A Tale of Two Cities by Dave Mckay, Charles Dickens (easy readers .txt) 📖

to see how the rich live -- the King, the Queen, and the Court. Let him see them on Sunday."

"What?” shouted the hungry man with his eyes wide open in surprise. "You think it is a good sign that he wants to see the King's family and other rich people?"

"Jack," said Defarge, "carefully show a cat milk if you want it to thirst for it. And carefully show a dog the animal that it must kill if you want it to bring it down one day."

Nothing more was said, and the road worker, who was already asleep on the top step, was encouraged to lay himself down on the mattress in the room and have a rest. He needed no pushing, and was soon asleep.

For a slave like that poor labourer, there were many worse rooms in Paris that he could have stayed at, and so he was happy with it, apart from a strange fear he had of Mrs. Defarge. Madam Defarge herself sat knitting at her counter all day, showing no interest in the road worker that could mark him as being part of something secret. The way she was able to do that made him shake in his timber shoes each time he looked at her. In himself he was thinking that if she could show no sign of what he knew she knew, she could just as easily say that he killed someone and have him killed in return without any show of emotion.

So when Sunday came, the road worker was not happy (even if he said he was) to have Madam Defarge coming with her husband and himself to Versailles. It was equally troubling to have her knitting in the coach all the way there. And on top of that it was worrying to have Madam Defarge in the crowd, still with her knitting in her hands, in the afternoon when they waited to see the coach that would bring the King and Queen through the streets.

"You work hard, Madam," said a man near her.

"Yes," answered Madam Defarge. "I have much to do."

"What do you make, Madam?"

"Many things."

"Like what?"

"Like," returned Madam Defarge quietly, "cloths to cover dead bodies."

The man quickly moved away from her, and the road worker used his little blue hat to cool his face, feeling that things were too close and too hot there in that crowd. If he needed a King and a Queen to lift his spirits, he soon had them, as the big-faced King and his beautiful Queen came by in their golden coach, followed by the most important people from their court... a crowd of laughing women and beautiful men, in jewelry and expensive cloth, and powder and all of them, male and female, with proudly beautiful looks that showed they had no interest in anyone but themselves. The road worker was so full of all that he was seeing that he could not control himself. He cried Long live the King! Long live the Queen! Long live everybody and everything! like he had never heard of all the Jacks and their beliefs. Then there were gardens, fountains, beautiful open walking places, green grass by a river, more King and Queen, more beautiful men and women, and more Long live them all! until he was moved to tears with all the emotion. Through all this, which lasted a good three hours, there were others around him shouting too, and Defarge kept his hand on his neck, as if holding him back from flying at the people he was worshipping, and hurting them.

"Very good!" said Defarge when it was over. "You're a good boy!"

The road worker was, at this time, starting to think that he had acted in a way that would make the Jacks angry; but this word from Mr. Defarge encouraged him.

"You are the man we want," said Defarge in his ear. "You make these stupid people believe they will be loved forever; and when they do, then they act even more selfishly, not knowing that this is the very thing that will bring them to their end."

"Hey!" cried the road worker, thinking about what Defarge had said. "That's true."

"These stupid people know nothing. While they hate you and would kill you and a hundred like you before they would lose even one of their horses or dogs, they only know what your voice tells them. Let it trick them a little longer. It cannot trick them too much."

Madam Defarge looked without feeling or interest at the man and moved her head to show she agreed.

"As for you," she said, "you would shout and cry for anything if it made a show and a noise, would you not?"

"To be honest, Madam, I think so. At least for now."

"If you were given a big pile of dolls and you were to tear them to pieces for what you could get from them, you would take the ones that were the richest, and the ones with the most beautiful clothes. Tell us! Wouldn't you do that?"

"Yes, truly, Madam."

"Yes, and if you were given many different birds, and you were to tear them to pieces, for what you could get from them, you would take the ones with the most beautiful feathers first, would you not?"

"It's true, Madam."

"You have seen both dolls and birds today," said Madam Defarge with a wave of her hand toward the place where they had earlier been watching the King and Queen. "Now, go home!"

16. Still Knitting

Madam Defarge and her husband returned happily to the heart of Saint Antoine, while one man on his own, and wearing a blue hat, walked through the night and through the dust over the many tiring miles toward that point where the castle of Sir the Marquis, now dead and buried, listened to the whispering trees. The stone faces of the castle now had so much time to listen to the trees and to the fountain, that the few thin people from the village who, in looking for weeds to eat or dry sticks to burn, came close enough to see the big open yard and the wide stone steps at the front of the castle, left knowing full well that the stone faces had changed in an important way. The saying in the village -- a weak saying like that of the people who lived there -- was that when the knife went into Sir the Marquis, the faces changed from being proud to being angry and hurt. It went on to say that when that man was hanged from forty feet above the fountain, the look on the statues changed to show cruel happiness at what had happened to him; and they would stay that way forever. In the stone face over the great window of the bedroom where the killing took place, there were found two little concave marks on each side of the nose (like Sir the Marquis had), which nobody could remember it having before. And at those times when two or three of the poor village people left the crowd to go and look at the stone statue of Sir the Marquis, a thin finger would not have pointed to it for a minute before they all ran into the forest in fear, like the lucky rabbits who were able to live there.

