A Tale of Two Cities

I. In Secret

The traveller fared slowly on his way, who fared towards Paris fromEngland in the autumn of the year one thousand seven hundred andninety-two. More than enough of bad roads, bad equipages, and badhorses, he would have encountered to delay him, though the fallen andunfortunate King of France had been upon his throne in all his glory;but, the changed times were fraught with other obstacles thanthese. Every town-gate and village taxing-house had its band ofcitizen-patriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive stateof readiness, who stopped all comers and goers, cross-questioned them,inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own,turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them inhold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawningRepublic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, orDeath.

A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished, when CharlesDarnay began to perceive that for him along these country roads therewas no hope of return until he should have been declared a good citizenat Paris. Whatever might befall now, he must on to his journey's end.Not a mean village closed upon him, not a common barrier dropped acrossthe road behind him, but he knew it to be another iron door inthe series that was barred between him and England. The universalwatchfulness so encompassed him, that if he had been taken in a net,or were being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he could not havefelt his freedom more completely gone.

This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highway twentytimes in a stage, but retarded his progress twenty times in a day, byriding after him and taking him back, riding before him and stopping himby anticipation, riding with him and keeping him in charge. He had beendays upon his journey in France alone, when he went to bed tired out, ina little town on the high road, still a long way from Paris.

Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle's letter from hisprison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. His difficulty at theguard-house in this small place had been such, that he felt his journeyto have come to a crisis. And he was, therefore, as little surprised asa man could be, to find himself awakened at the small inn to which hehad been remitted until morning, in the middle of the night.

Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed patriots in roughred caps and with pipes in their mouths, who sat down on the bed.

”Emigrant,” said the functionary, ”I am going to send you on to Paris,under an escort.”

”Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though I coulddispense with the escort.”

”Silence!” growled a red-cap, striking at the coverlet with the butt-endof his musket. ”Peace, aristocrat!”

”It is as the good patriot says,” observed the timid functionary. ”Youare an aristocrat, and must have an escort--and must pay for it.”

”I have no choice,” said Charles Darnay.

”Choice! Listen to him!” cried the same scowling red-cap. ”As if it wasnot a favour to be protected from the lamp-iron!”

”It is always as the good patriot says,” observed the functionary. ”Riseand dress yourself, emigrant.”

Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guard-house, where otherpatriots in rough red caps were smoking, drinking, and sleeping, bya watch-fire. Here he paid a heavy price for his escort, and hence hestarted with it on the wet, wet roads at three o'clock in the morning.

The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tri-colouredcockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, who rode one on eitherside of him.

The escorted governed his own horse, but a loose line was attached tohis bridle, the end of which one of the patriots kept girded round hiswrist. In this state they set forth with the sharp rain driving in theirfaces: clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneven town pavement,and out upon the mire-deep roads. In this state they traversed withoutchange, except of horses and pace, all the mire-deep leagues that laybetween them and the capital.

They travelled in the night, halting an hour or two after daybreak, andlying by until the twilight fell. The escort were so wretchedly clothed,that they twisted straw round their bare legs, and thatched their raggedshoulders to keep the wet off. Apart from the personal discomfort ofbeing so attended, and apart from such considerations of present dangeras arose from one of the patriots being chronically drunk, and carryinghis musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay did not allow the restraintthat was laid upon him to awaken any serious fears in his breast; for,he reasoned with himself that it could have no reference to the meritsof an individual case that was not yet stated, and of representations,confirmable by the prisoner in the Abbaye, that were not yet made.

But when they came to the town of Beauvais--which they did at eventide,when the streets were filled with people--he could not conceal fromhimself that the aspect of affairs was very alarming. An ominous crowdgathered to see him dismount of the posting-yard, and many voices calledout loudly, ”Down with the emigrant!”

He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle, and,resuming it as his safest place, said:

”Emigrant, my friends! Do you not see me here, in France, of my ownwill?”

”You are a cursed emigrant,” cried a farrier, making at him in afurious manner through the press, hammer in hand; ”and you are a cursedaristocrat!”

The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the rider'sbridle (at which he was evidently making), and soothingly said, ”Let himbe; let him be! He will be judged at Paris.”

”Judged!” repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer. ”Ay! and condemnedas a traitor.” At this the crowd roared approval.

Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse's head to theyard (the drunken patriot sat composedly in his saddle looking on, withthe line round his wrist), Darnay said, as soon as he could make hisvoice heard:

”Friends, you deceive yourselves, or you are deceived. I am not atraitor.”

”He lies!” cried the smith. ”He is a traitor since the decree. His lifeis forfeit to the people. His cursed life is not his own!”

