ure had the stone faces now for listening to the trees and to the fountain, that the few village scarecrows who, in their quest for herbs to eat and fragments of dead stick to burn, strayed within sight of the great stone court-yard and terrace staircase, had it borne in upon their starved fancy that the expression of the faces was altered. A rumor just lived in the village -had a faint existence there, as its people had -that when the knife struck home the faces changed from faces of pride to faces of anger and pain; also, that when that dangling figure was hauled up forty feet above the fountain they changed again, and bore a cruel look of being avenged, which they would henceforth bear forever. In the stone face over the great window of the bedchamber, where the murder was done, two fine dints were pointed out in the sculptured nose, which every body recognized, and which nobody had seen of old; and on the scarce occasions when two or three ragged peasants emerged from the crowd to take a hurried peep at Monsieur the Marquis petrified, a skinny finger would not have pointed to it for a minute before they all started away among the moss and leaves, like the more fortunate hares, who could find a living there. to get it accurately that he then spelled it with perfect correctness. "Barsad," repeated madame. "Good, Christian name?" "John." "John Barsad," repeated madame, after murmuring it once to herself. "Good. His appearance; is it known ?" "Age, about forty years; height, about five feet nine; black hair; complexion dark; generally, rather handsome visage; eyes dark; face thin, long, and sallow; nose aquiline, but not straight, having a peculiar inclination toward the left cheek; expression, therefore, sinister." "Eh my faith. It is a portrait!" said madame, laughing. “He shall be registered tomorrow." They turned into the wine-shop, which was closed (for it was midnight), and where Madame Defarge immediately took her post at her desk, counted the small moneys that had been taken during her absence, examined the stock, went through the entries in the book, made other entries of her own, checked the serving-man in every possible way, and finally dismissed him to bed. Then she turned out the Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling contents of the bowl of money for the second figure, the red stain on the stone floor and the time, and began knotting them up in her handpure water in the village well-thousands of kerchief, in a chain of separate knots, for safe acres of land-a whole province of France-all keeping through the night. All this while DeFrance itself-lay under the night sky, concen- farge, with his pipe in his mouth, walked up and trated into a faint hair-breadth line. So does a down, complacently admiring, but never interwhole world, with all its greatnesses and little-fering; in which condition, indeed, as to the nesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyze the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it. The Defarges, husband and wife, came lumbering under the starlight in their public vehicle, to that gate of Paris whereunto their journey naturally tended. There was the usual stoppage at the barrier guard-house, and the usual lanterns came glancing forth for the usual examination and inquiry. Monsieur Defarge alighted: knowing one or two of the soldiery there, and one of the police. The latter he was intimate with, and affectionately embraced. When Saint Antoine had again enfolded the Defarges in his dusky wings, and they, having finally alighted near the Saint's boundaries, were picking their way on foot through the black mud and offal of his streets, Madame Defarge spoke to her husband: 'Barsad," said Defarge, making it French business and his domestic affairs, he walked up and down through life. The night was hot, and the shop, close shut and surrounded by so foul a neighborhood, was ill-smelling. Monsieur Defarge's olfactory sense was by no means delicate, but the stock of wine smelled much stronger than it ever tasted, and so did the stock of rum and brandy and anise seed. He whiffed the compound of scents away as he put down his smoked-out pipe. "You are fatigued,” said madame, raising her glance as she knotted the money. "There are only the usual odors." "I am a little tired," her husband acknowledged. "You are a little depressed, too," said madame, whose quick eyes had never been so intent on the accounts but they had had a ray or two for him. "Oh, the men, the men!" "But my dear" began Defarge. "But my dear," repeated madame, nodding firmly; "but my dear! You are faint of heart to-night, my dear." "Well, then," said Defarge, as if a thought were wrung out of his breast, "it is a long time." "It is a long time," repeated his wife; "and when is it not a long time? Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule." "It does not take a long time to strike a man with lightning," said Defarge. "How long," demanded madame, composedly, "does it take to make and store the lightning? Tell me?" Defarge raised his forehead thoughtfully, as if there were something in that, too. "It does not take a long time," said madame, by pronunciation. But he had been so careful" for an earthquake to swallow up a town. Eh well! Tell me how long it takes to prepare the earthquake?" "A long time, I suppose," said Defarge. "But when it is ready it takes place, and grinds to pieces every thing before it. In the mean time it is always preparing, though it is not seen or heard. That is your consolation. Keep it !" She tied a knot with flashing eyes, as if it throttled a foe. "I tell thee," said madame, extending her right hand for emphasis, "that although it is a long time on the road, it is on the road and coming. I tell thee it never retreats, and never stops. I tell thee it is always advancing. Look around