a tale of two cities(双城记)-29

Three was nearly at his side; Madame Defarge, still heading someCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesof her women, was visible in the inner distance, and her knife wasin her hand. Everywhere was tumult, exultation, deafening andmaniacal bewilderment, astounding noise, yet furious dumb-show.“The Prisoners!”“The Records!”“The secret cells!”“The instruments of torture!”“The Prisoners!”Of all these cries, and ten thousand incoherencies, “ThePrisoners!” was the cry most taken up by the sea that rushed in, asif there were an eternity of people, as well as of time and space.When the foremost billows rolled past, bearing the prison officerswith them, and threatening them all with instant death if anysecret nook remained undisclosed, Defarge laid his strong hand onthe breast of one of these men—a man with a grey head, who hada lighted torch in his hands—separated him from the rest, and gothim between himself and the wall.“Show me the North Tower!” said Defarge. “Quick!”“I will faithfully,” replied the man, “if you will come with me.But there is no one there.”“What is the meaning of One Hundred and Five, NorthTower?” asked Defarge. “Quick!”“The meaning, monsieur?”“Does it mean a captive, or a place of captivity? Or do you meanthat I shall strike you dead?”“Kill him!” croaked Jacques Three, who had come close up.“Monsieur, it is a cell.”“Show it me!”“Pass this way, then.”Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesJacques Three, with his usual craving on him, and evidentlydisappointed by the dialogue taking a turn that did not seem topromise bloodshed, held by Defarge’s arm as he held by theturnkey’s. Their three heads had been close together during thisbrief discourse, and it had been as much as they could do to hearone another, even then: so tremendous was the noise of the livingocean, in its irruption into the Fortress, and its inundation of thecourts and passages and staircases. All around outside, too, it beatthe walls with a deep, hoarse roar, from which, occasionally, somepartial shouts of tumult broke and leaped into the air like spray.Through gloomy vaults where the light of day had never shone,past hideous doors of dark dens and cages, down cavernous flightsof steps, and again up steep rugged ascents of stone and brick,more like dry waterfalls than staircases, Defarge, the turnkey, andJacques Three, linked hand and arm, went with all the speed theycould make. Here and there, especially at first, the inundationstarted on them and swept by; but when they had donedescending, and were winding and climbing up a tower, they werealone. Hemmed in here by the massive thickness of walls andarches, the storm within the fortress and without was only audibleto them in a dull, subdued way, as if the noise out of which theyhad come had almost destroyed their sense of hearing.The turnkey stopped at a low door, put a key in a clashing lock,swung the door slowly open, and said, as they all bent their headsand passed in—“One Hundred and Five, North Tower!”There was a small, heavily-grated, unglazed window high in thewall, with a stone screen before it, so that the sky could be onlyseen by stooping low and looking up. There was a small chimney,heavily barred across, a few feet within. There was a heap of oldCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesfeathery wood-ashes on the hearth. There was a stool, and table,and a straw bed. There were the four blackened walls, and arusted iron ring in one of them.“Pass that torch slowly along these walls, that I may see them,”said Defarge to the turnkey.“Stop!—Look here, Jacques!”“A. M.!” creaked Jacques Three, as he read greedily.“Alexandre Manette,” said Defarge in his ear, following theletters with his swart forefinger, deeply engrained withgunpowder. “And here he wrote ‘a poor physician.’ And it was he,without doubt, who scratched a calendar on this stone. What isthat in your hand? A crowbar? Give it me!”He had still the linstock of his gun in his own hand. He made asudden exchange of the two instruments, and turning on theworm-eaten stool and table, beat them to pieces in a few blows.“Hold the light higher!” he said, wrathfully, to the turnkey.“Look among those fragments with care, Jacques. And see! Hereis my knife,” throwing it to him; “rip open that bed, and search thestraw. Hold the light higher, you!”With a menacing look at the turnkey he crawled upon thehearth, and, peering up the chimney, struck and prised at its sideswith the crowbar, and worked at the iron grating across it. In a fewminutes, some mortar and dust came dropping down, which heaverted his face to avoid; and in it, and in the old wood-ashes, andin a crevice in the chimney into which his weapon had slipped orwrought itself, he groped with a cautious touch.“Nothing in the wood, and nothing in the straw, Jacques?”“Nothing.”“Let us collect them together, in the middle of the cell. So!Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesLight them, you!”The turnkey fired the little pile, which blazed high and hot.Stooping again to come out at the low-arched door, they left itburning, and retraced their way to the courtyard; seeming torecover their sense of hearing as they came down, until they werein the raging flood once more.They found it surging and tossing, in quest of Defarge himself.Saint Antoine was clamorous to have its wine-shop keeperforemost in the guard upon the governor who had defended theBastille and shot the people. Otherwise, the governor would not bemarched to the Hotel de Ville for judgment. Otherwise, thegovernor would escape, and the people’s blood (suddenly of somevalue, after many years of worthlessness) be unavenged.In the howling universe of passion and contention that seemedto encompass this grim old officer conspicuous in his grey coat andred decoration, there was but one quite steady figure, and that wasa woman’s. “See, there is my husband!” she cried, pointing himout. “See Defarge!” She stood immovable close to the grim oldofficer, and remained immovable close to him; remainedimmovable close to him through the streets, as Defarge and therest bore him along; remained immovable close to him when hewas got near his destination, and began to be struck at frombehind; remained immovable close to him when the long-gathering rain of stabs and blows fell heavy; was so close to himwhen he dropped dead under it, that, suddenly animated, she puther foot upon his neck, and with her cruel knife—long ready—hewed off his head.The hour was come when Saint Antoine was to execute hishorrible idea of hoisting up men for lamps to show what he couldCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesbe and do. Saint Antoine’s blood was up, and the blood of tyrannyand domination by the iron hand was down—down on the steps ofthe Hotel de Ville where the governor’s body lay—down on thesole of the shoe of Madame Defarge where she had trodden on thebody to steady it for mutilation. “Lower the lamp yonder!” criedSaint Antoine, after glaring round for a new means of death; “hereis one of his soldiers to be left on guard!” The swinging sentinelwas posted, and the sea rushed on.The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructiveupheaving of wave against wave, whose depths were yetunfathomed and whose forces were yet unknown. The remorselesssea of turbulently swaying shapes, voices of vengeance, and faceshardened in the furnaces of suffering until the touch of pity couldmake no mark on them.But, in the ocean of faces where every fierce and furiousexpression was in vivid life, there were two groups of faces—eachseven in number—so fixedly contrasting with the rest, that neverdid sea roll which bore more memorable wrecks with it. Sevenfaces of prisoners, suddenly released by the storm that had bursttheir tomb, were carried high overhead; all scared, all lost, allwandering and amazed, as if the Last Day were come, and thosewho rejoiced around them were lost spirits. Other seven facesthere were, carried higher, seven dead faces, whose droopingeyelids and half-seen eyes awaited the Last Day. Impassive faces,yet with a suspended—not an abolished—expression on them;faces, rather, in a fearful pause, as having yet to raise the droppedlids of the eyes, and bear witness with the bloodless lips “THOUDIDST IT!”Seven prisoners released, seven gory heads on pikes, the keysCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesof the accursed fortress of the eight strong towers, somediscovered letters and other memorials of prisoners of old time,long dead of broken hearts,—such, and suchlike, the loudlyechoing footsteps of Saint Antoine escort through the Paris streetsin mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine. Now,Heaven defeat the fancy of Lucie Darnay, and keep these feet farout of her life! For, they are headlong, mad, and dangerous; and inthe years so long after the breaking of the cask at Defarge’s wine-shop door, they are not easily purified when once stained red.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesChapter XXVIIITHE SEA STILL RISESHaggard Saint Antoine had only one exultant week inwhich to soften his modicum of hard and bitter bread tosuch extent as he could, with the relish of fraternalembraces and congratulations, when Madame Defarge sat at hercounter, as usual, presiding over the customers. Madame Defargewore no rose in her head, for the great brotherhood of Spies hadbecome, even in one short week, extremely chary of trustingthemselves to the saint’s mercies. The lamps across his streets hada portentously elastic swing with them.Madame Defarge, with her arms folded, sat in the morning lightand heat, contemplating the wine-shop and the street. In both,there were several knots of loungers, squalid and miserable, butnow with a manifest sense of power enthroned on their distress.The raggedest nightcap, awry on the wretchedest head, had thiscrooked significance in it: “I know how hard it has grown for me,the wearer of this, to support life in myself; but do you know howeasy it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to destroy life in you?”Every lean bare arm, that had been without work before, had thiswork always ready for it now, that it could strike. The fingers ofthe knitting women were vicious, with the experience that theycould tear. There was a change in the appearance of SaintAntoine; the image had been hammering into this for hundreds ofyears, and the last finishing blows had told mightily on theexpression.