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$Title{(A) Tale Of Two Cities
Chapter XIV}
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$Author{Dickens, Charles}
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$Subject{miss
madame
pross
defarge
cruncher
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$Date{}
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Title:       (A) Tale Of Two Cities
Book:        Book The Third: The Track of a Storm
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter XIV

The Knitting Done

     In that same juncture of time when the Fifty-two awaited their fate,
Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council with The Vengeance and Jacques
Three of the Revolutionary Jury.  Not in the wine-shop did Madame Defarge
confer with these ministers, but in the shed of the wood-sawyer, erst a
mender of roads.  The sawyer himself did not participate in the conference,
but abided at a little distance, like an outer satellite who was not to speak
until required, or to offer an opinion until invited.

     "But our Defarge," said Jacques Three, "is undoubtedly a good
Republican?  Eh?"

     "There is no better," the voluble Vengeance protested in her shrill
notes, "in France."

     "Peace, little Vengeance," said Madame Defarge, laying her hand with a
slight frown on her lieutenant's lips, "hear me speak.  My husband,
fellow-citizen, is a good Republican and a bold man: he has deserved well of
the Republic, and possesses its confidence.  But my husband has his
weaknesses, and he is so weak as to relent towards this Doctor."

     "It is a great pity," croaked Jacques Three, dubiously shaking his head,
with his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth; "it is not quite like a good
citizen; it is a thing to regret."

     "See you," said Madame, "I care nothing for this Doctor, I.  He may wear
his head or lose it, for any interest I have in him; it is all one to me.
But, the Evremonde people are to be exterminated, and the wife and child must
follow the husband and father."

     "She has a fine head for it," croaked Jacques Three.  "I have seen blue
eyes and golden hair there, and they looked charming when Samson held them
up."  Ogre that he was, he spoke like an epicure.

     Madame Defarge cast down her eyes, and reflected a little.

     "The child also," observed Jacques Three, with a meditative enjoyment of
his words, "has golden hair and blue eyes.  And we seldom have a child there.
It is a pretty sight!"

     "In a word," said Madame Defarge, coming out of her short abstraction,
"I cannot trust my husband in this matter.  Not only do I feel, since last
night, that I dare not confide to him the details of my projects; but also I
feel that if I delay, there is danger of his giving warning, and then they
might escape."

     "That must never be," croaked Jacques Three; "no one must escape.  We
have not half enough as it is.  We ought to have six score a day."

     "In a word," Madame Defarge went on, "my husband has not my reason for
pursuing this family to annihilation, and I have not his reason for regarding
this Doctor with any sensibility.  I must act for myself, therefore.  Come
hither, little citizen."

     The wood-sawyer, who held her in the respect, and himself in the
submission, of mortal fear, advanced with his hand to his red cap.

     "Touching those signals, little citizen," said Madame Defarge, sternly,
"that she made to the prisoners; you are ready to bear witness to them this
very day?"

     "Ay, ay, why not!" cried the sawyer.  "Every day, in all weathers, from
two to four, always signalling, sometimes with the little one, sometimes
without.  I know what I know.  I have seen with my eyes."

     He made all manner of gestures while he spoke, as if in incidental
imitation of some few of the great diversity of signals that he had never
seen.

     "Clearly plots," said Jacques Three.  "Transparently!"

     "There is no doubt of the Jury?" inquired Madame Defarge, letting her
eyes turn to him with a gloomy smile.

     "Rely upon the patriotic Jury, dear citizeness.  I answer for my
fellow-Jurymen."

     "Now let me see," said Madame Defarge, pondering again.  "Yet once more!
an I spare this Doctor to my husband?  I have no feeling either way.  Can I
spare him?"

     "He would count as one head," observed Jacques Three, in a low voice.
"We really have not heads enough; it would be a pity, I think."

     "He was signalling with her when I saw her," argued Madame Defarge; "I
cannot speak of one without the other; and I must not be silent, and trust
the case wholly to him, this little citizen here.  For, I am not a bad
witness."

     The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with each other in their fervent
protestations that she was the most admirable and marvellous of witnesses.
The little citizen, not to be outdone, declared her to be a celestial
witness.

     "He must take his chance," said Madame Defarge.  "No, I cannot spare
him!  You are engaged at three o'clock; you are going to see the batch of
to-day executed. - You?"

     The question was addressed to the wood-sawyer, who hurriedly replied in
the affirmative: seizing the occasion to add that he was the most ardent of
Republicans, and that he would be in effect the most desolate of Republicans,
if anything prevented him from enjoying the pleasure of smoking his afternoon
pipe in the contemplation of the droll national barber.  He was so very
demonstrative herein, that he might have been suspected (perhaps was, by the
dark eyes that looked contemptuously at him out of Madame Defarge's head) of
having his small individual fears for his own personal safety, every hour in
the day.

