A Tale of Two Cities-CHAPTER 15 KNITTING

KNITTING

There had been earlier drinking than usual in the wine- shop of Monsieur Defarge. As early as six o’clock in the morning, sallow faces peeping through its barred windows had descried¹ other faces within, bending over measures of wine. Monsieur Defarge sold a very thin wine at the best of times, but it would seem to have been an unusually thin wine that he sold at this time. A sour wine, moreover, or a souring, for its influence on the mood of those who drank it was to make them gloomy. No vivacious² Bacchanalian³ flame leaped out of the pressed grape of Monsieur Defarge: but, a smouldering fire that burnt in the dark, lay hidden in the dregs of it.

This had been the third morning in succession, on which there had been early drinking at the wine-shop of Monsieur Defarge. It had been begun on Monday, and here was Wednesday come. There had been more of early brooding than drinking; for, many men had listened and whispered and slunk about there from the time of the opening of the door, who could not have laid a piece of money on the counter to save their souls. These were to the full as interested in the place, however, as if they could have commanded whole barrels of wine; and they glided⁵ from seat to seat, and from corner to corner, swallowing talk in lieu of drink, with greedy looks.

Notwithstanding an unusual flow of company, the master of the wine-shop was not visible. He was not missed; for, nobody who crossed the threshold looked for him, nobody asked for him, nobody wondered to see only Madame Defarge in her seat, presiding over the distribution of wine, with a bowl of battered⁷ small coins before her, as much defaced and beaten out of their original impress as the small coinage of humanity from whose ragged⁸ pockets they had come.

A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind, were perhaps observed by the spies who looked in at the wine-shop, as they looked in at every place, high and low, from the king’s palace to the criminal’s gaol⁹. Games at cards languished¹⁰, players at dominoes musingly¹¹ built towers with them, drinkers drew figures on the table with spilt drops of wine, Madame Defarge herself picked out the pattern on her sleeve with her toothpick, and saw and heard something invisible and inaudible a long way off.

Thus, Saint Antoine in this vinous feature of his, until midday. It was high noontide, when two dusty men passed through his streets and under his swinging lamps: of whom, one was Monsieur Defarge: the other a mender of roads in a blue cap. All adust and athirst, the two entered the wine-shop. Their arrival had lighted a kind of fire in the breast of Saint Antoine, fast spreading as they came along, which stirred and flickered¹² in flames of faces at most doors and windows. Yet, no one had followed them, and no man spoke¹³ when they entered the wine-shop, though the eyes of every man there were turned upon them.

“Good day, gentlemen!” said Monsieur Defarge.

It may have been a signal for loosening the general tongue. It elicited¹⁴ an answering chorus of “Good day!”

“It is bad weather, gentlemen,” said Defarge, shaking his head.

Upon which, every man looked at his neighbour, and then all cast down their eyes and sat silent. Except one man, who got up and went out.

“My wife,” said Defarge aloud, addressing Madame Defarge: “I have travelled certain leagues with this good mender of roads, called Jacques. I met him—by accident—a day and a half’s journey out of Paris. He is a good child, this mender of roads, called Jacques. Give him to drink, my wife!”

A second man got up and went out. Madame Defarge set wine before the mender of roads called Jacques, who doffed¹⁵ his blue cap to the company, and drank. In the breast of his blouse he carried some coarse dark bread; he ate of this between whiles, and sat munching¹⁶ and drinking near Madame Defarge’s counter. A third man got up and went out.

Defarge refreshed himself with a draught¹⁷ of wine—but, he took less than was given to the stranger, as being himself a man to whom it was no rarity—and stood waiting until the countryman had made his breakfast. He looked at no one present, and no one now looked at him; not even Madame Defarge, who had taken up her knitting, and was at work.

“Have you finished your repast, friend?” he asked, in due season.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Come, then! You shall see the apartment that I told you you could occupy. It will suit you to a marvel¹⁹.”

Out of the wine-shop into the street, out of the street into a courtyard, out of the courtyard up a steep staircase, out of the staircase into a garret—formerly²⁰ the garret where a white-haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes.

