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Book the Third: The Track of a Storm
Chapter XII.
Darkness
Sydney Carton paused in the street, not
quite decided where to go.
"At Tellson's banking-house at nine," he
said, with a musing face.
"Shall I do well, in the mean time, to show
myself?
I think so.
It is best that these people should know
there is such a man as I here; it is a
sound precaution, and may be a necessary
preparation.
But care, care, care!
Let me think it out!"
Checking his steps which had begun to tend
towards an object, he took a turn or two in
the already darkening street, and traced
the thought in his mind to its possible
consequences.
His first impression was confirmed.
"It is best," he said, finally resolved,
"that these people should know there is
such a man as I here."
And he turned his face towards Saint
Antoine.
Defarge had described himself, that day, as
the keeper of a wine-shop in the Saint
Antoine suburb.
It was not difficult for one who knew the
city well, to find his house without asking
any question.
Having ascertained its situation, Carton
came out of those closer streets again, and
dined at a place of refreshment and fell
sound asleep after dinner.
For the first time in many years, he had no
strong drink.
Since last night he had taken nothing but a
little light thin wine, and last night he
had dropped the brandy slowly down on Mr.
Lorry's hearth like a man who had done with
it.
It was as late as seven o'clock when he
awoke refreshed, and went out into the
streets again.
As he passed along towards Saint Antoine,
he stopped at a shop-window where there was
a mirror, and slightly altered the
disordered arrangement of his loose cravat,
and his coat-collar, and his wild hair.
This done, he went on direct to Defarge's,
and went in.
There happened to be no customer in the
shop but Jacques Three, of the restless
fingers and the croaking voice.
This man, whom he had seen upon the Jury,
stood drinking at the little counter, in
conversation with the Defarges, man and
wife.
The Vengeance assisted in the conversation,
like a regular member of the establishment.
As Carton walked in, took his seat and
asked (in very indifferent French) for a
small measure of wine, Madame Defarge cast
a careless glance at him, and then a
keener, and then a keener, and then
advanced to him herself, and asked him what
it was he had ordered.
He repeated what he had already said.
"English?" asked Madame Defarge,
inquisitively raising her dark eyebrows.
After looking at her, as if the sound of
even a single French word were slow to
express itself to him, he answered, in his
former strong foreign accent.
"Yes, madame, yes.
I am English!"
Madame Defarge returned to her counter to
get the wine, and, as he took up a Jacobin
journal and feigned to pore over it
puzzling out its meaning, he heard her say,
"I swear to you, like Evremonde!"
Defarge brought him the wine, and gave him
Good Evening.
"How?"
"Good evening."
"Oh! Good evening, citizen," filling his
glass.
"Ah! and good wine.
I drink to the Republic."
Defarge went back to the counter, and said,
"Certainly, a little like."
Madame sternly retorted, "I tell you a good
deal like."
Jacques Three pacifically remarked, "He is
so much in your mind, see you, madame."
The amiable Vengeance added, with a laugh,
"Yes, my faith!
And you are looking forward with so much
pleasure to seeing him once more to-
morrow!"
Carton followed the lines and words of his
paper, with a slow forefinger, and with a
studious and absorbed face.
They were all leaning their arms on the
counter close together, speaking low.
After a silence of a few moments, during
which they all looked towards him without
disturbing his outward attention from the
Jacobin editor, they resumed their
conversation.
"It is true what madame says," observed
Jacques Three.
"Why stop?
There is great force in that.
Why stop?"
"Well, well," reasoned Defarge, "but one
must stop somewhere.
After all, the question is still where?"
"At extermination," said madame.
"Magnificent!" croaked Jacques Three.
The Vengeance, also, highly approved.
"Extermination is good doctrine, my wife,"
said Defarge, rather troubled; "in general,
I say nothing against it.
But this Doctor has suffered much; you have
seen him to-day; you have observed his face
when the paper was read."