     "I," said madame, "am equally engaged at the same place.  After it is
over - say at eight to-night - come you to me, in Saint Antoine, and we will
give information against these people at my Section."

     The wood-sawyer said he would be proud and flattered to attend the
citizeness.  The citizeness looking at him, he became embarrassed, evaded her
glance as a small dog would have done, retreated among his wood, and hid his
confusion over the handle of his saw.

     Madame Defarge beckoned the Juryman and The Vengeance a little nearer to
the door, and there expounded her further views to them thus:

     "She will now be at home, awaiting the moment of his death.  She will be
mourning and grieving.  She will be in a state of mind to impeach the justice
of the Republic.  She will be full of sympathy with its enemies.  I will go
to her."

     "What an admirable woman; what an adorable woman!" exclaimed Jacques
Three, rapturously.  "Ah, my cherished!" cried The Vengeance; and embraced
her.

     "Take you my knitting," said Madame Defarge, placing it in her
lieutenant's hands, "and have it ready for me in my usual seat.  Keep me my
usual chair.  Go you there, straight, for there will probably be a greater
concourse than usual to-day."

     "I willingly obey the orders of my Chief," said The Vengeance with
alacrity, and kissing her cheek.  "You will not be late?"

     "I shall be there before the commencement."

     "And before the tumbrils arrive.  Be sure you are there, my soul," said
The Vengeance, calling after her, for she had already turned into the street,
"before the tumbrils arrive!"

     Madame Defarge slightly waved her hand, to imply that she heard, and
might be relied upon to arrive in good time, and so went through the mud, and
round the corner of the prison wall.  The Vengeance and the Juryman, looking
after her as she walked away, were highly appreciative of her fine figure,
and her superb moral endowments.

     There were many women at that time, upon whom the time laid a dreadfully
disfiguring hand; but, there was not one among them more to be dreaded than
this ruthless woman, now taking her way along the streets.  Of a strong and
fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great determination, of
that kind of beauty which not only seems to impart to its possessor firmness
and animosity, but to strike into others an instinctive recognition of those
qualities; the troubled time would have heaved her up, under any
circumstances.  But, imbued from her childhood with a brooding sense of
wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class, opportunity had developed her
into a tigress.  She was absolutely without pity.  If she had ever had the
virtue in her, it had quite gone out of her.

     It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for the sins of
his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them.  It was nothing to her, that his
wife was to be made a widow and his daughter an orphan; that was insufficient
punishment, because they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as such
had no right to live.  To appeal to her, was made hopeless by her having no
sense of pity, even for herself.  If she had been laid low in the streets, in
any of the many encounters in which she had been engaged, she would not have
pitied herself; nor, if she had been ordered to the axe tomorrow, would she
have gone to it with any softer feeling than a fierce desire to change places
with the man who sent her there.

     Such a heart Madame Defarge carried under her rough robe.  Carelessly
worn, it was a becoming robe enough, in a certain weird way, and her dark
hair looked rich under her coarse red cap.  Lying hidden in her bosom, was a
loaded pistol.  Lying hidden at her waist, was a sharpened dagger.  Thus
accoutred, and walking with the confident tread of such a character, and with
the supple freedom of a woman who had habitually walked in her girlhood,
bare-foot and bare-legged, on the brown sea-sand, Madame Defarge took her way
along the streets.

     Now, when the journey of the travelling coach, at that very moment
waiting for the completion of its load, had been planned out last night, the
difficulty of taking Miss Pross in it had much engaged Mr. Lorry's attention.
It was not merely desirable to avoid overloading the coach, but it was of
the highest importance that the time occupied in examining it and its
passengers, should be reduced to the utmost; since their escape might depend
on the saving of only a few seconds here and there.  Finally, he had
proposed, after anxious consideration, that Miss Pross and Jerry, who were at
liberty to leave the city, should leave it at three o'clock in the
lightest-wheeled conveyance known to that period.  Unencumbered with luggage,
they would soon overtake the coach, and, passing it and preceding it on the
road, would order its horses in advance, and greatly facilitate its progress
during the precious hours of the night, when delay was the most to be
dreaded.

     Seeing in this arrangement the hope of rendering real service in that
pressing emergency, Miss Pross hailed it with joy.  She and Jerry had beheld
the coach start, had known who it was that Solomon brought, had passed some
ten minutes in tortures of suspense, and were now concluding their
arrangements to follow the coach, even as Madame Defarge, taking her way
through the streets, now drew nearer and nearer to the else-deserted lodging
in which they held their consultation.