No white-haired man was there now; but, the three men were there who had gone out of the wine-shop singly. And between them and the white-haired man afar off, was the one small link, that they had once looked in at him through the chinks in the wall.

Defarge closed the door carefully, and spoke in a subdued²¹ voice:

“Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques Three! This is the witness encountered by appointment, by me, Jacques Four. He will tell you all. Speak, Jacques Five!”

The mender of roads, blue cap in hand, wiped his swarthy forehead with it, and said, “Where shall I commence, monsieur?”

“Commence,” was Monsieur Defarge’s not unreasonable²² reply, “at the commencement.”

“I saw him then, messieurs,” began the mender of roads, “a year ago this running summer, underneath²³ the carriage of the Marquis, hanging by the chain. Be hold the manner of it. I leaving my work on the road, the sun going to bed, the carriage of the Marquis slowly ascending²⁴ the hill, he hanged by the chain—like this.”

Again the mender of roads went through the whole performance; in which he ought to have been perfect by that time, seeing that it had been the infallible resource and indispensable entertainment of his village during a whole year.

Jacques One struck in, and asked if he had ever seen the man before?

“Never,” answered the mender of roads, recovering his perpendicular²⁵.

Jacques Three demanded how he afterwards recognised him then?

“By his tall figure,” said the mender of roads, softly, and with his finger at his nose. “When Monsieur the Marquis demands that evening, ‘Say, what is he like?’ I make response, ‘Tall as a spectre.’”

“You should have said, short as a dwarf,” returned Jacques Two.

“But what did I know? The deed was not then accomplished²⁶, neither did he confide²⁷ in me. Observe! Under those circumstances even, I do not offer my testimony²⁸. Monsieur the Marquis indicates me with his finger, standing⁶ near our little fountain, and says, ‘To me! Bring that rascal²⁹!’ My faith, messieurs, I offer nothing.”

“He is right there, Jacques,” murmured Defarge, to him who had interrupted. “Go on!”

“Good!” said the mender of roads with an air of mystery. “The tall man is lost, and he is sought—how many months? Nine, ten, eleven?”

“No matter, the number,” said Defarge. “He is well hidden, but at last he is unluckily found. Go on!”

“I am again at work upon the hillside, and the sun is again about to go to bed. I am collecting my tools to descend³¹ to my cottage down in the village below, where it is already dark, when I raise my eyes, and see coming over the hill six soldiers. In the midst of them is a tall man with his arms bound—tied to his sides—like this!”

With the aid of his indispensable cap, he represented a man with his elbows bound fast at his hips³², with cords that were knotted behind him.

“I stand aside, messieurs, by my heap of stones, to see the soldiers and their prisoner pass (for it is a solitary³³ road, that, where any spectacle is well worth looking at), and at first, as they approach, I see no more than that they are six soldiers with a tall man bound, and that they are almost black to my sight—except on the side of the sun going to bed, where they have a red edge, messieurs. Also, I see that their long shadows are on the hollow ridge³⁴ on the opposite side of the road, and are on the hill above it, and are like the shadows of giants. Also, I see that they are covered with dust, and that the dust moves with them as they come, tramp, tramp! But when they advance quite near to me, I recognise the tall man, and he recognises me. Ah, but he would be well content to precipitate³⁵ himself over the hillside once again, as on the evening when he and I first encountered, close to the same spot!”

He described it as if he were there, and it was evident that he saw it vividly³⁶; perhaps he had not seen much in his life.

“I do not show the soldiers that I recognise the tall man; he does not show the soldiers that he recognises me; we do it, and we know it, with our eyes. ‘Come on!’ says the chief of that company, pointing to the village, ‘bring him fast to his tomb!’ and they bring him faster. I follow. His arms are swelled³⁷ because of being bound so tight, his wooden shoes are large and clumsy, and he is lame⁴. Because he is lame, and consequently slow, they drive him with their guns—like this!”

He imitated the action of a man’s being impelled³⁸ forward by the butt-ends of muskets³⁹.

“As they descend the hill like madmen running a race, he falls. They laugh and pick him up again. His face is bleeding and covered with dust, but he cannot touch it; thereupon they laugh again. They bring him into the village; all the village runs to look; they take him past the mill, and up to the prison; all the village sees the prison gate open in the darkness of the night—and swallow him—like this!”

