a tale of two cities(双城记)-5

This wine-shop keeper was a bull-necked, martial-looking manof thirty, and he should have been of a hot temperament, for,although it was a bitter day, he wore no coat, but carried one slungover his shoulder. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, too, and hisbrown arms were bare to the elbows. Neither did he wearanything more on his head than his own crisply-curling short darkhair. He was a dark man altogether, with good eyes and a goodbold breadth between them. Good-humoured looking on thewhole, but implacable-looking, too; evidently a man of a strongresolution and a set purpose; a man not desirable to be met,rushing down a narrow pass with a gulf on either side, for nothingwould turn the man.Madame Defarge, his wife, sat in the shop behind the counteras he came in. Madame Defarge was a stout woman of about hisCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesown age, with a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look atanything, a large hand heavily ringed, a steady face, strongfeatures, and great composure of manner. There was a characterabout Madame Defarge from which one might have predicted thatshe did not often make mistakes against herself in any of thereckonings over which she presided. Madame Defarge beingsensitive to cold, was wrapped in fur, and had a quantity of brightshawl twined about her head, though not to the concealment ofher large ear-rings. Her knitting was before her, but she had laid itdown to pick her teeth with a toothpick. Thus engaged, with herright elbow supported by her left hand, Madame Defarge saidnothing when her lord came in, but coughed just one grain ofcough. This, in combination with the lifting of her darkly definedeyebrows over her toothpick by the breadth of a line, suggested toher husband that he would do well to look round the shop amongthe customers, for any new customer who had dropped in while hestepped over the way.The wine-shop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, untilthey rested upon an elderly gentleman and a young lady, whowere seated in a corner. Other company were there; two playingcards, two playing dominoes, three standing by the counterlengthening out a short supply of wine. As he passed behind thecounter, he took notice that the elderly gentleman said in a look tothe young lady, “This is our man.”“What the devil do you do in that galley there?” said MonsieurDefarge to himself; “I don’t know you.”But, he feigned not to notice the two strangers, and fell intodiscourse with the triumvirate of customers who were drinking atthe counter.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Cities“How goes it, Jacques?” said one of these three to MonsieurDefarge. “Is all the spilt wine swallowed?”“Every drop, Jacques,” answered Monsieur Defarge.When this interchange of christian name was effected, MadameDefarge, picking her teeth with her toothpick, coughed anothergrain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of anotherline.“It is not often,” said the second of the three, addressingMonsieur Defarge, “that many of these miserable beasts know thetaste of wine, or of anything but black bread and death. Is it not so,Jacques?”“It is so, Jacques,” Monsieur Defarge returned. At this secondinterchange of the christian name, Madame Defarge, still usingher toothpick with profound composure, coughed another grain ofcough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line.The last of the three now said his say, as he put down his emptydrinking vessel and smacked his lips.“Ah! So much the worse! A bitter taste it is that such poor cattlealways have in their mouths, and hard lives they live, Jacques. AmI right, Jacques?”“You are right, Jacques,” was the response of MonsieurDefarge.This third interchange of the christian name was completed atthe moment when Madame Defarge put her toothpick by, kept hereyebrows up, and slightly rustled in her seat.“Hold then! True!” muttered her husband. “Gentlemen—mywife!”The three customers pulled off their hats to Madame Defarge,with three flourishes. She acknowledged their homage by bendingCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesher head, and giving them a quick look. Then she glanced in acasual manner round the wine-shop, took up her knitting withgreat apparent calmness and repose of spirit and becameabsorbed in it.“Gentlemen,” said her husband, who had kept his bright eyeobservantly upon her, “good day. The chamber, furnishedbachelor-fashion, that you wished to see, and were inquiring forwhen I stepped out, is on the fifth floor. The doorway of thestaircase gives on the little courtyard close to the left here,”pointing with his hand, “near to the window of my establishment.But, now that I remember, one of you has already been there, andcan show the way. Gentlemen, adieu!”They paid for their wine and left the place. The eyes ofMonsieur Defarge were studying his wife at her knitting when theelderly gentleman advanced from his corner, and begged thefavour of a word.