shaping metal. Yes, making things from metal. We will say, just as a way of showing what it is that I want to say, that in the past, when he was going through so much pain, he worked with the tools that one uses to make things from metal. Let's say that we were surprised to see him working with those tools again. Isn't it bad that he keeps those tools close to himself?"

The Doctor stopped the sun from getting in his eyes by putting his hand on his forehead, and he showed that his nerves were jumping by hitting his foot on the ground.

"He always keeps those tools near him," said Mr. Lorry, with a worried look at his friend. "Now, wouldn't it be better if he let them go?"

Still the Doctor, with his hand on his forehead, hit his foot on the ground.

"You do not find it easy to tell me what to do on this point?” asked Mr. Lorry. "It seems to me to be an easy enough question. And yet I think...” And there he shook his head and stopped.

"You see," said Doctor Manette, turning to him after a short time during which both of them did not know what to say, "it is very difficult to give a clear answer about the secrets of this poor man's mind. He had at one time wished so strongly for that job, and it was so welcome when it came. I am sure that it took away some of his pain by letting him work on understanding his fingers in place of trying to understand the workings of his brain, and, as he became better at it, by letting him think about the abilities that were under his control in his hands in place of thinking about the ability that the pain in his mind had to control him. Because of this, I believe that he has never been able to think about putting those tools in a place where he could not reach them. Even now, when I think he has more hope than he has ever had, and he can talk about himself with some confidence, the thought of needing those tools and not being able to find them would quickly fill him with fear, much like a child would feel when lost."

He looked like such a child as he lifted his eyes to look at Mr. Lorry.

"But isn't it possible... Understand, I'm only asking for my own information, as a businessman who works only with coins and paper money all day... Isn't it possible that having those tools will encourage him to return to the past? If they were gone, my good friend, isn't it possible that the fear would go with them? In short, isn't it only encouraging the fear to keep the tools?"

There was another time without either of them talking.

"You see, too," said the Doctor, shaking a little, "those tools are so much like old friends."

"I would not hang onto them," said Mr. Lorry, shaking his head; for he grew in confidence about his plan when he saw that the Doctor was not so confident. "I would encourage him to let go of them. I just want you to back me up in this. I am sure that it does him no good to have them around. Please! Back me up on this, as an honest man... for the good of his daughter, my friend!"

It was very strange to see what a fight was going on inside him!

"For her, then, let it be done; I agree to it. But I would not take it away while he is there. Let it be taken when he is not there; let him find that his old friends are gone after he has been away from them for a while."

Mr. Lorry happily agreed to that, and the talk was ended. What was left of the day, they used to walk together in the country, and the Doctor was quite well through it all. On the three following days, he stayed perfectly well, and on the fourteenth day he left to join Lucie and her husband. Mr. Lorry told the Doctor what had been done earlier to stop Lucie from worrying about him not writing, and so he wrote a letter to cover for that story, and she did not think there had been anything wrong.

On the night of the day the Doctor left, Mr. Lorry went into his bedroom with an axe, saw, and hammer, helped by Miss Pross, who carried a light. There, with the doors closed, and in a strange and guilty way, Mr. Lorry broke the shoemaker's bench to pieces, while Miss Pross held the candle as if she was helping to kill someone, for which she, in her very serious way, very much looked the part. The burning of the 'body' (now broken in pieces to make the burning easier) was done in the kitchen fire; and the tools, shoes, and leather were buried in the garden. So evil does it seem to honest minds to destroy something secretly, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while doing all this, and while cleaning up after they were finished, almost felt and almost looked like they were doing some awful act that was against the law.

20. A Kindness Asked For

When the newly married couple returned, the first one to welcome them was Sydney Carton. They had not been home many hours when he came by. He was no better in how he acted or dressed, but there was about him a strange air of control, an air Charles Darnay had never seen in him before.

He watched and waited for a good time to take Darnay away, to a window seat, so they could talk without anyone hearing.

"Mr. Darnay," said Carton, "I wish that we could be friends."

"We already are, I hope."

"You're kind to say so, but it's just words. I don't mean just in words. To be honest, I don't quite mean real friends either."

Charles Darnay, as was natural for him, asked him in a joking and friendly way what he could mean by that.

"On my life," said Carton, smiling, "I find it easier to know in my own mind what I want, than I can say it to yours. But let me try. Do you remember a special night when I was more drunk than... than I am most nights?"

"I remember a special night when you forced me to say that you had been drinking."

"I remember it too. The pain of such times is heavy on me, because I can never forget how I acted. I hope at least that much will be remembered of me one day when my life is finished. Don't worry; I'm not going to start preaching!"

"I am not at all worried. Hearing you speak seriously about something is anything but worrying to me.

"Ah!" said Carton, with a light wave of his hand, as if he waved that thought away. "On the night in question (one of many nights when I have been too drunk), I was being impossible to get along with, I talked about liking you and not liking you. I wish that you would forget it."

"I did that a long time ago."

"Just words again! But, Mr. Darnay, forgetting is not so easy for me, as you make it sound. I have in no way forgotten it, and a light answer does not help me to forget it."

"If it was a light answer," returned Darnay, "I beg your forgiveness for it. I had no other reason for being light apart from pushing to the side something that I thought was light, and that seems to trouble you too much. I want you to know that on my honest word, I have long since dropped it from my mind. Good heavens, what was there to drop! Did I have nothing more important to remember in the great help that you gave me on that day?"

"As to the great help," said Carton, "I must tell you the truth, that it was just the empty words of what I do for a living. I don't know that I cared at all about what would happen to you when I said it. Understand that when I talk about having said it, it happened a long time ago."

"Now you are the one making light of what you did," returned Darnay, "but I will not argue with your light answer."

"It's the honest truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me! But that is not what I wanted to say. I was speaking about us being friends. Now, you know me. You know that I am not able to do all the higher and better things that others do. Ask Stryver, and he will tell you so."

"I think it is better for me to work such things out for myself, without his help."

"Well, all the same, you know me as a dog without much control, who has never done any good, and who never will."

"I don't know that you never will."

"But I know, and you can take my word for it. Still, if you could put up with such an awful person, one who has done nothing with his life, coming and going at different times, I would like to be able to visit from time to time. I would be happy if you could think of me as a piece of furniture that can do nothing of worth (and if it was not that we look so much the same, I would say an ugly piece of furniture too) that you keep only because it is an old one that you did not think to throw out. I don't think I would come too often. It is a hundred to one that I would come even four times in a year. But just knowing that I am free to come will make me happy."

"Please try to come."

"That is another way of saying that you have agreed to what I have asked. Thank you, Darnay. So can I say that you have asked me to come?"

"I think so, Carton, by this time."

They shook hands on it, and Sydney moved away from him. A minute later he was, to look at, no different to what he had been in the past.

When he had left, later that evening, Charles Darnay said something about what Sydney Carton had said when Miss Pross, the Doctor, and Mr. Lorry were there. He said something about Carton being a problem and wasting his life. In short, he was not angry or wanting to hurt him, but he was only saying what anyone could see for themselves if they knew Carton well.

Darnay never thought that these few words would stay in the mind of his beautiful young wife; but when he joined her later in their rooms, he found her waiting for him with the old lifting of the forehead that was so often her mark.

"We are in deep thoughts tonight!" he said, hugging her.

"Yes, Charles," with her hands on his chest, and her questioning eyes fixed on him, "we are thinking very deeply tonight, for we have something to think about."

"What is it, my Lucie?"

"Will you promise not to force one question on me if I beg you not to ask it?"

"Will I promise? What would I not promise to my Love?"

Yes, what would he not promise, as he pushed the golden hair away from her cheek with one hand and held his other hand against the heart that loved him so much!

"I think, Charles, that poor Mr. Carton is worth more than the words you used to show your feelings for him tonight."

"Is that true? The words I used? Why is that?"

"That is what you mustn't ask. But I think... I know... he is."

"If you know it, it is enough. What do you want me to do, my Love?"

"I would ask you, sweet, to be very generous with him always, and very soft on the things he does wrong, even when he is not around to hear what you are saying. I would ask you to believe that he has a heart that he almost never shows, and that there are deep sores in it. My love, I have seen it bleeding."

"It hurts to think about this," said Charles Darnay, quite surprised, "that I have done him any wrong. I never thought this of him."

"My husband, it's true. I fear he is not going to change; there is not much hope for him as a person or for him in life now. But I am sure that he could do good things, kind things, even great things."

She looked so beautiful in her child-like faith in this lost man, that her husband could have looked at her as she was for hours.

"And oh, my love!" she begged, hugging him closer, laying her head on his chest, and lifting her eyes to him, "remember how strong we are in our happiness, and how weak he is in his sadness!"

Her prayer touched his heart. "I will always remember it, sweet Heart! I will remember it as long as I live."

He bent over the golden head and put her red lips to his, and folded her in his arms. If one sad man walking the dark streets that night could have heard the innocent words she had just said, and seen the tears of love that her husband so lovingly kissed away from her soft blue eyes, he too may have cried. And the words he would have cried would not have been said for the first time:

"God bless her for her sweet love!"

21. The Sound of Footsteps

It has already been said that the corner where the Doctor lived was a wonderful place for sound to travel a long way. Always busily pulling the golden thread around her husband, her father, herself, and her old motherly friend and teacher, in a life of quiet happiness, Lucie sat in the quiet house on the peaceful corner, listening to the footsteps of the years as they passed.

She was a perfectly happy young wife, but at first, there had been times when her work would fall slowly from her hands as her eyes closed. She heard something coming in the sounds, lightly and so far off that she almost could not hear it, and it affected her deeply. Hopes and fears took opposite sides in her... hopes of a love that she did not yet know, and fears that she would not live long enough to see through all the happiness that was to come with it. In with all the sounds was the sound of footsteps beside her body as it was being buried. The thought of her husband being left alone and crying for her came out as tears through her eyes.

That time passed and a little Lucie came to lay on her breast. Then, in with all the other sounds, there was the sound of baby Lucie's little feet and the sound of her first words. Let louder sounds come; still they did not stop the young mother at the side of her baby's bed from hearing those smaller and quieter sounds. With them came the sunlight of a child's laugh, and Christ, the friend of children. She trusted him with her troubles, and he seemed to take her child in his arms, as he had done in the past, bringing a holy happiness to her.

Still busily pulling the golden thread that tied them all together, putting her spirit into all of them without ever trying to control them, Lucie heard in the sound of the years nothing but friendly and relaxing sounds. Her husband's step was strong and rich, her father's strong and fair. Miss Pross's step was like that of a wild horse, making sounds with its nose and hitting the ground under the big tree in the garden!

Even where there were sad sounds in with the others, they were not deep or cruel. When golden hair like her own was lying like that of an angel around the tired face of a little boy, and he said, with a smile, "Daddy and mummy, I am sad to leave you both, and to leave my beautiful sister; but God is calling me and I must go!" they were not all tears of pain that made his young mother's cheeks wet, as the breath left the one she hugged, whom God had given to her for a time. "Let the children come to me, and do not stop them. They see my Father's face.” Oh Father, what blessed words!

The sound of an angel's wings mixed in with the others. They were not all of this world, but some had in them the touch of heaven. The soft sound of the wind blowing over a little place in the garden where he was buried was part of the sounds too, and Lucie could hear both these sounds in a soft whisper, like the breathing of a summer ocean sleeping on a sandy beach. Over it all little Lucie would look so funny working seriously at some little job, or dressing a doll at her mother's feet, always talking to herself in the languages of the two cities that had come together to make her.

It was not often that the footsteps of Sydney Carton were part of the sound. Unless asked, he came at most, half a dozen times in a year. He would sit with them through the evening as he had once done so often. He never came full of wine. And one other thing about him was whispered in the sounds, which has been whispered in all true sounds for all time.

No man ever really loved a woman, lost her, and still loved her with a good heart when she became a wife and a mother, without her children having a strange love for him... like they were feeling sad for him. What good secret feelings are touched in such a case, no sound can tell; but it happens, and it happened here. Carton was the first stranger to whom little Lucie held out her fat arms, and he kept that place with her as she grew. Almost at the last, the little boy had said of him, "Poor Carton! Kiss him for me!"

Mr. Stryver shouldered his way through the courts, like some great ship forcing itself through rough waters, and he pulled his friend, who was so much help, behind him, like a little boat. As a boat being pulled like that is often forced under the water, so Sydney had a rough time of it. But hard as it is to change, and so much harder for Sydney, who was not worried about what others thought of him, made this the life he was called to live. He gave no more thought to changing from the wild dog who feeds on what the lion leaves than what a real wild dog would think of becoming a lion instead. Stryver was rich. He had married a healthy woman whose husband had died and left her with wealth and three boys. The boys had nothing especially great coming out of them apart from the straight hair on each of their short fat heads.

Mr. Stryver, trying to show himself to be the best father in the world, had these three young men walk in front of him like three sheep, to the quiet corner in Soho, where he hoped to surprise Lucie's husband by letting him teach them. In his own special way, he said, "Hello! Here are three pieces of bread and cheese for your married needs, Darnay!" When Darnay quietly said he was not interested in the three pieces of bread and cheese, Mr. Stryver was so filled with anger that it came out later when he taught the young men to watch for the "pride of beggars", like that teacher man. He would often complain to Mrs. Stryver, over his glass of wine, about how Mrs. Darnay had once tried to "catch" him, and how it was only his great ability to see through her that kept him from being caught. Some of his law friends, who at times joined him in drinking his wine and listening to this lie, were able to forgive him for the lie by saying that he had told it so often that he believed it himself. If so, it is such a great sin on top of what was a great sin to start with, that it would only be fair for such a person to be taken off to some quiet place and to be quietly hanged there.

These were some of the sounds to which Lucie, sometimes thinking seriously, sometimes laughing easily, listened in that corner full of sounds, until her little daughter was six years old. There is no need to say how close to her heart were the sounds of her child's steps, those of her own loved father, who was always a hard worker in control of himself, and of her much loved husband. There was no need to tell of how the smallest sound from their close family was like music to her either. Their home, which she put together with great wisdom and careful use of her money, was more beautiful than many that much richer people had used much more wealth on. And there was no need to tell of the sounds all around her, sweet in her ears, coming from the many times her father had told her that he found her to be a better daughter (if it were possible) married, than if she had not married. And sounds of the many times her husband had said to her that none of her jobs seemed to take away from her love for him and her help to him; and he asked her, "What is the magic secret, my love, of your being everything to all of us, as if there were only one of us, yet you never seem to be in a hurry, or to have too much to do?"

But there were other sounds, far off in the distance, that quietly talked of danger, all through those years. And it was now, around little Lucie's sixth birthday, that they started to sound quite awful, like a great storm over in France, that was having a dangerous effect on the ocean between them.

On a night in the middle of July, 1789, Mr. Lorry came in late from Tellson's, and sat himself down by Lucie and her husband in the dark window seat. It was a hot, wild night, and the three of them all remembered the old Sunday night when they had looked at the lightning from the same place.

"I had started to think," said Mr. Lorry, pushing his brown wig back, "that I would have to spend the night at Tellson's. We have had so much business all day, that it was hard to know where to start, or which way to turn. There is so much fear in Paris just now, that everyone is turning to us! The people we work with do not seem to be able to put their money with us fast enough. It is like a sickness, the way they all feel they must send their wealth to England."

"That doesn't sound good," said Darnay.

"Doesn't sound good, you say, my good Darnay? Maybe, but we don't know what the reason is for it. People often do stupid things! Some of us at Tellson's are getting old, and we really cannot be interested in change without a good reason."

"Too bad," said Darnay, "because you know how dark and dangerous the sky is."

"I know that, to be sure," agreed Mr. Lorry, trying to make himself believe that he was going to be angry, when he almost never was angry, "but I just want to be difficult after such a hard day at work. So where is Manette?"

"Here he is," said the Doctor, coming into the dark room at just that second.

"I am happy to see you're at home. The business and trouble that I have been a part of all day has made me worry without a good reason. You're not going out, I hope?"

"No. I am going to play a board game with you, if you like," said the Doctor.

"I don't think I would like to, if I may be honest. I am not in the right spirit to compete against you tonight. Is the tea still out, Lucie? I can't see."

"It sure is; it has been kept for you."

"Thank you, my sweet. Is your beautiful child safe in bed?”

"Yes, and sleeping nicely."

"Yes, all is safe and well! I know not why anything should not be safe and well here, thank God. But I have been so busy all day, and I am not as young as I was! My tea, my child! Thank you. Now, come and take your place in the circle, and let us sit quietly and listen to the sounds that are part of your beliefs."

"Not my beliefs; just my foolish thoughts."

"A foolish thought, then my wise one," said Mr. Lorry, touching her hand. "There are many of them, and they are quite loud, are they not? Listen to them!"

Angry, dangerous footsteps, out of control, and able to force their way into anyone's life. Footsteps that could not be cleaned again after they had turned red. Footsteps running in far off Saint Antoine, as the little circle sat in that dark London window.

Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a big dark crowd of hungry people moving from one place to another with many little touches of light showing above the wave of heads, where blades in hands and on the ends of guns moved in the sun. A great shout came up from the throat of Saint Antoine, and uncovered arms reached into the air like the dead branches of trees in a winter wind. All of the fingers were holding tightly to weapons or to something that could be used as a weapon, that grew up from the crowd below the arms, often passed to them from a long way off.

Who gave them out, where they started, how they moved in one direction and another dozens at a time, over the heads of the crowd like the movement of lightning, no eye in the crowd could say; but guns were being given out, as were bullets, iron and timber bars, knives, axes, every weapon that angry minds could find or make. People who could not find anything else had the job of forcing, with bleeding hands, stones and bricks out of their places in walls. Every heart in Saint Antoine was on fire. Every person living there had stopped thinking of life as important, and was ready with a crazy enthusiasm to give their life for what they wanted.

As wild water moving in a circle always has a center, so all of this anger circled around Defarge's wine shop, and every drop in that pot of hot water was pulled toward the place where Defarge himself, already dirty with gunpowder and sweat, was telling people what to do, giving out weapons, pushing one man back and pulling another forward, taking a weapon from one to give to another, working and fighting in the middle of the storm.

"Stay near me, Jack Three," cried Defarge. "And, Jack One and Two, separate and put yourselves at the head of as many of these men as you can. Where is my wife?"

"Ah! Here I am!" said Madam, relaxed as ever, but not knitting today. Madam's strong right hand was holding an axe, in the place of the softer tools, and in her belt were a gun and a cruel knife.

"Where will you go, my wife?"

"I go," said Madam, "with you for now. But before long you will see me at the head of the women."

"Come, then!" cried Defarge, in a strong voice. "Friends and lovers of our country, we are ready! To the prison!"

With a shout that sounded as if all the voices in France had been shaped into that hated word, the living ocean moved, wave on wave, and poured across the city to that place. Warning bells were ringing, drums were sounding, and the ocean was storming onto its new beach as the war started.

Deep ditches, two bridges, big stone walls, eight great towers, cannons, guns, fire, and smoke. Through the fire and through the smoke... in the fire and in the smoke, for the crowd pushed him against a cannon, and just so quickly he became the one using the cannon... Defarge of the wine shop worked like a brave soldier for two angry and wild hours.

One deep ditch, one bridge, big stone walls, eight great towers, cannons, guns, fire and smoke. One bridge down! "Work, brothers, work! Work, Jack One, Jack Two, Jack One Thousand, Jack Two Thousand, Jack Twenty-five Thousand. In the name of all the angels or devils -- You choose -- work!" It was Defarge of the wine shop, still at his gun, which was quite hot now.

"Follow me, women!" cried Madam his wife. "What! We can kill as well as the men when the place is taken!" And to her, with a high thirsty cry, came women with many different weapons, but all armed with hunger and hate.

Cannons, guns, fire and smoke; but still the deep ditch and the one bridge, the big stone walls, and the eight great towers. There were some small breaks in the waves of angry people, made by some being killed or hurt. Flaming weapons and burning torches, smoking carts full of wet straw to hide their movements, hard work at other carts on each side of them, shouts, explosions, angry words, brave actions without end, noise of all kinds, and the sound of the angry ocean of people over it all. But still the deep ditch and that one bridge, and the big stone walls, and the eight great towers, and still Defarge of the wine shop at his gun, now twice as hot after four hours of wild angry work.

Then a white flag from inside the prison, and a meeting between leaders on both sides -- this almost impossible to see, and not heard at all -- and the wave of people quickly growing wider and higher pushing Defarge of the wine shop over the bridge (now open) past the big stone walls and into the eight great towers, as the people holding them gave up!

So strong was the movement of the wave of people pouring into the prison that Defarge could not even breathe or turn his head against it, until he finished in the outside yard of the prison. There, against the side of a wall, he was able, at last, to look around and see what was happening. Jack Three was almost at his side. Madam Defarge, still leading some of the women, could be seen in the distance with her knife in her hand. Everywhere was noise and confusion, happy, crazy, wild, and so very loud, and yet nothing that could be understood.

"The prisoners!" "The papers!"

"The secret rooms!" "The torture tools!" "The prisoners!"

Of all their shouts, and ten thousand noises that could not be understood, "The Prisoners!" was the one most taken up by the wave that pushed forward, as if it was an eternity of people like there is in time and space. When the first wave rolled past, taking the prison officers with them, and warning them all of a fast death if they did not show them every secret place, Defarge put his strong hand on the chest of one of them -- a man with a grey head, who had a lighted torch in his hand -- separated him from the others, and put him between himself and the wall.

"Show me the North Tower!" said Defarge. "Quickly!"

"I will," answered the man, "if you will just follow me. but there is no one there."

"What is the meaning of one hundred and five North Tower?” asked Defarge. "Now!"

"The meaning, sir?"

"Is it the name of a person or a place? Or do you want us to kill you?"

"Kill him!" spoke Jack Three, who had come up close.

"Sir, it is a room for a prisoner."

"Show it to me!"

"Come this way, then."

Jack Three, with the same old hunger, and clearly not happy that the talk had turned away from killing, held Defarge's arm, and Defarge held the guard's. Their three heads had been close together during this, and even then it had been difficult for them to hear each other, so great was the noise of the living ocean as it poured into the prison, and flooded the rooms and walk ways and steps. All around outside too, the wave pushed against the walls with a deep, rough shout, from which at times, some side shouts broke away and jumped into the air on their own, like happens with the water in a wave.

Through dark sad rooms under the ground, where the light of day had never been, past ugly doors to dark holes and cages, down cave-like steps, and again up steep rough stone and brick steps, more like cliffs than steps, Defarge, the guard, and Jack Three, joined hand to arm, went as quickly as they could. Here and there, mostly at the start, they met people from the flood above, but when they were finished with going down and were climbing up through the tower, they were alone. Shut in here by the thick walls of the tower, the storm inside and outside the prison was softer on the ears, as if the earlier noise had destroyed their ability to hear well.

The guard stopped at a low door, put a key in the noisy lock, pushed the door slowly open, and said, as they all bent their heads and went in:

"One hundred and five, North Tower!"

There was a small, heavily covered window with no glass in it, high in the wall, with a stone wall coming down from the roof in front of it, so that one could only see the sky by bending low and looking up at the window. There was a small chimney with heavy bars across it, a few feet inside, with a pile of ashes from the timber burned in it. There was a small chair without a back, a table, and a bed of straw. There were the four black walls, and a rusted iron ring in one of them.

"Move that torch slowly across these walls, so I can see them," said Defarge to the guard.

The man obeyed, and Defarge followed the light closely with his eyes.

"Stop! Look here, Jack!"

"A.M.!" said Jack, in a low, rough voice, as he read greedily.

"Alexander Manette," said Defarge in his ear, following the letters with his dark first finger, that was deeply coloured by the gunpowder he had been using. "And here he wrote 'a poor doctor'. And it was he, for sure, who scratched a calendar on this stone. What is that in your hand? An iron bar? Give it to me!"

He still had in his hand the long stick he had used to light the cannon. He quickly gave that tool for the other one, and turning on the chair and table broke them to pieces with a few hits.

"Hold the light higher!" he said angrily to the guard. "Look through that rubbish with care, Jack. Look! Here is my knife," throwing it to him. "Cut open that bed and look through the straw. Hold the light higher, you!"

With an angry look at the guard he climbed up into the fireplace and, looking up the chimney, hit and scratched at its side with the iron bar, and worked at the iron bars across it too. In a few minutes, some dust and broken bricks came dropping down, which he turned his face to get away from. In that, and in the rubbish of the fireplace, and in the hole in the chimney that his weapon had found its way, he reached with a careful touch.

"Nothing in the timber and nothing in the straw, Jack?"

"Nothing."

"Let us put them together in the middle of the room. Good! Now light them, you!"

The guard put a light to the little pile, which burned high and hot. Bending again to come out at the low door, they left it burning and returned to the prison yard. They seemed, little by little, to receive back their ability to hear as they climbed down, until they were back in the angry flood once again.

