a tale of two cities(双城记)-22

Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before heanswered, “How should I know?”“I thought you knowed everything, father,” said the artless boy.“Hem! Well,” returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, andlifting off his hat to give his spikes free play. “he’s a tradesman.”“What’s his goods, father?” asked the brisk Young Jerry.“His goods,” said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in hismind, “is a branch of Scientific goods.”“Persons’ bodies, ain’t it, father?” asked the lively boy.“I believe it is something of that sort,” said Mr. Cruncher.“Oh, father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-Man when I’mquite growed up!”Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious andmoral way. “It depends on how you dewelop your talents. Becareful to dewelop your talents, and never to say no more than youCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiescan help to nobody, and there’s no telling at the present time whatyou may not come to be fit for.” As Young Jerry, thus encouraged,went on a few yards in advance, to plant the stool in the shadow ofthe Bar, Mr. Cruncher added to himself: “Jerry, you honesttradesman, there’s hope wot that boy will yet be a blessing to you,and a recompense to you for his mother.”Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesChapter XXIKNITTINGT here had been earlier drinking than usual in the wine-shop of Monsieur Defarge. As early as six o’clock in themorning, sallow faces peeping through its barred windowshad descried other faces within, bending over measures of wine.Monsieur Defarge sold a very thin wine at the best of times, but itwould seem to have been an unusually thin wine that he sold atthis time. A sour wine, moreover, or a souring, for its influence onthe mood of those who drank it was to make them gloomy. Novivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of the pressed grape ofMonsieur 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 therehad been early drinking at the wine-shop of Monsieur Defarge. Ithad been begun on Monday, and here was Wednesday come.There had been more of early brooding than drinking; for, manymen had listened and whispered and slunk about there from thetime of the opening of the door, who could not have laid a piece ofmoney on the counter to save their souls. These were to the full asinterested in the place, however, as if they could have commandedwhole barrels of wine; and they glided from seat to seat, and fromcorner to corner, swallowing talk in lieu of drink, with greedylooks.Notwithstanding an unusual flow of company, the master of thewine-shop was not visible. He was not missed; for, nobody whoCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiescrossed 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 batteredsmall coins before her, as much defaced and beaten out of theiroriginal impress as the small coinage of humanity from whoseragged pockets they had come.A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind, wereperhaps observed by the spies who looked in at the wine-shop, asthey looked in at every place, high and low, from the king’s palaceto the criminal’s gaol. Games at cards languished, players atdominoes musingly built towers with them, drinkers drew figureson the table with spilt drops of wine, Madame Defarge herselfpicked out the pattern on her sleeve with her toothpick, and sawand 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 hisstreets and under his swinging lamps: of whom, one was MonsieurDefarge: the other a mender of roads in a blue cap. All adust andathirst, the two entered the wine-shop. Their arrival had lighted akind of fire in the breast of Saint Antoine, fast spreading as theycame along, which stirred and flickered in flames of faces at mostdoors and windows. Yet, no one had followed them, and no manspoke when they entered the wine-shop, though the eyes of everyman there were turned upon them.“Good day, gentlemen!” said Monsieur Defarge.It may have been a signal for loosening the general tongue. Itelicited 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 allCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiescast down their eyes and sat silent. Except one man, who got upand went out.“My wife,” said Defarge aloud, addressing Madame Defarge: “Ihave travelled certain leagues with this good mender of roads,called Jacques. I met him—by accident—a day and a half’s journeyout of Paris. He is a good child, this mender of roads, calledJacques. Give him to drink, my wife!”A second man got up and went out. Madame Defarge set winebefore the mender of roads called Jacques, who doffed his bluecap to the company, and drank. In the breast of his blouse hecarried some coarse dark bread; he ate of this between whiles, andsat munching and drinking near Madame Defarge’s counter. Athird man got up and went out.Defarge refreshed himself with a draught of wine—but, he tookless than was given to the stranger, as being himself a man towhom it was no rarity—and stood waiting until the countrymanhad made his breakfast. He looked at no one present, and no onenow looked at him; not even Madame Defarge, who had taken upher knitting, and was at work.