“Willingly, sir,” said Monsieur Defarge, and quietly steppedwith him to the door.Their conference was very short, but very decided. Almost atthe first word, Monsieur Defarge started and became deeplyattentive. It had not lasted a minute, when he nodded and wentout. The gentleman then beckoned to the young lady, and they,too, went out. Madame Defarge knitted with nimble fingers andsteady eyebrows, and saw nothing.Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette, emerging from the wine-shop thus, joined Monsieur Defarge in the doorway to which hehad directed his other company just before. It opened from astinking little black courtyard, and was the general publicentrance to a great pile of houses, inhabited by a great number ofCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiespeople. In the gloomy tile-paved entry to the gloomy tile-pavedstaircase, Monsieur Defarge bent down on one knee to the child ofhis old master, and put her hand to his lips. It was a gentle action,but not at all gently done; a very remarkable transformation hadcome over him in a few seconds. He had no good-humour in hisface, nor any openness of aspect left, but had become a secret,angry, dangerous man.“It is very high; it is a little difficult. Better to begin slowly.”Thus, Monsieur Defarge, in a stern voice, to Mr. Lorry, as theybegan ascending the stairs.“Is he alone?” the latter whispered.“Alone! God help him, who should be with him!” said the other,in the same low voice.“Is he always alone, then?”“Yes.”“Of his own desire?”“Of his own necessity. As he was, when I first saw him afterthey found me and demanded to know if I would take him, and, atmy peril be discreet—as he was then, so he is now.”“He is greatly changed?”“Changed!”The keeper of the wine-shop stopped to strike the wall with hishand, and mutter a tremendous curse. No direct answer couldhave been half so forcible. Mr. Lorry’s spirits grew heavier andheavier, as he and his two companions ascended higher andhigher.Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and morecrowded parts of Paris, would be bad enough now; but, at thattime, it was vile indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesEvery little habitation within the great foul nest of one highbuilding—that is to say, the room or rooms within every door thatopened on the general staircase—left its own heap of refuse on itsown landing, besides flinging other refuse from its own windows.The uncontrollable and hopeless mass of decomposition soengendered, would have polluted the air, even if poverty anddeprivation had not loaded it with their intangible impurities; thetwo bad sources combined made it almost insupportable. Throughsuch an atmosphere, by a steep dark shaft of dirt and poison, theway lay. Yielding to his own disturbance of mind, and to his youngcompanion’s agitation, which became greater every instant, Mr.Jarvis Lorry twice stopped to rest. Each of these stoppages wasmade at a doleful grating, by which any languishing good airs thatwere left uncorrupted seemed to escape, and all spoilt and sicklyvapours seemed to crawl in. Through the rusted bars, tastes,rather than glimpses, were caught of the jumbled neighbourhood;and nothing within range, nearer or lower than the summits of thetwo great towers of Notre-Dame, had any promise on it of healthylife or wholesome aspirations.At last, the top of the staircase was gained, and they stopped forthe third time. There was yet an upper staircase, of a steeperinclination and of contracted dimensions, to be ascended, beforethe garret story was reached. The keeper of the wine-shop, alwaysgoing a little in advance, and always going on the side which Mr.Lorry took, as though he dreaded to be asked any question by theyoung lady, turned himself about here, and, carefully feeling in thepockets of the coat he carried over his shoulder, took out a key.“The door is locked then, my friend?” said Mr. Lorry, surprised.“Ay. Yes,” was the grim reply of Monsieur Defarge.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Cities“You think it necessary to keep the unfortunate gentleman soretired?”“I think it necessary to turn the key.” Monsieur Defargewhispered it closer in his ear, and frowned heavily.“Why?”“Why! Because he has lived so long, locked up, that he wouldbe frightened—rave, tear himself to pieces—die—come to I knownot what harm—if his door was left open.”“Is it possible?” exclaimed Mr. Lorry.“Is it possible!” repeated Defarge, bitterly. “Yes. And abeautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when manyother such things are possible, and not only possible, but done—done, see you!—under that sky there, every day. Long live theDevil. Let us go on.”This dialogue had been held in so very low a whisper, that not aword of it had reached the young lady’s ears. But, by this time shetrembled under such strong emotion, and her face expressed suchdeep anxiety, and, above all, such dread and terror, that Mr. Lorryfelt it incumbent on him to speak a word or two of reassurance.