They found the storm of people moving one way and another as the crowd looked for Defarge himself. Saint Antoine wanted to have its wine shop owner at the front of those guarding the governor of the prison -- the one who had been shooting people to stop them from breaking into the prison. Without Defarge they could not make the governor walk to the Hotel de Ville to be judged. Without him, the governor would break free, and he would not be forced to pay for the people's blood (which was now of some worth after so many years when it had not been important at all).

In all the noise and emotion that circled this serious old officer, who was easy to tell from the others by his grey uniform with red ropes and other things on it, there was only one person who was not moving, and she was a woman. "See, there is my husband!" she cried, pointing to him. "See Defarge!" She stood without moving, close to the serious old officer, and stayed close to him through the streets, as Defarge and the others carried him along. She stayed close to him without moving when he was close to where they were going, and the hits had started coming at him from behind. She stayed close to him without moving as the rain of hits from weapons and hands that had been held back for so long fell more and more heavily. She was so close to him when he dropped dead under it that, moving quickly, she put her own foot on his neck, and with her cruel knife -- that had been ready for such a long time -- she cut off his head.

The time had come when Saint Antoine was going to really hang people up as lanterns, to show what he could be and do. Saint Antoine's blood was up, and the blood of cruel leaders with iron hands was down -- down on the steps of the Hotel de Ville where the governor's body lay... down under the sole of Madam Defarge's shoe, that had been used to keep him from moving during the cutting off of his head. "Lower the lantern out there!" cried Saint Antoine, after looking around for a new way to kill.

"Here is one of his soldiers to be left to guard the prison!" The hanging head was put up, and the ocean of people moved on.

It was an ocean of black dangerous waters and of wave against wave, with no one yet knowing how deep it was or how strong it was. An ocean that would not be stopped, made up of storming shapes, angry voices, and faces made hard in the fires of pain, until there was not the smallest mark of love on any of them.

But in the ocean of faces, where every angry look was so full of life, there were two groups of faces -- each seven in number -- so very opposite to the others that there was never an ocean that had any more surprising broken ships on it. Seven faces of prisoners, just freed by the storm that had broken into the rooms where they were to die, were carried high above the crowd. They were all scared, all lost, all surprised and confused, as if the Last Day had come, and as if those happy people around them were lost spirits. Seven other faces were there, carried even higher. These were seven dead faces, whose half closed eyes were waiting for the Last Day. Faces without life, having a look of fear on them that had stopped -- but had not been taken away. The eyes were yet to open and the lips, now without blood in them, were yet to say, "YOU DID IT!"

Seven prisoners freed, seven blood-covered heads on sticks, the keys of the awful building with eight strong towers, some letters and other things left by past prisoners, long dead from broken hearts... these, and things like them, the loud footsteps carried through the streets of Paris in the middle of July, 1789. Now, Heaven stop the foolish thoughts of Lucie Darnay, and keep those feet far out of her life! For they are wild, crazy, and dangerous; and in the years so long after the breaking of the barrel at Defarge's wine shop door, they are not easily cleaned after they turn red.

22. The Storm Grows

Tired old Saint Antoine had had only one happy week in which to make its hard bread softer with brotherly hugs and shouts of happiness before Madam Defarge was back at her counter, looking over the people in the shop. She had no flower on her head, for the Jacks had become, even in one short week, no longer ready to trust the Saint to care for them. The lanterns across his streets had a way of changing directions very quickly.

Madam Defarge, with her arms folded, sat in the morning light and heat, looking out on the wine shop and the street. In both there were little groups of people doing nothing, dirty and poor; but now they had a proud sign of power sitting on top of their pain. The oldest broken hat hanging on the poorest head now said, "I know how hard it has been for me, the wearer of this hat, to stay alive; but do you know how easy it is for me now to take another person's life?” Every thin, uncovered arm, that had been without work before, now had one job it could always do; it could hit out. The fingers of the knitting women had become evil now, just from knowing that they could kill. There was a change in the way Saint Antoine looked; his face had been hammered for hundreds of years, and the last finishing touches from the hammers had made a very big change.

Madam Defarge sat looking at it with the kind of controlled happiness that was needed from the manager of the Saint Antoine women. One of her sisters knitted beside her. The short, fat wife of a hungry food seller and the mother of two children as well, this leader had already been given the proud name of The Punisher.

"Listen!" said The Punisher. "Listen, then! Who is coming?"

As if a line of gunpowder, poured from the farthest border of Saint Antoine to the door of the wine shop, had been fired with a match, the sound of talking came just that quickly down the line.

"It is Defarge," said Madam. "Be quiet brothers and sisters!"

Defarge came in, breathing heavily, pulled off a red hat that he had been wearing, and looked around him.

"Listen, all of you!" said Madam again. "Listen to him!" Defarge stood, breathing deeply in front of a wall of open mouths and eyes filled with interest. They were looking in from outside the door, as those inside the shop jumped to their feet to hear too.

"Tell us, my husband. What is it?"

"News from the other world!"

"How's that?” cried Madam angrily. "The other world?"

"Does everyone here remember old Foulon, who told the hungry people that they could eat grass, and who died and went to hell?"

"We all do!" from all their throats.

"The news is about him. He's in town!"

"In town?” from the throat of all again. "And dead?"

"Not dead! He was so afraid of us -- and with good reason -- that he started a story that he had died, and there was a big funeral for him. But they have found him alive, hiding in the country, and they have brought him here. I just saw him, on his way to the Hotel de Ville as a prisoner. I said that he had good reason to fear us. So tell me. Did he?"

That poor old sinner of more than 70 years, if he had never known before that he had reason to fear them, he would have known it in his heart of hearts if he had heard their answering cry.

They all were very quiet for a short time after that. Defarge and his wife looked deeply at each other. The Punisher bent over and the sound of a drum could be heard as she moved it at her feet behind the counter.

"Countrymen!" said Defarge, in a strong voice, "are we ready?"

In a second Madam Defarge's knife was in her belt. The drum was sounding in the street as if it and a drummer had come together by magic. And The Punisher, making awful shouts and throwing her arms around her head like all the forty punishers of the Greek and Roman religions, was running from house to house to move the women into action.

The men were bad enough, in the blood-thirsty way that they looked out the windows, grabbing whatever weapons they could find, and running down into the street; but the women were enough to scare the bravest person. From whatever house jobs they had been doing, from their children, from their old parents, and from the sick, all of whom they left sitting on the ground, hungry and without clothes, they ran out with their hair flying in every direction, pushing themselves and others, through wild cries and actions, to a measure of hate that was almost crazy. Evil Foulon is a prisoner, my sister! Old Foulon is a prisoner, my mother! Law-breaker Foulon is a prisoner, my daughter! Then, twenty more would run into the middle of these, hitting their breasts and tearing their hair and crying loudly, Foulon is alive! Foulon, who told the people who were dying from hunger to eat grass. Foulon who told my old father to eat grass when I had no bread to give him! Foulon who told my baby to drink grass when my breasts were dry from hunger. Oh mother of God, this Foulon! Oh Heaven, our pain! Hear me, my dead baby, and my thin father: I promise on my knees, on these stones, to pay Foulon back for what he did to you! Husbands and brothers and young men, give us the blood of Foulon. Give us his head! Give us his heart! Give us the body and soul of Foulon. Tear him to pieces, and dig him into the ground, so grass can grow from him! With these cries, numbers of the women, whipped up into a blind anger, ran around hitting and tearing at their own friends until they fainted from all this emotion, and would have been walked on by the crowd if their men had not stopped the others from stepping on them.

For all this, not one minute was wasted; not even a second! This Foulon was at the Hotel de Ville; he could be freed. It must never happen. Saint Antoine knew all that he had done to hurt him! So men and women, armed with weapons, left Saint Antoine so quickly, pulling others with them with such force, that in less than fifteen minutes there was not one person left in the heart of Saint Antoine apart from a few old women and the crying children.

By that time people were crowding into the court where this ugly, evil old man was. There was not enough room, so they filled the yard and streets outside. The Defarges, husband and wife, The Punisher, and Jack Three were at the front, quite near to Foulon.

"See!" cried Madam, pointing with her knife. "See the evil old man tied with ropes. That was very smart to tie a pile of grass on his back. Ha, ha! Well done! Let him eat it now!" Madam put her knife under her arm, and hit her hands together to show that she liked the entertainment of it all.

The people closest behind her told the people behind them what had made Madam so happy, and they told others until even out on the streets people were clapping at how funny it was. In the same way, over the next two or three hours of boring talk and thousands of words, each time Madam Defarge would show that she wanted things to move more quickly, seconds later the people outside would be agreeing with her. This happened even more quickly after some of the men were able, by some wonderful ability, to climb the outside walls of the building and look in from the windows, where they could see what was happening and then pass the word on to the crowd outside the building.

After some time, the sun was so high that it came through the window straight on the head of the old prisoner, making it look like he had some hope of being protected. That was too much for the crowd to put up with. The wall between the crowd, as weak as dust, had lasted for a surprisingly long time, but in a second it was gone, and Saint Antoine had the prisoner!

Even at the back of the crowd, everyone knew when it happened. Defarge simply jumped a table and a short timber wall before folding the poor man in a deadly hug. Madam Defarge just followed and grabbed one of the ropes with which he was tied. The Punisher and Jack Three were not yet up with them, and the men in the windows had not yet dropped to the floor in the court room, like wild birds from their high nests, when the cry went up all over the city, "Bring him out! Bring him to the lanterns!"

Down, up, then head first down the steps. Now on his knees, now on his feet, now on his back. Pulled and hit at, and not able to breathe with all of the grass and straw that was being pushed into his face by hundreds of hands. Cut, hit, fighting to breathe, bleeding, and always begging for mercy. Now hurting from their angry hits and kicks, with a small open space cleared around him by people wanting to give everyone room to look. Now, like a dead tree branch being pulled through a forest of legs, he was pulled to the nearest street corner where one of the deadly lanterns was hanging. There, Madam Defarge took the ropes off him, like a cat might do with a mouse, and quietly looked on while the crowd prepared for the kill, and while he begged for mercy. The women, filled with hate, cried out through it all, and the men shouted for him to be killed with grass in his mouth. Once they pulled his body up on the lantern rope and it broke. They caught him, crying. Again they did the same thing. Then the rope was kind to him, and held him up until he was dead. His head was soon on a stick, with enough grass in his mouth to make all of Saint Antoine dance.

And this was not the end of the day's evil work. Saint Antoine so shouted and danced his angry blood up that it exploded again when, near the end of the day, they learned that the old man's son-in-law, another enemy of the people, was coming into Paris with five hundred soldiers on horseback as part of the guard that was travelling with him. Saint Antoine wrote the son-in-law’s sins on burning pieces of paper, grabbed him (He would have cut him out of the heart of an army if needed, to put him with Foulon.) put his head on one stick and his heart on another and carried the three rewards In a line through the streets.

It was after dark when the men and women came back to their children, who were crying and hungry. Long lines of them went to the bread shops where they patiently waited to buy bad bread. While they waited with weak and empty stomachs, they passed the time by hugging each other to show their happiness for the happenings of the day, and by going over them all again as they talked. Little by little these lines of dirty poor people died out, and then rough candles were lighted in high windows, and thin fires were made in the streets, where neighbours cooked together before eating their food in front of their doors.

The food was poor, and there was little of it. There was no meat, and not much of anything else to put on the bread. But just being together in what they were doing added some happiness to the poor food. Fathers and mothers, who had received their strength from the actions in the worst part of the day, now played quietly with their hungry children. Lovers, with such a world around them and in front of them, loved and hoped.

It was almost morning when the last group of people left Defarge's wine shop, and Mr. Defarge said to Madam, his wife, in a rough, tired voice, while locking the door:

"At last it has come, my love!"

"Eh, well," returned Madam, "almost".

Saint Antoine went to sleep, the Defarges went to sleep; even The Punisher went to sleep with her hungry husband, and the drum was at rest. The voice of the drum was the only one in Saint Antoine that had not been changed by the blood and hurry of the day. The Punisher, whose job it was to keep the drum, could have picked it up at any time and forced the same words out of it as had been said before the prison had been attacked, or before old Foulon had been killed. On the other hand, the voices of the men and women in Saint Antoine, were sore and rough.

23. The Fire Grows

A change had come over the village with a fountain in the middle of it, the one where the road worker would leave each day to go and hammer out enough stones for the highway to buy himself a little bread to hold his poor hungry body and his poor uneducated soul together. The prison on the cliff was not of so much interest now as it had been in the past. There were soldiers to guard it, but not many; and there were officers to guard the soldiers, but not one of them knew what his men would really do if a serious problem came up, apart from knowing that it would probably not be what they were told to do.

Far and wide, the land received rain, but it gave little in return. Every green leaf, every blade of grass and every grain was as rough and poor as the people who lived there. It was all leaning over, sad, broken, and hurting. Houses, fences, animals, men, women, children, and the land they lived on -- all used up.

Local leaders (often very good men on their own) were a blessing to the country, giving a nice touch to all that was done by the government, as they would be rich men who lived good lives and much more. But, as a group, these men had in some way brought things to where they were now. It is strange how the world, which had been made just for these leaders, should have been so quickly destroyed by them. Surely there must have been something wrong with the way God planned it! But that is how it was. The last drop of blood had been forced out of the rocks, and the turn of the screw on the instruments of torture had taken from the land until there was nothing more to get, and now the leaders were starting to run from the awful effects of their own selfish lives.

But this is not the change that had come over the village and many other villages like it. For many years, the leaders had squeezed what they could from the villages and almost never visited the people apart from when they were out hunting, at times hunting for people, and at times hunting for wild animals, for whom they had cleared the trees from much of the land, leaving it empty and dead. No, the change that had come over the villages was in the looks on the strange faces of the poor, and the change was not that they were without (in this one village) the beautiful rich face of Sir.

In these times, the road worker worked alone in the dust, not often thinking about how he had been made from dust, and how he would one day return to the dust, because he was too busy thinking about how little he had for food that night, and how much more he would eat if he had the money. In these times, as he lifted his eyes from his quiet work, and looked out over the road, he would see someone coming on foot, something that in other days did not often happen, but which now happened a lot. As the walker came closer, the poor labourer would see, without surprise, that it was a man with long rough hair, an almost wild look, tall -- in timber shoes that would not be comfortable even for a road worker -- serious, rough, dark, covered in the mud and dust of many highways, wet from the rain that flooded many low places on the road, carrying leaves and seeds in his clothes from where he had been sleeping under the trees on the way.

Such a man came up to him, like a ghost, at noon one hot but cloudy July day, as he was sitting on his pile of stones under a low cliff on the side of the road, to hide from the hail that had been falling.

The man looked at him, looked at the village at the bottom of the hill, at the windmill, and at the prison on the cliff. When he had marked out these places in his uneducated mind, he said in an accent that the road worker could only just understand:

"How goes it, Jack?"

"All is well, Jack."

"Shake then!"

They shook hands, and the man sat down on the stone pile.

"No dinner?"

"Nothing but a little before I go to bed these days," said the road worker with a hungry look on his face.

"It is the same everywhere I go," the man said angrily.

He took out a dirty old pipe, filled it, lighted it by hitting a piece of metal against a piece of stone that he carried with him, and then breathed in on the pipe until it started to burn well. That is when he quickly dropped something into it from between his thumb and finger. A flame jumped up from it and then died down into a very little cloud of smoke.

"Shake then.” It was the road worker’s turn to say it this time, after watching the man light his pipe. They again shook hands.

"Tonight?” asked the road worker.

"Tonight," said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth. "Where?"

"Here."

He and the road worker sat on the pile of stones looking at each other without talking. The hail was falling between them like very small knives, until the sky started to clear over the village.

"Show me!" said the traveller then, moving to the very top of the hill, where it looked down on the village.

"See!" returned the road worker, pointing. "You go down here and straight through the street, past the fountain..."

"To the devil with all that!" the other cut in, moving his eyes over the country below them. "I go through no streets and past no fountains. Okay?"

"Okay! What you want is six miles past the top of that hill on the other side of the village."

"Good. When do you finish your work?"

"When the sun goes down."

"Will you wake me up before you go home? I have walked through two nights without resting. When I finish my pipe I will sleep like a child. Can you wake me?"

"Sure."

The traveller finished his pipe, put it inside his shirt, pulled off his big timber shoes, and lay down on his back on the pile of stones. He was soon deeply asleep.

As the labourer went about his dirty work, and the hail clouds rolled away, showing strong lines of sunlight that lighted up different parts of the land, the little man (who was wearing a red hat now, in place of his blue one) seemed very interested in the man lying on the pile of stones. He looked that way so often that he was not able to use his tools well, and one could see that he was not getting much real work done. The sleeping man's sun-browned face, the long black hair and beard, the rough red wool hat, the mix of hand- made cloth and animal skins, the big body, made thin by a hard life, and the angry look on his lips even when he was sleeping, all interested the road worker. The traveller had walked a long way, and his feet were sore, his ankles rubbed and bleeding. His big shoes, filled with leaves and grass, had been heavy to carry over the many long miles, and his clothes had many holes in them, like the sores on his own body. Bending down near him, the road worker tried to see if there was a secret weapon in his shirt, but he could not, because the man kept his arms folded strongly over his chest when sleeping. Strong cities with walls, guards, gates, big ditches, and bridges over them that could be lifted and dropped, seemed easy to break when measured against this man. And when the worker lifted his eyes to look out at the sky, he could see in his mind's eye, other men like this, men who would let nothing stop them, going to important places all over France.

The man did not wake either when hail fell or when the sun came through, until the sun was low in the west, and the sky was filled with colour. Then the road worker, having brought his tools together for the walk down to the village, went to wake him.

"Good!" said the sleeper, lifting himself up on one elbow. "Six miles past the top of that hill?” he asked.

"About."

"About. Good!"

The road worker went home, with dust moving ahead of him as the wind chose, and he was soon at the fountain, squeezing himself in between thin cows that had been brought there to drink. It was almost like he was whispering to the cows too as he whispered to others in the village. When the people had finished what little food they had that night, they did not go quietly to bed as they did most nights. Instead, they came out into the open again, and stayed there. A strange movement of whispers was on them all; and on top of that, when they came together at the fountain after dark, they all started looking in the same direction, at the sky there. Mr. Gabelle, the Marquis' leader in that place, started to worry. He went alone to the top of his house and looked at the sky in that direction too. Hiding behind his chimney, he looked down at the faces in the dark by the fountain below, and he sent word to the man who cared for the church building to be ready to ring the warning bell soon.

The night grew later. The trees around the old castle, separating it from the rest of the world, moved as the wind grew stronger, as if they were trying to destroy the building in the darkness of the night. Up the steps, the rain itself hit wildly against the great front door, like a runner with news to wake up the people sleeping inside. Little pieces of the wind moved through the rooms, around the old spears and knives on the walls, and sadly up the steps, where it shook the curtains of the bed where the last Marquis used to sleep. From east, west, north, and south, through the trees, four rough men with heavy steps were breaking small branches and pushing flat the grass as they moved carefully toward the castle's yard, where four lanterns were lighted. Then they each moved off in a different direction before all was black once again.

But not for long. Soon the castle started to make itself seen by some light of its own, as if it was a light. Then a line of light could be seen moving behind the walls, showing through windows and other openings. It grew bigger and stronger. Then, from twenty big windows, flames came out, and the stone faces of the castle, awake now, were looking out from a fire.

There was some talk outside the house, from the few people who were still there, and someone put a saddle on a horse and went off on it. In the darkness, the horse was pushed on through the rain, not stopping until it reached Mr. Gabelle's door, near the village fountain.

"Help, Gabelle! Everyone, help!"

The warning bell started ringing, but no one came to help. The road worker and two hundred and fifty of his friends, stood with their arms folded at the fountain, looking at the fire in the sky. "It must be forty feet high," they said angrily; and they never moved.

The rider from the castle, and the tired horse ran through the village and up the hill leading to the prison. At the gate, a group of officers were watching the fire. At some distance from them were a group of soldiers. "Help, men... officers! The castle is on fire. We can still save some important things from the fire if we hurry! Help, help!" The officers looked toward the soldiers who looked at the fire. They said nothing to the soldiers, but answered the rider by biting their lips and lifting there shoulders. "It must burn."

As the rider raced down the hill again, the village was also starting to light up. The road worker and his two hundred and fifty friends, acting as one, had raced into their houses and were putting candles in every window. Because people were so poor, they needed to get most of their candles from Mr. Gabelle, but when he would not give them candles, the road worker, who had always been very humble to such leaders, had said that coaches could be used to make a fire if needed, and they could cook the man's horses with the fire if they so chose.

The castle was left to flame and burn. In the noise of the fire, a red-hot wind coming as if from hell itself, seemed to be blowing the building away. The stone faces looked like they were in great pain. When big pieces of timber and stone fell, the face with two little marks on each side of its nose, was, at first covered. But it soon worked its way out of the smoke again, like it was the face of the cruel Marquis, burning to death and fighting with the fire as he died.

The castle burned. The closest trees, touched by the fire coming from the castle, also burned and died. Trees at a distance, set on fire by the four angry men, became an even bigger circle of fire and smoke around the burning building. Metal melted in the stone lake of the castle fountain after the water dried up. Containers of water at the top of the four towers, that were there to be used in stopping a fire, were of no effect against the fire, as four great walls of flame ate them up. Big tears in the wall branched out like a chemical action moving quickly from one atom to another. Birds, caught by surprise, only had time to turn before the heat killed them and they fell into the burning building below them. Four angry shapes moved away, east, west, north, and south, along the dark roads toward new targets, helped on their way by the light they had helped to make. The people in the village had control of the bell now, having done away with the man whose job it was to ring it, and they were now ringing it to show their happiness.

Not only that, but the village, drunk with hunger, fire, and bell-ringing, and thinking that Mr. Gabelle was the one behind the taxes... forgetting that not many taxes were paid in those last days, because the people were too poor to pay anything... was in a hurry to talk with him about it, and made a circle around his house, asking for him to come out and talk. Seeing this, Mr. Gabelle put heavy bars across his door, and chose instead to talk to himself. The end effect of this talking was that he returned to the roof of his house behind his chimney. This time he was thinking (because he was a little man and still wanted to hurt those who were planning to hurt him) that he would throw himself head first from there, hoping to kill one or two people in the crowd below as he himself died.

It must have been a long night for Mr. Gabelle up there, with the burning castle for his candle, and the bell and hits on his door for music. And it was made worse by the lantern rope the crowd had put up in front of his gate. The village clearly wanted to hang him in place of the lantern. It would have been a very difficult time, spending a whole summer night so close to the black ocean, ready as Mr. Gabelle was, to take that jump into it! But the sun came up at last with the candles of the village burning out and the people happily leaving. Mr. Gabelle came down, carrying his life with him for a while.

In other villages, less than a hundred miles away, in the light of other fires, there were government leaders who were not as lucky, not that night and not on other nights. For them, when the sun came up, it found them hanging over streets that had once been at peace, in villages where they had been born and where they had lived all their lives. Also, there had been other people from towns and villages who had not been as lucky as the road worker and his friends in this village. The government leaders had been able in those towns and villages to turn the soldiers against the people and they were the ones hanging from ropes in the morning light. The angry shapes did not stop moving, east, west, north, and south. It made no difference who was hanged; the fires still burned. No government leader, even those expert in numbers, could tell how high the hanging stage would need to be to stop that fire.

24. Pulled Toward the Rock

In such a growing fire and growing storm -- the solid earth being shaken by the movements of an angry ocean which grew higher and higher without ever falling back, and bringing fear to those on the beach -- three years of such weather followed. Three more birthdays for little Lucie had been added by the golden thread to the happy cloth of her home life.

Many days and nights had the people living in that house listened to footsteps on the corner, with hearts that stopped when they heard the sound of crowds. The steps had come to be, in their minds, the steps of an angry crowd that had been turned into wild animals by all that they had been through before then. They carried a red flag to mark the danger that covered their country.

French Sirs, as a class, had stopped worrying about people liking or not liking them. They were so not wanted in France that there was danger of them being forced out of the country and out of life itself. Like the man who wanted badly to see the devil and then ran in fear when it happened, so the rich class, after saying the Lord's Prayer backwards for so many years, and doing many other things to bring evil on themselves, no sooner saw what was coming from their actions before they were running in fear of it.

The sharp "eye" of the Court was now gone. If it had stayed, a storm of bullets that it had never seen coming in the past would have tried to put it out anyway. The things that kept it from seeing well were the pride of the devil, the greed of a king like Sardanapalus,* and the blindness of an animal that spends all of its time under the ground. All the same, the eye was now gone. The Court, from that very special circle at the center to the most evil people on the farthest borders, was now gone too. The king and queen and their family were gone. The latest news from France was that they had been taken in their castle and "stopped".