Castle and poor little house, stone face and hanging body, red blood on the stone floor and clean water in the village fountain... that whole part of the country -- or, if you like, all of France itself -- was only as big as a hair, from side to side, in the light of the night sky. That is how the whole world is, with all of its best and worst, when measured by the size of just one star. And just as scientists can take a piece of light and break it down into the different colours in it, so some other greater Mind may be able to read in the little light coming from this earth of ours, every thought and act, every good spirit and bad spirit, for every person living on it.

The Defarges, husband and wife, moved slowly, under the light of the stars, in that coach they had paid to ride in, toward the gate of Paris. There was the same old stop at the guard house, where a soldier would hold a lantern up to see them and ask them questions. Mr. Defarge stepped out, knowing one or two of the soldiers there, and one of the police. The policeman he knew very well, and he hugged him warmly.

When Saint Antoine had again folded his dark wings around the Defarges, and they, having left the coach at a stop near the border of Saint Antoine, were picking their way on foot through the black mud and rubbish of his streets, Madam Defarge spoke to her husband:

"Tell me, my friend, what did Jack the policeman tell you?"

"Very little tonight, but all that he knows. There is a new secret policeman working in our part of town who is trying to find information for the government. There may be others, but there is at least one."

"Oh well!" said Madam Defarge, lifting her eyebrows with a cool business air, "We will need to add him to the list. How do you say his name?"

"He is English."

"So much the better. His name?"

"Barsad," said Defarge, making it sound French by the way he said it. And then he gave her the letters for it.

"Barsaid," repeated Madam. "Good. And his Christian name?"

"John."

"John Barsad," repeated Madam, after saying it softly to herself first. "Good. And do you know what he looks like?"

"Age, about forty; about five feet nine; black hair; dark skin for a white man; on the whole good-looking; dark eyes; thin, long face; nose like that of an eagle, but not straight, having a strange bend toward his left cheek; and a look of one with evil plans."

"Oh, my God! It is as good as a picture!" said Madam, laughing. "It will all be in the list tomorrow."

They turned into the wine shop, which was closed, because it was the middle of the night, and Madam Defarge went straight to her place at the desk, counting what little money they had taken in while away, counting the barrels, going through the books and adding some numbers of her own, and in every other way making sure the servant who had been watching the place had done his job well, before he was free to go to bed. Then she poured out the coins in the bowl for a second time and started tying them up in her scarf, in a chain of separate knots, to keep them safe during the night. All this time, Defarge, with his pipe in his mouth, walked up and down, quietly looking on, but never saying anything, which is more or less how he acted toward her in all that they did.

The night was hot and the shop, being closed and being near very dirty houses, had a bad smell to it. Mr. Defarge was in no way an expert at smells, but the smell of the wine was always stronger than the taste, and the same was true of the whiskey and other stronger drinks that he sold. He tried to blow the mixture of smells away as he put down his smoked-out pipe.

"You are tired," said Madam, lifting her eyes as she tied the money. "The smells are no worse than at other times."

"I am a little tired," her husband agreed.

"You are a little sad too," said Madam, whose fast eyes were never so busy with studying the books that they did not have a look or two for him. "Oh, you're worried about the men!"

"But my love...” started Defarge.

"But my love!" repeated Madam, moving her head strongly. "But my love! You are a weak one tonight!"

"Well, then," said Defarge, as if a thought was being squeezed out of him, "it is taking so long."

"It is taking a long time," repeated his wife. "And when has it not taken a long time? Paying someone back always takes a long time; it is the rule."

"It does not take a long time to hit a man with lightning," said Defarge.

"How long," asked Madam quietly, "does it take to make and save up the lightning? Tell me that."

Defarge lifted his head to think, as if he could find the answer.

"It does not take a long time," Madam went on, "for an earthquake to swallow a town; but tell me how long it takes to prepare the earthquake."

"A long time, I would think," said Defarge.

"But when it is ready, it happens, and it breaks into pieces everything that stands in its way. Until then, it is always preparing, even when we cannot see or hear it. That is your hope. Keep it in mind."

She tied some coins into her scarf with a look in her eyes like she was killing someone by squeezing their throat.

"I tell you," said Madam, reaching out with her right hand to show what she was saying, "that even if it is a long time on the road, it