and consider the lives of all the world that we know; consider the faces of all the world that we know; consider the rage and discontent to which the Jacquerie addresses itself with more and more of certainty every hour. Can such things last? Bah! I mock you.' "My brave wife," returned Defarge, standing before her with his head a little bent, and his hands clasped at his back, like a docile and attentive pupil before his catechist, "I do not question all this. But it has lasted a long time, and it is possible-you know well, my wife, it is possible that it may not come during our lives." "Eh well! How then ?" demanded madame, tying another knot, as if there were another enemy strangled. "Well!" said Defarge, with a half-complaining and half-apologetic shrug. "We shall not see the triumph." "We shall have helped it," returned madame, with her extended hand in strong action. "Nothing that we do is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see the triumph. But even if not, even if I knew certainly not, show me the neck of an aristocrat and tyrant, and still I would-" There madame, with her teeth set, tied a very terrible knot indeed. "Hold!" cried Defarge, reddening a little, as if he felt charged with cowardice; "I, too, my dear, will stop at nothing." Their decease made no impression on the other flies out promenading, who looked at them in the coldest manner (as if they themselves were elephants, or something as far removed), until they met the same fate. Curious to considerperhaps they thought as much at Court that sunny summer day-how heedless flies are! A figure entering at the door threw a shadow on Madame Defarge which she felt to be a new one. She laid down her knitting, and began to pin her rose in her head-dress before she looked at the figure. It was curious. The moment Madame -Defarge took up the rose the customers ceased talking, and began gradually to drop out of the wine-shop. 66 Good-day, madame," said the new-comer. She said it aloud, but added to herself, as she resumed her knitting: "Hah! Good-day; age, about forty; height, about five feet nine; black hair; generally rather handsome visage; complexion dark; eyes, dark; thin, long, and sallow face; aquiline nose, but not straight, having a peculiar inclination toward the left cheek, which imparts a sinister expression! Good-day, one and all!" "Have the goodness to give me a little glass of old cognac, and a mouthful of cool fresh water, madame." Madame complied with a polite air. "Marvelous cognac this, madame!" It was the first time it had ever been so complimented, and Madame Defarge knew enough of its antecedents to know better. She said, however, that the cognac was flattered, and took up her knitting. The visitor watched her fingers for a few moments, and took the opportunity of observing the place in general. "You knit with great skill, madame." "I am accustomed to it." "A pretty pattern too!" "You think so?" said madame, looking at him with a smile. "Decidedly. May one ask what it is for ?" "Pastime," said madame, still looking at him with a smile, while her fingers moved nimbly. "Not for use?" "That depends. I may find use for it one day. If I do-well," said madame, drawing a breath and nodding her head with a stern kind of coquetry, "I'll use it!" "Yes! But it is your weakness that you sometimes need to see your victim and your opportunity to sustain you. Sustain yourself without that. When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for the time with the tiger and the devil chained up-not shown-toine seemed to be decidedly opposed to a rose yet always ready." Madame enforced the conclusion of this piece of advice by striking her little counter with her chain of money as if she knocked its brains out, and then gathering the heavy handkerchief under her arm in a serene manner, and observing that it was time to go to bed. Next noontide saw the admirable woman in her usual place in the wine-shop, knitting away assiduously. A rose lay beside her, and if she now and then glanced at the flower, it was with no infraction of her usual preoccupied air. There were a few customers, drinking or not drinking, standing or seated, sprinkled about. The day was very hot, and heaps of flies, who were extending their inquisitive and adventurous perquisitions into all the glutinous little glasses near madame, fell dead at the bottom. It was remarkable; but the taste of Saint An on the head-dress of Madame Defarge. Two men had entered separately, and had been about to order drink, when, catching sight of that novelty, they faltered, made a pretense of looking about as if for some friend who was not there, and went away. Nor of those who had been there when this visitor entered was there one left. They had all dropped off. The spy had kept his eyes open, but had been able to detect no sign. They had lounged away in a povertystricken, purposeless, accidental manner, quite natural and unimpeachable. "JOHN," thought madame, checking off her work as her fingers knitted, and her eyes looked at the stranger. "Stay long enough and I shall knit BARSAD' before you go." "You have a husband, madame ?” "I have." "As you say," madame retorted, correcting him, and deftly knitting an extra something into his name that boded him no good. "Pardon me; certainly it was I who said so, but you naturally think so. Of course. "I think?" returned madame, in a high voice. "I and my husband have enough to do to keep this wine-shop open without thinking. All we think here is, how to live. That is the subject we think of, and it gives us, from morning to night, enough to think about without embarrassing our heads concerning others. I think for others? No, no. The spy, who was there to pick up any crumbs he could find or make, did not allow his baffled state to express itself in his sinister face, but stood with an air of gossiping gallantry, leaning his elbow on Madame Defarge's little counter, and occasionally sipping his cognac. "A bad business this, madame, of Gaspard's execution. Ah! the poor Gaspard!" with a sigh of great compassion. 