(*Sardanapalus was a past king of Assyria.)

August of the year 1792 had come, and the French Sirs were by this time running in all directions.

As anyone might think, the place where any of these Sirs would want to go in London would be to Tellson's Bank. They say that spirits return to the place where their bodies were most often, and a Sir without money would go to the place where his money had most often been. It was also the place where the smartest people from France would come soon after arriving in England. Another reason for these people on the run to be there was that Tellson's was a generous house, and would often help rich old friends who had lost their wealth. And the last reason is that those from the rich class who had seen the storm coming, and knew what it would mean, had put their money in Tellson's before it happened, and now their hungry brothers would come there to ask them for help. All this added up to every new person coming from France stopping in at Tellson's with the latest news of what was happening back home. For all of these reasons, Tellson's was at that time almost like a French newspaper. So many people knew this and so many would come there for more information, that Tellson's would sometimes write a line or two of the latest news and put it in the bank windows for anyone going through Temple Bar to read.

One wet afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his desk and Charles Darnay stood leaning on it as he talked in a quiet voice. The room where people had come in the past to talk to the "House" was now more than full. It was about half an hour before closing time.

"Even if you were the youngest man who ever lived," said Charles Darnay, with some fear, "I must still say to you..."

"I understand. You think I am too old?” said Mr. Lorry.

"Bad weather, a long trip, difficult travel, a country without leaders, a city that may not even be safe for you..."

"My good man," said Mr. Lorry with friendly confidence, "you have touched on some of the reasons for my going... not for my staying away. It is safe enough for me. Who would be interested in an old man who is almost eighty now, when there are much better people for them to fight with? As for it having no leaders, that is the very reason why we need to send someone from our House here to our House there... someone who knows the city and the business that needs to be done, and someone whom Tellson's can trust. As for the bad weather and a rough, long trip... if, after all these years, I were not prepared to go through a little trouble for Tellson's, who should?"

"I wish I were going myself," said Charles Darnay like he was talking to himself.

"Is that right? And you think I should listen to one who talks like that?” Mr. Lorry said in surprise. "You wish you were going yourself? And you, who were born over there? Do you call that good thinking?"

"My good Mr. Lorry, it is because I was born over there that the thought (which I did not mean for you to hear) has gone through my mind so often. One cannot stop thinking, having some understanding for what the people have been through, and having left something with them," he said, deep in thought now, "that I should be listened to, and that I might be able to show you that you should not go. Only last night, after you had left us, when I was talking to Lucie..."

"When you were talking to Lucie," Mr. Lorry repeated. "Yes, I am surprised that you would even say her name! Wishing that you were going to France at this time of day!"

"But I am not going," said Charles Darnay with a smile. "What is more important is that you say you are."

"Because I am. It's as easy as that. The truth is, Charles," Mr. Lorry said as he looked at the "House" in the distance and dropped his voice, "you could never understand how difficult it is for us to do business at this time, and the danger that goes with our books and papers over there. Only God knows what it would do to so many people if some of our papers were taken or destroyed; and that could happen at any time, you know; for who can say that Paris will not be burned down today or tomorrow? Quickly taking the most important papers and burying them or in some other way making them safe is something that only I could do. Should I hold back when Tellson's knows this and says this... Tellson's, whose bread I have been eating for sixty years... just because I am a little sore in my joints? Why I am only a boy, sir, if put next to some of the really old men around here!"

"I think very highly of your brave young spirit, Mr. Lorry."

"Don't be foolish, sir! My good friend," said Mr. Lorry, looking at the "House" again, "you should know that getting things out of Paris at this time (It makes no difference what it is.) is almost impossible. The papers we received today... I should not be telling this to anyone, so please don't say a word about it to anyone... came here in the hands of some very brave men. Each one was only a hair away from losing his head as he crossed the border. Any other time our papers would move to and from France as easily as they move here in England; but now everything is stopped.

"And do you really want to go tonight?"

"I must, for the business is too important to wait any longer.”

"Will you take no one with you?"

"Many have been named to go with me, but I will have nothing to say to any of them. I plan to take Jerry. He has protected me on my walks to your place each Sunday for years now, and I am used to him. Nobody will think he is anything more than an English friend, there to protect me from anyone who tries to touch me."

"I have to say again that I think you are very brave and very young at heart."

"And I have to say again that such talk is foolishness! When I have finished this little job, I may agree to stop working and take some rest. Then I can think about growing old."

This talk had taken place at Mr. Lorry's desk, with high class Frenchmen moving around only a few feet away, and talking about what they would one day do to those who had turned them into refugees. It was the way of the rich, both in France and in England, to talk about this awful change as if it was the only fruit in the world that did not grow from a planted seed... as if nothing had ever been done (or not been done) that could have had such an effect... as if no one had ever seen the poor millions in France and all that could have been done to make their life better, and as if no one had ever seen or said, years before, in words that could be easily understood, what was going to happen. Such hot air, together with talk by these same high class people about putting things back the way they were, as if it were possible, was enough to make anyone who knew the truth and was not crazy jump into an argument with them. This talk all around his ears, like a sickness inside his head, made it difficult for Charles Darnay to sit still and say nothing.

One of the talkers was Stryver, who was doing well in the courts, and, because of that, was talking loudly here at Tellson's: telling the high class French men about how he would destroy the working class and live well without them. He had other plans too, but they were about as smart as saying that one could put an end to eagles by putting salt on all their tails. Darnay had a special feeling of anger when he heard Stryver talking, and he was pulled between leaving and speaking up, when things happened in such a way as to make up his mind for him.

The "House" came and put a dirty, closed letter on Mr. Lorry's desk, asking if he had been able to find the person whose name was on it. The letter was so close to Darnay on the desk that he could see the name, and see that it was his own real name: "The Marquis Evremonde, of France".

On the morning of the day he had married Lucie, Doctor Manette had strongly asked Charles Darnay to never tell anyone his secret without the Doctor agreeing to it first. No other person knew his real name... not Lucie, and not Mr. Lorry.

"No," said Mr. Lorry, to the "House". "I have taken it around to all the people here, and not one can tell me where I can find this man."

Because the clock said it was almost time for the bank to close, all the Sirs were moving by Mr. Lorry's desk on their way out of the bank. He held the letter out, and one by one they each had something bad to say, in French or in English, about the awful Marquis whose name was on the envelope.

"Nephew, I believe, of the wonderful Marquis who was killed," said one. "Happy to say I never knew him."

"Ran away from his job," said another. The man saying this had, himself, secretly left Paris by hiding in a wagon under a pile of straw.

"This new teaching has been his work," said a third. "He tried to fight his uncle, the last Marquis, left the land when it became his, and then let the beggars take it over. They'll pay him back now. I hope they kill him."

"Is that true?” cried the big-mouthed Stryver. "What kind of person would do that? Let me see his name. To hell with this man!"

Darnay, not able to hold himself back any longer touched Stryver on the shoulder and said, "I know the man."

"Do you, by God?” said Stryver. "I'm sad to hear that. Did you hear what he did? There is no good reason for doing that in times like these."

"And why do you say that?"

"I'll tell you again, Mr. Darnay, I'm sorry for you. Sorry that you would even ask the question. Here is a man, who, touched by the evilest teaching that was ever known, left his land to the worst people on earth, people who would kill anyone. And you ask me why I am sorry that a man who teaches young people knows him? Okay, I will answer you. I think that the evil from one person can rub off onto another. That's why."

Remembering the secret he had promised to keep, Darnay tried hard to control himself, as he said, "You may not understand the man."

"I understand how to put you in a corner, Mr. Darnay," said Stryver the Pusher, "and I'll do it. If this man is of high class, then I don't understand him. You can tell him that for me. Tell him too, that if he was prepared to give all that belonged to him to this rough crowd, then why isn't he there leading them now?” Then, looking around at the others in the bank, he said, "Men, I know something about people, and I can tell you that you will never find a person who trusts the people he helps enough to become one of them. No, men, he'll always turn and run before the fight starts."

With those words, and a wave of his hand, Mr. Stryver shouldered his way out into Fleet street, with his hearers loudly saying how much they agreed with him. Mr. Lorry and Charles Darnay were left alone in the bank when they had gone.

"Will you take over the letter?” asked Mr. Lorry. "Do you know where to find the man?"

"I do."

"Can you tell him that we think it came here because they believed we would know where he was, and that it has been here for a long time?"

"I'll do that. Will you be leaving for Paris straight from here.” "Yes, from here, at eight."

"I'll come back to see you off."

Angry with himself, with Stryver, and with most other men, Darnay made his way into a quiet place in Temple, opened the letter, and read it. This is what it said:

Prison of the Abbey, Paris.

June 12, 1792.

Sir, the new Marquis, after being in danger of my life at the hands of the village, I have been very roughly taken a long way, on foot, to Paris. My house has been destroyed, burned to the ground.

They say I am in prison, Sir, and will come before the court, and will be killed (without your generous help) because I have hurt the people of France by acting against them for a man who ran away from France. They can't see that I was trying to help them and not hurt them, as you had asked me to do. I have told them that, before they took your land, I had already forgiven the taxes that they had not paid, and I had asked for no more rent; but they do not listen. They only say that I have acted for a man who ran away, and they ask, 'Where is he?'

Oh, most loving Marquis, Sir, where is that man who left? I cry in my sleep, 'Where is he?' I ask God, 'Will he not come to save me?' No answer. Oh, Sir the Marquis, I send my sad cry across the water, hoping it may reach your ears through the bank of Tellson's that I know has a branch in Paris!

For the love of heaven, of what is fair and generous, for the good of your great name, I beg you, Sir, the new Marquis, to help liberate me. All I did was to be true to you. Please Sir, the new Marquis, be true to me!

From this awful prison here, where each hour brings me closer to death, I send you, Sir, the sad news of where I am.

Your hurting one,

Gabelle.

The thoughts that had been in the back of Darnay's mind before this were brought to life by the letter. What had happened to an old servant, who was also a good servant, whose only wrong was to obey him and his family, looked him so strongly in the face that, as he walked one way and the other in the Temple, thinking about what to do, he almost wanted to hide his face from the people walking by.

He knew very well that his feeling about the awful way his uncle had died, his anger against his uncle, and the voice of his conscience against taking up his uncle's job had all made him act too quickly. He knew very well that, in his love for Lucie, leaving the rich class in France (something he had wanted to do for some time) was hurried and not well thought out. He knew that he should have stayed to be sure that it was done right. He had wanted to do that too, but it had never happened.

The happiness of his English home, the need to be always busy, the fast changes in France, which would force one week's plans to be changed the next, had all worked together to stop him from finishing the job he had started. He knew things were not right, but he had not followed through and put them right. He had watched things change until it was too late to act. The rich were leaving France by every road and highway now, their land taken from them, their homes destroyed, and their names rubbed out. He knew all of this as well as any of the new leaders in France knew it, the ones who might now take action against him for doing nothing.

But he had not hurt anyone, he had put no one in prison, and he was far from taking too much money from the people because he had, in truth, taken none. He had left for a country where he would not be special, and where he was forced to work for himself if he wanted to eat. Mr. Gabelle had been put in control of the land on the understanding that he was to help the people, and to give them what little there was to give, timber for heat in the winter and food from the land in the summer. He had put it in writing to Mr. Gabelle, and surely Gabelle must have shown those papers to the court by now.

All of this gave Charles Darnay more confidence to believe that a trip to Paris would put an end to Mr. Gabelle's problems.

Like the old story of the ship owner who was forced by the storm close to a rock that acted like a magnet to pull his ship into it, Charles Darnay was being pulled, by every thought in his head, more and more toward Paris. His secret worry had been that the wrong targets were being set by the wrong people in his own sad country, and that he, knowing what was needed, should be there trying to do something to stop the killings, and to push for more mercy in the way they acted toward the people they were fighting against. With this feeling half covered and half making him feel guilty, he had come to the point where he judged his actions by those of the brave old man who had tried so hard to obey him. When doing that (which showed himself to be wrong) he remembered the words of his uncle, which had hurt so much at the time, and those of Stryver, which, even if they were very rough, had also hurt for other reasons. And then he had read Gabelle's letter: an innocent prisoner, in danger of death, asking for help in the belief that Charles Darnay would do what was right.

His mind was made up. He must go to Paris.

Yes. The Rock was pulling him like a magnet, and he had no choice but to sail on until he hit it. He knew nothing of the Rock, because he saw little danger. The good spirit in what he had started, even if he had not finished it, made him believe that others in France would see him as a friend. Then, that strong love for doing good, which tricks so many good minds, made a false picture in his mind, and he started to see himself as being able to control the war that was running so wild there now.

As he moved here and there with his thoughts, he started thinking that both Lucie and her father must not know of his plan until after he had gone. Then Lucie would not have to go through the pain of saying goodbye, and her father, always in pain if he remembered the dangers of his past, would be better off to learn about his action in one hit, without thinking about all that could go with it. He gave little thought to how much Lucie's father's fears about remembering his past had added to his confusion about what to do; but it did have some effect on what he ended up doing.

He moved here and there with his thoughts until it was time to return to Tellson's and say goodbye to Mr. Lorry. As soon as he arrived in Paris, he would find this old friend; but he must not say anything to him about his plan at this time.

A coach with fast horses was ready at the bank door, and Jerry was dressed for the trip.

"I have given that letter to the man it was for," said Charles Darnay to Mr. Lorry. "I would never ask you to carry an answer in writing, but could you just tell the sender something?"

"I will gladly do that," said Mr. Lorry, "if it is not too dangerous."

"Not at all. But it is for a prisoner in the Abbey."

"What is his name?” asked Mr. Lorry, with his pocket book open in his hand.

"Gabelle."

"Gabelle. And what should I say to this poor Gabelle, who is in prison?"

"Just that the man has received the letter and will come.”

"Did he say when?"

"He will leave London tomorrow night."

"Any name I should give him?"

"No."

Darnay helped Mr. Lorry to cover himself in warm clothes, and then went with him from the warm air in the old bank, into the wet air of Fleet Street. "Give my love to Lucie, and to little Lucie," said Mr. Lorry as he left, "and take good care of them until I come back.” Charles Darnay shook his head and smiled with some fear as the coach rolled away.

That night... it was the fourteenth of August... he sat up late, and wrote two serious letters, one to Lucie, telling her the reasons why he had to go, and showing her, at length, the reasons he had for feeling confident that there would be no danger for him by being there. The other letter was to the Doctor, asking him to care for Lucie and for their much loved child, and saying the same things that he had said to Lucie, arguing strongly for his belief in both cases. To both, he said that he would send a letter to them as soon as he arrived in Paris, so that they would know that he was safe.

The next day was a difficult one, as it was the first time since they were married, that he had kept a secret from his wife. It was not easy for him to hide something, knowing that she had always trusted him with good reason. He had been close to telling her because he had always had her help when making plans in the past; but one loving look at Lucie, who was so happy and busy, made him strong in his earlier choice not to tell her. Early that evening he hugged her and the little one who also had her name, and whom he loved almost as much as her, then, acting like he would be back in a short time (after making up a false reason to go out, and hiding a suitcase where he could find it later), he stepped out into the heavy clouds on the heavy streets, with a heavier heart.

The invisible magnet was pulling him quickly toward itself now, and all the movements of the ocean and the wind were in the same direction. He left the two letters with a servant whom he could trust, to be given to the others half an hour before midnight, and not before. Then he took a horse to Dover, and started his trip. "For the love of heaven, of what is fair and generous, for the good of your great name," had been the poor prisoner's cry. He used those words to give his heart strength as he left behind all that he loved on earth, and moved away toward the Rock.

Book Three: The Way of a Storm

Book Three: The Way of a Storm

1. In Secret

The trip towards Paris from England was a slow one, late in the year 1792. Even if the King of France had still been in power, there would have been more than enough bad roads, bad coaches, and bad horses to make things difficult; but the changes in France brought new problems there. Every town and village had its group of freedom fighters with guns that they were more than ready to use, who stopped everyone, coming and going, to ask questions, look at their papers, look for their names in lists of their own, turn people back or send them on, or put them in prison as each group should happen to choose, in the name of their new country, where all were to be free and equal brothers or they were to be dead.

Charles Darnay had travelled only a few miles on the roads of France before he knew that he would never be free to return to England without first getting papers to clear himself in Paris. Whatever was ahead of him, there was no turning back now. Every gate that closed behind him on the road was another iron door that would stand between him and England on his way home. So many people were watching him now that if he had been taken in a net or were being carried forward in a cage, he would be no more without freedom than he felt now.

All these watching people would not only stop him as many as twenty times between towns, but they made his progress slower twenty times in a day by riding after him and taking him back, riding up to him from in front and stopping him before he arrived, and by riding with him to keep close watch on him. His trip in France alone had gone on for days before he went to bed one night in a little town on the road, still a long way from Paris.

Only the letter from Gabelle in the Abbey Prison had helped him to get this far; but the problems he had at the guard house in this little place made him think that his trip had come to an end.

Because of this, he was not surprised when guards came to wake him in the middle of the night at the hotel where he was staying.

A shy local leader with three of the new soldiers in rough red hats and with pipes in their mouths sat down on his bed.

"I am going to send people to go with you to Paris," said the local leader.

"Friend, I want nothing more than to get to Paris; but I do not need anyone to go with me."

"Be quiet!" shouted a red-hat, hitting the covers with the timber end of his gun. "Shut up, rich one!"

"It is as the good freedom fighter says," the shy leader said. "You are from the rich class, so someone must go with you... and you must pay for it."

"I have no choice then," said Charles Darnay.

"Choice? Listen to him!" cried the angry red-hat. "As if he's not lucky to have us protect him from being hanged as a lantern!"

"It is always as the good freedom fighter says," the leader put in. "Get up and dress yourself, traveller."

Darnay did as he was told and was taken back to the guard house, where other freedom fighters in rough red hats were smoking, drinking, and sleeping by a watch fire. Here he paid a heavy price for his helpers, and then started out on the wet, wet roads at three o'clock in the morning.

The men taking him to Paris were freedom fighters on horses, wearing red hats with special markings on them in three colours, and carrying government guns and swords. One horse walked on each side of him.

Darnay was able to ride his own horse, but a loose line was tied from his saddle to the wrist of one of the guards. Travelling like this, they started out, with the sharp rain driving in their faces, moving like soldiers quickly across the rough stones of the town streets, and more slowly on the deep muddy roads of the country.

They did not change this pattern when they changed horses or when they changed from a run to a walk, over all the deep muddy miles that lay between them and Paris.

They travelled through the night, stopping an hour or two after the sun came up, and resting until the sun was going down. The men travelling with him were so poorly dressed that they put straw around their legs to keep warm, and leaves on their shoulders to keep the wet off. Apart from the pain of travelling in this way and such dangers as came from one of them being drunk at all times and carrying his gun in a dangerous way, Charles Darnay did not let what was happening put any fear into his heart; for he believed that being tied like this said nothing about how good or bad he was until he had been able to tell his story, which would be backed up by the prisoner in the Abbey, when he reached Paris.

But when they came to the town of Beauvais, which they did in the evening, when the streets were still full of people, he could not help but think that things were not right at all. An angry crowd came to see him get off his horse at the horse station, and many voices called out loudly, "Down with the runaway!"

He stopped in the act of leaving his saddle, returning to his seat because it was safer there, and said: "Run away, my friends? Do you not see me here in France of my own free will?"

"You are a cursed runaway," cried a horseshoe maker, pushing toward him through the crowd with a hammer in his hand. "And you are a cursed member of the rich class!"

The station master put himself between this man and Darnay's horse (which seemed to be the angry man's target) and said quietly, "Let him be; let him be! He will be judged in Paris."

"Judged!" repeated the horseshoer, waving his hammer. "Yes! And killed for treason.” At this the crowd shouted in agreement.

Looking toward the station master, who wanted to turn the horses into the yard, Darnay said, when he could make himself heard:

"Friends, you have tricked yourselves, or you are being tricked. I am not guilty of acting against my country."

"He's lying!" cried the angry horseshoe maker. "The new law says he's guilty of treason. He owes his life to the people. His cursed life is not his own!"

Just when Darnay could see in the eyes of the crowd that they were going to take him, the station master turned his horse into the yard, with the guards moving close to either side of it. He shut and barred the gate behind them. The angry man's hammer hit the gate a few times, and the crowd shouted a little, but nothing more than that happened.

"What is this law the man spoke of?” Darnay asked the station master, after thanking him and getting down off his horse.

"It's a new rule, that lets us sell everything owned by people who have left the country."

"When was it made?"

"On the fourteenth."

"That's the day I left England."

"Everybody says there'll be more... if there are not already... stopping all runaways from returning, and killing all who do. That's what he was talking about when he said your life is not your own."

"But there are no such laws yet?"

"How can I know?” asked the station master, lifting his shoulders. "There may be or there will be. It's all the same."

They rested on straw in the top of the barn until the middle of the night, when everyone else was sleeping. Then they would start riding forward again. The country had changed in many strange ways, as Charles Darnay had seen as he travelled, and it made this wild ride feel like a dream. One of the bigger changes was how people did not sleep much now. After a long ride over open roads, they would come to a group of rough houses in the middle of the night, and far from finding them in darkness, there would be lights everywhere, and people, like ghosts in the night, dancing in a circle around a freedom tree or all joined close together singing a freedom song. But Darnay and his guards were happy to find people sleeping in Beauvais when they quietly moved out into the empty night. They moved with little noise through the cold and wet that was too early this year, on roads between poor fields that had nothing growing in them, and that were marked now by the black timbers from houses that had been burned, and by the freedom fighters who would surprise the riders at secret points on the way, in their day and night watch on all of the roads.

By morning they were in front of the wall around Paris. The gate was closed and strongly guarded when they reached it.

"Where are the papers for this prisoner?” asked a leader who had been called out by the guard, and who looked like he would not change for anyone.

Surprised and hurt by that awful word, Charles Darnay asked the man to look and see that he was a free traveller and a man of France, travelling with two guards whom the government had forced him to pay for because of the problems in the country.

"Where," repeated the same man, taking no interest in him at all, "are the papers for this prisoner?"

The drunk guard had them in his hat, and so he pulled them out. Looking quickly at Gabelle's letter, the same leader showed some confusion and surprise, and he looked at Darnay more closely now.

He left the guard and the one being guarded without saying a word and went into the guard room. When he was doing this, the others stayed on their horses at the gate. Charles Darnay used the time to look and think. He saw that the gate was guarded by both soldiers and freedom fighters, there being more fighters than there were soldiers. While it was easy for farmers and their wagons and other people and the things they were selling to get into the city, leaving the city was very difficult for even the simplest people. A crowd of people, animals, and vehicles of many different kinds were waiting to leave; but movement out through the gate was very slow. Some of them knew they would be there so long that they would lay on the ground to sleep or smoke, while others talked together. Men and women everywhere were wearing the little red hat with three-coloured markings.

After sitting in his saddle for half an hour, looking at these things, Darnay saw the government man return and tell the guard to open the gate. He gave a paper to the two men travelling with Darnay, and then asked him to get down off his horse. He did, and the two men who had been travelling with him turned without going into the city, and left, leading his horse as they went.

He went with the man into the guard room, which smelled of cheap wine and tobacco, where soldiers and freedom fighters, asleep and awake, drunk and not drunk, some awake, some asleep, and some in between, were standing and lying about. The light in the guard house, half from the weak oil lantern, and half from the clouded sun coming up, was also in confusion. Some lists were lying open on a desk, and an officer who looked both rough and dark, was in control of these.

"Countryman Defarge," said the officer to the man leading Darnay, as he took a piece of paper to write on, "Is this the runaway Evremonde?"

"This is the man."

"Your age, Evremonde?” "Thirty-seven."

"Married, Evremonde?"

Yes."

"Where married?"

"In England."

"Not surprising. Where is your wife, Evremonde?"

"In England."

"As I thought. You will go, Evremonde, to La Force Prison."

"My heavens!" shouted Darnay. "Under what law, and for what wrong?"

"The officer looked up from his piece of paper for a second."

"We have new laws, Evremonde, and new crimes, since you were here.” He said it with a hard smile, and went on writing.

"I beg you to see that I have come here freely, in answer to that letter there in front of you, from another countryman. I ask nothing more than a way to do that as quickly as possible. Don't I have a right to do that?"

"Runaways have no rights, Evremonde," was the hard answer. The officer wrote until he had finished, read over to himself what he had written, used sand to dry the ink, and handed it to Defarge with the words "in secret".

Defarge made a movement with the paper to show the prisoner that he should come with him. The prisoner obeyed, and a guard of two armed freedom fighters went with them.

"Are you the one," said Defarge in a low voice as they went down the steps of the guardhouse and turned into Paris, "who married the daughter of Doctor Manette, who once was a prisoner in the prison that has been destroyed?"