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesMadame Defarge sat observing it, with such suppressedapproval as was to be desired in the leader of the Saint Antoinewomen. One of her sisterhood knitted beside her. The short,rather plump wife of a starved grocer, and the mother of twochildren withal, this lieutenant had already earned thecomplimentary name of The Vengeance.“Hark!” said The Vengeance. “Listen, then! Who comes?”As if a train of powder laid from the outermost bound of theSaint Antoine Quarter to the wine-shop door, had been suddenlyfired, a fast-spreading murmur came rushing along.“It is Defarge,” said madame. “Silence, patriots!”Defarge came in breathless, pulled off a red cap he wore, andlooked around him. “Listen, everywhere!” said madame again.“Listen to him!” Defarge stood, panting, against a background ofeager eyes and open mouths, formed outside the door; all thosewithin the wine-shop had sprung to their feet.“Say then, my husband. What is it?”“News from the other world!”“How then?” cried madame, contemptuously. “The otherworld?”“Does everybody here recall old Foulon, who told the famishedpeople that they might eat grass, and who died, and went to Hell?”“Everybody!” from all throats.“The news is of him. He is among us!”“Among us!” from the universal throat again. “And dead?”“Not dead! He feared us so much—and with reason—that hecaused himself to be represented as dead, and had a grand mock-funeral. But they have found him alive, hiding in the country, andhave brought him in. I have seen him but now, on his way to theCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesHotel de Ville, a prisoner. I have said that he had reason to fear us.Say all! Had he reason?”Wretched old sinner of more than three score years and ten, ifhe had never known it yet, he would have known it in his heart ofhearts if he could have heard the answering cry.A moment of profound silence followed. Defarge and his wifelooked steadfastly at one another. The Vengeance stooped, and thejar of a drum was heard as she moved it at her feet behind thecounter.“Patriots!” said Defarge, in a determined voice, “are we ready?”Instantly Madame Defarge’s knife was in her girdle; the drumwas beating in the streets, as if it and a drummer had flowntogether by magic; and The Vengeance, uttering terrific shrieks,and flinging her arms about her head like all the forty Furies atonce, was tearing from house to house, rousing the women.The men were terrible, in the bloody-minded anger with whichthey looked from windows, caught up what arms they had, andcame pouring down into the streets; but, the women were a sightto chill the boldest. From such household occupations as theirbare poverty yielded, from their children, from their aged andtheir sick crouching on the bare ground famished and naked, theyran out with streaming hair, urging one another, and themselves,to madness with the wildest cries and actions. Villain Foulontaken, my sister! Old Foulon taken, my mother! Miscreant Foulontaken, my daughter! Then, a score of others ran into the midst ofthese, beating their breasts, tearing their hair, and screaming,Foulon alive! Foulon who told the starving people they might eatgrass! Foulon who told my old father that he might eat grass,when I had no bread to give him! Foulon who told my baby itCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesmight suck grass, when these breasts were dry with want! Omother of God, this Foulon! O Heaven, our suffering! Hear me, mydead baby and my withered father: I swear on my knees, on thesestones to avenge you on Foulon! Husbands, and brothers, andyoung men, Give us the blood of Foulon, Give us the head ofFoulon, Give us the heart of Foulon, Give us the body and soul ofFoulon, Rend Foulon to pieces, and dig him into the ground, thatgrass may grow from him! With these cries, numbers of thewomen, lashed into blind frenzy, whirled about, striking andtearing at their own friends until they dropped into a passionateswoon, and were only saved by the men belonging to them frombeing trampled under foot.Nevertheless, not a moment was lost; not a moment! ThisFoulon was at the Hotel de Ville, and might be loosed. Never, ifSaint Antoine knew his own sufferings, insults, and wrongs!Armed men and women flocked out of the Quarter so fast, anddrew even these last dregs after them with such a force of suction,that within a quarter of an hour there was not a human creature inSaint Antoine’s bosom but a few old crones and the wailingchildren.No. They were all by that time choking the Hall of Examinationwhere this old man, ugly and wicked, was, and overflowing intothe adjacent open space and streets. The Defarges, husband andwife, The Vengeance, and Jacques Three, were in the first press,and at no great distance from him in the Hall.“See!” cried madame, pointing with her knife. “See the oldvillain bound with ropes. That was well done to tie a bunch ofgrass upon his back. Ha, ha! That was well done. Let him eat itnow!” Madame put her knife under her arm, and clapped herCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citieshands as at a play.The people immediately behind Madame Defarge, explainingthe cause of her satisfaction to those behind them, and those againexplaining to others, and those to others, the neighbouring streetsresounded with the clapping of hands. Similarly, during two orthree hours of drawl, and the winnowing of many bushels ofwords, Madame Defarge’s frequent expressions of impatience