a tale of two cities(双城记)-30

were taken up, with marvellous quickness, at a distance: the morereadily, because certain men who had by some wonderful exerciseof agility climbed up the external architecture to look in from thewindows, knew Madame Defarge well, and acted as a telegraphbetween her and the crowd outside the building.At length the sun rose so high that it struck a kindly ray as ofhope or protection, directly down upon the old prisoner’s head.The favour was too much to bear; in an instant the barrier of dustand chaff that had stood surprisingly long, went to the winds, andSaint Antoine had got him!It was known directly, to the furthest confines of the crowd.Defarge had but sprung over a railing and a table, and folded themiserable wretch in a deadly embrace—Madame Defarge had butfollowed and turned her hand in one of the ropes with which hewas tied—The Vengeance and Jacques Three were not yet up withthem, and the men at the windows had not yet swooped into theHall, like birds of prey from their high perches—when the cryseemed to go up, all over the city, “Bring him out! Bring him to thelamp!”Down, and up, and head foremost on the steps of the building;now, on his knees; now, on his feet; now, on his back; dragged andstruck at, and stifled by the bunches of grass and straw that wereCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesthrust into his face by hundreds of hands; torn, bruised, panting,bleeding, yet always entreating and beseeching for mercy; now fullof vehement agony of action, with a small clear space about him asthe people drew one another back that they might see; now, a logof dead wood drawn through a forest of legs; he was hauled to thenearest street corner where one of the fatal lamps swung, andthere Madame Defarge let him go—as a cat might have done to amouse—and silently and composedly looked at him while theymade ready, and while he besought her: the women passionatelyscreeching at him all the time, and the men sternly calling out tohave him killed with grass in his mouth. Once, he went aloft, andthe rope broke, and they caught him shrieking; twice, he wentaloft, and the rope broke, and they caught him shrieking; then, therope was merciful, and held him, and his head was soon upon apike, with grass enough in the mouth for all Saint Antoine todance at the sight of.Nor was this the end of the day’s bad work, for Saint Antoine soshouted and danced his angry blood up, that it boiled again, onhearing when the day closed in that the son-in-law of thedespatched, another of the people’s enemies and insulters, wascoming into Paris under a guard five hundred strong, in cavalryalone. Saint Antoine wrote his crimes on flaring sheets of paper,seized him—would have torn him out of the breast of an army tobear Foulon company—set his head and heart on pikes, andcarried the three spoils of the day, in Wolf-procession through thestreets.Not before dark night did the men and women come back to thechildren, wailing and breadless. Then, the miserable bakers’ shopswere beset by long files of them, patiently waiting to buy badCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesbread; and while they waited with stomachs faint and empty, theybeguiled the time by embracing one another on the triumphs ofthe day, and achieving them again in gossip. Gradually, thesestrings of ragged people shortened and frayed away; and thenpoor lights began to shine in high windows, and slender fires weremade in the streets, at which neighbours cooked in common,afterwards supping at their doors.Scanty and insufficient suppers those, and innocent of meat, asof most other sauce to wretched bread. Yet, human fellowshipinfused some nourishment into the flinty viands, and struck somesparks of cheerfulness out of them. Fathers and mothers who hadtheir full share in the worst of the day, played gently with theirmeagre children; and lovers, with such a world around them andbefore them, loved and hoped.It was almost morning, when Defarge’s wine-shop parted withits last knot of customers, and Monsieur Defarge said to madamehis wife, in husky tones, while fastening the door:“At last it is come, my dear!”“Eh well!” returned madame. “Almost.”Saint Antoine slept, the Defarges slept; even The Vengeanceslept with her starved grocer, and the drum was at rest. Thedrum’s was the only voice in Saint Antoine that blood and hurryhad not changed. The Vengeance, as custodian of the drum, couldhave wakened him up and had the same speech out of him asbefore the Bastille fell, or old Foulon was seized; not so with thehoarse tones of the men and women in Saint Antoine’s bosom.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesChapter XXIXFIRE RISEST here was a change on the village where the fountain fell,and where the mender of roads went forth daily tohammer out of the stones on the high way such morsels ofbread as might serve for patches to hold his poor ignorant souland his poor reduced body together. The prison on the crag wasnot so dominant as of yore; there were soldiers to guard it, but notmany; there were officers to guard the soldiers, but not one ofthem knew what his men would do—beyond this: that it wouldprobably not be what he was ordered.Far and wide lay a ruined country, yielding nothing butdesolation. Every green leaf, every blade of grass and blade ofgrain, was as shrivelled and poor as the miserable people.Everything was bowed down, dejected, oppressed, and broken.Habitations fences, domesticated animals, men, women, children,and the soil that bore them—all worn out.Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) was anational blessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was a politeexample of luxurious and shining life, and a great deal more toequal purpose; nevertheless, Monseigneur as a class had,somehow or other, brought things to this. Strange that Creation,designed expressly for Monseigneur, should be so soon wrung dryand squeezed out! There must be something short-sighted in theeternal arrangements, surely! Thus it was, however; and the lastdrop of blood having been extracted from the flints, and the lastCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesscrew of the rack having been turned so often that its purchasecrumbled, and it now turned and turned with nothing to bite,Monseigneur began to run away from a phenomenon so low andunaccountable.But, this was not the change on the village, and on many avillage like it. For scores of years gone by, Monseigneur hadsqueezed it and wrung it, and had seldom graced it with hispresence except for the pleasures of the chase—now, found inhunting the people; now, found in hunting the beasts, for whosepreservation Monseigneur made edifying spaces of barbarous andbarren wilderness. No. The change consisted in the appearance ofstrange faces of low caste, rather than in the disappearance of thehigh-caste, chiseled, and otherwise beautified and beautifyingfeatures of Monseigneur.For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary, inthe dust, not often troubling himself to reflect that dust he was andto dust he must return, being for the most part too much occupiedin thinking how little he had for supper and how much more hewould eat if he had it—in these times, as he raised his eyes fromhis lonely labour, and viewed the prospect, he would see somerough figure approaching on foot, the like of which was once ararity in those parts, but was now a frequent presence. As itadvanced, the mender of roads would discern without surprise,that it was a shaggy-haired man, of almost barbarian aspect, tall,in wooden shoes that were clumsy even to the eyes of a mender ofroads, grim, rough, swart, steeped in the mud and dust of manyhighways, dank with the marshy moisture of many low grounds,sprinkled with the thorns and leaves and moss of many bywaysthrough woods.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two CitiesSuch a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the Julyweather, as he sat on his heap of stones under a bank, taking suchshelter as he could get from a shower of hail.The man looked at him, looked at the village in the hollow, atthe mill, and at the prison on the crag. When he had identifiedthese objects in what benighted mind he had, he said, in a dialectthat was just intelligible:“How goes it, Jacques?”“All well, Jacques.”“Touch then!”They joined hands, and the man sat down on the heap of stones.“No dinner?”“Nothing but supper now,” said the mender of roads, with ahungry face.“It is the fashion,” growled the man. “I meet no dinneranywhere.”He took out a blackened pipe, filled it, lighted it with flint andsteel, pulled at it until it was in a bright glow: then, suddenly heldit from him and dropped something into it from between his fingerand thumb, that blazed and went out in a puff of smoke.“Touch then.” It was the turn of the mender of roads to say itthis time, after observing these operations. They again joinedhands.“Tonight?” said the mender of roads.“Tonight,” said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth.“Where?”“Here.”He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones lookingsilently at one another, with the hail driving in between them likeCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesa pigmy charge of bayonets, until the sky began to clear over thevillage.“Show me!” said the traveller then, moving to the brow of thehill.“See!” returned the mender of roads, with extended finger.“You go down here, and straight through the street, and past thefountain—”“To the Devil with all that!” interrupted the other, rolling hiseye over the landscape. “I go through no streets and past nofountains. Well?”“Well! About two leagues beyond the summit of that hill abovethe village.”“Good. When do you cease to work?”“At sunset.”“Will you wake me before departing? I have walked two nightswithout resting. Let me finish my pipe, and I shall sleep like achild. Will you wake me?”“Surely.”The wayfarer smoked his pipe out, put it in his breast, slippedoff his great wooden shoes, and lay down on his back on the heapof stones. He was fast asleep directly.As the road mender plied his dusty labour, and the hail-clouds,rolling away, revealed bright bars and streaks of sky which wereresponded to by silver gleams upon the landscape, the little man(who wore a red cap now, in place of his blue one) seemedfascinated by the figure on the heap of stones. His eyes were sooften turned towards it, that he used his tools mechanically, and,one would have said, to very poor account. The bronze face, theshaggy black hair and beard, the coarse woollen red cap, theCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesrough medley dress of homespun stuff and hairy skins of beasts,the powerful frame attenuated by spare living, and the sullen anddesperate compression of the lips in sleep, inspired the mender ofroads with awe. The traveller had travelled far, and his feet werefootsore, and his ankles chafed and bleeding; his great shoes,stuffed with leaves and grass, had been heavy to drag over themany long leagues, and his clothes were chafed into holes, as hehimself was into sores. Stooping down beside