     "Now what do you think, Mr. Cruncher," said Miss Pross, whose agitation
was so great that she could hardly speak, or stand, or move, or live: "what
do you think of our not starting from this court-yard?  Another carriage
having already gone from here to-day, it might awaken suspicion."

     "My opinion, miss," returned Mr. Cruncher, "is as you're right.
Likewise wot I'll stand by you, right or wrong."

     "I am so distracted with fear and hope for our precious creatures," said
Miss Pross, wildly crying, "that I am incapable of forming any plan.  Are you
capable of forming any plan, my dear good Mr. Cruncher?"

     "Respectin' a future spear o' life, miss," returned Mr. Cruncher, "I
hope so.  Respectin' any present use o' this here blessed old head o' mine, I
think not.  Would you do me the favour, miss, to take notice o' two promises
and wows wot it is my wishes fur to record in this here crisis?"

     "Oh, for gracious sake!" cried Miss Pross, still wildly crying, "record
them at once, and get them out of the way, like an excellent man."

     "First," said Mr. Cruncher, who was all in a tremble, and who spoke with
an ashy and solemn visage, "them poor things well out o' this, never no more
will I do it, never no more!"

     "I am quite sure, Mr. Cruncher," returned Miss Pross, "that you never
will do it again, whatever it is, and I beg you not to think it necessary to
mention more particularly what it is."

     "No, miss," returned Jerry, "it shall not be named to you.  Second: them
poor things well out o' this, and never no more will I interfere with Mrs.
Cruncher's flopping, never no more!"

     "Whatever housekeeping arrangement that may be," said Miss Pross,
striving to dry her eyes and compose herself, "I have no doubt it is best
that Mrs. Cruncher should have it entirely under her own superintendence. -
O my poor darlings!"

     "I go so far as to say, miss, morehover," proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with a
most alarming tendency to hold forth as from a pulpit - "and let my words be
took down and took to Mrs. Cruncher through yourself - that wot my opinions
respectin' flopping has undergone a change, and that wot I only hope with all
my heart as Mrs. Cruncher may be a flopping at the present time."

     "There, there, there!  I hope she is, my dear man," cried the distracted
Miss Pross, "and I hope she finds it answering her expectations."

     "Forbid it," proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with additional solemnity,
additional slowness, and additional tendency to hold forth and hold out, "as
anything wot I have ever said or done should be visited on my earnest wishes
for them poor creeturs now!  Forbid it as we shouldn't all flop (if it was
anyways convenient) to get 'em out o' this here dismal risk!  Forbid it,
miss!  Wot I say, for - bid it!" This was Mr. Cruncher's conclusion after a
protracted but vain endeavour to find a better one.

     And still Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came
nearer and nearer.

     "If we ever get back to our native land," said Miss Pross, "you may rely
upon my telling Mrs. Cruncher as much as I may be able to remember and
understand of what you have so impressively said; and at all events you may
be sure that I shall bear witness to your being thoroughly in earnest at this
dreadful time.  Now, pray let us think!  My esteemed Mr. Cruncher, let us
think!"

     Still, Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came nearer
and nearer.

     "If you were to go before," said Miss Pross, "and stop the vehicle and
horses from coming here, and were to wait somewhere for me; wouldn't that be
best?"

     Mr. Cruncher thought it might be best.

     "Where could you wait for me?" asked Miss Pross.

     Mr. Cruncher was so bewildered that he could think of no locality but
Temple Bar.  Alas! Temple Bar was hundreds of miles away, and Madame Defarge
was drawing very near indeed.

     "By the cathedral door," said Miss Pross.  "Would it be much out of the
way, to take me in, near the great cathedral door between the two towers?"

     "No, miss," answered Mr. Cruncher.

     "Then, like the best of men," said Miss Pross, "go to the posting-house
straight, and make that change."

     "I am doubtful," said Mr. Cruncher, hesitating and shaking his head,
"about leaving of you, you see.  We don't know what may happen."

     "Heaven knows we don't," returned Miss Pross, "but have no fear for me.
Take me in at the cathedral, at Three o'clock, or as near it as you can, and
I am sure it will be better than our going from here.  I feel certain of it.
There!  Bless you, Mr. Cruncher!  Think - not of me, but of the lives that
may depend on both of us!"

     This exordium, and Miss Pross's two hands in quite agonised entreaty
clasping his, decided Mr. Cruncher.  With an encouraging nod or two, he
immediately went out to alter the arrangements, and left her by herself to
follow as she had proposed.

