The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0068/00686.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 13KB | 207 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00686}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{(A) Tale Of Two Cities
Chapter IV}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Dickens, Charles}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{doctor
time
himself
now
prisoners
life
prison
brought
day
friend}
$Date{}
$Log{}
Title:       (A) Tale Of Two Cities
Book:        Book The Third: The Track of a Storm
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter IV

Calm In Storm

     Doctor Manette did not return until the morning of the fourth day of
his absence.  So much of what had happened in that dreadful time as could be
kept from the knowledge of Lucie was so well concealed from her, that not
until long afterwards, when France and she were far apart, did she know that
eleven hundred defenceless prisoners of both sexes and all ages had been
killed by the populace; that four days and nights had been darkened by this
deed of horror; and that the air around her had been tainted by the slain.
She only knew that there had been an attack upon the prisons, that all
political prisoners had been in danger, and that some had been dragged out by
the crowd and murdered.

     To Mr. Lorry, the Doctor communicated under an injunction of secrecy on
which he had no need to dwell, that the crowd had taken him through a scene
of carnage to the prison of La Force.  That, in the prison he had found a
self-appointed Tribunal sitting, before which the prisoners were brought
singly, and by which they were rapidly ordered to be put forth to be
massacred, or to be released, or (in a few cases) to be sent back to their
cells.  That, presented by his conductors to this Tribunal, he had announced
himself by name and profession as having been for eighteen years a secret and
unaccused prisoner in the Bastille; that, one of the body so sitting in
judgment had risen and identified him, and that this man was Defarge.

     That, hereupon he had ascertained, through the registers on the table,
that his son-in-law was among the living prisoners, and had pleaded hard to
the Tribunal - of whom some members were asleep and some awake, some dirty
with murder and some clean, some sober and some not - for his life and
liberty.  That, in the first frantic greetings lavished on himself as a
notable sufferer under the overthrown system, it had been accorded to him to
have Charles Darnay brought before the lawless Court, and examined.  That, he
seemed on the point of being at once released, when the tide in his favour
met with some unexplained check (not intelligible to the Doctor), which led
to a few words of secret conference.  That, the man sitting as President had
then informed Doctor Manette that the prisoner must remain in custody, but
should, for his sake, be held inviolate in safe custody.  That, immediately,
on a signal, the prisoner was removed to the interior of the prison again;
but, that he, the Doctor, had then so strongly pleaded for permission to
remain and assure himself that his son-in-law was, through no malice or
mischance, delivered to the concourse whose murderous yells outside the gate
had often drowned the proceedings, that he had obtained the permission, and
had remained in that Hall of Blood until the danger was over.

     The sights he had seen there, with brief snatches of food and sleep by
intervals, shall remain untold.  The mad joy over the prisoners who were
saved, had astounded him scarcely less than the mad ferocity against those
who were cut to pieces.  One prisoner there was, he said, who had been
discharged into the street free, but at whom a mistaken savage had thrust a
pike as he passed out.  Being besought to go to him and dress the wound, the
Doctor had passed out at the same gate, and had found him in the arms of a
company of Samaritans, who were seated on the bodies of their victims.  With
an inconsistency as monstrous as anything in this awful nightmare, they had
helped the healer, and tended the wounded man with the gentlest
solicitude - had made a litter for him and escorted him carefully from the
spot - had then caught up their weapons and plunged anew into a butchery so
dreadful, that the Doctor had covered his eyes with his hands, and swooned
away in the midst of it.

     As Mr. Lorry received these confidences, and as he watched the face of
his friend now sixty-two years of age, a misgiving arose within him that such
dread experiences would revive the old danger.  But, he had never seen his
friend in his present aspect: he had never at all known him in his present
character.  For the first time the Doctor felt, now, that his suffering was
strength and power.  For the first time he felt that in that sharp fire, he
had slowly forged the iron which could break the prison door of his
daughter's husband, and deliver him.  "It all tended to a good end, my
friend; it was not mere waste and ruin.  As my beloved child was helpful in
restoring me to myself, I will be helpful now in restoring the dearest part
of herself to her; by the aid of Heaven I will do it!"  Thus, Doctor Manette.
And when Jarvis Lorry saw the kindled eyes, the resolute face, the calm
strong look and bearing of the man whose life always seemed to him to have
been stopped, like a clock, for so many years, and then set going again with
an energy which had lain dormant during the cessation of its usefulness, he
believed.

     Greater things than the Doctor had at that time to contend with, would
have yielded before his persevering purpose.  While he kept himself in his
place, as a physician, whose business was with all degrees of mankind, bond
and free, rich and poor, bad and good, he used his personal influence so
wisely, that he was soon the inspecting physician of three prisons, and among
them of La Force.  He could now assure Lucie that her husband was no longer
confined alone, but was mixed with the general body of prisoners; he saw her
husband weekly, and brought sweet messages to her, straight from his lips;
sometimes her husband himself sent a letter to her (though never by the
Doctor's hand), but she was not permitted to write to him: for, among the
many wild suspicions of plots in the prisons, the wildest of all pointed at
emigrants who were known to have made friends or permanent connections
abroad.

     This new life of the Doctor's was an anxious life, no doubt; still, the
sagacious Mr. Lorry saw that there was a new sustaining pride in it.  Nothing
unbecoming tinged the pride; it was a natural and worthy one; but he observed
it as a curiosity.  The Doctor knew, that up to that time, his imprisonment
had been associated in the minds of his daughter and his friend, with his
personal affliction, deprivation, and weakness.  Now that this was changed,
and he knew himself to be invested through that old trial with forces to
which they both looked for Charles's ultimate safety and deliverance, he
became so far exalted by the change, that he took the lead and direction, and
required them as the weak, to trust to him as the strong.  The preceding
relative positions of himself and Lucie were reversed, yet only as the
liveliest gratitude and affection could reverse them, for he could have had
no pride but in rendering some service to her who had rendered so much to
him.  "All curious to see," thought Mr. Lorry, in his amiably shrewd way,
"but all natural and right; so, take the lead, my dear friend, and keep it;
it couldn't be in better hands."

     But, though the Doctor tried hard, and never ceased trying, to get
Charles Darnay set at liberty, or at least to get him brought to trial, the
public current of the time set too strong and fast for him.  The new era
began; the king was tried, doomed, and beheaded; the Republic of Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity, or Death, declared for victory or death against the
world in arms; the black flag waved night and day from the great towers of
Notre Dame; three hundred thousand men, summoned to rise against the tyrants
of the earth, rose from all the varying soils of France, as if the dragon's
teeth had been sown broadcast, and had yielded fruit equally on hill and
plain, on rock, in gravel, and alluvial