a tale of two cities(双城记)-7

“Then be so kind,” urged Miss Manette, “as to leave us here.You see how composed he has become, and you cannot be afraidto leave him with me now. Why should you be? If you will lock thedoor to secure us from interruption, I do not doubt that you willfind him, when you come back, as quiet as you leave him. In anycase, I will take care of him until you return, and then we willremove him straight.”Both Mr. Lorry and Defarge were rather disinclined to thiscourse, and in favour of one of them remaining. But, as there werenot only carriages and horses to be seen to, but travelling papers;and as time pressed, for the day was drawing to an end, it came atlast to their hastily dividing the business that was necessary to bedone, and hurrying away to do it.Then, as the darkness closed in, the daughter laid her headdown on the hard ground close at her father’s side, and watchedhim. The darkness deepened and deepened, and they both layquiet, until a light gleamed through the chinks in the wall.Mr. Lorry and Monsieur Defarge had made all ready for thejourney, and had brought with them, besides travelling cloaks andwrappers, bread and meat, wine, and hot coffee. Monsieur Defargeput his provender, and the lamp he carried, on the shoemaker’sbench (there was nothing else in the garret but a pallet-bed), andhe and Mr. Lorry roused the captive, and assisted him to his feet.No human intelligence could have read the mysteries of hismind, in the scared blank wonder of his face. Whether he knewCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citieswhat had happened, whether he recollected what they had said tohim, whether he knew that he was free, were questions which nosagacity could have solved. They tried speaking to him; but, hewas so confused, and so very slow to answer, that they took frightat his bewilderment, and agreed for the time to tamper with himno more. He had a wild, lost manner of occasionally clasping hishead in his hands, that had not been seen in him before; yet, hehad some pleasure in the mere sound of his daughter’s voice, andinvariably turned to it when she spoke.In the submissive way of one long accustomed to obey undercoercion, he ate and drank what they gave him to eat and drink,and put on the cloak and other wrappings, that they gave him towear. He readily responded to his daughter’s drawing her armthrough his, and took—and kept—her hand in both his own.They began to descend; Monsieur Defarge going first with thelamp, Mr. Lorry closing the little procession. They had nottraversed many steps of the long main staircase when he stopped,and stared at the roof and round at the walls.“You remember the place, my father? You remember comingup here?”“What did you say?”But, before she could repeat the question, he murmured ananswer as if she had repeated it.“Remember? No, I don’t remember. It was so very long ago.”That he had no recollection whatever of his having beenbrought from his prison to that house, was apparent to them. Theyheard him mutter, “One Hundred and Five, North Tower”; andwhen he looked about him, it evidently was for the strong fortress-walls which had long encompassed him. On their reaching theCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiescourtyard he instinctively altered his tread, as being in expectationof a drawbridge; and when there was no drawbridge, and he sawthe carriage waiting in the open street, he dropped his daughter’shand and clasped his head again.No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible atany of the many windows; not even a chance passer-by was in thestreet. An unnatural silence and desertion reigned there. Only onesoul was to be seen, and that was Madame Defarge—who leanedagainst the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing.The prisoner had got into a coach, and his daughter hadfollowed him, when Mr. Lorry’s feet were arrested on the step byhis asking, miserably, for his shoemaking tools and the unfinishedshoes. Madame Defarge immediately called to her husband thatshe would get them, and went, knitting, out of the lamplight,through the courtyard. She quickly brought them down andhanded them in;—and immediately afterwards leaned against thedoor-post, knitting, and saw nothing.Defarge got upon the box, and gave the word “To the Barrier!”The postilion cracked his whip, and they clattered away under thefeeble over-swinging lamps.Under the over-swinging lamps—swinging ever brighter in thebetter streets, and ever dimmer in the worse—and by lightedshops, gay crowds, illuminated coffee-houses, and theatre-doors,to one of the city gates. Soldiers with lanterns, at the guardhousethere. “Your papers, travellers!” “See here then, Monsieur theOfficer,” said Defarge, getting down, and taking him gravely apart,“these are the papers of monsieur inside, with the white head.They were consigned to me, with him, at the—-” He dropped hisvoice, there was a flutter among the military lanterns, and one ofCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesthem being handed into the coach by an arm in uniform, the eyesconnected with the arm looked, not an every day or an every nightlook, at monsieur with the white head. “It is well. Forward!” fromthe uniform. “Adieu!” from Defarge. And so, under a short groveof feebler and feebler over-swinging lamps, out under the greatgrove of stars.Beneath that arch of unmoved and eternal lights; some, soremote from this little earth that the learned tell us it is doubtfulwhether their rays have even yet discovered it, as a point in spacewhere anything is suffered or done: the shadows of the night werebroad and black. All through the cold and restless interval, untildawn, they once more whispered in the ears of Mr. Jarvis Lorry—sitting opposite the buried man who had been dug out, andwondering what subtle powers were for ever lost to him, and whatwere capable of restoration—the old inquiry:“I hope you care to be recalled to life?”And the old answer:“I can’t say.”Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesBOOK THE SECONDTHE GOLDENTHREADCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesChapter VIIFIVE YEARS LATERT ellson’s Bank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place,even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty.It was very small, very dark, very ugly, veryincommodious. It was an old-fashioned place, moreover, in themoral attribute that the partners in the House were proud of itssmallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of itsincommodiousness. They were even boastful of its eminence inthose particulars, and were fired by an express conviction that, if itwere less objectionable, it would be less respectable. This was nopassive belief, but an active weapon which they flashed at moreconvenient places of business. Tellson’s (they said) wanted noelbow-room, Tellson’s wanted no light, Tellson’s wanted noembellishment. Noakes and Co.’s might, or Snooks Brothers’might; but Tellson’s, thank Heaven!— Any one of these partnerswould have disinherited his son on the question of rebuildingTellson’s. In this respect the House was much on a par with theCountry; which did very often disinherit its sons for suggestingimprovements in laws and customs that had long been highlyobjectionable, but were only the more respectable.Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson’s was the triumphantperfection of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idioticobstinacy with a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson’sdown two steps, and came to your senses in a miserable little shop,with two little counters, where the oldest of men made yourCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiescheque shake as if the wind rustled it, while they examined thesignature by the dingiest of windows, which were always under ashower-bath of mud from Fleet Street, and which were made thedingier by their own iron bars proper, and the heavy shadow ofTemple Bar. If your business necessitated your seeing “theHouse,” you were put into a species of Condemned Hold at theback, where you meditated on a misspent life, until the Housecame with its hands in its pockets, and you could hardly blink at itin the dismal twilight. Your money came out of, or went into,wormy old wooden drawers, particles of which flew up your noseand down your throat when they were opened and shut. Yourbanknotes had a musty odour, as if they were fast decomposinginto rags again. Your plate was stowed away among theneighbouring cesspools, and evil communications corrupted itsgood polish in a day or two. Your deeds got into extemporisedstrong-rooms made of kitchens and sculleries, and fretted all thefat out of their parchments into the banking-house air. Yourlighter boxes of family papers went upstairs into a Barmecideroom, that always had a great dining-table in it and never had adinner, and where, even in the year one thousand seven hundredand eighty, the first letters written to you by your old love, or byyour little children, were but newly released from the horror ofbeing ogled through the windows, by the heads exposed onTemple Bar with an insensate brutality and ferocity worthy ofAbyssinia or Ashantee.But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much invogue with all trades and professions, and not least of all withTellson’s. Death is Nature’s remedy for all things, and why notLegislation’s? Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; theCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesutterer of a bad note was put to Death; the unlawful opener of aletter was put to Death; the purloiner of forty shillings andsixpence was put to Death; the holder of a horse at Tellson’s door,who made off with it, was put to Death; the coiner of a bad shillingwas put to Death; the sounders of three-fourths of the notes in thewhole gamut of Crime, were put to Death. Not that it did the leastgood in the way of prevention—it might almost have been worthremarking that the fact was exactly the reverse—but, it cleared off(as to this world) the trouble of each particular case, and leftnothing else connected with it to be looked after. Thus, Tellson’s,in its day, like greater places of business, its contemporaries, hadtaken so many lives, that, if the heads laid low before it had beenranged on Temple Bar instead of being privately disposed of, theywould probably have excluded what little light the ground floorhad, in a rather significant manner.Cramped in all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches atTellson’s, the oldest of men carried on the business gravely. Whenthey took a young man into Tellson’s London house, they hid himsomewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like acheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour and blue-mould uponhim. Then only was he permitted to be seen, spectacularly poringover large books, and casting his breeches and gaiters into thegeneral weight of the establishment.Outside Tellson’s—never by any means in it, unless called in—was an odd-job-man, an occasional porter and messenger, whoserved as the live sign of the house. He was never absent duringbusiness hours, unless upon an errand, and then he wasrepresented by his son: a grisly urchin of twelve, who was hisexpress image. People understood that Tellson’s, in a stately way,Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiestolerated the odd-job-man. The house had always tolerated someperson in that capacity, and time and tide had drifted this personto the post. His surname was Cruncher, and on the