"Yes," answered Darnay, looking at him with surprise.

"My name is Defarge, and I keep a wine shop in the Saint Antoine part of Paris. Maybe you have heard of me."

"My wife came to your house to meet her father! Yes!"

The word "wife" seemed to bring a cloud over Defarge, making him say angrily, "In the name of that sharp female baby they call Guillotine, why did you come to France?"

"You heard me say why just a minute ago. Do you not believe it is the truth?"

"A bad truth for you," said Defarge, knitting his forehead and looking straight ahead.

"I am really lost here. Everything is so different, so changed, so quickly and so cruelly, that I am fully lost. Will you give me a little help?"

"None.” Defarge spoke, still looking straight before him.

"Will you answer me just one question?"

"Maybe. If it is not about the wrong things. Go ahead and ask."

"In this prison that I am going to so wrongly, will I have some freedom to talk to people outside of it?"

"You will see."

"I am not to be buried there, judged without any way to argue my case?"

"You will see. But what difference would it make? Others have been buried in the same way and in worse prisons before now."

"But never by me, countryman Defarge."

Defarge looked darkly at him as a way of giving his answer, and walked on saying not one word. The longer he went without talking, the less hope there was -- or so Darnay thought -- of him becoming any softer. For that reason, he quickly said:

"It is very important for me (and you know, brother, even better than I do, just how important it is) that I should be able to send word to Mr. Lorry, from Tellson's bank, an Englishman who is now in Paris. I want to give him word that I have been thrown in La Force Prison. Will you do that for me?"

"I will," Defarge said, without any change in his hard spirit, "do nothing for you. My job is to help my country and the people. I must serve both and protect them from you. I will do nothing for you."

Charles Darnay saw no hope in changing him, and his pride was hurt as well. As they walked on, without talking, he could not help but see that many prisoners must have been taken along those streets. Even the children did not show much interest in him. A few people turned their heads, and a few shook their fingers at him because they could see he was from the high class. Other than that, the thought of a man in good clothes going to prison was no more different to a man in working clothes going to work. In one narrow, dark, and dirty street an enthusiastic speaker was standing on a chair and talking to an interested crowd about the sins of the king and members of his family. The few words that Darnay heard were enough to let him know that the king was in prison and that the people acting for governments from all other countries had left Paris. On the way to Paris (apart from those few words in Beauvais) he had not been able to learn anything about what was happening. Being under two guards, and with people watching him everywhere it had been quite impossible.

But he knew now that he was in far more danger than he had planned for when leaving England. The danger around him had been growing quickly and he now knew that it might grow even more quickly in the days ahead. He knew that he would not have been brave enough to make the trip if he had known it would be like this. But still his fears were not as great now as they would be soon. As bad as the future looked, there was much about it that he still did not know, and where there was no understanding, there was always hope. The awful killing of thousands, that had been going on around the clock for days and nights now, taking the place of farm work, was so far from him knowing about it as it would have been if it was a hundred thousand years away.

He knew almost nothing about the "sharp female baby called Guillotine" at this time, as did most of the people. The awful acts that were going to be done soon were probably not even thought of in the heads of the people who would soon be doing them. So how could they have a place in the thoughts of Charles Darnay's kind and generous mind?

He could see that it would be a hard life in the prison, and that it would be cruel to be separated from his wife and child; but of more than this, he had nothing to clearly fear. With this on his mind -- which was enough to carry into a prison yard -- he arrived at La Force Prison.

A man with a fat face opened the metal door, and Defarge said to him, "The runaway Evremonde."

"What the devil! How many more will there be?” cried the fat face.

Defarge showed no interest in what the man said, and left Darnay there with him, taking the two freedom fighters with him as he left.

"What the devil, I say again!" the prison master said when he was left only with his wife and Charles Darnay. "How many more?"

His wife, not having an answer, just said, "One must be patient, my love!"

Three guards who came in answer to a bell that she was ringing, said much the same thing, and one added, "For the love of liberty!" which sounded like a strange thing to say in a prison!

La Force was a dark, dirty prison with very little hope in it. It had an awful smell of dirty sleep too, that seemed to strangely be a part of many places where there is poor care for those who live there.

"In secret too," the prison master said angrily, looking at the written paper. "As if I wasn't already too full!"

He angrily put the paper on a nail and made Charles Darnay wait another half hour, at times walking from side to side in the strong covered room, and at times resting on a stone seat. Either way he was there long enough for the prison master and his workers to see and remember this new prisoner.

"Come!" said the master, at last taking up his keys. "Come with me, runaway."

Through the half light of the prison, his new prisoner walked with him, from room to room, with many doors closing loudly behind them, until they came to a big, low room with a rounded stone roof, that was crowded with prisoners, both male and female. The women were sitting at a long table, reading, writing, knitting, and sewing; the men were, for the most part, standing behind the women or moving up and down the room.

In the way that we all think of prisoners as bad people, this new prisoner had a bad feeling about the others in the room. But the strangest thing of all the strange things he had seen on his ride to Paris was that they all stood up as one to receive him, with all the kindest actions of the best people of those times.

So strange did this action seem in such a dark, dirty prison, so out of place with all the sickness and pain of the place, that it was like Charles Darnay was standing in a room with a crowd of ghosts. A beautiful ghost, a proud ghost, a happy ghost, a smart ghost, a young ghost, an old ghost, all waiting to leave this empty place, all turning on him eyes that had been changed by the death they died when they came there.

He was so surprised that he could not move. The guard at his side and other guards moving about, who looked good enough for their job in any other prison, now looked awful next to the sad mothers and beautiful daughters who were there like ghosts of the young happy women and the older high class women they had been. All of this made Darnay feel that it was not really happening, that the long ride had made him sick, and what he was going through now was just a side effect of the sickness.

"In the name of your friends here in this room," said a man who looked like he should have been in a court, as he came forward, "I have the job of welcoming you to La Force, and of sharing our sadness with you on what awful changes have brought you here. May it soon end happily! It would not be kind of us to ask you this in a different place, but it is not wrong to ask it here: What is your name, and why are you here?"

Charles Darnay forced himself to speak, and answered as well as he could.

"I hope," said the man, following the head guard with his eyes as he moved around the room, "that you are not in secret?"

"I don't understand the meaning of those words, but I have heard them say that."

"Oh, how sad! We feel very bad for you! But be brave; others of us have been in secret at first, and it was only for a short time.” Then he added, speaking more loudly to the others, "I am sad to tell the room... in secret."

There were the sounds of people feeling sorry for Charles Darnay as he crossed the room to a metal door with little holes in it, where the guard waited for him. The soft loving voices of the women were the easiest to hear of the many voices that tried to encourage him. He turned at the door to thank them from his heart, when it closed under the guard's hand, and the ghosts were gone forever.

The door opened on some stone steps leading up from there. When they had climbed forty steps (The prisoner of half an hour had already counted them.) the guard opened a low black door, and they stepped into a small room. It was cold and wet, but not dark.

"Yours," said the guard.

"Why am I being left alone?"

"How should I know?"

"Can I buy a pen and ink, and some paper?"

"No one told me that you could. You will be visited, and you can ask then. For now, you must buy your food, and nothing more."

In the room was a chair, a table, and a straw mattress. As the guard looked over each of these things, and studied the four walls before leaving, the prisoner, leaning against the wall opposite to him had a strange thought about how fat the guard was, thinking that he looked like a man who had drowned and filled with water. His thoughts went on in the same crazy way after the guard had left, thinking first, "Now I have been left, as if I were dead.” He then stopped to look down at the mattress, with insects in it, and he thought, "Here in these insects is what will happen to my body after I die.” He walked from side to side in his room, counting the steps. "Five steps by four and a half, five by four and a half, five by four and a half.” The sound of the city was like a softly covered drum with wild voices added to it. "He made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes.” The prisoner measured the room again, walking more quickly this time to take his thoughts away from what he had started to think. "The ghosts that became invisible when the door closed... There was one of them, a woman dressed in black, who was leaning back in a window seat, and she had a light showing on her golden hair. She looked like... Let us ride again through the lighted villages, where the people are all awake! ... He made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes. ... Five steps by four and a half.” With such thoughts coming up from deep down in his mind, the prisoner walked faster and faster, choosing strongly not to quit counting. The sound of the city changed in one way. It still sounded like a softly covered drum, but for him, the wall of voices above the drum were now voices that he knew.

2. The Stone Wheel

Tellson's Bank in Paris was in a wing of a very big house in the richest part of town. People would come and go from a yard that was cut off from the street by a high wall and a strong gate. The house had been owned by a very rich leader from the court, who had lived there until he was forced to run for his life, wearing the clothes of his own cook. He was like a wild animal running from hunters until he was safely across the border, at which time he changed back into the same Sir whose lips had once needed three strong men, apart from his cook, to help him drink his chocolate.

Sir was now gone, and the three strong men had been forgiven for the sin of having been paid so well by him, by saying they were more than ready to cut his throat for the new government... the government that made everyone free and equal brothers, or dead. Sir's house had been first set apart and then taken over. Things moved so quickly, and one rule would be followed by another so quickly, that now, on the third night of the month of September, freedom fighters were living in Sir's house, had marked it with the three colours, and were drinking spirits in its best rooms.

A place of business in London that looked like Tellson's place of business in Paris would have been enough to make news in the papers and enough to make the "house" go crazy. What would the serious mind of English leaders think about growing orange trees in boxes in a bank's yard, or about having the shape of a young love angel hanging over the counter? That's how it was in Paris. Tellson's had painted over the angel on the roof of the building, but he was still there pointing his arrows (as he often does) at money from morning to night. A bank in London would be forced to close down if it had this young boy in it, or a big mirror on the wall, or workers who were so young that they could go to dances in the evening. But in France, these things were not a problem, and when the government was holding itself together, no one had been so afraid as to have taken out their money because of them.

But on that night, no one could have said (any more than Mr. Jarvis Lorry could) what money would be taken out of the bank in the future, and what would stay there, lost and forgotten; what gold, silver and expensive stones would grow dirty in Tellson's hiding places while the owners rusted in prisons, or even if the owners should be cruelly killed; or how many people would never end their business with Tellson's in this world, but would be forced to carry it forward to the next world. Mr. Lorry thought heavily about these questions as he sat in front of the fireplace on a night that was colder than most for this time of year. There was a shadow on his honest, brave face that did not come from the light of the fire... a shadow of great fear.

He had taken a room in the bank, because he was as much a part of the bank as the vines that grew on its outside walls. It may be that the others let him stay there because they themselves had control of the biggest part of the building, but the old man with such a true heart never thought about that. All that was important to him was the job he had come there to do. On the opposite side of the bank yard, under a roof that was held up by tall stone cylinders, there was room for many coaches to park; some of Sir's coaches were there now. On the side of two of these stone cylinders were two big burning torches. And in front of these was a big stone wheel that looked like it had been brought there in a hurry from some neighbouring shop. Standing to look out the window at these things, Mr. Lorry had a little shake of fear go through his body. He had, at first, opened the window and the covering that went over it, but on seeing the stone wheel he had closed both again and then had that little shake of fear.

From the streets on the other side of the high wall and the strong gate, there came the night sound of the city, with now and then a strange sound that words cannot repeat, as if some awful prayers were going up to heaven.

"Thank God," said Mr. Lorry, putting his hands together, "that no one close to me is in this awful town tonight. May He have mercy on all who are in danger!"

Soon after that, the bell at the great gate sounded, and he thought, "They've come back!" He sat listening, but there were no loud shouts in the yard, as he had been thinking would happen. Instead, he heard the gate close again, and all was quiet.

The worry and fear that were on him made him start thinking about how safe the rooms were where he was staying. It was well guarded, but he was just standing up to go see the people who were guarding it when his door opened quickly and two people raced in, making him fall back with surprise when he saw who they were.

Lucie and her father! Lucie, with her arms reaching out to him, and that old serious look on her forehead, so strong that it seemed it had always been a part of her just so it would be there to give force to this one special time in her life.

"What is this?” cried Mr. Lorry, surprised and confused. "What's wrong? Lucie! Manette! What has happened, to bring you here? Tell me!"

With that look on her face, she cried in his arms, begging him, "Oh my good friend! It's my husband!"

"Your husband, Lucie?”

"Charles."

"What about Charles?”

"He's here."

"Here, in Paris?"

"He's been here for a few days... three or four, I don't know. I cannot think clearly. He came here to help a friend, without telling us. He was stopped at the gate and sent off to prison."

The old man let out a cry that he could not keep in. Almost at the same time, the bell of the great gate sounded again, and the loud noise of feet and voices came pouring into the yard.

"What's that noise?” asked the Doctor, turning toward the window.

"Don't look!" cried Mr. Lorry. "Don't look out! Manette, for your life, do not touch the window!"

The Doctor turned, with his hand on the window lock, and said, with a cool, confident smile: "My good friend, I have a safe life in this city. Remember that I was a prisoner in the old prison. There is no freedom fighter in Paris... in Paris? No, in France... who, knowing that I was a prisoner before the change of government, would touch me other than covering me with hugs, or carrying me in happiness when we win. The pain of my past helped me through the gate, and helped me learn of Charles while I was there. It has brought us here as I knew it would. I told Lucie that I would be able to help Charles. But what is that noise?” His hand was again on the window.

"Don't look!" cried Mr. Lorry, filled with worry. "No, Lucie, my love, not you either!" He put his arm around her and held her. "Do not be afraid, my love. I promise that I know of no one hurting Charles; I didn't even know he was here. What prison is he in?"

"La Force!"

"La Force? Lucie, my child, if you were brave enough to obey in your life... and you always were... you must control yourself now to do just what I tell you. There is more resting on this than I can say or you can think. There is nothing that you can do tonight; you cannot possibly leave this house. I say this, because what I'm asking you to do for Charles is often the hardest thing to do. You must obey me and quietly do nothing. You must let me put you in a room at the back here. You must leave your father here with me for two minutes, and as sure as there is Life and Death in the world, you must act quickly."

"I will do as you ask. I see in your face that you know I can do nothing more now. I trust you."

The old man kissed her and hurried her into his room, and then turned the key in the lock. Coming quickly back to the Doctor, he opened the window and pushed the covering a little to the side. With his hand on the Doctor's arm, they looked out together into the yard.

There was a small crowd of men and women... not enough to fill the yard, no more than forty or fifty. The people who were in control of the house had let them in at the gate, and they had hurried to work at the stone wheel. It had been put there for them, in a quiet place where they could easily come to use it.

But such awful workers, and such awful work!

There were two handles on the big stone wheel, and two men worked at turning it. When their movements brought their heads up, and their long hair was thrown behind them, it could be seen that their faces were wild and cruel, with false hair over their eyes and under their noses to hide who they really were. The blood that was all over them, their need for sleep, and their crazy enthusiasm about what they were doing added to the wild ugly look. As they turned the wheel, first their hair would fall over their faces and then it would fly backward over their necks, with women holding wine to their mouths so that they could drink while working. Drops of blood fell from their bodies, drops of wine fell from the cups, and little pieces of fire came from the knives they were making sharp on the turning wheel. The whole picture was a mixture of evil fire and evil blood. There was not one of them who did not have blood on them. Men without shirts, and with blood on their bodies and on their clothes, shouldered each other to get close to the stone. Some of the men had tied to their clothes little pieces of beautiful cloth that they had taken from women, and these pieces of cloth had blood on them too. The axes, knives, and swords that they were making sharp on the stone were also covered in blood.

Some had broken swords tied to their wrists with pieces of cloth, and these pieces of cloth were also of the same red colour. As each weapon became sharp enough, its owner would turn back to the street with the same red colour in their wild eyes... eyes which anyone who was not crazy would have given twenty years of their life just to stop with a gun.

All of this one could see in a second, the way a drowning man sees his whole life, or the way that anyone could see the world if they were high enough above it. They pulled back from the window, and the Doctor looked to his friend's white face for answers about what was happening.

"They are," Mr. Lorry whispered as he looked back at Lucie's locked room, "killing their prisoners. If you are sure about what you say; if you really have the power you think you have... and I believe you do... make yourself known to these devils and ask them to take you to La Force. It may be too late, I don't know, but do not wait one minute longer!"

Doctor Manette squeezed his hand, hurried out without even taking a hat, and was already in the yard when Mr. Lorry returned to the window.

His long white hair, his wonderful face, and the confidence of his actions as he pushed the weapons to the side like water, carried him quickly to the heart of the action at the stone. The movement stopped and there was some talking, with the sound of the Doctor's voice above them all. Mr. Lorry could not hear what he was saying, but he saw a line of about twenty men side by side, with their hands on the shoulders of those on each side, join with Doctor Manette as they hurried out into the street shouting, "A prisoner from the old prison here! Help his family in La Force! Make room for the man from the old prison in front there! Save the prisoner Evremonde at La Force!" And a thousand shouts answered them.

He closed the window and the curtain with his heart racing, then hurried to tell Lucie that her father had left to find her husband, with help from the people. Little Lucie and Miss Pross were with her, but he was not surprised about this until much later when things were quieter, and he was watching them.

By that time, Lucie was almost asleep at his feet, still holding his hand. Miss Pross had put the child in Mr. Lorry's bed, and now her head was on the pillow beside her. Oh the long, long night, with the sad breathing of the poor wife! Oh the long, long night, with no return of her father and no news of how he was going!

Two more times the bell at the great gate sounded and the noise and action was repeated as the stone wheel turned and did its work. "What's that?” cried Lucie in fear. "Be quiet! The soldiers make their swords sharp there," said Mr. Lorry. "The place is owned by the people now, and used by the army. Be quiet and rest, my love."

Twice they came, but in the end, the workers became less enthusiastic. Soon after that, the people finished, and the morning started to show in the night sky. Only then did Mr. Lorry softly pull away from the holding hand, and carefully look out the window again. A man, so covered with blood that he could have been a badly hurt soldier fighting for his life in a field of dead bodies, was getting up from the ground beside the stone wheel and looking around with empty eyes. This tired killer soon saw in the weak light one of Sir's coaches, and walking roughly to that beautiful vehicle, he climbed in at the door, and shut himself up so he could take his rest on the expensive pillows inside it.

The great stone wheel of the Earth had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again, and the sun was red on the yard. But the smaller stone wheel stood alone in the quiet morning air, with a red on it that the sun had never given to it, and that the sun would never take away.

3. The Shadow

One of the first thoughts that came to Mr. Lorry's mind when it was time for the day's business to start, was this: That he had no right to bring danger on Tellson's by hiding the wife of a runaway prisoner under the bank's roof. He would be happy to put his own life and wealth on the line for Lucie and her child, but the bank was not his, and he always tried to follow the rules of the company that he worked for.

At first, he thought of going to Defarge's wine shop again and asking the owner for help in finding a safe place for Lucie to hide. But the same thought that made him look in that direction also turned him away from it: Defarge lived in the most dangerous part of the city, and he was clearly a leader in the movement that was doing so much of the killing in the city.

By noon, the Doctor had not returned, and every minute Mr. Lorry waited could put Tellson's in more danger, if the freedom fighters learned that Lucie was staying there. So he spoke to her about this. She said that her father had been planning to stay in a place near the bank if they needed to stay in the city for long. Because there was no bank business that he was needed for just then, and because, even if Charles were freed, it would be some few days before they could leave the city, Mr. Lorry went out looking for such a room. He found one in a quiet side street where the covered windows of houses around it showed that they were empty.

He quickly moved Lucie, her child, and Miss Pross into it, giving them what he could to make their stay comfortable... even more comfortable than it was for himself. He left Jerry with them too, as a man who would stand in the doorway and take many hits to the head before he would let anyone through. Then Mr. Lorry returned to his own business. It was with a sad and worried mind that he worked, making his day pass slowly and heavily.

He and the day were both tired by the time he closed the bank for the day. When he was alone again in his room, thinking about what to do next, he heard feet on the steps. A man soon stood in front of him who, taking a very close look at Mr. Lorry, said his name.

"What can I do to help you," asked Mr. Lorry. "Do you know me?"

He was a strong man with dark hair, between forty-five and fifty years of age. His answer was to ask the same question of Mr. Lorry, without any change in the way that Mr. Lorry had asked it:

"Do you know me?"

"I have seen you somewhere."

"Maybe at my wine shop?"

Now Mr. Lorry was both interested and worried. He said, "Have you come from Doctor Manette?"

"Yes, I come from Doctor Manette."

"And what does he say? What has he sent me?"

Defarge put into his shaking hand an open piece of paper. It had the Doctor's writing on it:

"Charles is safe, but I cannot safely leave this place yet. The man carrying this has a short letter from Charles to his wife. Let him see his wife."

It was marked as being from La Force Prison, written less than an hour earlier.

Mr. Lorry was very happy after reading the letter out, and he said, "Will you come with me to where his wife is staying?"

"Yes," returned Defarge.

Mr. Lorry did not think much at this time about the cold machine-like way that Defarge spoke. He just put on his hat and they went down into the yard. There they found two women, one knitting.

"Madam Defarge surely!" said Mr. Lorry, who had left her doing that same action some seventeen years earlier.

"It is she," said her husband.

"Is Madam going with us?” asked Mr. Lorry, seeing that she was moving as they moved.

"Yes, so she will know the faces and the people. It is for security reasons."

Mr. Lorry was starting to see the strange way Defarge was acting now, but he walked on and they followed. Both of the women followed, the second one being The Punisher.

They went through the streets as quickly as they could, then climbed the steps to the house, where Jerry opened the door and they found Lucie alone, crying. She was filled with happiness on learning the news from Mr. Lorry about her husband, and she squeezed the hand that gave her his little letter, not thinking about what that same hand had been doing near him through the night, and what it might have, but for luck, done to him.

The letter said: "My Love, be brave. I am well, and your father has some effect around here. You cannot answer this, but kiss our child for me."

That was all that was written on it, but it was so much good news to her that received it that she turned from Defarge to his wife and kissed one of the hands that knitted. It was a loving, womanly way of thanking her and showing her emotions, but the hand did nothing in return. It dropped cold and heavy, and returned to knitting.

There was something in its touch that made Lucie stop in the act of putting the letter in the top of her dress, and, with her hands at her neck, look at Madam Defarge in fear. Madam Defarge looked back at Lucie's lifted eyebrows and worried forehead with a stony cold look.

"My girl," said Mr. Lorry, trying to fill Lucie in on what was happening, "there has been much fighting in the streets. We don't think it will trouble you, but Madam Defarge wants to see those whom she has the power to protect when the fighting starts, so that she can point them out.” Then Mr. Lorry lost confidence in what he was saying as he looked at the hard faces of the three others. "I believe this is the reason, is it not Countryman Defarge?"

Defarge looked darkly at his wife, and gave no answer other than a rough sound of weak agreement.

Doing all he could to bring some peace back to the room by speaking in a relaxed and friendly way, Mr. Lorry said to Lucie, "You should bring in your lovely daughter, and our good Pross. Good Pross, Defarge, is a woman from England who knows no French."

The woman he spoke of, who was confident that she was more than equal to anyone from another country, soon stood before them with her arms folded and said in English to The Punisher, "Well, I am glad to meet you, confident one! I hope you are well!" She also gave a good English cough in the direction of Madam Defarge, but Madam and her husband acted like they did not see her.

"Is that his child?” asked Madam Defarge, stopping her work for the first time and pointing her knitting needle at little Lucie, like it was the finger of death.

"Yes, Madam," answered Mr. Lorry. "This is our poor prisoner's lovely daughter, and his only child."

The shadow that was part of Madam Defarge and the other two seemed to fall so dangerously and darkly on the child, that her mother went on her knees on the ground beside her and held her to her breast. Then the shadow that was part of Madam Defarge and the others seemed to fall on the mother as well as the child.

"It is enough, my husband," said Madam Defarge. "I have seen them. We can go."

The way she said it had enough danger in it... not open and easy to see, but hiding inside of her... to scare Lucie into saying, as she put a begging hand on Madam Defarge's dress:

"You will be good to my poor husband? You will not hurt him? You will help me to see him if I can?"

"Your husband is not the reason for my business here," returned Madam Defarge, looking down at her with perfect confidence. "It is the daughter of your father who is my business here."

"Then be kind to my husband for me. And for my child! She will put her hands together and say a prayer for you to be kind. We are more afraid of you than of these others."

Madam Defarge was happy to hear that, and she looked at her husband to show it. Defarge, who had been worriedly biting the nail of his thumb while watching her, changed his face to a more serious and angry look.

"What was it that your husband said in that little letter?” asked Madam Defarge with an angry smile. "Effect. He said something about effect."

"That my father," said Lucie, quickly taking the paper from her breast, but with a look of fear at her questioner and not on it, "has much effect around here."

"Surely it will free him!" said Madam Defarge. "Let it do so."