“Have you finished your repast, friend?” he asked, in dueseason.“Yes, thank you.”“Come, then! You shall see the apartment that I told you youcould occupy. It will suit you to a marvel.”Out of the wine-shop into the street, out of the street into acourtyard, out of the courtyard up a steep staircase, out of thestaircase into a garret—formerly the garret where a white-hairedman sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very busy, makingshoes.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesNo white-haired man was there now; but, the three men werethere who had gone out of the wine-shop singly. And betweenthem 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 subduedvoice:“Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques Three! This is the witnessencountered by appointment, by me, Jacques Four. He will tellyou all. Speak, Jacques Five!”The mender of roads, blue cap in hand, wiped his swarthyforehead with it, and said, “Where shall I commence, monsieur?”“Commence,” was Monsieur Defarge’s not unreasonable reply,“at the commencement.”“I saw him then, messieurs,” began the mender of roads, “ayear ago this running summer, underneath the carriage of theMarquis, hanging by the chain. Be hold the manner of it. I leavingmy work on the road, the sun going to bed, the carriage of theMarquis slowly ascending the hill, he hanged by the chain—likethis.”Again the mender of roads went through the wholeperformance; in which he ought to have been perfect by that time,seeing that it had been the infallible resource and indispensableentertainment of his village during a whole year.Jacques One struck in, and asked if he had ever seen the manbefore?“Never,” answered the mender of roads, recovering hisperpendicular.Jacques Three demanded how he afterwards recognised himthen?Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Cities“By his tall figure,” said the mender of roads, softly, and withhis finger at his nose. “When Monsieur the Marquis demands thatevening, ‘Say, what is he like?’ I make response, ‘Tall as aspectre.’”“You should have said, short as a dwarf,” returned JacquesTwo.“But what did I know? The deed was not then accomplished,neither did he confide in me. Observe! Under those circumstanceseven, I do not offer my testimony. Monsieur the Marquis indicatesme with his finger, standing near our little fountain, and says, ‘Tome! Bring that rascal!’ My faith, messieurs, I offer nothing.”“He is right there, Jacques,” murmured Defarge, to him whohad interrupted. “Go on!”“Good!” said the mender of roads with an air of mystery. “Thetall man is lost, and he is sought—how many months? Nine, ten,eleven?”“No matter, the number,” said Defarge. “He is well hidden, butat last he is unluckily found. Go on!”“I am again at work upon the hillside, and the sun is againabout to go to bed. I am collecting my tools to descend to mycottage down in the village below, where it is already dark, when Iraise my eyes, and see coming over the hill six soldiers. In themidst of them is a tall man with his arms bound—tied to hissides—like this!”With the aid of his indispensable cap, he represented a manwith his elbows bound fast at his hips, with cords that wereknotted behind him.“I stand aside, messieurs, by my heap of stones, to see thesoldiers and their prisoner pass (for it is a solitary road, that,Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citieswhere any spectacle is well worth looking at), and at first, as theyapproach, I see no more than that they are six soldiers with a tallman bound, and that they are almost black to my sight—except onthe side of the sun going to bed, where they have a red edge,messieurs. Also, I see that their long shadows are on the hollowridge 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 coveredwith dust, and that the dust moves with them as they come, tramp,tramp! But when they advance quite near to me, I recognise thetall man, and he recognises me. Ah, but he would be well contentto precipitate himself over the hillside once again, as on theevening when he and I first encountered, close to the same spot!”He described it as if he were there, and it was evident that hesaw it vividly; perhaps he had not seen much in his life.“I do not show the soldiers that I recognise the tall man; hedoes not show the soldiers that he recognises me; we do it, and weknow it, with our eyes. ‘Come on!’ says the chief of that company,pointing to the village, ‘bring him fast to his tomb!’ and they bringhim faster. I follow. His arms are swelled because of being boundso tight, his wooden shoes are large and clumsy, and he is lame.Because he is lame, and consequently slow, they drive him withtheir guns—like this!”He imitated the action of a man’s being impelled forward by thebutt-ends of muskets.