He opened his mouth wide as he could, and shut it with a sounding snap of his teeth. Observant of his unwillingness⁴⁰ to mar¹⁸ the effect by opening it again. Defarge said, “Go on, Jacques.”

“All the village,” pursued the mender of roads, on tiptoe and in a low voice, “withdraws; all the village whispers by the fountain; all the village sleeps; all the village dreams of that unhappy one, within the locks and bars of the prison on the crag, and never to come out of it, except to perish. In the morning, with my tools upon my shoulder, eating my morsel⁴¹ of black bread as I go, I make a circuit by the prison, on my way to my work. There I see him, high up, behind the bars of a lofty iron cage, bloody⁴² and dusty as last night, looking through. He has no hand free, to wave to me; I dare not call to him; he regards me like a dead man.”

Defarge and the three glanced darkly at one another. The looks of all of them were dark, repressed, and revengeful, as they listened to the countryman’s story; the manner of all of them, while it was secret, was authoritative⁴³ too. They had the air of a rough tribunal; Jacques One and Two sitting on the old pallet-bed, each with his chin resting on his hand, and his eyes intent on the road-mender; Jacques Three, equally intent, on one knee behind them, with his agitated⁴⁴ hand always gliding⁴⁵ over the network of fine nerves about his mouth and nose; Defarge standing between them and the narrator, whom he had stationed in the light of the window, by turns looking from him to them, and from them to him.

“Go on, Jacques,” said Defarge.

“He remains⁴⁶ up there in his iron cage some days. The village looks at him by stealth, for it is afraid. But always looks up, from a distance, at the prison on the crag; and in the evening, when the work of the day is achieved and it assembles to gossip at the fountain, all faces are turned towards the prison. Formerly, they were turned towards the posting-house; now, they turned towards the prison. They whisper at the fountain, that although condemned⁴⁷ to death he will not be executed; they say that petitions have been presented in Paris, showing that he was enraged⁴⁸ and made mad by the death of his child; they say that a petition has been presented to the King himself. What do I know? It is possible. Perhaps yes, perhaps no.”

“Listen then, Jacques,” Number One of that name sternly interposed. “Know that a petition was presented to the King and Queen. All here, yourself excepted, saw the King take it, in his carriage in the street, sitting beside the Queen. It is Defarge whom you see here, who, at the hazard of his life, darted⁴⁹ out before the horses, with the petition in his hand.”

“And once again listen, Jacques!” said the kneeling Number Three: his fingers ever wandering over and over those fine nerves, with a strikingly greedy air, as if he hungered for something—that was neither food nor drink; “the guard, horse and foot, surrounded the petitioner⁵⁰, and struck him blows. You hear?”

“I hear, messieurs.”

“Go on then,” said Defarge.

“Again; on the other hand, they whisper at the fountain,” resumed the countryman, “that he is brought down into our country to be executed on the spot, and that he will very certainly be executed. They even whisper that because he has slain⁵¹ Monseigneur, and because Monseigneur was the father of his tenants—serfs—what you will—he will be executed as a parricide⁵². One old man says at the fountain, that his right hand, armed with the knife, will be burnt off before his face; that, into wounds which will be made in his arms, his breast, and his legs, there will be poured boiling oil, melted lead, hot resin⁵³, wax, and sulphur; finally, that he will be torn limb from limb by four strong horses. That old man says, all this was actually done to a prisoner who made an attempt on the life of the late King, Louis Fifteen. But how do I know if he lies? I am not a scholar.”

“Listen once again then, Jacques!” said the man with the restless hand and the craving⁵⁴ air. “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 nothing was more noticed in the vast concourse that saw it done, than the crowd of ladies of quality and fashion, who were full of eager attention to the last—to the last. Jacques, prolonged until nightfall, when he had lost two legs and an arm, and still breathed! And it was done—why, how old are you?”

“Thirty-five,” said the mender of roads, who looked sixty.

“It was done when you were more than ten years old; you might have seen it.”