"I have observed his face!" repeated
madame, contemptuously and angrily.
"Yes. I have observed his face.
I have observed his face to be not the face
of a true friend of the Republic.
Let him take care of his face!"
"And you have observed, my wife," said
Defarge, in a deprecatory manner, "the
anguish of his daughter, which must be a
dreadful anguish to him!"
"I have observed his daughter," repeated
madame; "yes, I have observed his daughter,
more times than one.
I have observed her to-day, and I have
observed her other days.
I have observed her in the court, and I
have observed her in the street by the
prison.
Let me but lift my finger--!"
She seemed to raise it (the listener's eyes
were always on his paper), and to let it
fall with a rattle on the ledge before her,
as if the axe had dropped.
"The citizeness is superb!" croaked the
Juryman.
"She is an Angel!" said The Vengeance, and
embraced her.
"As to thee," pursued madame, implacably,
addressing her husband, "if it depended on
thee--which, happily, it does not--thou
wouldst rescue this man even now."
"No!" protested Defarge.
"Not if to lift this glass would do it!
But I would leave the matter there.
I say, stop there."
"See you then, Jacques," said Madame
Defarge, wrathfully; "and see you, too, my
little Vengeance; see you both!
Listen!
For other crimes as tyrants and oppressors,
I have this race a long time on my
register, doomed to destruction and
extermination.
Ask my husband, is that so."
"It is so," assented Defarge, without being
asked.
"In the beginning of the great days, when
the Bastille falls, he finds this paper of
to-day, and he brings it home, and in the
middle of the night when this place is
clear and shut, we read it, here on this
spot, by the light of this lamp.
Ask him, is that so."
"It is so," assented Defarge.
"That night, I tell him, when the paper is
read through, and the lamp is burnt out,
and the day is gleaming in above those
shutters and between those iron bars, that
I have now a secret to communicate.
Ask him, is that so."
"It is so," assented Defarge again.
"I communicate to him that secret.
I smite this *** with these two hands as
I smite it now, and I tell him, 'Defarge, I
was brought up among the fishermen of the
sea-shore, and that peasant family so
injured by the two Evremonde brothers, as
that Bastille paper describes, is my
family.
Defarge, that sister of the mortally
wounded boy upon the ground was my sister,
that husband was my sister's husband, that
unborn child was their child, that brother
was my brother, that father was my father,
those dead are my dead, and that summons to
answer for those things descends to me!'
Ask him, is that so."
"It is so," assented Defarge once more.
"Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop,"
returned madame; "but don't tell me."
Both her hearers derived a horrible
enjoyment from the deadly nature of her
wrath--the listener could feel how white
she was, without seeing her--and both
highly commended it.
Defarge, a weak minority, interposed a few
words for the memory of the compassionate
wife of the Marquis; but only elicited from
his own wife a repetition of her last
reply.
"Tell the Wind and the Fire where to stop;
not me!"
Customers entered, and the group was broken
up.
The English customer paid for what he had
had, perplexedly counted his change, and
asked, as a stranger, to be directed
towards the National Palace.
Madame Defarge took him to the door, and
put her arm on his, in pointing out the
road.
The English customer was not without his
reflections then, that it might be a good
deed to seize that arm, lift it, and strike
under it sharp and deep.
But, he went his way, and was soon
swallowed up in the shadow of the prison
wall.
At the appointed hour, he emerged from it
to present himself in Mr. Lorry's room
again, where he found the old gentleman
walking to and fro in restless anxiety.
He said he had been with Lucie until just
now, and had only left her for a few
minutes, to come and keep his appointment.
Her father had not been seen, since he
quitted the banking-house towards four
o'clock.
She had some faint hopes that his mediation
might save Charles, but they were very
slight.
He had been more than five hours gone:
where could he be?
Mr. Lorry waited until ten; but, Doctor
Manette not returning, and he being
unwilling to leave Lucie any longer, it was
arranged that he should go back to her, and
come to the banking-house again at
midnight.