"As a wife and mother," cried Lucie, most strongly, "I beg you to have mercy on me and not use any power that you have against my innocent husband, but use it to help him. My sister, think of me as a wife and mother too!"

Madam Defarge looked, as cold as ever, at the woman who was begging her, and said, turning to her friend, The Punisher: "The wives and mothers that we have been used to seeing since we were as little as this child, and smaller, have not been helped much, have they? We have seen their husbands and fathers put in prison and kept from them often enough. All our lives we have seen our sisters and their children with nothing, no clothes, hungry, thirsty, sick, sad, and hurting in every way because of other cruel people."

"We have seen nothing else," returned The Punisher.

"We have put up with this for a long time," said Madam Defarge, turning her eyes again on Lucie. "You judge! Do you think the troubles of one wife and mother would be much to us now?"

She returned to knitting and left. The Punisher followed. Defarge went last, and closed the door.

"Be brave, sweet Lucie," said Mr. Lorry, as he lifted her. "Be brave, be brave! So far all is going well with us... much much better than it has gone for many other poor souls. Smile and thank God for what you have."

"I do hope that I am showing enough thanks to God for what I have, but that awful woman seems to throw a shadow on me and on all my hopes."

"Now, now," said Mr. Lorry. "What is this sadness in such a brave little heart? A shadow really! A shadow is nothing, Lucie."

But the shadow from the Defarges was dark on himself too, for all his talk; and in the secrets of his mind it troubled him greatly.

4. A Break in the Storm

Doctor Manette did not return until the morning of the fourth day after he left. So much of what happened in that time was kept secret from Lucie that she did not learn until much later, when she was well away from France, that eleven hundred prisoners with no protection, both male and female, young and old, had been killed by the people over those four days. She only knew that there had been an attack on the prisons, that all of the political prisoners had been in danger, and that some of them had been pulled out by the crowd and killed.

The Doctor told Mr. Lorry what had happened on the promise that he would not tell Lucie. He had been taken by the crowd through the killing to La Force Prison. In the prison he had found freedom fighters running their own court, before which the prisoners were brought one by one. They were each quickly taken away, most of them to be killed or to be freed. Only a few were returned to the prison alive. The Doctor had told the court who he was and that he had been a prisoner at the worst prison in Paris for eighteen years. One of their members, a man named Defarge, had told them that this was true, and that he knew the Doctor.

He then went through the lists of names on the table and learned that his daughter's husband was one of the prisoners and that he was still alive. He had begged the court -- some of whom were asleep and some awake, some dirty from killing and some clean, some drunk and some not -- for the life and freedom of his daughter's husband. At first the people were so glad to meet the Doctor, as one who had, like them, been through great trouble under the old government, that they quickly agreed to have Charles Darnay brought there. The court was close to letting Darnay go free when, for some unexplained reason, things changed. There were a few secret words between the leaders and then the man acting as president told Doctor Manette that Darnay must stay in the prison, but that he would be held in a safe place because of the court's good feelings toward the Doctor. The prisoner had then been quickly taken away; but the Doctor himself begged the court to let him stay there in that Room of Blood until the danger was over, and they agreed to it.

What he saw over those next four days, with only short breaks for food or sleep, will not be told here. The wild happiness over prisoners who were saved surprised him almost as much as the crazy hate for those who were cut to pieces. One prisoner had been freed, but when he went into the street, a freedom fighter threw a spear at him by accident, and the Doctor was asked to go out to help him. In the street, the Doctor had found a group of people lovingly caring for the man. They made a bed to be used in carrying him away, before picking up their weapons and returning to such killing that the Doctor had covered his eyes and then fainted from what he had seen.

As Mr. Lorry listened to all of this, and as he watched the face of his friend, now sixty-two years of age, he started to fear that what he was seeing would bring back his old problems.

But he saw a side of Doctor Manette now that he had never seen before. Now, for the first time, the Doctor felt that what he had been through gave him strength. He felt that in the fire of his past a tool had been made that could break the prison door for his daughter's husband, and free him. "It has all been leading to a good end, my friend; it was not wasted. As my lovely daughter helped to save me, now I may be able to bring back the most loved part of her life. With God's help, I will do it!"

That is how Doctor Manette saw things now. And when Jarvis Lorry saw the burning eyes, the solid face, the strong look of peace in the man whose life had seemed to be stopped, like a clock, for so many years, and then started going again with enthusiasm that had not been seen for many years, he believed what the Doctor had said.

The Doctor had more than enough enthusiasm to handle all that came his way over the next few months. As a doctor, he believed that his job was to help people in pain or sickness from all walks of life, rich and poor, bad and good, in prison or out. But he used his abilities so wisely that he was soon acting as doctor for three prisons, and one of them was La Force. He could now tell Lucie that her husband was no longer alone. He was with the other prisoners. Doctor Manette was able to see him once a week, and to take words from him to Lucie. At times her husband would send a letter to her (but not through the Doctor), yet she was not free to write to him. One of the stories that went through the prisons was that people who had left France earlier were making plans to change the government through friends they knew from other countries.

The Doctor's new life had its worries, but wise Mr. Lorry could see that it was helping him too. There was a good spirit of pride in him. Up to that time, he had known that his time in prison worried his daughter and his friend because of the effect it had had on him. Now that things had changed, and his past was seen as a way to help Charles, they both looked to him for strength. The one who had been helped so much in the past was now the helper, and he used his power in love.

"All very interesting," thought Mr. Lorry in his friendly, wise way, "but all very right too. So take the lead, my good friend, and keep it; it could not be in better hands."

But even with Doctor Manette trying his best to get Charles Darnay freed, or at least brought to court, the feeling of the people at the time was too strong and too fast for him. The new age was on them. The king had been brought to the court and his head cut off. The government of free equal brothers or death was going to win against the whole world, or die trying. The black flag waved night and day from the great towers of Notre Dame. Three hundred thousand men, called to fight the evil leaders of the earth, came from all the different parts of France, as if the dragon's teeth had been planted like seeds, growing into new dragons on hills and flat lands, on rocks and in mud, under clear skies in the South and under clouds in the North, in open lands and forests, in places where grapes, corn, grass or any other plant grows, on the sides of wide rivers and in the sand at the ocean beach. What fear or action from any one person could stop the great flood that came with the first year of freedom? The flood came from below and not from above, for the windows of heaven were closed to it all!

There was no break, no mercy, no peace, no rest, and no measure of time. Days and nights were the same as ever, but there was no way to fit them in with a bigger history. The whole country was like a very sick person, with no interest in time, only in their own pain. Now, ending a strange time of quiet in the city, the people were shown the head of the king... and not long after, the head of his beautiful wife, whose hair had turned grey from eight sad and tiring months in prison after he had been killed.

Yet, as happens in times of great trouble, the days passed both slowly and quickly. A new court in Paris and forty or fifty thousand other courts all over the country, all used the law of fear. If people feared someone, then that person's life and freedom was in danger. Any good and innocent person could be handed over to the court. The prisons filled with such people, who had done no wrong, and who had no way of knowing what their rights were. This quickly became the way things were done all over the country, and before many weeks it was like it had always been done this way. Above it all, one ugly shape was seen so much that it was like it had been there from the start of time. It was the shape of the sharp female called Guillotine.

It became the target of many jokes. It was said to be the answer for head pains, a way to stop hair from turning grey, and the country's razor. To kiss Guillotine was to put your head in a little opening on it and sneeze into the bag that was used to catch it. It was the sign of a better class of people, better than the cross. Some people threw out their crosses, to wear a guillotine shape around their necks. People clearly worshipped it more than the cross.

It was used to cut off so many heads that the machine and the ground around it was an awful red. It could be taken to pieces and put back together again, like a toy for a young devil. It stopped the mouths of great speakers, cut down powerful leaders, and put an end to what had been beautiful and good. In one morning the heads of twenty-two government leaders (one of them already dead) were cut off in as many minutes. The name of Samson, the great strong man of the Old Testament, now went to whoever had the job of helping Guillotine do her work. Armed with that weapon he was stronger than Samson, and blinder too, as he destroyed the gates to God every day.

In with these awful happenings and the blood that was a part of them, Doctor Manette walked with a clear plan, confident of his power, and always moving wisely toward his target, never believing that he would not be able to save Lucie's husband at last. But the force of the ocean of time was so strong and deep that Charles stayed for one year and three months in prison while the Doctor worked on his plan. By that December month, the war had become so evil that the rivers of South France carried the bodies of people forced to die in them each night, and prisoners were lined up to be shot under the winter sun. But the Doctor still walked through it all in hope of finishing his plan. No man became better known in Paris at that time, and no man in a stranger job. He said nothing, but worked in hospitals and prisons, using his art equally to help the killers and the ones they tried to kill. He was a man apart from both sides. In exercising his abilities, the story of his eighteen years in the old prison put him above all those around him. No one thought to question him any more than they would a spirit brought back to life (as he had been eighteen years earlier) who was now working with people who had never been where he had been.

5. The Woodcutter

A year and three months. For all that time, Lucie was never sure, from hour to hour, that the guillotine would not cut off her husband's head the next day. Every day, through the stone streets, the carts, full of people being taken to be killed, bumped and shook. Lovely girls, beautiful women, with brown hair, black hair, and grey; young men; strong men and older men; rich and poor; all of them red wine for Guillotine, each day they were brought out into the light from the dark rooms under the ground in those awful prisons, and each day they were carried to her through the streets, to fill her thirst for blood. Free, equal brothers; or death. But the last is the easiest to give, oh Guillotine!

If the surprise of the awful action against her husband, and the turning wheels of time had made the Doctor's daughter stop what she was doing and wait sadly for her husband to return, she would have been no different from many others at that time. But from the time when she had taken the white head of her father to her heart in the little room where she first met him, she had always been true to what she believed to be her job, first to her father and then to her husband. And she was truest to her job when things were worst, as is always the case with quietly good people.

As soon as she was set up in her new rooms, and her father was busy doing his rounds as a doctor, she planned things in their little house just as she would have done if her husband had been there. There was a set time and place for everything. She taught little Lucie as she would have if they had been in their English home. About the only way one could know what she was going through were little actions she did when she believed he would be freed soon (like putting his chair and his books to the side), and a serious prayer at night for one special prisoner of the many sad souls in prison and living under the shadow of death at that time.

She did not change much in the way she looked. The dark dresses that she and her child were wearing to show their sadness were still as neat and clean as the lighter colours of happier days. She lost colour from her face, and the old serious look was with her at all times now; but apart from that, she was still beautiful and in control of herself. Some nights, after kissing her father, she would let out the tears she had been holding back all day, and would say that her only hope under heaven was in him. He always answered strongly: "Nothing can happen to Charles without me knowing about it, and I know that I can save him, Lucie."

They had not been waiting for many weeks when her father said to her, on coming home one night:

"My love, there is a window high up in the prison, that Charles can sometimes see out through at three in the afternoon. When he can get to it, which isn't often, he thinks he might be able to see you in the street if you stand in a special place that I can show you. You will not be able to see him, my poor child, and even if you could, it would be dangerous for you to wave or look at him."

"Oh show me the place, father, and I'll go there every day."

From that time on, in all weather, she waited there for two hours each day, from two o'clock to four o'clock. When it was not too wet or cold, her child would go with her; at other times she was alone; but she never missed even one day.

The place was at the dark and dirty corner of a small street with a bend in it. A rough cabin owned by a woodcutter was the only building at that end. Apart from that, the street at that point was nothing but walls. On the third day that she was there, the woodcutter said to her:

"Good day, countrywoman.”

"Good day, countryman."

This way of talking was now forced by law. In the past freedom fighters had been the ones to start talking to each other in this way, and they did it only because they wanted to do it; but now it was the law for everyone to do so.

"Walking here again, countrywoman?"

"As you can see, countryman."

The woodcutter, who was a little man who used his hands too much when talking (He had been a road worker in the past.) looked quickly at the prison, pointed to it, and then, putting his ten fingers in front of his face like they were bars, looked foolishly through them.

"But it's not my business," he said. And he returned to cutting timber.

The next day he was watching for her, and he talked to her as soon as she turned up.

"What? Walking here again, countrywoman?"

"Yes, countryman."

"Ah! A child too! Your mother, is it not, my little country-girl?"

"Do I say yes, mummy?” whispered little Lucie, moving closer to her.

"Yes, my love."

"Yes, countryman."

"Ah, but it's not my business. My work is my business. See my saw? I call it my little guillotine. La, la, la; la, la, lah! And off his head comes!"

The stick fell as he spoke, and he threw it into a basket.

"I call myself the Samson of the firewood guillotine. See here again! Loo, loo, loo; Loo, loo, loo! And off her head comes. Now a child. Tickle, tickle; pickle, pickle! And off its head comes. All the family!"

Lucie shook as he threw two more sticks into his basket. Sadly, it was not possible for her to be there without the woodcutter seeing her when he was working. So from then on, to keep him on her side, she always spoke to him first, and gave him some money for drinking, which he enthusiastically received.

He was very interested in her, and at times when she was not thinking about him because she was so busy looking up toward the prison roof and windows, and in lifting her heart up to her husband, she would come to herself only to find him looking at her, with his knee on the bench and his saw stopped in its work. "But it's not my business," he would often say at those times, and he would quickly return to cutting timber.

In all weather, the winter snow, the summer heat, and the winds and rains that came between them, Lucie would spend two hours of every day at this place. And every day, on leaving it, she would kiss the prison wall. Her husband saw her (so she learned from her father) maybe one day in five or six. It might happen two or three days, one after the other, but then it could be a week or two with him not seeing her at all. There was no way of knowing. But it was enough that he could and did see her when each time came, and to make that possible she would have waited there all day, seven days a week.

These jobs brought her around to the month of December again, when her father was walking through all of the awful things that were happening around him without it changing his confidence. It was snowing lightly that afternoon when she arrived at the same old corner. It was a day of some happiness, a special day for the country. She had seen little spears with little red hats on them and thin pieces of cloth in the three colours of the country tied to them, outside many of the houses on the way. They also had the words: "One country working together. Free, equal, and brothers, or death!"

The woodcutter's little shop was so small that there was almost not enough space on the wall to put all of the letters for this saying. Someone had put the letters on for him, with the letters for "death" squeezed very close together at the end. On the top of the house were the spear and hat, as every good French person should have, and in a window he had put his saw, with the words "Little Saint Guillotine", for by that time, the little sharp female was for most people as good as a saint. His shop was closed and he was not there, which Lucie was glad to see. It left her alone.

But he was not far away, because she soon heard a troubled movement and some shouting coming toward her, filling her with fear. A second or two later, a crowd of people came pouring around the corner by the prison wall, with the woodcutter in the middle, walking hand in hand with The Punisher. There were at least five hundred people, and they were dancing like five thousand devils. There was no other music apart from their own singing. They danced to the freedom fighters' war song, marking time wildly like crazy men hitting their teeth together. Men danced with women, men with men, and women with women. At first they were just a storm of red hats and rough broken clothes, but as they filled the place and stopped to dance around Lucie, an awful crazy ghost of a dance started to take shape. They would come forward, then go back, hit each other's hands together, hold each other's heads, turn around alone, then grab another and turn around in twos until many of them dropped. While those were down, others joined hands and all ran around together, then the circle broke into smaller circles of two and four until they all stopped together, started again, clapped hands, hugged, and then went around in the opposite direction. Then they stopped again, waited for a few seconds, and, starting to mark time again, moved into lines as wide as the walkway, and then, with their heads down and their hands up high, they set off crying out loudly as they did. No fight could have been half as awful as this dance. It was clearly a sport that had turned evil... something that was once innocent, but that had now been given to the devil... a healthy way of playing changed to one that makes blood angry, minds confused, and hearts like iron. Anything beautiful in it had been made ugly by being used to encourage such sick emotions. A young woman opening her spirit to this, the mind of one who is almost a child joining in, little feet stepping in a lake of blood and dirt were all a part of the time that they were living in.

This was the song and dance of the freedom fighters. As it passed, leaving Lucie in fear and confusion, feathers of snow fell as quietly and lay as white and soft as if it had never happened.

"Oh father!" Lucie said, for he stood there when she lifted her eyes after covering them with her hands. "It was such a cruel, awful thing to see."

"I know, my love, I know. I have seen it many times. Do not be afraid! Not one of them will hurt you."

"I am not afraid for myself, father. But when I think of my husband, and the cruel mercies of these people..."

"We will put him above their mercies very soon. When I left him, he was climbing to the window, so I came to tell you. There is no one here to see, so you may kiss your hand toward that highest angled roof."

"I'm doing it, father, and I'm sending him my soul with it!"

"Can you see him, my love?"

"No, father," said Lucie, hurting and crying as she kissed her hand. "No."

A footstep in the snow. Madam Defarge.

"Good day, countrywoman," from the Doctor.

"Good day, countryman.” This in passing. Nothing more. Madam Defarge was gone, like a shadow over the white road.

"Give me your arm, my love. Walk away with a brave smile on your face for him.” And when they had left: "Well done. It will not be wasted. Charles is to come before the court tomorrow."

"Tomorrow!"

"There is no time to lose. I am well prepared, but there are things we must do that could not be done before he was called to the court. He has not received word about the call yet, but I know from secret information that I have received. Are you afraid?"

She found it difficult to speak: "I trust you."

"Please do so fully. Your time of testing is almost over, my love. He will be back with you in a few hours. I have done everything I can to protect him. Now I must see Mr. Lorry."

He stopped. There was the heavy sound of timber wheels not far from there. They both knew too well what it was. One. Two. Three. Three carts leaving the prison with their awful weight of passengers as they moved over the quieting snow.

"I must see Mr. Lorry," the Doctor said again as he turned her away from the carts.

That true old man was still trusted by him; he had never given any reason not to be. He and his books were often asked for by the new government, so they could take wealth from people who had left the country. What he could save for the owners, he saved. There was no better man alive to protect what he could of the wealth the bank held, without making the new government angry.

A dirty red and yellow sky, and low clouds coming from the river showed that darkness was near. It was almost dark when they arrived at Tellson's Bank. The beautiful house of the past leader was empty and in very poor shape. Over what was left of a burned out fire in the yard were the words "Owned by the People. One country. Free, Equal, Brothers; or Death!"

Who is that meeting secretly with Mr. Lorry... the owner of the riding coat that can be seen on the chair? From whom did he come outside, worried and surprised, to hug someone who came a short time after the man inside? Who was this woman whose words he repeated loudly through the door of the room to the person inside: "He goes to court tomorrow!"

6. Free at Last!

Every day, five judges, the lawyer for the government, and a serious group of countrymen sat in the court to hear the cases for people brought there. Each evening the court would send out a list of prisoners to be brought the next day, and the prison guards would read out the list to all the prisoners inside the prison, joking as they did: "You in there, come out and listen to the evening news!"

"Charles Evremonde, called Darnay!"

At last the evening paper at La Force had his name on it, and it was first on the list.

When a name was called, the owner of the name would step to the side, to a place where all who were on the list must stand. Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, had reason to know the meaning of it. He had seen hundreds leave in that way.

His fat guard, who used reading glasses, looked over the top of them to see that Charles had taken his place. He went on with the rest of the list, stopping after each name to see that the prisoner moved to join the group that was to leave. There were twenty-three names called for, but only twenty who answered to their names. One had died in prison and two had already been killed by the guillotine, but no one in the courts had remembered that. The list was read in the big, low room with a rounded stone roof, where Charles had met other prisoners like himself on the night when he first arrived there. Every one of them had been killed in the four nights of killing after that. Every person he had since come to care for, and been separated from had died by the guillotine.

There were hurried goodbyes and other kind words, but it was soon over. It happened every afternoon, and there were other things that needed doing too. The others in La Force were preparing some games and music for that evening. They crowded around the windows and cried a few tears; but it would not be long before they would be locked up for the night, and there were twenty empty places in their planned entertainment to be filled. It is not that the prisoners had no feeling for those who were taken; the way they acted was just how it was at that time. Another strange way of the times was for some prisoners to become drunk with a sickness of the mind that went with the wild times, to the point where they would join those going to the guillotine even when they did not need to go. They were not trying to show off; it is just how some people feel when there is a great sickness killing many others, that they too would like to die with it. We all have secret feelings like that in ourselves that only need the right happenings to bring them out.

The ride to the little prison beside the court was short and dark, and the night in its dirty rooms was long and cold. The next day, fifteen prisoners were brought to the court before Charles Darnay's name was called. It took only an hour and a half to find all of them guilty, and to send them to be killed.

"Charles Evremonde, called Darnay," was at last called out.

The judges had hats with feathers in them, but others were wearing the rough red hats with three-coloured cloths on them. Looking at the people who were to judge him, and at the crowd in the court room, it would be easy to think that it was the law-breakers in the crowd and the honest people who were being brought before the court. The lowest, cruelest, and worst people in a city which was never without some low, cruel, and bad people, were the ones leading the whole show, talking loudly, agreeing, disagreeing, looking forward to what would happen, then being the ones who made things happen, all without anyone trying to stop them. Most of the men had weapons. Some of the women carried knives; some ate as they looked on; and many knitted. In this last group was one with a special piece of knitting under her arm as she worked. She was in the front, by the side of a man who Charles Darnay had not seen since he had come into the city, but whom he remembered as being Defarge. He saw her whisper in his ear one or two times, and she seemed to be his wife; but, what was strange in the two of them was that even with them sitting as close to him as could be, they never looked toward him. They seemed to be waiting for something, and they looked at the countrymen who would be judging him, but at nothing else. Under the President sat Doctor Manette, dressed quietly as always. As well as the prisoner could see, he and Mr. Lorry were the only men there, apart from judges, who did not wear the rough clothes of the freedom fighters.

Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, was said by the government lawyer to be a runaway, whose life was now owned by the new government under the law that said all runaways would be killed if they returned. It was nothing to them that the law was made after he returned to France. There he was, and there was the law. He had returned to France, and they wanted his head.

"Cut off his head!" cried the crowd. "He's an enemy of France!"

The President shook his bell to stop the cries, and he asked the prisoner if it was true that he had lived in England for many years.

Clearly it was.

Was he not a runaway then? What did he call himself? Not a runaway, he hoped, in the spirit of the law.

Why not? the President wanted to know.

Because he had freely chosen to give away a name and a class that he hated, by leaving the country. He said that at that time it would not have been seen as running away as it was now, for he only went to live through his own work in England and not by the hard work of the people of France, as his family had.

What proof did he have of this?

He had two witnesses: Gabelle, and Alexander Manette. But he had married in England, the President pointed out. True, but not to an English woman.

Was she a countrywoman of France?

Yes, she had been born there.

Her name and family?

"Lucie Manette, the only daughter of Doctor Manette, the good doctor who sits there."

This answer had a happy effect on the crowd. Enthusiastic cries for the good Doctor filled the room. So easily changed were the people that tears quickly rolled down some of the wild faces that had been looking angrily at the prisoner a few seconds before, as if they wanted to pull him out into the streets and kill him.

On these first few steps of his dangerous way, Charles Darnay had been acting on what Doctor Manette had told him to say. The same careful wisdom led every step of the way, and had prepared every inch of the road.

The President asked why he had returned to France when he did, and why he had not returned sooner.

He had not returned sooner, he answered, because he had no way to live in France apart from the way his family had lived. In England he had lived by teaching French. He had returned after being begged by letter from a French countryman who said his life was in danger by him not being there. He had come back to save a countryman's life, and to speak up for the truth, at any danger to himself. Was that wrong in the eyes of the new government?

The crowd cried with enthusiasm, "No!" and the President shook his bell to quiet them. Which it did not do, for they still cried "No!" until they were happy to stop of their own will.

The President asked for the name of that countryman. The prisoner said that the countryman was his first witness. He also talked with confidence about the countryman's letter, which had been taken from him at the border of the city, but which he was confident would be in with the other papers that were in front of the President.

The Doctor had made sure that it would be there -- had promised that it would be there -- and at this time it was taken up and read. Countryman Gabelle was called to speak for it and he did. Countryman Gabelle said, being very careful not to say anything that would make them angry, that with all of the work that the court had to do to stop the many enemies of the government, he had been forgotten in the Abbey Prison until three days ago, when he had been called before the court and had been given freedom after the jury agreed that he had good answers for the things said against him. He had been able to do this because he had been able to call back countryman Evremonde, called Darnay.

Next Doctor Manette was questioned. Because he was such a well-liked celebrity, and because his answers were so clear, his words had a good effect on the court. The jury and the crowd became as one, as the Doctor showed that the prisoner had been his first friend after being freed from so many years in prison himself, that the prisoner had stayed in England, always faithful and loving to his daughter and himself as they were in hiding, that, far from being a friend of the rich class there, he had almost lost his life as an enemy of England and a friend of the United States. When he asked for Mr. Lorry, an Englishman who was there in the court, who had also been a witness in the court case in London, and could back up the truth in the Doctor's account of what happened, the jury said they had heard enough, and they were ready with their votes if the President was happy to receive them.