66 My faith!" returned madame, coolly and lightly, "if people use knives for such purposes they have to pay for it. He knew beforehand what the price of his luxury was; he has paid the price. "I believe," said the spy, dropping his soft voice to a tone that invited confidence, and expressing an injured revolutionary susceptibility in every muscle of his wicked face: "I believe there is much compassion and anger in this neighborhood touching the poor fellow? Between ourselves." "Is there ?" asked madame, vacantly. "Is there not?" "Here is my husband!" said Madame Defarge. As the keeper of the wine-shop entered at the door the spy saluted him by touching his hat, and saying, with an engaging smile, "Good-day, Jacques!" Defarge stopped short, and stared at him. "Good-day, Jacques!" the spy repeated, with not quite so much confidence, or quite so easy a smile under the stare. "You deceive yourself, monsieur," returned the keeper of the wine-shop. "You mistake me for another. That is not my name. I am Ernest Defarge." "It is all the same," said the spy, airily, but discomfited too; good-day!" 66 "Good-day," answered Defarge, sulkily. "I was saying to madame, with whom I had the pleasure of chatting when you entered, that they tell me there is-and no wonder!-much sympathy and anger in Saint Antoine touching the unhappy fate of poor Gaspard." "No one has told me so," said Defarge, shaking his head; "I know nothing of it." Having said it, he passed behind the little counter, and stood with his hand on the back of his wife's chair, looking over that barrier at the person to whom they were both opposed, and whom either of them would have shot with the greatest satisfaction. The spy, well used to his business, did not change his unconscious attitude, but drained his little glass of cognac, took a sip of fresh water, and asked for another glass of cognac. Madame Defarge poured it out for him, took to her knitting again, and hummed a little song over it. "You seem to know this quarter well; that is to say, better than I do?" observed Defarge. "Not at all, but I hope to know it better. I am so profoundly interested in its miserable inhabitants." "Hah!" muttered Defarge. "The pleasure of conversing with you, Monsieur Defarge, recalls to me," pursued the spy, "that I have the honor of cherishing some interesting associations with your name." "Indeed?" said Defarge, with much indifference. "Yes indeed. When Doctor Manette was released, you, his old domestic, had the charge of him, I know. He was delivered to you. see I am informed of the circumstances ?" You "Such is the fact, certainly," said Defarge. He had had it conveyed to him, in an accidental touch of his wife's elbow as she knitted and warbled, that he would do best to answer, but always with brevity. "It was to you," said the spy, "that his daughter came; and it was from your care that his daughter took him, accompanied by a neat brown monsieur; how is he called?-in a little wig-Lorry-of the bank of Tellson and Com-over to England." pany "Such is the fact," repeated Defarge. "Very interesting remembrances!" said the spy. "I have known Doctor Manette and his daughter in England." "Yes?" said Defarge. "You don't hear much about them now," said the spy. "No," said Defarge. "In effect," madame struck in, looking up from her work and her little song, we never hear about them. We received the news of their safe arrival, and perhaps another letter, or perhaps two; but since then they have gradually taken their road in life—we, ours-and we have held no correspondence." "Perfectly so, madame," replied the spy. "She is going to be married." "Going?" echoed madame. "She was pretty enough to have been married long ago. You English are cold, it seems to me." "Oh! You know I am English." "I perceive your tongue is," returned madame;" and what the tongue is, I suppose the man is." He did not take the identification as a compliment; but he made the best of it, and turned it off with a laugh. After sipping his cognac to the end, he added: "Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married. But not to an Englishman; to one who, like herself, is French by birth. And speaking of Gaspard (ah, poor Gaspard! It was cruel, cruel!), it is a curious thing that she is going to marry the nephew of Monsieur the Marquis, for whom Gaspard was exalted to that height of so many feet; in other words, the present Marquis. But he lives unknown in England, he is no Marquis there; he is Mr. Charles Darnay. D'Aulnais is the name of his mother's family." 66 "If it is?" repeated his wife. 661 AND STOOD WITH HIS HAND ON THE BACK OF HIS WIFE'S CHAIR. Madame Defarge knitted steadily, but the intelligence had a palpable effect upon her husband. Do what he would behind the little counter, as to the striking of a light and the lighting of his pipe, he was troubled, and his hand was not trust-worthy. The spy would have been no spy if he had failed to see it, or to record it in his mind. -And if it does come, while we live to see it triumph-I hope, for her sake, Destiny will keep her husband out of France.' Having made, at least, this one hit, whatever it might prove to be worth, and no customers coming in to help him to any other, Mr. Barsad paid for what he had drunk, and took his leave; taking occasion to say, in a genteel manner, before he departed, that he looked forward to the pleasure of seeing Monsieur and Madame Defarge again. For some minutes after he had emerged into the outer presence of Saint Antoine, the husband and wife remained exactly as he had left them, lest he should come back. "Can it be