“Courage, dear miss! Courage! Business! The worst will be overin a moment; it is but passing the room-door, and the worst isover. Then, all the good you bring to him, all the relief, all thehappiness you bring to him, begin. Let our good friend here, assistyou on that side. That’s well, friend Defarge. Come, now. Business,business!” They went up slowly and softly. The staircase wasshort, and they were soon at the top. There, as it had an abruptturn in it, they came all at once in sight of three men, whose headswere bent down close together at the side of a door, and who wereintently looking into the room to which the door belonged,Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesthrough some chinks or holes in the wall. On hearing footstepsclose at hand, these three turned, and rose, and showedthemselves to be the three of one name who had been drinking inthe wine-shop.“I forgot them in the surprise of your visit,” explained MonsieurDefarge. “Leave us, good boys; we have business here.”The three glided by, and went silently down.There appearing to be no other door on that floor, and thekeeper of the wine-shop going straight to this one when they wereleft alone, Mr. Lorry asked him in a whisper with a little anger:“Do you make a show of Monsieur Manette?”“I show him, in the way you have seen, to a chosen few.”“Is that well?”“I think it is well.”“Who are the few? How do you choose them?”“I choose them as real men, of my name—Jacques is myname—to whom the sight is likely to do good. Enough; you areEnglish; that is another thing. Stay there, if you please, a littlemoment.”With an admonitory gesture to keep them back, he stooped, andlooked in through the crevice in the wall. Soon raising his headagain, he struck twice or thrice upon the door—evidently with noother object than to make a noise there. With the same intention,he drew the key across it, three or four times, before he put itclumsily into the lock, and turned it as heavily as he could.The door slowly opened inward under his hand, and he lookedinto the room and said something. A faint voice answeredsomething. Little more than a single syllable could have beenspoken on either side.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesHe looked back over his shoulder, and beckoned them to enter.Mr. Lorry got his arm securely round the daughter’s waist, andheld her; for he felt that she was sinking.“A—a—a—business, business!” he urged with a moisture thatwas not of business shining on his cheek. “Come in, come in!”“I am afraid of it,” she answered, shuddering.“Of it? What?”“I mean of him. Of my father.”Rendered in a manner desperate, by her state and by thebeckoning of their conductor, he drew over his neck the arm thatshook upon his shoulder, lifted her a little, and hurried her intothe room. He set her down just within the door, and held her,clinging to him.Defarge drew out the key, closed the door, locked it on theinside, took out the key again, and held it in his hand. All this hedid, methodically, and with as loud and harsh an accompanimentof noise as he could make. Finally, he walked across the room witha measured tread to where the window was. He stopped there andfaced round.The garret, built to be a depository for firewood and the like,was dim and dark; for, the window of dormer shape, was in truth adoor in the roof, with a little crane over it for the hoisting up ofstores from the street: unglazed, and closing up the middle in twopieces, like any other door of French construction. To exclude thecold, one half of this door was fast closed, and the other wasopened but a very little way. Such a scanty portion of light wasadmitted through these means, that it was difficult, on first comingin, to see anything; and long habit alone could have slowly formedin any one, the ability to do any work requiring nicety in suchCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesobscurity. Yet, work of that kind was being done in the garret; for,with his back towards the door, and his face towards the windowwhere the keeper of the wine-shop stood looking at him, a white-haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very busy,making shoes.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesChapter VITHE SHOEMAKERG ood day!” said Monsieur Defarge, looking down at thewhite head that bent low over the shoemaking.It was raised for a moment, and a very faint voiceresponded to the salutation, as if it were at a distance: “Good day!”“You are still hard at work, I see?”After a long silence, the head was lifted for another moment,and the voice replied, “Yes—I am working.” This time, a pair ofhaggard eyes had looked at the questioner, before the face haddropped again.The faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful. It was notthe faintness of physical weakness, though confinement and hardfare no doubt had their part in it. Its deplorable peculiarity was,that it was the faintness of solitude and disuse. It was like the lastfeeble echo of a sound made long and long ago. So entirely had itlost the life and resonance of the human voice, that it affected thesenses like a once beautiful colour faded away into a poor weakstain. So sunken and suppressed it was, that it was like a voiceunderground. So expressive it was, of a hopeless and lost creature,that a famished traveller, wearied out by lonely wandering in awilderness, would have remembered home and friends in such atone before lying down to die.Some minutes of silent work had passed: and the haggard eyes