In the meanwhile, Carton would wait alone
by the fire for the Doctor.
He waited and waited, and the clock struck
twelve; but Doctor Manette did not come
back.
Mr. Lorry returned, and found no tidings of
him, and brought none.
Where could he be?
They were discussing this question, and
were almost building up some weak structure
of hope on his prolonged absence, when they
heard him on the stairs.
The instant he entered the room, it was
plain that all was lost.
Whether he had really been to any one, or
whether he had been all that time
traversing the streets, was never known.
As he stood staring at them, they asked him
no question, for his face told them
everything.
"I cannot find it," said he, "and I must
have it.
Where is it?"
His head and throat were bare, and, as he
spoke with a helpless look straying all
around, he took his coat off, 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 presses: I must finish those shoes."
They looked at one another, and their
hearts died within them.
"Come, come!" said he, in a whimpering
miserable way; "let me get to work.
Give me my work."
Receiving no answer, he tore his hair, and
beat his feet upon the ground, like a
distracted child.
"Don't torture a poor forlorn wretch," he
implored them, with a dreadful cry; "but
give me my work!
What is to become of us, if those shoes are
not done to-night?"
Lost, utterly lost!
It was so clearly beyond hope to reason
with him, or try to restore him, that--as
if by agreement--they each put a hand upon
his shoulder, and soothed him to sit down
before the fire, with a promise that he
should have his work presently.
He sank into the chair, and brooded over
the embers, and shed tears.
As if all that had happened since the
garret time were a momentary fancy, or a
dream, Mr. Lorry saw him shrink into the
exact figure that Defarge had had in
keeping.
Affected, and impressed with terror as they
both were, by this spectacle of ruin, it
was not a time to yield to such emotions.
His lonely daughter, bereft of her final
hope and reliance, appealed to them both
too strongly.
Again, as if by agreement, they looked at
one another with one meaning in their
faces.
Carton was the first to speak:
"The last chance is gone: it was not much.
Yes; he had better be taken to her.
But, before you go, will you, for a moment,
steadily attend to me?
Don't ask me why I make the stipulations I
am going to make, and exact the promise I
am going to exact; I have a reason--a good
one."
"I do not doubt it," answered Mr. Lorry.
"Say on."
The figure in the chair between them, was
all the time monotonously rocking itself to
and fro, and moaning.
They spoke in such a tone as they would
have used if they had been watching by a
sick-bed in the night.
Carton stooped to pick up the coat, which
lay almost entangling his feet.
As he did so, a small case in which the
Doctor was accustomed to carry the lists of
his day's duties, fell lightly on the
floor.
Carton took it up, and there was a folded
paper in it.
"We should look at this!" he said.
Mr. Lorry nodded his consent.
He opened it, and exclaimed, "Thank _God!_"
"What is it?" asked Mr. Lorry, eagerly.
"A moment!
Let me speak of it in its place.
First," he put his hand in his coat, and
took another paper from it, "that is the
certificate which enables me to pass out of
this city.
Look at it.
You see--Sydney Carton, an Englishman?"
Mr. Lorry held it open in his hand, gazing
in his earnest face.
"Keep it for me until to-morrow.
I shall see him to-morrow, you remember,
and I had better not take it into the
prison."
"Why not?"
"I don't know; I prefer not to do so.
Now, take this paper that Doctor Manette
has carried about him.
It is a similar certificate, enabling him
and his daughter and her child, at any
time, to pass the barrier and the frontier!
You see?"
"Yes!"
"Perhaps he obtained it as his last and
utmost precaution against evil, yesterday.
When is it dated?
But no matter; don't stay to look; put it
up carefully with mine and your own.
Now, observe!
I never doubted until within this hour or
two, that he had, or could have such a
paper.
It is good, until recalled.
But it may be soon recalled, and, I have
reason to think, will be."
