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$Unique_ID{bob00674}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{(A) Tale Of Two Cities
Chapter XVI}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{madame
defarge
little
long
spy
knitting
time
monsieur
day
husband}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title: (A) Tale Of Two Cities
Book: Book The Second: The Golden Thread
Author: Dickens, Charles
Chapter XVI
Still Knitting
Madame Defarge and monsieur her husband returned amicably to the bosom
of Saint Antoine, while a speck in a blue cap toiled through the darkness,
and through the dust, and down the weary miles of avenue by the wayside,
slowly tending towards that point of the compass where the chateau of
Monsieur the Marquis, now in his grave, listened to the whispering trees.
Such ample leisure 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 rumour just
lived in the village - had a faint and bare 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 for ever. In the stone
face over the great window of the bed-chamber where the murder was done, two
fine dints were pointed out in the sculptured nose, which everybody
recognised, 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.
Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the
stone floor, and the pure water in the village well - thousands of acres of
land - a whole province of France - all France itself - lay under the night
sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line. So does a whole world,
with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as
mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse 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:
"Say then, my friend; what did Jacques of the police tell thee?"
"Very little to-night, but all he knows. There is another spy
commissioned for our quarter. There may be many more, for all that he can
say, but he knows of one."
"Eh well!" said Madame Defarge, raising her eyebrows with a cool
business air. "It is necessary to register him. How do they call that man?"
"He is English."
"So much the better. His name?"
"Barsad," said Defarge, making it French by pronunciation. But, he had
been so careful to get it accurately, that he then spelt 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 towards 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 contents of the bowl of money for the second time, and
began knotting them up in her handkerchief, in a chain of separate knots, for
safe keeping through the night. All this while, Defarge, with his pipe in
his mouth, walked up and down, complacently admiring, but never interfering;
in which condition, indeed, as to the 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
neighbourhood, was ill-smelling. Monsieur Defarge's olfactory sense was by
no means delicate, but the stock of wine smelt much stronger than it ever
tasted, and so did the stock of rum and brandy and aniseed. 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 odours."
"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 head thoughtfully, as if there were something in that
too.
"It does not take a long time," said madame, "for an earthquake to
swallow 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 everything
before it. In the meantime, 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 ou