The jury voted out loud, one by one, and at each vote, the crowd clapped, and shouted happily. All of the voices were for the prisoner, and the President said that he was free.

That started one of those strange ways that a crowd could give in to their easily changing emotions, or maybe just showed how generous and loving they could be, or maybe just made themselves feel better about being so cruel at other times. No one could say now which of these reasons was behind what happened next, but it may be that all three were there, with the middle one (their better feelings of love) most moving them at that time. As soon as the President said he was free to go, tears ran the way blood ran after so many other cases. So many people in the crowd, of both sexes, tried to hug him after his long and difficult time in prison, that he was in danger of collapsing. It was not made easier knowing that the same people, carried by another emotion, would have run at him with the same enthusiasm for tearing him to pieces and throwing the pieces in the street.

When the guards took him outside to make way for others, that gave him some rest from the crowd. Five people were to be questioned together next, as enemies of the government because of something they did not do or say to help the government. So enthusiastic was the court to make up for not having killed him, that these five people were judged and brought to where he was before he had left, marked for death before that time the next day.

One reason the case was finished so quickly for the five was that there had been no crowd to watch them. When Charles Darnay and Doctor Manette walked out through the gate, there was a great crowd on the street, in which there seemed to be every face that he had seen in the court... apart from two, for which Charles Darnay looked without finding them. As he came out, the people pushed toward him again, crying, hugging, and shouting, first in three separate steps, and then doing all three at the same time, until it seemed like even the river beside them was going crazy like the people on the side of it.

They put him in a big chair that they had taken from the court or from one of the rooms beside it. Over the chair they threw a red flag, and they put a spear with a red hat on top of it on the back of the chair. In this vehicle for the winner, not even the Doctor could stop the people from carrying Charles Darnay home on their shoulders, with a confused ocean of red hats moving around him, and such wild faces looking up at him from that ocean at times that more than once his confused mind thought he was in a cart on his way to the guillotine.

The trip was like a wild dream, with people hugging anyone they met on the way, and pointing him out. The new colour worn by the people made the snowy streets red as they moved through them, just as they had once coloured the ground under the snow with a deeper red. They carried him all the way to the yard of the house where he lived. Lucie's father had gone on before them to prepare her, and when her husband was standing back on the ground, she fainted into his arms.

As he held her to his heart and turned her beautiful head so it was between his face and the noisy crowd, and so his tears and her lips could come together without them seeing, a few of the people started dancing. Then all the others joined in, and the yard became too crowded for the dance of the freedom fighters. They took a young woman from the crowd and put her on the empty chair as their female god of freedom, and then, pouring out of the yard and into the streets and along the side of the river, and over the bridge, the dance itself was all they could think about as they left.

After shaking the Doctor's hand as he stood proud and happy before him; after shaking Mr. Lorry's hand, who came in breathing heavily after fighting through the dancers as they left the yard; after kissing little Lucie, who was lifted up to put her arms around his neck; and after hugging the ever faithful Miss Pross who lifted Lucie; he took his wife in his arms and carried her into the house.

"Lucie! My wife! I'm safe!"

"Oh Charles, my love, let me thank God for this on my knees as I have prayed to him."

They all humbly bowed their heads and hearts. When she was again in his arms, he said to her:

"And now speak to your father, my love. No other man in all of France could have done for me what he has done."

She put her head on her father's chest as she had put his poor head on her own breast long long ago. He was happy in the return he had made to her. He had been paid for what he went through in prison; he was proud of his strength. "You must not be weak, my love," he said to her. "Don't shake so. I have saved him."

7. A Knock at the Door

"I HAVE SAVED HIM.” It was not another one of Charles Darnay's dreams in which he often came home; he was really there. And yet his wife was shaking, and a soft but heavy fear was on her.

All the air around them was so thick and dark, the people so wild and full of hate, the innocent so often put to death just for what others believed about them, or because of a black and evil hate, that it was impossible to forget that many as innocent as her husband and loved as much by others as he was by her, had ended up in the place that he had been saved from. Her heart could not feel light even now when it should feel that way. The shadows were starting to fall on that winter afternoon, and even now the awful carts were rolling through the streets. Her mind followed them, looking for him in the people being carried away; and then she hugged closer to the real man and shook some more.

Her father, trying to encourage her, showed a loving strength that was wonderful to see. No room above the wine shop, no shoemaking, no One Hundred and Five North Tower now! He had finished the job that he had given himself to do. His promise had been kept. He had saved Charles. Let them all lean on him.

They used very little money on things for their house, not only because it was the safest way of life if they did not want to anger the people, but because they were not rich. All the while that Charles had been in prison he had been forced to pay heavily for the bad food he received, and for his guard, and to help some of the poorer prisoners around him. Partly because of this, and partly because they could not trust anyone, they had no servant of their own. The countryman and countrywoman who worked at the gate for the government would help them at times; and Jerry (whom Mr. Lorry had fully given over to help them) had become their servant, even sleeping there at night.

It was the rule of the new government, the one country for free, equal brothers, or death, that on the door or the door post of every house, the names of all the people living there should be written in letters of a special size, and at a special height from the ground. Because of this, Mr. Jerry Cruncher's name had been added to the bottom of the list. As the afternoon shadows grew longer, Mr. Cruncher himself came to watch a painter whom Doctor Manette had paid to add to the list the name of Charles Evremonde, called Darnay.

In the fear that made those times so dark, all the little ways of the past had been changed. In the Doctor's little family, as in very many others, they would buy the things they needed each evening, in small measures, from a few different shops. The general feeling was that if they were not seen to be spending a lot of money, people would not talk so much or feel jealous of them.

For a few months now, it had been the job of Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher to buy the things they needed. Miss Pross would carry the money, and Mr. Cruncher the basket. Each afternoon, about the time when the town lanterns were lighted, they would leave the house to buy and bring home all the things that were needed. Miss Pross had known a French family in England for many years, so she should have known the language well by then, if she had wanted to learn it; but she had not wanted to learn it. She knew no more of that "foolishness" (as she called it) than Mr. Cruncher did. So when buying things she would tell the shop owner only the name of the thing she wanted, without any other words to help him. If it turned out that she was using the wrong word, she would look around for the thing that she wanted, pick it up, and hold it until the sale was finished. She always got a good price by holding up one less finger than the person selling it was holding up.

"Now, Mr. Cruncher," said Miss Pross, whose eyes were red from so many happy tears, "if you are ready, I am."

Jerry said with a rough voice that he was ready. He had rubbed all the rust off his fingers long ago, but nothing would make his messy hair lay flat.

"There is much that we want to get," said Miss Pross, "and we have little time to get it. On top of it all, we will want some wine. I'm afraid that these awful Red Hats will be drinking nice wine anywhere that it can be found.

"It will be much the same to you, Miss," answered Jerry, "if they are drinking to your health or to the health of the Old One."

"Who's he?” asked Miss Pross.

Mr. Cruncher shyly said that he was talking about the Old Devil.

"Ha!" said Miss Pross. "I don't need to know the language to know what these people are drinking to. They are only interested in darkness, killing, and hurting people."

"Quiet, love! Please, please, be careful!" cried Lucie.

"Yes, yes, yes, I'll be careful," said Miss Pross, "but between ourselves I can say that I hope there'll be no hugs from these tobacco and onion breathers in the streets. Now, Ladybird, do not leave that fire until I come back! Take care of the good husband you have found again, and don't move your beautiful head from his shoulder where it is now, until you see me again! May I ask a question, Doctor Manette, before I go?"

"I think you may have that freedom," the Doctor answered, smiling.

"Oh please don't talk about freedom; we have had more than enough of that already," said Miss Pross.

"Quiet, love! Again?” Lucie said.

"Well, my sweet," said Miss Pross, shaking her head as she said it, "the short and the long of it is that I follow our good King George the Third.” Miss Pross bowed at the name. "As such, my rule is, No interest in their political games, and Anger at their cruel tricks. Our hope is in him. God save the king!"

Mr. Cruncher, in a show of faithful love for the king, repeated the words after Miss Pross in his deep rough voice, adding something about someone at church.

"I am glad you have so much of the English man in you, but I wish you did not have such a cold in your voice," said Miss Pross, lovingly. "But the question, Doctor Manette. Is there any hope of us getting out of this place?” It was the good woman's way to make light of something that worried them all, and to come at it from some foolish talk.

"I am afraid that there is no way yet. It would be dangerous for Charles if we tried to leave now."

"Oh well!" said Miss Pross in a relaxed and friendly way, holding back her sadness as she looked at her Ladybird's golden hair in the light of the fire. "Then we just have to be patient and wait; that's all. We must hold up our heads and fight secretly, as my brother Solomon used to say. Now, Mr. Cruncher! You stay there, Ladybird!"

They went out, leaving Lucie, her husband, father, and child by a nice fire. Mr. Lorry would be there soon from the bank. Miss Pross had lighted the lantern, but had put it in a corner so that they could better see the light from the fireplace. Little Lucie sat by her grandfather with her hands joined through his arm. He, in a voice not much above a whisper, started to tell her a story about a great and powerful angel who had opened a prison wall to free a prisoner who had, in the past, helped the angel. All was quiet, and Lucie was more at peace than she had been before.

But then she cried, "What was that?"

"My love!" said her father, stopping his story and putting his hand on her hand. "Control yourself. You are too worried. The least thing... nothing at all... fills you with fear! You, your father's daughter!"

"Father, I thought I heard strange feet on the steps," Lucie said in a shaking voice.

"My love, the steps are as quiet as death."

As she said the word, a knock was heard on the door.

"Oh, father, father. What can this be! Hide Charles. Save him!"

"My child," said the Doctor, getting up and putting his hand on her shoulder, "I have saved him. How afraid you are! Let me go to the door."

He took the lantern in his hand, walked through the two rooms between them and the door, and he opened it. The loud noise of heavy feet moving rudely on the floor, and four rough men in red hats, carrying swords and guns, came into the room.

"The countryman Evremonde, called Darnay," said the first.

"Who wants him?” answered Darnay.

"I want him. We want him. I know you, Evremonde; I saw you before the court today. You are again a prisoner of the government."

The four moved around him, where he stood with his wife and child hanging onto him.

"Tell me, how and why am I a prisoner again?"

"It is enough that you come to the court prison now, and you'll know tomorrow. You are to come before the court tomorrow."

Doctor Manette had been turned to stone by this visit, so that he stood with the lantern in his hand as if he were a statue made to hold it. But after these words, he moved, putting the lantern down, and facing the speaker. He took him roughly by the loose front of his red shirt, and said:

"You say that you know him. Do you know me?"

"Yes, I know you, Countryman Doctor."

"We all know you, Countryman Doctor," said the other three.

He looked from one to the other, in deep thought, then said in a lower voice: "Will you answer me this, then? How has this happened?"

"Countryman Doctor," said the first, not really wanting to speak, "he has been said to be evil by people from Saint Antoine. This countryman," he said, pointing to the second man who had come into the room, "is from Saint Antoine."

The countryman himself shook his head and added: "Saint Antoine has taken action against him."

"For what?” asked the Doctor.

"Countryman Doctor," said the first, still not really wanting to speak, "ask no more. If the country asks you to give up something for it, I know that you, as a good countryman will be happy to do that. The country comes before all. The People are most important. Evremonde, we are in a hurry."

"One word," the Doctor begged. "Will you tell me who took action against him?"

"It is against the rules," answered the first. "But you can ask the man here from Saint Antoine."

The Doctor turned his eyes toward that man, who moved a little in fear, rubbed his beard a little, and at length said:

"Well! It really is against the rules, but the action came from -- and it is a serious action -- the Countryman and Countrywoman Defarge. And by one other."

"What other?"

"Are you asking for yourself, Countryman Doctor?”

"Yes."

"Then," said the one from Saint Antoine, with a strange look, "you will be answered tomorrow. For now, I have nothing to say."

8. A Hand of Cards

Not knowing about what had happened at home, Miss Pross walked happily along the narrow streets and crossed the river, going over in her mind the number of things that she needed to get. Mr. Cruncher, with the basket, walked at her side. They both looked to the right and to the left into most of the shops they passed on the way, with a careful eye for all friendly groups of people, and moving out of their way so they would not be a part of their talk. It was a cold night, and the cloud coming up off the river made both the lights and the noise softer. On the river were big flat boats where workers were making guns for the new army. God help the man who played tricks with that army, or the soldier found breaking the rules to get ahead! It would be better that they never had a beard than to have the government 'razor' shave them so closely.

Having picked up a little food here and there, and some oil for the lantern, Miss Pross moved on to thinking about the wine. After looking into a few wine shops, she stopped at the sign outside the Good Old Brutus pub, not far from where the king used to live. She liked it better than the other places that they had passed. It still had a lot of red hats, but not as many as in the others. Asking Mr. Cruncher what he thought, and seeing that he agreed to it, Miss Pross went into the Good Old Brutus, joined by her protecter.

They showed little interest in the smoky lights; in the people, some with pipes in their mouths, playing with old cards and yellow dominoes; in the man without a shirt, covered with black dust, who was reading a newspaper out for others to hear; in the weapons that people were wearing, or that they had put on tables; or in the two or three people who were sleeping in coats covered with long rough hair that so many people liked to wear at that time, which made them look like sleeping bears or dogs. Instead, these two people from a different country walked up to the counter and made movements to show what they wanted.

As their wine was being measured out, a man got up to leave another man in the corner. As he left, he turned toward Miss Pross. No sooner did he face her than Miss Pross let out a loud cry and hit her hands together.

A second later, everyone in the room was on their feet. What they most expected to see was that someone had been killed because of an argument. But all they saw were a man and a woman looking at each other. The man looked to be a true French countryman, and the woman was clearly English.

What the people of Good Old Brutus had to say quite loudly on seeing this, would have been like Greek to Miss Pross and her protecter even if they had been all ears. But in their surprise they had no ears at all for what the others were saying. It must be said that not only was Miss Pross surprised and confused, but Mr. Cruncher was also very surprised, but in his case it was for what seemed to be a different reason.

"What is your problem?” asked the man who had made Miss Pross cry out. He sounded angry, but was talking softly, and in English.

"Oh Solomon! My sweet Solomon!" cried Miss Pross, hitting her hands together again. "After not seeing you or hearing from you for so long, to think I should find you here!"

"Don't call me Solomon. Do you want to have me killed?” asked the man, who was clearly afraid.

"My brother, my brother!" cried Miss Pross, with tears running down her face. "Have I ever been so hard with you that you could ask me such a cruel question?"

"Then hold your tongue," said Solomon, "and come outside if you want to speak to me. Pay for your wine and come out. And who is this man?"

Miss Pross, shaking her loving and sad head at her brother, who was not loving in any way, said through her tears, "Mr. Cruncher."

"Let him come out too," said Solomon. "Does he think I am a ghost?"

To judge by Mr. Cruncher's looks, he did. But he said not a word, and Miss Pross found it difficult to see through her tears to fish in her handbag for money to pay for her wine. As she did this, Solomon turned to the people in Good Old Brutus to tell them in French what was happening. Whatever it was, it was enough to send them all back to what they had been doing before.

"Now," said Solomon, stopping at a dark street corner, "what do you want?"

"How cruel of a brother that I have always loved," cried Miss Pross, "to talk like that to me, and to show no love toward me."

"There. Stop it! There," said Solomon, touching Miss Pross's lips with his own. "Now are you happy?"

Miss Pross only shook her head and cried quietly.

"If you expected me to be surprised," said her brother, "I am not surprised. I knew you were here. I know about most people who are here. If you really do not want to put me in danger -- which I half believe you do -- go your way as quickly as you can, and let me go mine. I am busy. I have a government job here.

"My English brother Solomon," said Miss Pross sadly, lifting her tear-filled eyes, "who could have been a great leader in his own country, is working for a foreign country, and for a foreign country such as this one. I would almost have been happier to see the sweet boy lying in his..."

"You see!" cried her brother, stopping her. "I knew it. You want to see me dead. I will be arrested by my own sister, just when I was doing so well!"

"No, may God stop that from happening!" cried Miss Pross. "I would be happier never to see you again, Solomon, but I have always loved you and I always will. Just say one kind word to me, and tell me you're not angry with me, and I won't keep you any longer."

Good Miss Pross! As if their being separate had come from any wrong action on her part. As if Mr. Lorry had not known it to be true years ago, on that quiet corner in Soho, that this loved brother had used up her money and then left her!

He was saying a kind word now, but with less feeling than if he had been the innocent one and she the guilty (which is how it so often happens all over the world), when Mr. Cruncher, touching him on the shoulder, without warning cut in with the following question:

"I say! Can I ask you one thing? Is your name John Solomon or Solomon John?"

This worker for the French government turned toward him with a quickly growing worry. He had not said a word before this.

"Out with it!" said Mr. Cruncher. "Tell us what you know.” (Which, by the way, is more than he could do himself.) "Is it John Solomon, or Solomon John? She calls you Solomon, and she must know, being your sister. But I know you're John. So which of the two goes first? And the same with that name Pross. That wasn't your name over the water."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know all that I mean, because I can't call to mind what your name was, over the water."

"No?"

"No. But I know it was longer than Pross.” "Is that right?"

"Yes. T'other one's name was short like that. But I know you. You was a secret government witness at the Bailey. What, in the name of the Father of Lies, own father to yourself, was you called at that time?"

"Barsad," said another voice, cutting in.

"That's the name, for a thousand pounds!" cried Jerry.

The speaker who cut in was Sydney Carton. He had his hands in his pockets, and he stood at Mr. Cruncher's elbow as lazily as he would have stood at the Old Bailey itself.

"Don't be surprised, my good Miss Pross. I arrived at Mr. Lorry's, to his surprise, last night. We agreed that I would not show myself until all was well or until I was needed. I am showing myself here now because I want to have a little talk with your brother. I wish your brother, Mr. Barsad, had a better job than working as a Sheep in the prisons."

Sheep was a special word used at that time for a spy who worked with the prison guards. The spy, in question whose skin was white, turned whiter, and asked Sydney how he had the confidence to...

"I'll tell you," said Sydney. "I saw you coming out of the court prison when I was studying the walls around it an hour or so ago. You have a face that is easily remembered, and I remember faces very well. I wanted to know why you had been there, and I had good reason, as you would know, for thinking that you could be partly to blame for something very bad which has just happened to a friend of mine. So I followed you into the wine shop, and I sat near you. It was easy to pick up from your proud talk, and what others were saying, just what your job was. Little by little, what I had learned by accident started to shape into a plan, Mr. Barsad."

"What plan?” the spy asked.

"It would be difficult, and could be dangerous to talk about it here. Could you help me by spending a few quiet minutes at the office of Tellson's Bank, for starters?"

"Are you going to try to hurt me if I don't?”

"Oh, did I say that?"

"What other reason would I have to go there?"

"Really, Mr. Barsad, if you don't know yourself, then I cannot tell you."

"Do you mean that you won't say, sir?” the spy asked, not knowing which way to go with this.

"You understand me very clearly, Mr. Barsad. No, I won't."

Carton's wildly confident way of talking worked well with his ability to see through a person, and would help him with what he was secretly planning, with such a man as he had to work with. He could see it, and he made the most of it.

"I told you so," said the spy, with an angry look at his sister. "If any trouble comes of this, it's your doing."

"Come, come, Mr. Barsad!" said Sydney confidently. "You should be thanking me. If it was not for my feelings for your sister, I would not be talking so nicely to you now about the plan I have which could help us both. Do you want to go with me to the bank?"

"Just to hear what you have to say. Yes, I'll go with you."

"I think we should first take your sister safely to the corner of her own street. Let me take your arm, Miss Pross. This is not a good city, at this time, for you to be out in on your own; and because your protector knows Mr. Barsad, I will be asking him to come to Mr. Lorry's with us. Are we ready? Come then!"

A short time after that, and to the end of her life, Miss Pross remembered that, as she put her hand on Sydney's arm and looked up in his face, wanting him to do no hurt to Solomon, there was a look in his eye and something in how he held his arm which was very different to his old foolish spirit, and which changed and lifted the man. At the time she was too busy fearing for her brother, who gave little reason for her loving him, and too busy listening to Sydney's friendly promises, to think about those changes in Sydney.

They left her at the corner of her street, and then Carton showed the way to Mr. Lorry's, which was only a few minutes' walk away. John Barsad, or should we say Solomon Pross, walked at his side.

Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and was sitting in front of a friendly fire in the fireplace... maybe looking into it to find a picture of that younger man from Tellsons, who had looked into the red coals at the King George at Dover, now a good many years in the past. He turned his head as they came in, and showed surprise on seeing the stranger.

"Miss Pross' brother, sir," said Sydney. "Mr. Barsad."

"Barsad?” repeated the old man. "Barsad? I've heard the name before... and seen the face."

"I told you that your face is easy to remember, Mr. Barsad," said Carton coolly. "Please sit down."

As he took a seat himself, Carton gave Mr. Lorry the piece of information he needed, by saying to him with an angry look, "Witness at my court case.” Mr. Lorry remembered at once, and showed an angry and almost sick look toward his new visitor.

"Miss Pross has told us that Mr. Barsad is the loving brother you have heard so much about," said Sydney. "And he doesn't argue with that. But I have worse news. Darnay has been arrested again."

The old man could not believe him. "What are you telling me? I left him safe and free just two hours ago. I was just about to return to him!"

"Arrested all the same. When did it happen, Mr. Barsad?"

"Just now, if it has happened."

"Mr. Barsad is the best one to tell us, sir," said Sydney. "I have it from his talk with a brother Sheep over a bottle of wine, that the arrest has taken place. His friend left the people who made the arrest at the prison gate, and he saw the gate open for them. There's no reason on earth to think he has not been taken."

Mr. Lorry's business eye could read by Sydney's face that it would be a waste of time to argue the point. He was confused, but he knew that he needed to control himself and just listen.

"Now I am hoping," said Carton to him, "that the name and effect of Doctor Manette may save him tomorrow... you did say he would be before the court again tomorrow, didn't you, Mr. Barsad?"

"Yes, I believe he will."

"...as it saved him today. But it may not happen. I must say that I am surprised and worried, Mr. Lorry, that Doctor Manette did not have the power to stop this arrest."

"He may not have known about it before it happened," said Mr. Lorry.

"And the surprise would be awful for him, when we remember how close he is to his daughter's husband."

"That's true," agreed Mr. Lorry, with his worried hand at his chin and his worried eyes on Carton.

"In short," said Sydney, "this is a serious time, when serious games must be played with serious effects. The Doctor may play a winning game, but I am working on a losing one. You can't buy a life here. Anyone carried home by the people today may be returned tomorrow. So the reward that I hope to play for is a friend in the court prison, and the friend I plan to win is Mr. Barsad."

"You would need good cards for that, sir," said the spy.

"Let's look at them. Let's look at mine first... Mr. Lorry, you know what an animal I am; could I have a little drink?"

It was put before him, and he finished it quickly... that one and another, before he pushed the bottle away.

"Mr. Barsad," he went on, in the voice of one who really was looking over a hand of cards. "Prison sheep, working for the Freedom Fighters, one day holding the keys to the prison, the next acting as one of the prisoners, always a spy, giving secret information. So much better for being English, because the French would not think that an Englishman would lie to hurt another Englishman. But he has used a false name in getting his job with the French government. That is a very good card. Mr. Barsad, today working for the French government, but in the past working for the rich English government, the enemy of France and the enemy of freedom. That's a really good card. What they will think is that Mr. Barsad, still working for the rich English government, is a spy for the head of government over there, the enemy of the new France hiding in his heart, the secret English enemy that everyone talks about, but that no one can find. Now that is the best card of all. Have you followed my hand, Mr. Barsad?"

"Not well enough to understand how you are going to use them," returned the spy with a worried look on his face.

"I play my best card, by telling the nearest local court about you. And what do you do? Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and see what you have. Don't hurry."

He pulled the bottle closer, poured another glass and finished it off. He could see that the spy was afraid he would drink too much and run off to tell the local leaders. Seeing that, he poured himself another glass and finished that off too.

"Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad. Take your time."

It was a worse hand than he had believed. Mr. Barsad could see losing cards that Sydney Carton knew nothing of. He had been forced out of England because his lies had not worked there... not that he was not wanted there, because it was only later that we started acting like we do not have secrets and do not use spies. He knew that he had crossed the Channel and started working for France: first to test and listen in to people from his own country, and then to do the same with the French. He knew that under the old government he had spied on Saint Antoine and on Defarge's wine shop. He had received enough information from the police about Doctor Manette's life, that he was able to talk to the Defarges like an old friend. He had tried them on Madam Defarge, but they did not work at all. He always remembered with fear and shaking that the awful woman had knitted when he talked with her, and had looked dangerously at him as her fingers moved.