     The having originated a precaution which was already in course of
execution, was a great relief to Miss Pross.  The necessity of composing her
appearance so that it should attract no special notice in the streets, was
another relief.  She looked at her watch, and it was twenty minutes past two.
She had no time to lose, but must get ready at once.

     Afraid, in her extreme perturbation, of the loneliness of the deserted
rooms, and of half-imagined faces peeping from behind every open door in
them, Miss Pross got a basin of cold water and began laving her eyes, which
were swollen and red.  Haunted by her feverish apprehensions, she could not
bear to have her sight obscured for a minute at a time by the dripping water,
but constantly paused and looked round to see that there was no one watching
her.  In one of those pauses she recoiled and cried out, for she saw a figure
standing in the room.

     The basin fell to the ground broken, and the water flowed to the feet of
Madame Defarge.  By strange stern ways, and through much staining blood,
those feet had come to meet that water.

     Madame Defarge looked coldly at her, and said, "The wife of Evremonde;
where is she?"

     It flashed upon Miss Pross's mind that the doors were all standing open,
and would suggest the flight.  Her first act was to shut them.  There were
four in the room, and she shut them all.  She then placed herself before the
door of the chamber which Lucie had occupied.

     Madame Defarge's dark eyes followed her through this rapid movement, and
rested on her when it was finished.  Miss Pross had nothing beautiful about
her; years had not tamed the wildness, or softened the grimness, of her
appearance; but, she too was a determined woman in her different way, and she
measured Madame Defarge with her eyes, every inch.

     "You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer," said Miss
Pross, in her breathing.  "Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me.
I am an Englishwoman."

     Madame Defarge looked at her scornfully, but still with something of
Miss Pross's own perception that they two were at bay.  She saw a tight,
hard, wiry woman before her, as Mr. Lorry had seen in the same figure a woman
with a strong hand, in the years gone by.  She knew full well that Miss Pross
was the family's devoted friend; Miss Pross knew full well that Madame
Defarge was the family's malevolent enemy.

     "On my way yonder," said Madame Defarge, with a slight movement of her
hand towards the fatal spot, "where they reserve my chair and my knitting for
me, I am come to make my compliments to her in passing.  I wish to see her."

     "I know that your intentions are evil," said Miss Pross, "and you may
depend upon it, I'll hold my own against them."

     Each spoke in her own language; neither understood the other's words;
both were very watchful, and intent to deduce from look and manner, what the
unintelligible words meant.

     "It will do her no good to keep herself concealed from me at this
moment," said Madame Defarge.  "Good patriots will know what that means.  Let
me see her.  Go tell her that I wish to see her.  Do you hear?"

     "If those eyes of yours were bed-winches," returned Miss Pross, "and I
was an English four-poster, they shouldn't loose a splinter of me.  No, you
wicked foreign woman; I am your match."

     Madame Defarge was not likely to follow these idiomatic remarks in
detail; but, she so far understood them as to perceive that she was set at
naught.

     "Woman imbecile and pig-like!" said Madame Defarge, frowning.  "I take
no answer from you.  I demand to see her.  Either tell her that I demand to
see her, or stand out of the way of the door and let me go to her!"  This,
with an angry explanatory wave of her right arm.

     "I little thought," said Miss Pross, "that I should ever want to
understand your nonsensical language; but I would give all I have, except the
clothes I wear, to know whether you suspect the truth, or any part of it."

     Neither of them for a single moment released the other's eyes.  Madame
Defarge had not moved from the spot where she stood when Miss Pross first
became aware of her; but she now advanced one step.

     "I am a Briton," said Miss Pross, "I am desperate.  I don't care an
English Twopence for myself.  I know that the longer I keep you here, the
greater hope there is for my Ladybird.  I'll not leave a handful of that dark
hair upon your head, if you lay a finger on me!"

     Thus Miss Pross, with a shake of her head and a flash of her eyes
between every rapid sentence, and every rapid sentence a whole breath.  Thus
Miss Pross, who had never struck a blow in her life.

     But, her courage was of that emotional nature that it brought the
irrepressible tears into her eyes.  This was a courage that Madame Defarge so
little comprehended as to mistake for weakness.  "Ha, ha!" she laughed, "you
poor wretch!  What are you worth!  I address myself to that Doctor."  Then
sheraised hervoice and called out, "Citizen Doctor!  Wife of Evremonde!
Child of Evremonde!  Any person but this miserable fool, answer the
Citizeness Defarge!"

     Perhaps the following silence, perhaps some latent disclosure in the
expression of Miss Pross's face, perhaps a sudden misgiving apart from either
suggestion, whispered to Madame Defarge that they were gone.  Three of the
doors she opened swiftly, and looked in.