true," said Defarge, in a low voice, looking down at his wife as he stood smoking with his hand on the back of her chair, "what he has said of Ma'amselle Manette ?" "As he has said it," returned madame, lifting her eyebrows a little, "it is probably false. But it may be true." "If it is-"Defarge began; and stopped. "Her husband's destiny," said Madame Defarge, with her usual composure, "will take him where he is to go, and will lead him to the end that is to end him. That is all I know." "But it is very strange-now, at least is it not very strange"-said Defarge, rather pleading with his wife to induce her to admit it, "that, after all our sympathy for Monsieur her father and herself, her husband's name should be proscribed under your hand at this moment by the side of that infernal dog's who has just left us?" "Stranger things than that will happen when it does come," answered madame. "I have them both here, of a certainty; and they are both here for their merits; that is enough." She rolled up her knitting when she had said those words, and presently took the rose out of the handkerchief that was wound about her head. Either Saint Antoine had an instinctive sense that the objectionable decoration was gone, or St. Antoine was on the watch for its disappearance; howbeit, the Saint took courage to lounge in very shortly afterward, and the wine-shop recovered its habitual aspect. In the evening, at which season of all others Saint Antoine turned himself inside out, and sat on door-steps and window-ledges, and came to the corners of vile streets and courts for a breath of air, Madame Defarge, with her work in her hand, was accustomed to pass from place to place, and from group to group: a Missionary-there were many like her-such as the world will do well never to breed again. All the women knitted. They knitted worthless things; but the mechanical work was a mechanical substitute for eating and drinking; the hands moved for the jaws and the digestive apparatus; if the bony fingers had been still, the stomachs would have been more famine-pinched. But as the fingers went the eyes went, and the thoughts. And as Madame Defarge moved on from group to group, all three went quicker and fiercer among every little knot of women that she had spoken with and left behind. Her husband smoked at his door, looking after her with admiration. "A great woman," said he; "a strong woman, a grand woman, a frightfully grand woman!" Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of church bells and the distant beating of the drums of the Royal Guard, as the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness encompassed them. Another darkness was closing in as surely, when the church bells, then ringing pleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should be melted into thundering cannon; when the drums should be beating to drown a wretched voice, then all-potent as the voice of Power and Plenty, Freedom and Life. So much was closing in about the women who sat knitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing in around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads. CHAPTER XVII ONE NIGHT. NEVER did the sun go down with a brighter glory on the quiet corner in Soho than one memorable evening when the Doctor and his daughter sat under the plane - tree together. Never did the moon rise with a milder radiance over great London than on that night when it found them still seated under the tree, and shone upon their faces through its leaves. Lucie was to be married to-morrow. She had reserved this last evening for her father, and they sat alone under the plane-tree. "You are happy, my dear father ?" "Quite, my child." They had said little, though they had been there a long time. When it was yet light enough to work and read she had neither engaged herself in her usual work, nor had she read to him. She had employed herself in both ways at his side under the tree many and many a time; but this time was not quite like any other, and nothing could make it so. "And I am very happy to-night, dear father. I am deeply happy in the love that Heaven has so blessed-my love for Charles, and Charles's love for me. Still, if my life were not to be consecrated to you, or if my marriage were so arranged as that it would part us, even by the length of a few of these streets, I should be more unhappy and self-reproachful now than I can tell you. Even as it is-" Even as it was, she could not command her voice. In the sad moonlight she clasped him by the neck, and laid her face upon his breast. In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of the sun itself is-as the light called human life is-at its coming and its going. "Dearest dear! Can you tell me, this last time, that you feel quite, quite sure no new affections of mine, and no new duties of mine, will ever interpose between us? I know it well, but do you know it? In your own heart, do you feel quite certain ?" 66 Her father answered, with a cheerful firmness of conviction he could scarcely have assumed, Quite sure, my darling! More than that," he added, as he tenderly kissed her, 66 my future is far brighter, Lucie, seen through your marriage than it could have been-nay, than it ever was without it." Con "If I could hope that, my father-" "Believe it, love! Indeed, it is so. sider how natural and how plain it is, my dear, that it should be so. You, devoted and young, can not fully appreciate the anxiety I have felt that your life should not be wasted-" She moved her hand toward his lips, but he took it in his, and repeated the word. -"wasted, my child-should not be wasted, struck aside from the natural order of things, for my sake. Your unselfishness can not entirely comprehend how much my mind has gone on this; but only ask yourself, how could my happiness be perfect while yours was incomplete?" |