He had seen her in Saint Antoine, over and over, bring out her knitted squares and use them against people whose lives were then taken from them by the guillotine. Like anyone doing his kind of work, he knew that he was never safe, that there was nowhere to run, that he was locked under the shadow of the axe, and that no measure of help for the government that was paying him could stop that axe from falling if someone pointed a finger at him, and on the serious grounds that Sydney Carton had just listed, he knew that awful woman that he had seen hurt so many other people, would bring out the knitting square that would take away his life. Apart from the truth that all who have secrets have reason to fear, here were enough cards of one black shape as to make the one holding them turn them over on the table.

"You don't seem to like your hand," said Sydney, fully relaxed. "Will you play?"

"I think, sir," said the spy in the humblest way, as he turned to Mr. Lorry, "I can ask a man of your years and kindness, to ask this other man, so much younger than you, how he could ever play that top card that he talks of. It's true that I am a spy, and people think poorly of me because of it... but someone has to do it. Yet this man is not a spy, so why should he bring himself so low as to do this to me?"

"I will be playing my card, Mr. Barsad," said Carton, taking it on himself to answer for Mr. Lorry, and looking at his watch, "without any fear, in a very few minutes."

"I should have hoped, with you both being good men," said the spy, still trying to pull Mr. Lorry into the talk, "that your kind feelings for my sister..."

"I could not think of a better way to help your sister than to take her brother out of the way," said Sydney Carton.

"You think there is no better way, sir?”

"I have made up my mind about it."

The smooth way of the spy, strangely opposite to his very rough way of dressing, and probably with the way he did much of his business, was so well covered by Carton's ability to hide his true thoughts... for he was a secret to men who were much smarter and more honest than Barsad... that it fell apart at this point. Seeing that Barsad was losing, Carton said, returning to his earlier game of looking at cards:

"Now that I think about it, I believe I have another good card here, one I haven't yet talked about. That other Sheep, who talked of making a living for himself in the prisons. Who was he?"

"He's French. You wouldn't know him," said the spy quickly.

"French, eh?” repeated Carton, thinking to himself, and not showing any interest in Barsad at all, even as he repeated the same word. "Well, he may be."

"He is. I promise you," said the spy. "But it's not important."

"But it's not important," repeated Carton in the same empty way. "But it's not important... No, it's not important. No. Yet I know the face."

"I don't think so. I am sure you do not. It can't be," said the spy.

"It... can't... be," Sydney Carton said to himself as he played with his glass (which, luckily, was a small one) again. "Can't... be. He spoke good French. But I still thought it sounded like his second language."

"He's from another part of France," said the spy.

"No, from another country!" cried Carton, hitting his open hand on the table, as a light broke through to his mind. "Cly! Changed a little, but the same man. We had that man before us at the Old Bailey."

"Now you have jumped too soon, sir," said Barsad with a smile that made his eagle-like nose move a little to one side. "You have really helped me by accident. You see, Cly (who, at this distance in time, I can freely say had been working with me) has been dead now for a few years. I was with him just before he died. He was buried in London at the church of Saint Pancras in the Fields. The dirty-talking crowds at the time did not like him, and they stopped me from going with him to the burying; but I helped to put him in the box."

Here, Mr. Lorry could see, from where he was sitting, a strange movement in a shadow on the wall. Looking around the room, he could see that it was a movement in the wild hair on Mr. Cruncher's head.

"Let us talk about this," said the spy, "and let us be fair. To show you how wrong you are, I will show you a paper showing that Cly was buried, which I just happen to have carried here in my pocket-book ever since that day.” He quickly found it and opened it. "There! Look at it, look at it! You can pick it up. It's real."

Here, Mr. Lorry saw the shadow on the wall grow taller as Mr. Cruncher stood up and stepped forward. His hair could not have been more wildly on end if it had, at that time, been put in place by the cow with a broken horn in the house that Jack built.

Without the spy seeing him, Mr. Cruncher moved to his side and touched him on the shoulder like a ghost calling him to court.

"That there Roger Cly, master," said Mr. Cruncher, with a hard look that needed few words, "so you put him in his box?"

"I did."

"And who took him out of it?"

Barsad leaned back in his chair and said in stops and starts, "What do you mean?"

"I mean," said Mr. Cruncher, "that he weren't never in it. No! Not he! I'll have my head took off if he was ever in it."

The spy looked around at the other two men, and they looked at Jerry with such surprise that they could not speak.

"I tell you," said Jerry, "that you buried stones and dirt in that there box. Don't go and tell me that you buried Cly. It was a take in. Me and two more knows it."

"How do you know it?"

"What's that to you?” Mr. Cruncher said angrily. "So it's you I should of been angry against all this time, with your awful way of hurting honest workers! I'd catch hold of your throat and squeeze it to death for half a pound."

Sydney Carton, who, with Mr. Lorry, had been lost in surprise at this turn in their business, here asked Mr. Cruncher to back up and tell them what he was on about.

"At another time, sir," he returned, trying to get away from it. "The present time is not the best for talking. What I stand to is that we knows well enough that there Cly was never in that there box. Let him say he was, in so much as a word, and I'll either catch hold of his throat and squeeze him to death for half a pound...” Mr. Cruncher waited for a second, clearly believing that the next line was the kinder of two choices. "... or I'll out and tell what he did."

"Hmm! I see that I have another card, Mr. Barsad," said Carton. "It would be impossible, with fear filling the air here in Paris, for you to live if I tell, when they find you are working with another spy for the rich who comes from the same country as yourself, who, himself, has a secret past in which he made people believe he was dead, and then came to life again! A plan in the prisons by two English men against the new government. A strong card... a clear Guillotine card! Do you still want to play against me?"

"No!" returned the spy. "I give up. It's true that the crowds were against us in London. I was almost drowned, and Cly was so hunted that he would have never been able to get away at all without that burying trick. But I have no way of knowing how this man knows about it."

"Never you trouble your head about this man," argued Mr. Cruncher. "You'll have trouble enough with listening to that man. And look here! Again!" Mr. Cruncher could not be stopped from showing them all how kind he was. "I'd catch hold of your throat and squeeze it to death for half a pound."

The prison Sheep turned from him to Sydney Carton, and said more seriously this time, "It has come to a point. I should be starting work soon, and cannot stay here much longer. You said you had a plan you wanted me to help with. What is it? There is no good in asking too much from me. If you ask me to do something in my job that could get me killed, then I'll be happier to face the danger of saying no than the danger of saying yes. Remember that I can say things against you too, and I have ways to get through stone walls, and so can others who are my friends. So what do you want from me?"

"Not very much. You hold the keys at the court prison?"

"I'm telling you this once for all, it is not possible to run away from there," said the spy strongly.

"I don't need answers to questions I have not asked. Do you hold the keys?"

"I do, at times."

"You can choose when that will be?”

"I can come and go as I choose."

Sydney Carton filled another glass with wine, but poured it slowly on the fire, when no one was looking. When it was all gone, he said, standing:

"So far we have been talking in front of these other two, because it was good for the strength of the cards to be measured by others apart from you and me. But come into this dark room here, and we can say the last things alone."

9. The Game Made

While Sydney Carton and the prison Sheep were in the next room, speaking so softly in the darkness that not a sound was heard, Mr. Lorry was looking at Jerry in a way that showed he did not trust him; and the way Jerry acted on seeing the look made him seem more guilty than ever. He moved from one leg to the other as often as if he had fifty legs and was trying each one of them. He looked at his fingernails too closely. And whenever Mr. Lorry's eyes crossed with his, he would do that strange little cough of his and put his hand over his mouth, which is not an action that makes one think a person is being perfectly open.

"Jerry," said Mr. Lorry. "Come here."

Mr. Cruncher moved forward, but did it with one side of his body leading the other side.

"What work have you been doing, apart from your work for Tellson's?"

After some thinking, that came with a serious look at his boss, Mr. Cruncher came up with the smart answer, "Farm work, sir. Digging."

"Something tells me," said Mr. Lorry, angrily shaking a finger at him, "that you have used the great name of Tellson's as a cover, and that you have been doing work that is against the law. If you have, then know that I will not help you when you get back to England. If you have, don't count on me keeping your secret. Tellson's will not be used in this way."

"I hope, sir," begged the worried Mr. Cruncher, "that a good man like yourself who I have been happy to work for until I am now grey at it, would think twice about hurting me, even if it was true... and I don't say it is, but even if it was. And it is to be took into your thinking that if it was, it wouldn't, even then, be all on one side. There'd be two sides to it. There might be a doctor even now, picking up their pounds where an honest worker don't pick up cents... cents? No, not even his half cents. But they goes banking away like smoke at Tellson's, and a pointing their doctor eyes at that worker on the street, while they's going in and going out of their own coaches, and equally doing that like smoke too, if not more so. Now that'd be using Tellson's too, for you cannot put sauce on the female goose and not put it on the male goose too. And here's Mrs. Crunch, at least she was back when we was in England, and would be again tomorrow, if she had reason to, prayin' against the business so much that she was destroying it... fully destroying it! But the doctor wives, they don't pray... you won't never catch them at it! Or, if they do, their prayers go to getting more sick people for their husbands. So how can you rightly turn on one without the other? Then what with giving something to the men who bury the body, and the man who watches over the church, and all of them greedy, a man wouldn't get much by it, even if it was so. And what little a man did get, would not make him rich, Mr. Lorry. He'd never have no good of it, and he'd want all along to be out of it if he could see his way to, but being once in... even if it was so."

"Stop it!" cried Mr. Lorry, giving in some, all the same. "I am surprised just to look at you."

"Now what I would like to humbly give you, sir," went on Mr. Cruncher, "even if it was so, which I don't say it is..."

"Don't kick around the bush," said Mr. Lorry.

"No, I will not, sir," returned Mr. Cruncher, as if nothing was farther from his thoughts or actions. "I'm not saying that it is... but what I would humbly want to give you, sir, if it was, would be this. On that chair there at the bank, sits that boy of mine, growed up to be a good worker for you, taking letters here and there and doing every little job for you until your heels are where your head is, if you would like him to do that. If it was so, which I still don't say it is (for I will not kick around the bush to you, sir), then, if it was, let that there boy keep his father's place, so he can take care of his mother; don't blow on that boy's father... do not do it, sir... but let that father go into the line of honest digging, and make up for what he should not have been digging... if it was so... by digging for them with a will and in a faith that would keep them safe for the future. That, Mr. Lorry," said Mr. Cruncher, rubbing his forehead with his arm to show that he had come to the finishing point of what he was trying to say, "is what I would humbly want to give to you, sir. A man don't see all the awful happenings that are going on round him here, in the way of people without heads, and happening to so many that the price of a life is no more than the cost of carrying it away, without having his serious thoughts of such things. And these here would be my thoughts if it was so kind of you to think that what I said just now, I up and said for a good reason when I might have kept it back."

"At least that much is true," said Mr. Lorry. "Say no more now. It may be that I will yet be your friend, if I think you have repented... in action, and not just in words. I want no more words."

Mr. Cruncher rubbed his fist on his forehead, as Sydney Carton and the spy returned from the dark room.

"Goodbye, Mr. Barsad," said Carton. "If you stick to this agreement, you have nothing to fear from me."

He sat down in a chair by the fireplace, next to Mr. Lorry. When they were alone, Mr. Lorry asked him what he had done.

"Not much. If it goes wrong with the prisoner, I will be able to have one visit with him."

The look on Mr. Lorry's face fell.

"It's all I could do," said Carton. "To ask too much would put this man's head under the axe, and, as he said himself, nothing worse could happen if I turned him in. It was the weakest part of our game. There is nothing we can do about that."

"But visiting him," said Mr. Lorry, "if it goes wrong before the court, will not save him."

"I never said it would."

Mr. Lorry's eyes slowly turned to the fire. His deep feeling for the one he loved, and the great sadness he felt on learning of his second arrest, slowly reached his eyes. He was an old man now, carrying too many worries at this time, and so his tears fell.

"You are a good man and a true friend," said Carton in a changed voice. "Forgive me for seeing the effect this is having on you. I could not see my father cry and sit by without doing anything. And I could not feel your sadness more if you were my father. At least you are lucky that you are not."

With those last words, he returned to his old way; but there was true feeling and love both in his voice and his touch that Mr. Lorry, who had never seen the better side of him, was not at all prepared for. He gave him his hand, and Carton squeezed it softly.

"To get back to poor Darnay," said Carton. "Don't tell her of this meeting, or of this agreement. It will not be possible for her to go see him. She might think that it is just a last minute plan to see him before he dies, and it will destroy her hope."

Mr. Lorry had not thought of that, and he looked quickly at Carton to see if that may have been what he was thinking. It seemed to be. Carton returned the look, showing that he understood what Mr. Lorry was thinking.

"She might think a thousand things," Carton said, "and any of them would only add to her trouble. Don't say anything to her about me. As I said when I first came, I had better not see her. I can reach my hand out to help in any little way that I can find, without her needing to know. You are going to her, I hope? She must be very sad tonight."

"I am going now, when we finish."

"I am glad of that. She has such a strong love for you, and faith in you. How does she look?"

"Worried and sad, but very beautiful."

"Ah!"

It was a long, sad sound, like a slow breathing out... almost like he was crying. It pulled Mr. Lorry's eyes to Carton's face, which was turned to the fire. A light, or a shadow (the old man could not have said which), came away from it as quickly as a change will move over the side of a hill on a clear windy day, and he lifted his foot to put back one of the little burning pieces of timber, which was falling forward. He was wearing the white riding coat and tall heavy boots that people often liked to wear then, and the light of the fire touching the light colour of his clothes made him look very white, with his long brown hair, not cut at all, hanging loose around him. He seemed to show so little interest in the fire that Mr. Lorry had to shout out to him. His foot was still on the burning piece of timber when it had broken under the weight of it.

"I had forgotten it," he said.

Mr. Lorry's eyes were again pulled to Sydney's face. He saw a finished empty look in what had always been a good-looking face, and it made him think of the look on the faces of prisoners that he had been seeing so much of at that time.

"And your work here is almost finished?” said Carton, turning to him.

"Yes, as I was telling you last night when Lucie came in by surprise, I have at last done all I can do here. I had been hoping that they would be perfectly safe before I left Paris. I have my papers to take me through the gates. I was ready to go."

They both said nothing.

"Yours is a long life to look back on, sir?” Carton said sadly.

"I am seventy-eight."

"You have used your whole life well; always busy; trusted; loved; and looked up to?"

"I have been a man of business for as long as I have been a man. In truth, I may say that I was a man of business when I was a boy."

"See what a place you fill at seventy eight. So many people will miss you when you leave it empty!"

"One man without a family," answered Mr. Lorry, shaking his head. "There is nobody to cry for me."

"How can you say that? Wouldn't she cry for you? Wouldn't her child?"

"Yes, yes, thank God. I didn't quite mean what I said.”

"It is something to thank God for, is it not?"

"Yes, surely."

"If you could say, with truth, to yourself alone tonight, 'I have not been able to win the love and trust of even one person; there is no one who has a soft place in their heart for me; I have done nothing good to be remembered by!' your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight heavy curses, would they not?"

"You are right, Mr. Carton. I think they would be."

Sydney turned his eyes again on the fire, and after another quiet wait, he said:

"I would like to ask you: Does it seem a long time ago that you were a child? Do the days when you sat at your mother's knee seem to be very far away?"

Answering to this soft side of Sydney Carton, Mr. Lorry said:

"Twenty years back, I would have said yes. But at this time of my life, no. For, as I come closer and closer to the end, I travel in a circle, nearer and nearer to the start. It seems to be one of the kind things that prepares me and smooths the way for me. My heart is touched now by many things that I remember, which had been buried in my mind before now. Things about my beautiful young mother (as old as I am!), and about thoughts and feelings I had before what we call 'the World' was so real to me, and before others knew how many things were wrong with me."

"I understand the feeling!" said Carton with some enthusiasm. "And are you better for it?"

"I hope so."

Carton ended his talk there, by standing to help Mr. Lorry on with his over coat. "But you," said Mr. Lorry, returning to what they had been talking about, "you are young."

"Yes," said Carton. "I am not old, but my young way was never the way to become old either. But enough about me."

"And about me, too, I'm sure," said Mr. Lorry. "Are you going out?"

"I'll walk with you to her gate. You know my strange ways. If I should be out walking the streets for a long time, don't worry. I'll be back in the morning. Are you going to the court tomorrow?"

"Yes, sadly."

"I'll be there, but only as one of the crowd. My spy friend will find a place for me. Take my arm, sir."

Mr. Lorry did so, and they went down the steps and out in the streets. In a few minutes Mr. Lorry reached where he had been planning to go. Carton left him there, but waited around near there, and turned back to the gate again after it was closed, to touch it. He had heard about her going to the prison every day. "She came out here," he said, looking around him, "turned this way, must have stepped on these stones often. I will follow in her steps."

It was ten o'clock at night when he stood before La Force, where she had stood hundreds of times. A little woodcutter, having closed for the night, was smoking his pipe at the door of his shop.

"Good evening, countryman," said Sydney Carton, stopping as he was going by, because the man looked like he wanted to know why he was there.

"Good evening, countryman."

"And how is the country going?"

"You mean Guillotine. Not badly. Sixty-three today. We will jump to a hundred soon. Samson and his men say at times that they are too tired from all the work. Ha, ha, ha! He is so funny. And the way he shaves!"

"Do you often go to see him..."

"See him shave? Always. Every day. What a man! Have you seen him at work?”

"Never."

"Go and see him when he has a good group to work on. Work this out, countryman: He shaved the sixty-three today in less than two pipes! Less than two pipes. I give you my word!"

As the happy little man held out the pipe he was smoking, to show how he timed the killings, Carton was so full of a growing wish to knock the life out of him, that he turned away.

"But are you not English," said the woodcutter, "for you wear English clothes."

"Yes," said Carton, stopping again and answering over his shoulder.

"You speak like a Frenchman."

"I was a student here in the past."

"Ah, a perfect Frenchman! Good night, Englishman."

"Good night, countryman."

"But do go and see that funny dog," the little man went on, calling after him. "And take a pipe with you!"

Sydney had not gone far past where the man could see him when he stopped in the middle of the street under a lantern, and wrote with his pencil on a piece of paper. Then, covering with the confident steps of one who knew the way well, quite a few dark and dirty streets... much dirtier than in the past, because even the best roads were not cleaned in those times of killing and fear... he stopped at a shop where he could buy medicines and chemicals, where the owner was just closing up for the night. It was a small dark bent shop kept on a steep hill by a small dark bent man.

Giving this countryman, too, a good evening, as he met him at his counter, he put the piece of paper in front of him. "Well!" the owner whistled softly as he read it. "Hello, hello, hello!"

Sydney Carton showed no interest, and the man said: "For you, countryman?"

"For me."

"You will be careful to keep them separate, countryman? You know what will happen if you mix them?"

"Perfectly."

Some small containers were made and given to him. He put them, one by one, in the top pocket of his under coat, counted out the money for them, and confidently left the shop. "There is nothing more to do," he said to himself, looking up toward the moon, “until tomorrow. But I can't sleep."

He was not saying those words in anger, as he said them out loud under the fast-sailing clouds. They were not said in a lazy way either. They were said by a tired man who had gone the wrong way, became lost, and then, at last, found his way again and could see where it was leading.

Long ago, when other students saw him as one with great ability, he had buried his father. His mother had died years before that. The words that were read as his father was being buried came to him now as he went down the dark streets with their heavy shadows, and with the moon and the clouds sailing by high above him. "I am life and the giver of life, says the Lord. He that believes in me, even when he dies, he will still live. And anyone who lives and believes in me will never die."

In a city with an axe hanging over it, alone at night, feeling sadness for the 63 people who had been killed that day, and for those in the prisons waiting to die tomorrow and in other tomorrows after that, it was easy to see how one thought would lead to the other like each circle in a chain, pulling a rusty old ship's anchor up from the deep. He did not go looking for those words, but still, they went through his head before he walked on.

Sydney Carton had a serious interest in the whole life and death of the city this night, from the lights in windows, where people were about to take a few hours of rest from the cruel and awful actions that were happening all around them, to the church towers where no prayers were being said because the people had lost faith in a Christianity where the priests were false, evil robbers. He thought of the burying grounds, where signs on the gates said they were for people who were in "eternal sleep", of the crowded prisons, and of so many sixties of prisoners rolling to their deaths on those streets that people never even thought of sad stories about the guilt the guillotine workers might feel now. Sydney Carton then crossed the river to the lighter streets.

There were few coaches these days, because those who had enough money to ride in them were afraid that it would give them away as being part of the rich class. The rich were now hiding their heads under red hats, and wearing heavy shoes that were made for long walks. But the theatres were all filled, and the people poured happily out of them as he walked by, and they walked home talking to each other. At one of the theatre doors there was a little girl with her mother, looking for a way to cross the street through the mud. He carried the child over, and before the shy arm was loosed from around his neck, he asked her for a kiss.

"I am life and the giver of life, says the Lord. He that believes in me, even when he dies, he will still live. And anyone who lives and believes in me will never die."

Now that the streets were quiet and the night was wearing on, the words came back to him at the sound of his own steps and through the night air. Perfectly relaxed and clear, he sometimes repeated the words to himself as he walked; but even when he was not saying them, he was hearing them.

The night was coming to an end, and, as he stood on the bridge listening to the water hitting against the sides of the island that is Paris, where the picture-like confusion of houses and churches could be seen clearly in the light of the moon, the day came coldly, looking like a dead face out of the sky. Then the night, with the moon and the stars, turned white and died, and for a little while it seemed as if those things that God had made had died with it.

But the wonderful sun, as it came up, seemed to write those words, the ones he had carried through the night, straight and warm on his heart. Looking along the lines of sunlight, with his hand half covering his eyes, it seemed like a bridge of light between him and the sun, with the river looking beautiful below it.

The strong movement of the river, so fast, so deep, and so sure, was like a welcome friend in the quiet early morning hours. He walked by the water, far from the houses, and in the light and heat of the sun, he fell asleep on the side of it. When he was awake and on his feet again, he stayed there for a short time, watching a round movement in the water that turned and turned without any clear direction, until the river swallowed it up and carried it on to the ocean. "Like me!" he thought.

A boat with a sail that was the same soft colour of a dead leaf moved quietly by him and died away. As the line behind the boat was swallowed up as well, a prayer that had come up out of his heart, asking forgiveness for all of his blind and selfish actions, ended in the words, "I am life, and the giver of life."

Mr. Lorry was already out when he returned, and it was easy to say where he had gone. Sydney Carton had nothing but a little coffee and some bread, and, having washed and changed clothes, went to the court.

The court room was already full when the black sheep (whom many fell away from in fear) squeezed him into a back corner. Mr. Lorry was there, and Doctor Manette. She was there, sitting beside her father.

When her husband was brought in, she turned a look toward him that was so strong, so encouraging, so full of love and kindness, yet so brave for him, that it brought healthy blood to her husband's face, lighting up his eyes, and moving his heart. If there had been any eyes looking to see the effect of her look on Sydney Carton, they would have seen the same thing there.

Before that awful court there was little or no plan that would give any prisoner brought there the feeling that they would be heard fairly. But there would never have been a change of government in the first place if all the laws and rules had not first been awfully broken. And now the winds of war had confused things even more.

Every eye was turned toward the jury. It was the same freedom fighters and countrymen who had been there yesterday and the day before, and who would be there tomorrow and the day after. One enthusiastic member who seemed to be a leader to the others, with a hungry face, and his fingers always moving around his lips, was well liked by the people in the crowd. This blood thirsty man of the jury was Jack Three from St. Antoine. The whole jury was like a group of wild dogs being asked to say what they should do with a deer.

Every eye then turned to the five judges and the lawyer for the government. There was no one in that group who would help them today. Their business was to cut down and kill without mercy. Then every eye looked for some other eye in the crowd, and they smiled at each other and moved their heads in agreement, before bending forward with serious interest in what was going to happen.

Charles Evremonde, called Darnay. Freed yesterday. Arrested again yesterday. Papers listing his wrongs given to him last night. Believed to be an enemy of the new government, from the rich class, one of a family of evil leaders, one of a group named for the same thing, because they had used their past powers in awful acts against the people. Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, if the arguments are true, will be perfectly dead by the law.

This is, in as few or fewer words, what the lawyer for the government said.

The President asked if the arguments against the prisoner were given openly or secretly.

"Openly, President."

"By whom?"

"Three voices. Ernest Defarge, wine seller of St. Antoine.”

"Good."

"Therese Defarge, his wife."

"Good."

"Alexander Manette, doctor."

A great cry from the crowd broke out, and in the middle of it was Doctor Manette, turned white and shaking, who was now standing where he had been sitting.