At the instant when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the crowd, whichanother instant would have brought upon him, the postmaster turned hishorse into the yard, the escort rode in close upon his horse's flanks,and the postmaster shut and barred the crazy double gates. The farrierstruck a blow upon them with his hammer, and the crowd groaned; but, nomore was done.

”What is this decree that the smith spoke of?” Darnay asked thepostmaster, when he had thanked him, and stood beside him in the yard.

”Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants.”

”When passed?”

”On the fourteenth.”

”The day I left England!”

”Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will beothers--if there are not already--banishing all emigrants, andcondemning all to death who return. That is what he meant when he saidyour life was not your own.”

”But there are no such decrees yet?”

”What do I know!” said the postmaster, shrugging his shoulders; ”theremay be, or there will be. It is all the same. What would you have?”

They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the night, andthen rode forward again when all the town was asleep. Among the manywild changes observable on familiar things which made this wild rideunreal, not the least was the seeming rarity of sleep. After long andlonely spurring over dreary roads, they would come to a cluster of poorcottages, not steeped in darkness, but all glittering with lights, andwould find the people, in a ghostly manner in the dead of the night,circling hand in hand round a shrivelled tree of Liberty, or all drawnup together singing a Liberty song. Happily, however, there was sleep inBeauvais that night to help them out of it and they passed on once moreinto solitude and loneliness: jingling through the untimely cold andwet, among impoverished fields that had yielded no fruits of the earththat year, diversified by the blackened remains of burnt houses, and bythe sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining up across theirway, of patriot patrols on the watch on all the roads.

Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The barrier wasclosed and strongly guarded when they rode up to it.

”Where are the papers of this prisoner?” demanded a resolute-looking manin authority, who was summoned out by the guard.

Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay requested thespeaker to take notice that he was a free traveller and French citizen,in charge of an escort which the disturbed state of the country hadimposed upon him, and which he had paid for.

”Where,” repeated the same personage, without taking any heed of himwhatever, ”are the papers of this prisoner?”

The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced them. Casting hiseyes over Gabelle's letter, the same personage in authority showed somedisorder and surprise, and looked at Darnay with a close attention.

He left escort and escorted without saying a word, however, and wentinto the guard-room; meanwhile, they sat upon their horses outside thegate. Looking about him while in this state of suspense, CharlesDarnay observed that the gate was held by a mixed guard of soldiers andpatriots, the latter far outnumbering the former; and that while ingressinto the city for peasants' carts bringing in supplies, and for similartraffic and traffickers, was easy enough, egress, even for the homeliestpeople, was very difficult. A numerous medley of men and women, notto mention beasts and vehicles of various sorts, was waiting to issueforth; but, the previous identification was so strict, that theyfiltered through the barrier very slowly. Some of these people knewtheir turn for examination to be so far off, that they lay down on theground to sleep or smoke, while others talked together, or loiteredabout. The red cap and tri-colour cockade were universal, both among menand women.

When he had sat in his saddle some half-hour, taking note of thesethings, Darnay found himself confronted by the same man in authority,who directed the guard to open the barrier. Then he delivered to theescort, drunk and sober, a receipt for the escorted, and requested himto dismount. He did so, and the two patriots, leading his tired horse,turned and rode away without entering the city.

He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling of common wineand tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots, asleep and awake,drunk and sober, and in various neutral states between sleeping andwaking, drunkenness and sobriety, were standing and lying about. Thelight in the guard-house, half derived from the waning oil-lamps ofthe night, and half from the overcast day, was in a correspondinglyuncertain condition. Some registers were lying open on a desk, and anofficer of a coarse, dark aspect, presided over these.

”Citizen Defarge,” said he to Darnay's conductor, as he took a slip ofpaper to write on. ”Is this the emigrant Evremonde?”

”This is the man.”

”Your age, Evremonde?”

”Thirty-seven.”

”Married, Evremonde?”

”Yes.”

”Where married?”

”In England.”

”Without doubt. Where is your wife, Evremonde?”

”In England.”

”Without doubt. You are consigned, Evremonde, to the prison of LaForce.”

”Just Heaven!” exclaimed Darnay. ”Under what law, and for what offence?”

The officer looked up from his slip of paper for a moment.

”We have new laws, Evremonde, and new offences, since you were here.” Hesaid it with a hard smile, and went on writing.

”I entreat you to observe that I have come here voluntarily, in responseto that written appeal of a fellow-countryman which lies before you. Idemand no more than the opportunity to do so without delay. Is not thatmy right?”

”Emigrants have no rights, Evremonde,” was the stolid reply. The officerwrote until he had finished, read over to himself what he had written,sanded it, and handed it to Defarge, with the words ”In secret.”

Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner that he must accompanyhim. The prisoner obeyed, and a guard of two armed patriots attendedthem.

”Is it you,” said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down theguardhouse steps and turned into Paris, ”who married the daughter ofDoctor Manette, once a prisoner in the Bastille that is no more?”

”Yes,” replied Darnay, looking at him with surprise.

”My name is Defarge, and I keep a wine-shop in the Quarter SaintAntoine. Possibly you have heard of me.”

”My wife came to your house to reclaim her father? Yes!”

The word ”wife” seemed to serve as a gloomy reminder to Defarge, to saywith sudden impatience, ”In the name of that sharp female newly-born,and called La Guillotine, why did you come to France?”

”You heard me say why, a minute ago. Do you not believe it is thetruth?”

”A bad truth for you,” said Defarge, speaking with knitted brows, andlooking straight before him.

”Indeed I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so changed, sosudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost. Will you render me alittle help?”

”None.” Defarge spoke, always looking straight before him.

”Will you answer me a single question?”

”Perhaps. According to its nature. You can say what it is.”

”In this prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have some freecommunication with the world outside?”

”You will see.”

”I am not to be buried there, prejudged, and without any means ofpresenting my case?”

”You will see. But, what then? Other people have been similarly buriedin worse prisons, before now.”

”But never by me, Citizen Defarge.”

Defarge glanced darkly at him for answer, and walked on in a steadyand set silence. The deeper he sank into this silence, the fainter hopethere was--or so Darnay thought--of his softening in any slight degree.He, therefore, made haste to say:

”It is of the utmost importance to me (you know, Citizen, even betterthan I, of how much importance), that I should be able to communicate toMr. Lorry of Tellson's Bank, an English gentleman who is now in Paris,the simple fact, without comment, that I have been thrown into theprison of La Force. Will you cause that to be done for me?”

”I will do,” Defarge doggedly rejoined, ”nothing for you. My duty is tomy country and the People. I am the sworn servant of both, against you.I will do nothing for you.”

Charles Darnay felt it hopeless to entreat him further, and his pridewas touched besides. As they walked on in silence, he could not but seehow used the people were to the spectacle of prisoners passing along thestreets. The very children scarcely noticed him. A few passers turnedtheir heads, and a few shook their fingers at him as an aristocrat;otherwise, that a man in good clothes should be going to prison, was nomore remarkable than that a labourer in working clothes should begoing to work. In one narrow, dark, and dirty street through which theypassed, an excited orator, mounted on a stool, was addressing an excitedaudience on the crimes against the people, of the king and the royalfamily. The few words that he caught from this man's lips, first madeit known to Charles Darnay that the king was in prison, and that theforeign ambassadors had one and all left Paris. On the road (except atBeauvais) he had heard absolutely nothing. The escort and the universalwatchfulness had completely isolated him.

That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those which haddeveloped themselves when he left England, he of course knew now. Thatperils had thickened about him fast, and might thicken faster and fasteryet, he of course knew now. He could not but admit to himself that hemight not have made this journey, if he could have foreseen the eventsof a few days. And yet his misgivings were not so dark as, imagined bythe light of this later time, they would appear. Troubled as the futurewas, it was the unknown future, and in its obscurity there was ignoranthope. The horrible massacre, days and nights long, which, within a fewrounds of the clock, was to set a great mark of blood upon the blessedgarnering time of harvest, was as far out of his knowledge as if it hadbeen a hundred thousand years away. The ”sharp female newly-born, andcalled La Guillotine,” was hardly known to him, or to the generalityof people, by name. The frightful deeds that were to be soon done, wereprobably unimagined at that time in the brains of the doers. How couldthey have a place in the shadowy conceptions of a gentle mind?

Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel separationfrom his wife and child, he foreshadowed the likelihood, or thecertainty; but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing distinctly. With this onhis mind, which was enough to carry into a dreary prison courtyard, hearrived at the prison of La Force.

A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to whom Defargepresented ”The Emigrant Evremonde.”

”What the Devil! How many more of them!” exclaimed the man with thebloated face.

Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation, and withdrew,with his two fellow-patriots.

”What the Devil, I say again!” exclaimed the gaoler, left with his wife.”How many more!”

The gaoler's wife, being provided with no answer to the question, merelyreplied, ”One must have patience, my dear!” Three turnkeys who enteredresponsive to a bell she rang, echoed the sentiment, and one added, ”Forthe love of Liberty;” which sounded in that place like an inappropriateconclusion.

The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and filthy, and with ahorrible smell of foul sleep in it. Extraordinary how soon the noisomeflavour of imprisoned sleep, becomes manifest in all such places thatare ill cared for!