youthfuloccasion of his renouncing by proxy the works of darkness, in theeasterly parish church of Houndsditch, he had received the addedappellation of Jerry.The scene was Mr. Cruncher’s private lodging in Hanging-sword Alley, Whitefriars: the time, half-past seven of the clock anda windy March morning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred andeighty. (Mr. Cruncher himself always spoke of the year of our Lordas Anna Dominoes: apparently under the impression that theChristian era dated from the invention of a popular game, by alady who had bestowed her name upon it.) Mr. Cruncher’sapartments were not in a savoury neighbourhood, and were buttwo in number, even if a closet with a single pane of glass in itmight be counted as one. But they were very decently kept. Earlyas it was, on the windy March morning, the room in which he laya-bed was already scrubbed throughout; and between the cupsand saucers arranged for breakfast, and the lumbering deal table,a very clean white cloth was spread.Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like aHarlequin at home. At first, he slept heavily, but, by degrees,began to roll and surge in bed, until he rose above the surface,with his spiky hair looking as if it must tear the sheets to ribbons.At which juncture, he exclaimed, in a voice of dire exasperation:“Bust me, if she ain’t at it agin!”A woman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from herknees in a corner, with sufficient haste and trepidation to showthat she was the person referred to.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Cities“What!” said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot.“You’re at it agin, are you?”After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw aboot at the woman as a third. It was a very muddy boot, and mayintroduce the odd circumstance connected with Mr. Cruncher’sdomestic economy, that, whereas he often came home afterbanking hours with clean boots, he often got up next morning tofind the same boots covered with clay.“What,” said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe aftermissing his mark—“what are you up to, Aggerawayter?”“I was only saying my prayers.”“Saying your prayers! You’re a nice woman! What do you meanby flopping yourself down and praying agin me?”“I was not praying against you; I was praying for you.”“You weren’t. And if you were, I won’t be took the liberty with.Here! your mother’s a nice woman, young Jerry, going a prayingagin your father’s prosperity. You’ve got a dutiful mother, youhave, my son. You’ve got a religious mother, you have, my boy:going and flopping herself down, and praying that the bread-andbutter may be snatched out of the mouth of her only child.”Master Cruncher (who was in his shirt) took this very ill, and,turning to his mother, strongly deprecated any praying away of hispersonal board.“And what do you suppose, you conceited female,” said Mr.Cruncher, with unconscious inconsistency, “that the worth of yourprayers may be? Name the price that you put your prayers at!”“They only come from the heart, Jerry. They are worth no morethan that.”“Worth no more than that,” repeated Mr. Cruncher. “They ain’tCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesworth much, then. Whether or no, I won’t be prayed agin, I tellyou. I can’t afford it. I’m not a going to be made unlucky by yoursneaking. If you must go flopping yourself down, flop in favour ofyour husband and child, and not in opposition to ’em. If I had hadany but a unnat’ral wife, and this poor boy had had any but aunnat’ral mother, I might have made some money last weekinstead of being counterprayed and countermined and religiouslycircumwented into the worst of luck. B-u-u-ust me!” said Mr.Cruncher, who all this time had been putting on his clothes, “if Iain’t, what with piety and one blowed thing and another, beenchoused this last week into as bad luck as ever a poor devil of ahonest tradesman met with! Young Jerry, dress yourself, my boy,and while I clean my boots keep an eye upon your mother nowand then, and if you see any signs of more flopping, give me a call.For, I tell you,” here he addressed his wife once more, “I won’t begone agin, in this matter. I am as rickety as a hackney-coach, I’mas sleepy as laudanum, my lines is strained to that degree that Ishouldn’t know, if it wasn’t for the pain in ’em, which was me andwhich somebody else, yet I’m none the better for it in pocket; andit’s my suspicion that you’ve been at it from morning to night toprevent me from being the better for it in pocket, and I won’t putup with it, Aggerawayter, and what do you say now!”Growling, in addition, such phrases as “Ah! yes! You’rereligious, too. You wouldn’t put yourself in opposition to theinterests of your husband and child, would you? Not you!” andthrowing off other sarcastic sparks from the whirling grindstone ofhis indignation, Mr. Cruncher betook himself to his boot-cleaningand his general preparation for business. In the meantime, his son,whose head was garnished with tenderer spikes, and whose youngCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citieseyes stood close by one another, as his father’s did, kept therequired watch upon his mother. He greatly disturbed the poorwoman at intervals, by darting out of his sleeping closet, where hemade his toilet, with a suppressed cry of “You are going to flop,mother.—Halloa, father!” and, after raising this fictitious alarm,darting in again with an undutiful grin.Mr. Cruncher’s temper was not at all improved when he cameto his breakfast. He resented Mrs. Cruncher’s saying grace withparticular animosity.“Now, Aggerawayter! What are you up to? At it agin?”His wife explained that she had merely “asked a blessing.”“Don’t do it!” said Mr. Cruncher, looking about, as if he rather