"They are not in danger?"
"They are in great danger.
They are in danger of denunciation by
Madame Defarge.
I know it from her own lips.
I have overheard words of that woman's, to-
night, which have presented their danger to
me in strong colours.
I have lost no time, and since then, I have
seen the spy.
He confirms me.
He knows that a wood-sawyer, living by the
prison wall, is under the control of the
Defarges, and has been rehearsed by Madame
Defarge as to his having seen Her"--he
never mentioned Lucie's name--"making signs
and signals to prisoners.
It is easy to foresee that the pretence
will be the common one, a prison plot, and
that it will involve her life--and perhaps
her child's--and perhaps her father's--for
both have been seen with her at that place.
Don't look so horrified.
You will save them all."
"Heaven grant I may, Carton!
But how?"
"I am going to tell you how.
It will depend on you, and it could depend
on no better man.
This new denunciation will certainly not
take place until after to-morrow; probably
not until two or three days afterwards;
more probably a week afterwards.
You know it is a capital crime, to mourn
for, or sympathise with, a victim of the
Guillotine.
She and her father would unquestionably be
guilty of this crime, and this woman (the
inveteracy of whose pursuit cannot be
described) would wait to add that strength
to her case, and make herself doubly sure.
You follow me?"
"So attentively, and with so much
confidence in what you say, that for the
moment I lose sight," touching the back of
the Doctor's chair, "even of this
distress."
"You have money, and can buy the means of
travelling to the seacoast as quickly as
the journey can be made.
Your preparations have been completed for
some days, to return to England.
Early to-morrow have your horses ready, so
that they may be in starting trim at two
o'clock in the afternoon."
"It shall be done!"
His manner was so fervent and inspiring,
that Mr. Lorry caught the flame, and was as
quick as youth.
"You are a noble heart.
Did I say we could depend upon no better
man?
Tell her, to-night, what you know of her
danger as involving her child and her
father.
Dwell upon that, for she would lay her own
fair head beside her husband's cheerfully."
He faltered for an instant; then went on as
before.
"For the sake of her child and her father,
press upon her the necessity of leaving
Paris, with them and you, at that hour.
Tell her that it was her husband's last
arrangement.
Tell her that more depends upon it than she
dare believe, or hope.
You think that her father, even in this sad
state, will submit himself to her; do you
not?"
"I am sure of it."
"I thought so.
Quietly and steadily have all these
arrangements made in the courtyard here,
even to the taking of your own seat in the
carriage.
The moment I come to you, take me in, and
drive away."
"I understand that I wait for you under all
circumstances?"
"You have my certificate in your hand with
the rest, you know, and will reserve my
place.
Wait for nothing but to have my place
occupied, and then for England!"
"Why, then," said Mr. Lorry, grasping his
eager but so firm and steady hand, "it does
not all depend on one old man, but I shall
have a young and ardent man at my side."
"By the help of Heaven you shall!
Promise me solemnly that nothing will
influence you to alter the course on which
we now stand pledged to one another."
"Nothing, Carton."
"Remember these words to-morrow: change the
course, or delay in it--for any reason--and
no life can possibly be saved, and many
lives must inevitably be sacrificed."
"I will remember them.
I hope to do my part faithfully."
"And I hope to do mine.
Now, good bye!"
Though he said it with a grave smile of
earnestness, and though he even put the old
man's hand to his lips, he did not part
from him then.
He helped him so far to arouse the rocking
figure before the dying embers, as to get a
cloak and hat put upon it, and to tempt it
forth to find where the bench and work were
hidden that it still moaningly besought to
have.
He walked on the other side of it and
protected it to the courtyard of the house
where the afflicted heart--so happy in the
memorable time when he had revealed his own
desolate heart to it--outwatched the awful
He entered the courtyard and remained there
for a few moments alone, looking up at the
light in the window of her room.
Before he went away, he breathed a blessing
towards it, and a Farewell.