     "Those rooms are all in disorder, there has been hurried packing, there
are odds and ends upon the ground.  There is no one in that room behind you!
et me look."

     "Never!" said Miss Pross, who understood the request as perfectly as
Madame Defarge understood the answer.

     "If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be pursued and
brought back," said Madame Defarge to herself.

     "As long as you don't know whether they are in the room or not, you are
uncertain what to do," said Miss Pross to herself; "and you shall not know
that, if I can prevent your knowing it; and know that, or not know that, you
shall not leave here while I can hold you."

     "I have been in the streets from the first, nothing has stopped me, I
will tear you to pieces, but I will have you from that door," said Madame
Defarge.

     "We are alone at the top of a high house in a solitary court-yard, we
are not likely to be heard, and I pray for bodily strength to keep you here,
while every minute you are here is worth a hundred thousand guineas to my
darling," said Miss Pross.

     Madame Defarge made at the door.  Miss Pross, on the instinct of the
moment, seized her round the waist in both her arms, and held her tight.  It
was in vain for Madame Defarge to struggle and to strike; Miss Pross, with
the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, clasped her
tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle that they had.  The
two hands of Madame Defarge buffeted and tore her face; but, Miss Pross, with
her head down, held her round the waist, and clung to her with more than the
hold of a drowning woman.

     Soon, Madame Defarge's hands ceased to strike, and felt at her encircled
waist.  "It is under my arm," said Miss Pross, in smothered tones, "you shall
not draw it.  I am stronger than you, I bless Heaven for it.  I'll hold you
till one or other of us faints or dies!"

     Madame Defarge's hands were at her bosom.  Miss Pross looked
up, saw what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash and a crash, and stood
alone - blinded with smoke.

     All this was in a second.  As the smoke cleared, leaving an awful
stillness, it passed out on the air, like the soul of the furious woman whose
body lay lifeless on the ground.

     In the first fright and horror of her situation, Miss Pross passed the
body as far from it as she could, and ran down the stairs to call for
fruitless help.  Happily, she bethought herself of the consequences of what
she did, in time to check herself and go back.  It was dreadful to go in at
the door again; but, she did go in, and even went near it, to get the bonnet
and other things that she must wear.  These she put on, out on the staircase,
first shutting and locking the door and taking away the key.  She then sat
down on the stairs a few moments to breathe and to cry, and then got up and
hurried away.

     By good fortune she had a veil on her bonnet, or she could hardly have
gone along the streets without being stopped.  By good fortune, too, she was
naturally so peculiar in appearance as not to show disfigurement like any
other woman.  She needed both advantages, for the marks of griping fingers
were deep in her face, and her hair was torn, and her dress (hastily composed
with unsteady hands) was clutched and dragged a hundred ways.

     In crossing the bridge, she dropped the door key in the river.  Arriving
at the cathedral some few minutes before her escort, and waiting there, she
thought, what if the key were already taken in a net, what if it were
identified, what if the door were opened and the remains discovered, what if
she were stopped at the gate, sent to prison, and charged with murder!  In
the midst of these fluttering thoughts, the escort appeared, took her in, and
took her away.

     "Is there any noise in the streets?" she asked him.

     "The usual noises," Mr. Cruncher replied; and looked surprised by the
question and by her aspect.

     "I don't hear you," said Miss Pross.  "What do you say?"

     It was in vain for Mr. Cruncher to repeat what he said; Miss Pross could
not hear him.  "So I'll nod my head," thought Mr. Cruncher, amazed, "at all
events she'll see that."  And she did.

     "Is there any noise in the streets now?" asked Miss Pross again,
presently.

     Again Mr. Cruncher nodded his head.

     "I don't hear it."

     "Gone deaf in a hour?" said Mr. Cruncher, ruminating, with his mind much
disturbed; "wot's come to her?"

     "I feel," said Miss Pross, "as if there had been a flash and a crash,
and that crash was the last thing I should ever hear in this life."

     "Blest if she ain't in a queer condition!" said Mr. Cruncher, more and
more disturbed.  "Wot can she have been a takin', to keep her courage up?
Hark!  There's the roll of them dreadful carts!  You can hear that, miss?"

     "I can hear," said Miss Pross, seeing that he spoke to her, "nothing.
O, my good man, there was first a great crash, and then a great stillness,
and that stillness seems to be fixed and unchangeable, never to be broken any
more as long as my life lasts."

     "If she don't hear the roll of those dreadful carts, now very nigh their
journey's end," said Mr. Cruncher, glancing over his shoulder, "it's my
opinion that indeed she never will hear anything else in this world."

     And indeed she never did.