“Enough!” said Defarge, with grim impatience⁵⁵. “Long live the Devil! Go on.”

“Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that; they speak of nothing else; even the fountain appears to fall to that tune⁵⁶. At length, on Sunday night when all the village is asleep, come soldiers, winding⁵⁷ down from the prison, and their guns ring on the stones of the little street. Workmen dig, workmen hammer, soldiers laugh and sing; in the morning, by the fountain, there is raised a gallows⁵⁸ forty feet high, poisoning the water.”

The mender of roads looked through rather than at the low ceiling, and pointed⁵⁹ as if he saw the gallows somewhere in the sky.

“All work is stopped, all assemble there, nobody leads the cows out, the cows are there with the rest. At midday, the roll of drums. Soldiers have marched into the prison in the night, and he is in the midst of many soldiers. He is bound as before, and in his mouth there is a gag—tied so, with a tight string, making him look almost as if he laughed.” He suggested it, by creasing⁶⁰ his face with his two thumbs, from the corners of his mouth to his ears. “On the top of the gallows is fixed⁶¹ the knife, blade upwards⁶², with its point in the air. He is hanged there forty feet high—and is left hanging, poisoning the water.”

They looked at one another, as he used his blue cap to wipe his face, on which the perspiration⁶³ had started afresh while he recalled the spectacle.

“It is frightful⁶⁴, messieurs. How can the women and the children draw water! Who can gossip of an evening, under that shadow! Under it, have I said? When I left the village, Monday evening as the sun was going to bed, and looked back from the hill, the shadow struck across the church, across the mill, across the prison—seemed to strike across the earth, messieurs, to where the sky rests upon it!”

The hungry man gnawed⁶⁵ one of his fingers as he looked at the other three, and his finger quivered with the craving that was on him.

“That’s all, messieurs. I left at sunset (as I had been warned to do), and I walked on, that night and half next day, until I met (as I was warned I should) this comrade. 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 gloomy silence, the first Jacques said, “Good! You have acted and recounted faithfully. Will you wait for us a little, outside the door?”

“Very willingly,” said the mender of roads, whom Defarge escorted to the top of the stairs, and, leaving seated there, returned.

The three had risen, and their heads were together when he came back to the garret.

“How say you, Jacques?” demanded Number One. “To be registered?”

“To be registered, as doomed⁶⁶ to destruction,” returned Defarge.

“Magnificent!” croaked⁶⁷ the man with craving, “The chateau⁶⁹, and all the race?” inquired the first.

“The chateau and all the race,” returned Defarge. “Extermination.”

The hungry man repeated, in a rapturous croak⁶⁸, “Magnificent!” and began gnawing⁷⁰ another finger.

“Are you sure,” asked Jacques Two, of Defarge, “that no embarrassment⁷¹ can rise from our manner of keeping the register? Without doubt it is safe, for no one beyond ourselves can decipher it; but shall we always be able to decipher it—or, I ought to say, will she?”

“Jacques,” returned Defarge, drawing himself up, “if madame my wife undertook to keep the register in her memory alone, she would not lose a word of it—not a syllable⁷² of it. Knitted, in her own stitches and her own symbols, it will always be as plain to her as the sun. Confide in Madame Defarge. It would be easier for the weakest poltroon⁷³ that lives, to erase⁷⁴ himself from existence, than to erase one letter of his name or crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge.”

There was a murmur³⁰ of confidence and approval, and then the man who hungered, asked: “Is this rustic⁷⁵ to be sent back soon? I hope so. He is very simple; is he not a little dangerous?”

“He knows nothing,” said Defarge; “at least nothing more than would easily elevate himself to a gallows of the same height. I charge myself with him; let him remain with me; I will take care of him, and set him on his road. He wishes to see the fine world—the King, the Queen, and Court; let him see them on Sunday.”

“What?” exclaimed the hungry man, staring. “Is it a good sign, that he wishes to see Royalty⁷⁶ and Nobility?”

“Jacques,” said Defarge; “judiciously⁷⁷ show a cat milk, if you wish her to thirst for it. Judiciously show a dog his natural prey⁷⁸, if you wish him to bring it down one day.”

