The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0067/00673.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 25KB | 481 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00673}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{(A) Tale Of Two Cities
Chapter XV}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{defarge
jacques
madame
mender
roads
himself
looked
village
hand
like}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       (A) Tale Of Two Cities
Book:        Book The Second: The Golden Thread
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter XV

Knitting

     There had been earlier drinking than usual in the wine-shop of Monsieur
Defarge.  As early as six o'clock in the morning, sallow faces peeping
through its barred windows had descried other faces within, bending over
measures of wine.  Monsieur Defarge sold a very thin wine at the best of
times, but it would seem to have been an unusually thin wine that he sold at
this time.  A sour wine, moreover, or a souring, for its influence on the
mood of those who drank it was to make them gloomy.  No vivacious
Bacchanalian flame leaped out of the pressed grape of Monsieur 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, in which there had been
early drinking at the wine-shop of Monsieur Defarge.  It had begun on Monday,
and here was Wednesday come.  There had been more of early brooding than
drinking; for, many men had listened and whispered and slunk about there from
the time of the opening of the door, who could not have laid a piece of money
on the counter to save their souls.  These were to the full as interested in
the place, however, as if they could have commanded whole barrels of wine;
and they glided from seat to seat, and from corner to corner, swallowing talk
in lieu of drink, with greedy looks.

     Notwithstanding an unusual flow of company, the master of the wine-shop
was not visible.  He was not missed; for, nobody who crossed 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
battered small coins before her, as much defaced and beaten out of their
original impress as the small coinage of humanity from whose ragged pockets
they had come.

     A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind, were perhaps
observed by the spies who looked in at the wine-shop, as they looked in at
every place, high and low, from the king's palace to the criminal's gaol.
Games at cards languished, players at dominoes musingly built towers with
them, drinkers drew figures on the tables with spilt drops of wine, Madame
Defarge herself picked out the pattern on her sleeve with her toothpick, and
saw and heard something inaudible and invisible 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 his streets and under his
swinging lamps: of whom, one was Monsieur Defarge: the other a mender of
roads in a blue cap.  All adust and athirst, the two entered the wine-shop.
Their arrival had lighted a kind of fire in the breast of Saint Antoine, fast
spreading as they came along, which stirred flickered in flames of faces at
most doors and windows.  Yet, no one had followed them, and no man spoke when
they entered the wine-shop, though the eyes of every man there were turned
upon them.

     "Good-day, gentlemen!" said Monsieur Defarge.

     It may have been a signal for loosening the general tongue.  It elicited
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 all cast down
their eyes and sat silent.  Except one man, who got up and went out.

     "My wife," said Defarge aloud, addressing Madame Defarge: "I have
travelled certain leagues with this good mender of roads, called Jacques.  I
met him - by accident - a day and half's journey out of Paris.  He is a good
child, this mender of roads, called Jacques.  Give him to drink, my wife!"

     A second man got up and went out.  Madame Defarge set wine before the
mender of roads called Jacques, who doffed his blue cap to the company, and
drank.  In the breast of his blouse he carried some coarse dark bread; he ate
of this between whiles, and sat munching and drinking near Madame Defarge's
counter.  A third man got up and went out.

     Defarge refreshed himself with a draught of wine - but, he took less
than was given to the stranger, as being himself a man to whom it was no
rarity - and stood waiting until the countryman had made his breakfast.  He
looked at no one present, and no one now looked at him; not even Madame
Defarge, who had taken up her knitting, and was at work.

     "Have you finished your repast, friend?" he asked, in due season.

     "Yes, thank you."

     "Come, then!  You shall see the apartment that I told you you could
occupy.  It will suit you to a marvel."

     Out of the wine-shop into the street, out of the street into a
court-yard, out of the court-yard up a steep staircase, out of the staicase
into a garret, - formerly the garret where a white-haired man sat on a low
bench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes.

     No white-haired man was there now; but, the three men were there who had
gone out of the wine-shop singly.  And between them 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 subdued voice:

     "Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques Three!  This is the witness
encountered by appointment, by me, Jacques Four.  He will tell you all.
Speak, Jacques Five!"

     The mender of roads, blue cap in hand, wiped his swarthy forehead with
it, and said, "Where shall I commence, monsieur?"

     "Commence," was Monsieurs Defarge's not unreasonable reply, "at the
commencement."

     "I saw him then, messiers," began the mender of roads, "a year ago this
running summer, underneath the carriage of the Marquis, hanging by the chain.
Behold the manner of it.  I leaving my work on the road, the sun going to
bed, the carriage of the Marquis slowly ascending the hill, he hanging by the
chain - like this."

     Again the mender of roads went through the whole performance; in which
he ought to have been perfect by that time, seeing that it had been the
infallible resource and indispensable entertainment of his village during a
whole year.

     Jacques One struck in, and asked if he had ever seen the man before?

     "Never," answered the mender of roads, recovering his perpendicular.

     Jacques Three demanded how he afterwards recognised him then?

     "By his tall figure," said the mender of roads, softly, and with his
finger at his nose.  "When Monsieur the Marquis demands that evening, 'Say,
what is he like?'  I make response, "Tall as a spectre.'"

     "You should have said, short as a dwarf," returned Jacques Two.

     "But what did I know?  The deed was not then accomplished, neither did
he confide in me.  Observe!  Under those circumstances even, I do not offer
my testimony.  Monsieur the Marquis indicates me with his finger, standing
near our little fountain, and says, 'To me!  Bring that rascal!'  My faith,
messieurs, I offer nothing."

     "He is right there, Jacques," murmured Defarge, to him who had
interrupted.  "Go on!"

     "Good!" said the mender of roads, with an air of mystery.  "The tall man
is lost, and he is sought - how many months?  Nine, ten, eleven?"

     "No matter, the number," said Defarge.  "He is well hidden, but at last
he is unluckily found.  Go on!"

     "I am again at work upon the hill-side, and the sun is again about to go
to bed.  I am collecting my tools to descend to my cottage down in the
village below, where it is already dark, when I raise my eyes, and see coming
over the hill six soldiers.  In the midst of them is a tall man with his arms
bound - tied to his sides - like this!"

     With the aid of his indispensable cap, he represented a man with his
elbows b