”In secret, too,” grumbled the gaoler, looking at the written paper. ”Asif I was not already full to bursting!”

He stuck the paper on a file, in an ill-humour, and Charles Darnayawaited his further pleasure for half an hour: sometimes, pacing to andfro in the strong arched room: sometimes, resting on a stone seat: ineither case detained to be imprinted on the memory of the chief and hissubordinates.

”Come!” said the chief, at length taking up his keys, ”come with me,emigrant.”

Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge accompanied him bycorridor and staircase, many doors clanging and locking behind them,until they came into a large, low, vaulted chamber, crowded withprisoners of both sexes. The women were seated at a long table, readingand writing, knitting, sewing, and embroidering; the men were for themost part standing behind their chairs, or lingering up and down theroom.

In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful crime anddisgrace, the new-comer recoiled from this company. But the crowningunreality of his long unreal ride, was, their all at once rising toreceive him, with every refinement of manner known to the time, and withall the engaging graces and courtesies of life.

So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison manners andgloom, so spectral did they become in the inappropriate squalor andmisery through which they were seen, that Charles Darnay seemed to standin a company of the dead. Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, the ghostof stateliness, the ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride, the ghost offrivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, allwaiting their dismissal from the desolate shore, all turning on him eyesthat were changed by the death they had died in coming there.

It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side, and the othergaolers moving about, who would have been well enough as to appearancein the ordinary exercise of their functions, looked so extravagantlycoarse contrasted with sorrowing mothers and blooming daughters who werethere--with the apparitions of the coquette, the young beauty, and themature woman delicately bred--that the inversion of all experience andlikelihood which the scene of shadows presented, was heightened to itsutmost. Surely, ghosts all. Surely, the long unreal ride some progressof disease that had brought him to these gloomy shades!

”In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune,” said agentleman of courtly appearance and address, coming forward, ”I have thehonour of giving you welcome to La Force, and of condoling with youon the calamity that has brought you among us. May it soon terminatehappily! It would be an impertinence elsewhere, but it is not so here,to ask your name and condition?”

Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required information, inwords as suitable as he could find.

”But I hope,” said the gentleman, following the chief gaoler with hiseyes, who moved across the room, ”that you are not in secret?”

”I do not understand the meaning of the term, but I have heard them sayso.”

”Ah, what a pity! We so much regret it! But take courage; severalmembers of our society have been in secret, at first, and it has lastedbut a short time.” Then he added, raising his voice, ”I grieve to informthe society--in secret.”

There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay crossed the roomto a grated door where the gaoler awaited him, and many voices--amongwhich, the soft and compassionate voices of women were conspicuous--gavehim good wishes and encouragement. He turned at the grated door, torender the thanks of his heart; it closed under the gaoler's hand; andthe apparitions vanished from his sight forever.

The wicket opened on a stone staircase, leading upward. When they hadascended forty steps (the prisoner of half an hour already countedthem), the gaoler opened a low black door, and they passed into asolitary cell. It struck cold and damp, but was not dark.

”Yours,” said the gaoler.

”Why am I confined alone?”

”How do I know!”

”I can buy pen, ink, and paper?”

”Such are not my orders. You will be visited, and can ask then. Atpresent, you may buy your food, and nothing more.”

There were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mattress. Asthe gaoler made a general inspection of these objects, and of the fourwalls, before going out, a wandering fancy wandered through the mind ofthe prisoner leaning against the wall opposite to him, that this gaolerwas so unwholesomely bloated, both in face and person, as to look likea man who had been drowned and filled with water. When the gaoler wasgone, he thought in the same wandering way, ”Now am I left, as if I weredead.” Stopping then, to look down at the mattress, he turned from itwith a sick feeling, and thought, ”And here in these crawling creaturesis the first condition of the body after death.”

”Five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half, fivepaces by four and a half.” The prisoner walked to and fro in his cell,counting its measurement, and the roar of the city arose like muffleddrums with a wild swell of voices added to them. ”He made shoes, he madeshoes, he made shoes.” The prisoner counted the measurement again, andpaced faster, to draw his mind with him from that latter repetition.”The ghosts that vanished when the wicket closed. There was one amongthem, the appearance of a lady dressed in black, who was leaning in theembrasure of a window, and she had a light shining upon her goldenhair, and she looked like * * * * Let us ride on again, for God's sake,through the illuminated villages with the people all awake! * * * * Hemade shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes. * * * * Five paces by four anda half.” With such scraps tossing and rolling upward from the depths ofhis mind, the prisoner walked faster and faster, obstinately countingand counting; and the roar of the city changed to this extent--that itstill rolled in like muffled drums, but with the wail of voices that heknew, in the swell that rose above them.