him, the roadmender tried to get a peep at secret weapons in his breast orwhere not; but, in vain, for he slept with his arms crossed uponhim, and set as resolutely as his lips. Fortified towns with theirstockades, guardhouses, gates, trenches, and drawbridges, seemedto the mender of roads, to be so much air as against this figure.And when he lifted his eyes from it to the horizon and lookedaround, he saw in his small fancy similar figures, stopped by noobstacle, tending to centres all over France.The man slept on indifferent to showers of hail and intervals ofbrightness, to sunshine on his face and shadow, to the patteringlumps of dull ice on his body and the diamonds into which the sunchanged them, until the sun was low in the west, and the sky wasglowing. Then, the mender of roads having got his tools togetherand all things ready to go down into the village, roused him.“Good!” said the sleeper, rising on his elbow. “Two leaguesbeyond the summit of the hill?”“About.”“About. Good!”The mender of roads went home, with the dust going on beforehim according to the set of the wind, and was soon at the fountain,squeezing himself in among the lean kine brought there to drink,Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesand appearing even to whisper to them in his whispering to all thevillage. When the village had taken its poor supper, it did notcreep to bed, as it usually did, but came out of doors again, andremained there. A curious contagion of whispering was upon it,and also, when it gathered together at the fountain in the dark,another curious contagion of looking expectantly at the sky in onedirection only. Monsieur Gabelle, chief functionary of the place,became uneasy; went out on his house-top alone, and looked inthat direction too; glanced down from behind his chimneys at thedarkening faces by the fountain below, and sent word to thesacristan who kept the keys of the church, that there might beneed to ring the tocsin by-and-by.The night deepened. The trees environing the old chateau,keeping its solitary state apart, moved in a rising wind, as thoughthey threatened the pile of building massive and dark in thegloom. Up the two terrace flights of steps the rain ran wildly, andbeat at the great door, like a swift messenger rousing those within;uneasy rushes of wind went through the hall, among the oldspears and knives, and passed lamenting up the stairs, and shookthe curtains of the bed where the last Marquis had slept. East,West, North, and South, through the woods, four heavy-treading,unkempt figures crushed the high grass and cracked the branches,striding on cautiously to come together in the courtyard. Fourlights broke out there, and moved away in different directions, andall was black again.But, not for long. Presently, the chateau began to make itselfstrangely visible by some light of its own, as though it weregrowing luminous. Then, a flickering streak played behind thearchitecture of the front, picking out transparent places, andCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesshowing where balustrades, arches, and windows were. Then itsoared higher, and grew broader and brighter. Soon, from a scoreof the great windows, flames burst forth, and the stone facesawakened, stared out of fire.A faint murmur arose about the house from the few people whowere left there, and there was a saddling of a horse and ridingaway. There was spurring and splashing through the darkness,and bridle was drawn in the space by the village fountain, and thehorse in a foam stood at Monsieur Gabelle’s door. “Help, Gabelle!Help, every one!” The tocsin rang impatiently, but other help (ifthat were any) there was none. The mender of roads, and twohundred and fifty particular friends, stood with folded arms at thefountain, looking at the pillar of fire in the sky. “It must be fortyfeet high,” said they, grimly; and never moved.The rider from the chateau, and the horse in a foam, clatteredaway through the village, and galloped up the stony steep, to theprison on the crag. At the gate, a group of officers were looking atthe fire; removed from them, a group of soldiers. “Help, gentlemanofficers! The chateau is on fire; valuable objects may be savedfrom the flames by timely aid! Help, help!” The officers lookedtowards the soldiers who looked at the fire; gave no orders; andanswered with shrugs and biting of lips, “It must burn.”As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the street,the village was illuminating. The mender of roads, and the twohundred and fifty particular friends, inspired as one man andwoman by the idea of lighting up, had darted into their houses,and were putting candles in every dull little pane of glass. Thegeneral scarcity of everything, occasioned candles to be borrowedin a rather peremptory manner of Monsieur Gabelle; and in aCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsA Tale of Two Citiesmoment of reluctance and hesitation on that functionary’s part,the mender of roads, once so submissive to authority, hadremarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with, andthat post-horses would roast.The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn. In the roaringand raging of the conflagration, a red-hot wind, driving straightfrom the infernal regions, seemed to be blowing the edifice away.With the rising and falling of the blaze, the stone faces showed asif they were in torment. When great masses of stone and timberfell, the face with the two dints in the nose became obscured: anonstruggled out of the smoke again, as if it were the face of the cruel