Nothing more was said, and the mender of roads, being found already dozing⁷⁹ on the topmost stair, was advised to lay himself down on the pallet-bed and take some rest. He needed no persuasion⁸⁰, and was soon asleep.

Worse quarters than Defarge’s wine-shop, could easily have been found in Paris for a provincial⁸¹ slave of that degree. Saving for a mysterious dread⁸² of madame by which he was constantly haunted, his life was very new and agreeable. But, madame sat all day at her counter, so expressly unconscious of him, and so particularly determined⁸³ not to perceive that his being there had any connexion with anything below the surface, that he shook in his wooden shoes whenever his eye lighted on her. For, he contended with himself that it was impossible to foresee what that lady might pretend next; and he felt assured that if she should take into her brightly ornamented⁸⁴ head to pretend that she had seen him do a murder and afterwards flay⁸⁵ the victim, she would infallibly go through with it until the play was played out.

Therefore, when Sunday came, the mender of roads was not enchanted⁸⁶ (though he said he was) to find that madame was to accompany monsieur and himself to Versailles. It was additionally disconcerting to have madame knitting all the way there, in a public conveyance⁸⁷; it was additionally disconcerting yet, to have madame in the crowd in the afternoon, still with her knitting in her hands as the crowd waited to see the carriage of the King and Queen.

“You work hard, madame,” said a man near her.

“Yes,” answered Madame Defarge; “I have a good deal to do.”

“What do you make, madame?”

“Many things.”

“For instance—”

“For instance,” returned Madame Defarge, composedly, “shrouds.”

The man moved a little further away, as soon as he could, and the mender of roads fanned himself with his blue cap: feeling it mightily⁸⁸ close and oppressive. If he needed a King and Queen to restore him, he was fortunate in having his remedy at hand; for, soon the large-faced King and the fair-faced Queen came in their golden coach, attended by the shining Bull’s Eye of their Court, a glittering multitude of laughing ladies and fine lords; and in jewels and silks and powder and splendour and elegantly spurning⁸⁹ figures and handsomely disdainful faces of both sexes, the mender of roads bathed himself, so much to his temporary intoxicating⁹⁰, that he cried Long live the King, Long live the Queen, Long live everybody and everything! As if he had never heard of ubiquitous Jacques in his time. Then, there were gardens, courtyards, terraces, fountains, green banks, more King and Queen, more Bull’s Eye, more lords and ladies, more Long live they all! Until he absolutely wept with sentiment. During the whole of this scene, which lasted some three hours, he had plenty of shouting and weeping and sentimental⁹¹ company, and throughout Defarge held him by the collar, as if to restrain him from flying at the objects of his brief devotion and tearing them to pieces.

“Bravo!” said Defarge, clapping him on the back when it was over, like a patron; “you are a good boy!”

The mender of roads was now coming to himself, and was mistrustful of having made a mistake in his late demonstrations⁹²; but no.

“You are the fellow we want,” said Defarge, in his ear; “you make these fools believe that it will last for ever. Then, they are the more insolent⁹³, and it is the nearer ended.”

“Hey!” cried the mender of roads, reflectively; “that’s true.”

“These fools know nothing. While they despise your breath, and would stop it for ever and ever, in you or in a hundred like you rather than in one of their own horses or dogs, they only know what your breath tells them. Let it deceive them then, a little longer; it cannot deceive them too much.”

Madame Defarge looked superciliously⁹⁴ at the client, and nodded in confirmation⁹⁵.

“As to you,” said she, “you would shout and shed tears for anything, if it made a show and a noise. Say! Would you not?”

“Truly, madame, I think so. For the moment.”

“If you were shown a great heap of dolls, and were set upon them to pluck them to pieces and despoil⁹⁶ them for your own advantage, you would pick out the richest and gayest. Say! Would you not?”

“Truly yes, Madame.”

“Yes. And if you were shown a flock of birds, unable to fly, and were set upon them to strip them of their feathers for your own advantage, you would set upon the birds of the finest feather: would you not?”

“It is true, madame.”

“You have seen both dolls and birds today,” said Madame Defarge, with a wave of her hand towards the place where they had last been apparent; “now go home!”

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