“As they descend the hill like madmen running a race, he falls.They laugh and pick him up again. His face is bleeding andcovered with dust, but he cannot touch it; thereupon they laughagain. 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 villageCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiessees the prison gate open in the darkness of the night—andswallow him—like this!”He opened his mouth wide as he could, and shut it with asounding snap of his teeth. Observant of his unwillingness to marthe effect by opening it again. Defarge said, “Go on, Jacques.”“All the village,” pursued the mender of roads, on tiptoe and ina 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 tocome out of it, except to perish. In the morning, with my toolsupon my shoulder, eating my morsel of black bread as I go, I makea circuit by the prison, on my way to my work. There I see him,high up, behind the bars of a lofty iron cage, bloody and dusty aslast night, looking through. He has no hand free, to wave to me; Idare not call to him; he regards me like a dead man.”Defarge and the three glanced darkly at one another. The looksof all of them were dark, repressed, and revengeful, as theylistened to the countryman’s story; the manner of all of them,while it was secret, was authoritative too. They had the air of arough tribunal; Jacques One and Two sitting on the old pallet-bed,each with his chin resting on his hand, and his eyes intent on theroad-mender; Jacques Three, equally intent, on one knee behindthem, with his agitated hand always gliding over the network offine nerves about his mouth and nose; Defarge standing betweenthem and the narrator, whom he had stationed in the light of thewindow, by turns looking from him to them, and from them tohim.“Go on, Jacques,” said Defarge.“He remains up there in his iron cage some days. The villageCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citieslooks at him by stealth, for it is afraid. But always looks up, from adistance, at the prison on the crag; and in the evening, when thework of the day is achieved and it assembles to gossip at thefountain, all faces are turned towards the prison. Formerly, theywere turned towards the posting-house; now, they turned towardsthe prison. They whisper at the fountain, that althoughcondemned to death he will not be executed; they say thatpetitions have been presented in Paris, showing that he wasenraged and made mad by the death of his child; they say that apetition 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 sternlyinterposed. “Know that a petition was presented to the King andQueen. All here, yourself excepted, saw the King take it, in hiscarriage in the street, sitting beside the Queen. It is Defarge whomyou see here, who, at the hazard of his life, darted out before thehorses, with the petition in his hand.”“And once again listen, Jacques!” said the kneeling NumberThree: his fingers ever wandering over and over those fine nerves,with a strikingly greedy air, as if he hungered for something—thatwas neither food nor drink; “the guard, horse and foot,surrounded the petitioner, 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 ourcountry to be executed on the spot, and that he will very certainlybe executed. They even whisper that because he has slainMonseigneur, and because Monseigneur was the father of hisCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiestenants—serfs—what you will—he will be executed as a parricide.One old man says at the fountain, that his right hand, armed withthe knife, will be burnt off before his face; that, into wounds whichwill be made in his arms, his breast, and his legs, there will bepoured boiling oil, melted lead, hot resin, 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 whomade an attempt on the life of the late King, Louis Fifteen. Buthow do I know if he lies? I am not a scholar.”“Listen once again then, Jacques!” said the man with therestless hand and the craving air. “The name of that prisoner wasDamiens, and it was all done in open day, in the open streets ofthis city of Paris; and nothing was more noticed in the vastconcourse that saw it done, than the crowd of ladies of quality andfashion, who were full of eager attention to the last—to the last.Jacques, prolonged until nightfall, when he had lost two legs andan arm, and still breathed! And it was done—why, how old areyou?”“Thirty-five,” said the mender of roads, who looked sixty.“It was done when you were more than ten years old; you mighthave seen it.”“Enough!” said Defarge, with grim impatience. “Long live theDevil! Go on.”“Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that; they speak ofnothing else; even the fountain appears to fall to that tune. Atlength, on Sunday night when all the village is asleep, comesoldiers, winding down from the prison, and their guns ring on thestones of the little street. Workmen dig, workmen hammer,soldiers laugh and sing; in the morning, by the fountain, there is