"President, I angrily disagree. This argument is false, a counterfeit. You know the prisoner to be the husband of my daughter. My daughter and those she loves are far more important to me than my own life. Who and where is the person who falsely says that I have spoken against the husband of my child?"

"Countryman Manette, be quiet. If you do not follow the rules of the court, you will make yourself an enemy of the Law. As to what you love more than life, nothing can be more important to a good countryman than the government of his country."

Loud shouts were again heard in the court. Doctor Manette sat down, with his eyes looking around and his lips shaking. His daughter moved closer to him. The hungry faced man on the jury rubbed his hands together and then returned the hand to his mouth that was always there.

Defarge came forward, when the court was quiet enough to hear him, and quickly told the story of the Doctor going to prison (He said he was only a boy working for the Doctor when it happened.) and of him being freed from prison and how he was when he arrived at his wine shop. The court moved quickly, so only these few words followed what Defarge had to say:

"You served the country well when we took control of that prison, did you not, countryman?"

"I believe I did."

Here, an enthusiastic woman shouted from the crowd: "You were one of the best freedom fighters there. Why not say so? You were on one of the cannons that day there, and you were one of the first to go into that awful prison when it fell. Countrymen, I speak the truth!"

It was The Punisher who, warmly encouraged by the crowd, was helping the court in this way. The President shook his bell, but The Punisher, still being encouraged by the others, shouted in a high voice, "I will not stop for the bell!" with others encouraging her for that too.

"Tell us what you did that day in the prison, countryman."

"I knew...” said Defarge, looking at his wife, who was standing at the bottom of the steps to where he was standing, looking up at him. "I knew the Doctor had been held in a room known as One Hundred and Five, North Tower. I knew it from himself. He knew himself only as One Hundred and Five North Tower when he made shoes under my care. I'm out there using my gun, and I say to myself, 'I'm going to see that room for myself when the prison falls.' It falls. I climb up to the room with another countryman who is one of the jury. A guard leads us. I look over the room very closely. In a hole in the fireplace, where a stone had been worked out and then returned, I find a written paper. This is that paper. I have made it my business to study other papers with Doctor Manette's writing on them, and this is the Doctor's writing. I am giving this paper, in the writing of Doctor Manette, to the President."

"Let it be read."

The room was deathly quiet. The prisoner looked lovingly at his wife as she turned to look with worry and care at her father. Doctor Manette looked at the reader; Madam Defarge never took her eyes off the prisoner, Defarge never took his eyes from his wife who was feeling quite proud and happy about what was happening; and all of the other eyes there were on the Doctor, who saw none of them. The paper was then read out to them all, as follows.

10. The Shadow Uncovered

I, Alexander Manette, a doctor born in Beauvais and living in Paris, write this sad story in my sad prison room, in the last month of the year 1767. I am writing it secretly, at times when no one is near, and I plan to hide it in the wall of the chimney, where I have worked hard and long to make a hiding place for it. Some kind hand may find it there when I and my sadness are dust.

The words are made with a rusty iron point, using coal from the chimney and blood to make ink. It is the last month of the tenth year that I have been here. All hope is gone now. I can tell from awful signs that I see in my own thinking that my mind will not stay clear for long, but I can say seriously that I am at this time in control of my right mind, that I can remember things very clearly, and that what I am writing here will be the truth, because I will be forced to answer for what I write here, even if others never read it, when I stand before God.

One cloudy night in the third week of December (I think it was the twenty-second.) in the year 1757, I was walking on a quiet part of the Seine River, near where the ships tie up, just to be out in the cold air, about one hour's walk from my home in the Street of the School of Medicine, when a coach came up behind me, moving very quickly. I moved to the side to let it pass, fearing that it might run me down, when a head was put out of the window and a voice called to the driver to stop.

The coach stopped as soon as the driver could pull up the horses, and the same voice called to me by name. I answered. The coach was then so far in front of me that two men had time to open the door and step out before I came up to it. I could see that they were both wearing coats, and seemed to be hiding their faces. As they stood side by side near the coach door, I also saw that they were both about my own age, or a little younger, and that they looked the same, in size, actions, voices, and (as far as I could see) faces too.

"Are you Doctor Manette?” asked one.

"I am."

"Doctor Manette, earlier from Beauvais," said the other, "the young doctor who has, in the past year or two, become well known and liked here in Paris?"

"I am that Doctor Manette that you are speaking about so kindly," I returned.

"We have been to your home," said the first, "and were not able to find you there; but we learned that you were walking in this direction, so we followed, in the hope of finding you. Will you please come with us in the coach?"

They both talked like I had no choice, and they both moved, as they were saying these words, so as to put me between themselves and the door of the coach. They had weapons and I did not.

"Sirs," I said, "forgive me, but when I go to help someone, I ask who wants my help, and what the problem is that I am being asked to fix."

The answer to this came from the one who had been second to answer. "Doctor, you are talking to people of high class. Our confidence in your ability as a doctor lets us know that you will be the best one to say what the problem is. That is enough. Now, will you please get into the coach?"

I could do nothing but obey, and I climbed in, saying nothing. They both climbed in after me, the last one jumping in after lifting the steps. The coach then turned and returned to its fast driving.

I am repeating this just as it happened. I have no fear that it is, word for word, the same as what was said and what happened, forcing my mind not to think of anything apart from what I am saying here. When I make some broken marks after this, it means that I have stopped for a while and put the paper in its hiding place.

The coach left the city through the north gate, and came out on a country road. About two miles from the city it turned off it onto a side road, and soon stopped at a house standing alone. All three of us stepped out of the coach and walked over a wet, soft walk way in a garden where an old fountain was running over with too much water. The house door was not opened quickly, in answer to the bell, and so one of the two men with me hit the man who opened it, across the face, with his heavy riding gloves.

There was nothing in his action to surprise me, for I had seen poor people hit more often than dogs. The other man, also being angry, hit the servant in the same way with his arm. The look and action of the men were so perfectly the same that I then understood that they were brothers who had been born at the same time.

From the time that we left the coach at the outside gate (which one of the brothers had opened to let us in before having it locked again), I had heard cries coming from a room at the top of the house. I was led straight to the room, the cries growing louder as we climbed the steps. I found her on a bed with a burning heat in her brain.

She was a beautiful young woman, clearly not more than twenty. Some of her hair had been pulled out, and her arms were tied to her sides with pieces of cloth. I saw that the cloths had all come from a man's clothes. On one of them, a beautiful scarf, I saw the pattern of a high class family, and the letter E.

I saw this soon after I arrived, because the woman, in her wild movements on the bed, had turned over on her face at the side of the bed and pulled the end of the scarf into her mouth. She was in danger of not being able to breathe because of it. My first act was to pull it out so she could breathe, and in moving the scarf, I saw the letter in the corner of it.

I turned her over carefully, put my hands on her breast to hold her down and to help her rest, as I looked into her face. Her eyes were big and wild, and she made very loud, high shouts, followed by the words, "My husband, my father, and my brother!" and then she counted up to twelve, and said, "Quiet!"

For a very short time she would stop to listen, and then she would start the loud, high shouts again, and she would repeat the words, "My husband, my father, and my brother!" and she would count to twelve and say, "Quiet!" There was no break in the noise, apart from the short time after she said "Quiet!" each time.

"How long has this lasted?” I asked.

To separate the brothers, I will call them the older and the younger. By older, I mean the one who seemed to be the leader. It was the older who answered, "Since about this time last night."

"She has a husband, a father, and a brother?”

"A brother."

"You're not her brother?"

"No," he answered with a look of hate.

"Has something happened that would lead her to the number twelve?"

The younger brother answered quickly, "With twelve o'clock?"

"Can you see, sirs," said I, still keeping my hands on her breast, "how little I can do, because of the way that you brought me? If I had known what I was coming to see, I could have come with the things I would need. As it is, we will lose time. There are no medicines to be found this far out of the city."

The older brother looked at the young one, who said proudly, "There is a box of medicines here," and he brought it from a little room and put it on the table.

I opened some of the bottles, smelled them, and put the tops to my lips. If I had wanted to use anything apart from hard drugs that would put a person to sleep, but which were poisons in themselves, I would not have used any of those.

"You don't trust them?” asked the younger brother.

"I'm going to use them," I answered, and said no more.

With much work, I forced the woman to swallow as much as I believed she needed. Because I needed to watch the effect of the drug, and because I would be giving her more soon, I sat down beside the bed. There was a shy, controlled woman (wife of the man who had opened the door earlier), more or less hiding in a corner of the room. The house was wet and run down, with poor furniture. Someone had been staying there, but not for very long. Thick old curtains had been nailed over the windows, to stop some of the sound from her shouting. She did not stop her shouting, or the cry, "My husband, my father, and my brother!" before counting up to twelve, and then "Quiet!" Her movements were so wild that I left on the cloths that were holding her arms; but I did look at them to be sure they were not hurting her. The only help I could give was that my hand on the woman's breast had the effect of stopping her movements for a few minutes at a time. It had no effect on the cries; no clock could be more measured than her cries.

Because I believed that my hand had a good effect, I stayed by the side of the bed for half an hour, with the two brothers looking on, before the older one said:

"There is another person you should see."

I was surprised, and I asked, "Is it serious?"

"You had better see," he answered, without much thought, and he picked up a light.

* * * *

The other person was lying in a back room, on the other side of an open room over the barn where the horses were kept. Straw was kept there, piles of sticks for making fires, and a pile of apples in some sand. I had to go through this room to reach the other. I remember it all clearly and fully. Writing this now, near the end of the tenth year that I have been in this prison, I can see it all now as I saw it that night.

On some straw on the floor, with a pillow thrown under his head, lay a good looking poor boy -- a boy of not more than seventeen. He was on his back, with his teeth biting hard against each other. His right hand was holding strongly to his chest, and his angry eyes looked at the roof. I could not see where he had been hurt, before I went down on one knee over him; but then I saw that he was dying from having been stabbed by something with a sharp point.

"I am a doctor, my poor man," I said. "Let me look at it."

"I do not want it looked at," he answered. "Don't touch it."

It was under his hand, and I helped him to relax enough to move his hand away. It came from a sword, received from twenty to twenty-four hours before, but even if I had been there when it first happened, I would not have been able to save him. He was dying quickly. But as I looked at the older brother, I saw him looking down at this good-looking boy whose life was leaving him, as if he was looking at a dying bird or rabbit, but not like he was looking at another person like himself.

"How did this happen, sir?” I asked.

"He's a crazy young dog! A servant of the lowest class! He forced my brother into a fight, and he has fallen by my brother's sword, like a man."

There was no touch of kindness, sadness, or feeling as from one person to another in this answer. The speaker seemed to feel bad that this animal was dying there and in that way, and he believed it would have been better if he had died more in the way that others of his low class died; but he could not feel anything kind for the boy or for his death.

The boy's eyes had slowly moved to the brother and they now slowly moved to me.

"Doctor, they are very proud, these rich men; but we dogs are proud too at times. They take from us; they use us; they hit us, and kill us; but we have a little pride left, at times. She... Have you seen her, Doctor?"

The shouts and crying could be heard there, but not as loudly, because of the distance. He talked about the cries as if she was there with him in the room.

I said, "I have seen her."

"She is my sister, Doctor. They have done for years the awful things they are free to do, these rich men, to the good and holy spirit of our sisters. But our women are good girls. I know it, and I have heard my father say so. She was a good girl. She was to marry a good young man too, another one of his workers. We are all his workers... for that man who stands there. The other one is his brother. They are the worst of a bad class."

It was very difficult for the boy to speak, but his spirit was very strong, and helped him to go on.

"We were robbed by that man who stands there, as all we poor dogs are by those who think they are better than us: taxed without mercy, forced to work without pay, forced to use his windmill if we want to make flour, forced to feed dozens of his birds from what little food we can grow (but never free to have birds of our own), robbed from in every way until even if we were lucky enough to have a little meat, we had to eat it in fear, with the door locked and the windows closed, so his people would not see it and take it from us. We were so robbed and hunted, and were made so poor that our father told us it was an awful thing to bring a child into the world, and that we should most pray that our women might not be able to have children, so that our class could die out!"

I had never before seen a poor person opening up with all that they felt, like this. It was like a fire exploding from inside him. I knew that the poor must not be happy with things, but I had never seen it come out so into the open until I saw it in that dying boy.

"Still, Doctor, my sister married. The poor man was sick when she married him, but she married him so that he could come and live in our little house... our dog house, as that man would call it. She had not been married many weeks when that man's brother saw her and wanted her. He asked that man there to let him use her for a while, for her husband was nothing in their eyes. He was happy to help his brother, but my sister was a good and clean woman, and she hated his brother as much as I do. So what do you think they did to make her husband agree to their plan?"

The boy's eyes, which were looking into mine, slowly turned to the one looking at us, and I saw in the two faces that everything he said was true. I can see those opposite kinds of pride facing each other, even now, here in this prison: the rich man's pride, without feeling or interest; and the poor man's deep emotion, in wanting to punish those who had walked on him and his family.

"You know, Doctor, these high class people can, by law, tie us dogs to wagons and force us to pull them. They did that to him. You know they can keep us in their yards all night, quieting the frogs, so their high class sleep will not be troubled by the noise. They kept him out in the cold at night, and forced him back into the wagon ropes in the day. But he did not give in. No! Taken out of the wagon ropes one day at noon, to eat -- if he could find food -- he sobbed twelve times, once for every hit of the bell, and he died on her breast."

The only thing keeping the boy alive was how much he wanted to tell his story. He forced back the shadows of death, and he squeezed his right hand tighter over the hole in his chest.

"Then with agreement, and even help, from that man, his brother took her away to be used for his cruel games. They agreed to it even after learning what I know she must have told his brother, and what you will soon learn if you have not already learned it. I saw her pass me on the road. When I took the news home, our father's heart broke before he had time to speak even one of the words that filled it. I took my young sister (for I have another) to a place where this man could not reach her, and where she will, at least, never be his slave. Then I followed the brother here. Last night I climbed in. I may be a poor dog, but I had a sword in my hand. Where is the window? It was somewhere here."

The room was growing dark in his eyes; the world was closing in around him. I looked around and could see from the hat on the floor that there had been a fight.

"She heard me and ran in. I told her not to come near us until he was dead. He came in and first threw some pieces of money to me; then he hit me with a whip. I may be a poor dog, but I hit at him well enough to make him pull out his sword. Let him break into as many pieces as he likes, the sword that he dirtied with my low class blood. He pulled out his sword, and used it to the best of his ability to keep from being killed by me."

A short time before I had seen the broken pieces of a sword, lying in the straw. It was the weapon of a rich man. In another place was an old sword that seemed to have been a soldier's.

"Now, lift me up, Doctor. Lift me up. Where is he?"

"He is not here," I said, holding the boy up and thinking that he was talking about the brother.

"He! Proud as these rich people are, he is afraid to see me. Where is the man who was here? Turn my face toward him."

I did so, lifting the boy's head against my knee. But filled, for a while, with surprising strength, he lifted himself all the way up, forcing me to stand up too, if I was to still help him.

"Marquis," said the boy, who was turned toward him, with his eyes opened wide and his right hand lifted, "in the days when all these things are to be answered for, I call on you and your family, to the last of your bad class, to answer for them. I mark this cross of blood on you, as a sign that I do it. In the days when all these things are to be answered for, I call your brother, the worst of the bad class, to answer for them apart from you. I mark this cross of blood on him, as a sign that I do it."

Twice he put his hand to the hole in his chest. With a finger he made a cross in the air, then stopped for a second, his finger still lifted. As it dropped he dropped with it, and I put him down, dead.

***

When I returned to the young woman, I found her acting crazily in the same pattern of cries that she had been following before. I knew that this could go on for many hours, and that it could easily end in her dying.

I repeated the medicines that I had given her, and I sat by the side of the bed until well into the night. She never changed the high loud shouts, never changed the pattern of her words or stopped saying them clearly. They were always, "My husband, my father, and my brother! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Quiet!"

This went on for twenty-six hours from the time when I first saw her. I had come and left twice, and was again sitting by her when she started to show signs of stopping. I did what I could to help her, and soon she fainted and lay like she was dead.

It was like the wind and rain had stopped at last, after a long and awful storm. I took the cloths off her arms and called the servant woman to help me make her body comfortable, and to smooth out the dress that she was wearing, for it had a tear in it. It was then that I learned that a baby had started to grow in her, and it was then that I lost what little hope I had had of her pulling through.

"Is she dead?” asked the Marquis whom I will still call the older brother, coming into the room from having been out riding his horse.

"Not dead," said I, "but close to it."

"What strength there is in their low class bodies!" he said, looking down at her with some interest.

"There is strength enough.” I answered him, "to make us afraid when one is so very sad and so without hope."

First he laughed at my words, and then he made an angry face. He moved a chair with his foot near to mine, told the servant woman to leave, and said in a quiet voice:

"Doctor, finding my brother in this trouble with the country people, I said that your help should be asked for. Many people think well of you, and, as a young man with a good future ahead of you, you must know what is best for you. The things that you see here are things to be seen, but not spoken of."

I listened to the woman's breathing and tried not to answer.

"Will you be so kind as to answer me, Doctor?"

"Sir," said I, "in my job what people say to me when I am helping them should always be between only me and them.” I was careful with my answer, because I was worried about what I had seen and heard.

Her breathing was so difficult to see that I carefully felt for movement in her heart. She was only just alive. Turning around as I returned to my chair, I found both of the brothers looking at me.

****

It is difficult for me to write, because it is so cold and because I'm afraid they'll find me and lock me in a room under the ground where there is no light at all. I must finish this quickly. There is no confusion in what I am saying. I clearly remember every little thing and every word that was spoken between me and those brothers.

She stayed alive for a week. Toward the end, I could understand a few words that she said to me, by putting my ear close to her lips. She asked me where she was, and I told her; who I was, and I told her. It was a waste of time that I asked her for her family name. She weakly shook her head on the pillow, and kept her secret, as the boy had done.

I had not been able to question her before I told the brothers she was dying and would not live another day. Before that, she never saw anyone but the servant woman and myself, and one or the other of them was always sitting behind the curtain at the head of the bed when I was there. But when it was time for her to die, they stopped worrying about me talking to her, as if -- as I gave some thought to it at the time -- I was going to die with her.

I always knew that it deeply hurt their pride that the younger brother (as I call him) had taken the trouble to fight with a servant, and with one who was little more than a child at that. Their only worry was that it would make them look weak in the eyes of others. Each time the younger brother looked at me, I could see in his eyes that he did not like me at all, because I knew what I had learned from the boy. He was smoother with his words than the older brother; and I could see this too. But I was a problem in the mind of the older brother too.

The young woman died two hours before midnight, at a time (by my watch) almost to the minute, of when I had first seen her. I was alone with her when her sad young head fell slowly to the side, and all the things that had hurt her could hurt her no more.

The brothers were waiting in a room below us, wanting to hurry off on a ride. I had heard them when only I was at the side of the bed, hitting their heavy shoes with their riding whips, and walking up and down.

"Is she dead at last?” asked the older one when I went in.

"She is dead," said I.

"Good for you, my brother," he said as he turned around.

He had earlier tried to give me money, but I had put off taking it. He now gave me a roll of gold coins. I took it from his hand, and put it on the table. I had been thinking about this and planned not to take anything from them.

"Please forgive me," I said. "But, because of what has happened, no."

They looked at each other, but dropped their heads to me as I dropped mine to them, and we separated without another word

****

I am tired, tired, tired from all that I am going through. I cannot even read what I have written with this thin hand.

Early in the morning, the roll of gold coins was left at my door in a little box, with my name on it. From the start I had worried about what I should do. I now planned to write to the government, telling about the two people I had been asked to care for, and where they were found -- in effect, telling the whole story. I knew how much control the high class people had with the government, and so I believed no action would be taken; but I wanted to be clear in my own mind that I had done what I could. I told no one, not even my wife, about what had happened. I planned to make this clear in my letter. I was not afraid of the danger that I was facing, but I knew that others could be in danger if they knew what I knew.

I was very busy that day, and did not finish my letter that night. I was up very early the next morning to finish it. It was the last day of the year. The letter was there on the table when I was told that a woman had come to see me.

****

It is getting harder and harder to finish this letter. It is so cold and dark, my mind is so slow, and the dark feelings around me are so awful.

The woman was young, interesting to talk to, and good looking, but she did not have long to live. She was very worried. She told me that she was the wife of the Marquis Evremonde. I put the name the boy used for the older brother and the letter on the expensive scarf together with this, and it was easy to see that she was talking about the same man that I had been with.

I can remember what we said, but I cannot write them here. I think I am being watched more closely now, and I never know when someone may come to the door.

She knew some of the information about the cruel story of the girl and her brother, and some of the information she had worked out for herself. She knew of her husband’s part in it, and about him sending for me. She did not know that the girl was dead. Her hope had been to secretly show her love as one woman to another. Her hope had been to stop God from being angry with a family that had been very cruel to others for a long time.

She believed that the girl had a younger sister who was still alive, and she wanted most to help that sister. I could tell her nothing but that there was such a sister; I knew nothing more than that. Her reason for coming and trusting me had been the hope that I could tell her the name of the girl and where she lives. But to this awful hour I do not know either.

****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_______________

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

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

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

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

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

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

11. The Sun Goes Down

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

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

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

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

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

That was what her husband said as he hugged her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As he was pulled away, his wife let him go and stood looking after him with her hands touching one another like she was praying. She had a loving look on her face, in which there was even a little smile to make him feel better. As he went through the prisoners' door, she put her head lovingly on her father's chest, tried to speak, and then fell at his feet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

"Good luck!"

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

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

"I don't either."

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

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

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

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

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

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

12. Darkness

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

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

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

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

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

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

He repeated what he had already said.

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

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

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

Defarge brought the wine and said good evening in French.

"How?"

"Good evening."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"When they are all gone," said Madam.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It is so," agreed Defarge.

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

"It is so," agreed Defarge again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lost,. In every way lost!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why not?"

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

"Yes."

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

"Are they in danger?"

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

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

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

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

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

"It'll be done!"

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

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

"I am sure of it."

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

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

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

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

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

"Nothing, Carton."

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

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

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

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

13. Fifty-Two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Twelve gone forever.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The prisoner squeezed his hands together.

"She has asked for you to do something."

"What is it?"

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

The prisoner turned his face partly away.

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

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

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

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

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

He moved so quickly and with such strong confidence and action that his control over Darnay seemed like a miracle. He forced all these changes on him, and the prisoner was like a young child in his hands.

"Carton! Good Carton! You're crazy. It can't work; it'll never happen; it has been tried before and always they have been stopped. I beg you not to add your death to the pain of mine."

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

"It was when you came in."

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

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

"Write just what I say."

"Whom is it to?"

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

"Do I put the day on it?"

"No."

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

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

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

"Have you written forget them?” Carton asked.

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

"No. I am not armed."

"What is it in your hand?"

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

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

"What smell is that?” he asked.

"Smell?"

"Something that crossed me?"

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

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

"Hurry, hurry!"

The prisoner bent over the paper again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Are you dying for him?” she whispered.

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

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

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

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

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

The papers are handed out and read.

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

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

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

Far too much for him.

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

This is she.

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

It is.

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

She and no other.

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

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

"It seems the English lawyer has fainted."

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

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

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

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

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

"Can we leave, countryman?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Hey! You in the coach. Speak up!"

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

"How many did they say?"

"I don't understand you."

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

"Fifty-two."

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

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

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

14. The Knitting Done

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

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

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

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

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

"See," said Madam, "I care nothing for this Doctor. He may wear his head or lose it, for any interest I have in him; it is all one to me. But the Evremonde people are to be destroyed, and the wife and child must follow the husband and father."

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

Madam Defarge looked down and thought for a little while.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'll be there before it starts."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Cruncher agreed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It'll do her no good to hide from me now," said Madam Defarge. "Good people who love this country will know what that means. Let me see her. Go tell her that I wish to see her. Do you hear?"

"If those eyes of yours were screws pulling the wires tight on a bed," returned Miss Pross, "and I was a strong English bed, they would not pull even the smallest piece of timber out of me. No, you evil foreign woman; I'm equal to anything you can give out."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I don't hear it."

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

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

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

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

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

And the truth is that she never did.

15. The Footsteps Die Out Forever

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"With his hand in the girl's?"

"Yes."

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

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

"And why not, countryman?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Louder," the woman says.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The two stand in the crowd that is quickly growing thin, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the same spiritual Mother, so very different in other ways, have come together on the highway of death, so that they can go home together, where they will rest in her love.

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

"Tell me what it is."

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

"Yes, yes. It's better as it is."

"What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face, which gives me so much strength, is this: If the new government really does good to the poor, and if they are less hungry, and in all other ways their life is better, she may live for a long time. She may even live to be old."

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE END

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 28.11.2015

Alle Rechte vorbehalten