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

able to forgive him for the lie by saying that he had told it so often that he believed it himself. If so, it is such a great sin on top of what was a great sin to start with, that it would only be fair for such a person to be taken off to some quiet place and to be quietly hanged there.

These were some of the sounds to which Lucie, sometimes thinking seriously, sometimes laughing easily, listened in that corner full of sounds, until her little daughter was six years old. There is no need to say how close to her heart were the sounds of her child's steps, those of her own loved father, who was always a hard worker in control of himself, and of her much loved husband. There was no need to tell of how the smallest sound from their close family was like music to her either. Their home, which she put together with great wisdom and careful use of her money, was more beautiful than many that much richer people had used much more wealth on. And there was no need to tell of the sounds all around her, sweet in her ears, coming from the many times her father had told her that he found her to be a better daughter (if it were possible) married, than if she had not married. And sounds of the many times her husband had said to her that none of her jobs seemed to take away from her love for him and her help to him; and he asked her, "What is the magic secret, my love, of your being everything to all of us, as if there were only one of us, yet you never seem to be in a hurry, or to have too much to do?"

But there were other sounds, far off in the distance, that quietly talked of danger, all through those years. And it was now, around little Lucie's sixth birthday, that they started to sound quite awful, like a great storm over in France, that was having a dangerous effect on the ocean between them.

On a night in the middle of July, 1789, Mr. Lorry came in late from Tellson's, and sat himself down by Lucie and her husband in the dark window seat. It was a hot, wild night, and the three of them all remembered the old Sunday night when they had looked at the lightning from the same place.

"I had started to think," said Mr. Lorry, pushing his brown wig back, "that I would have to spend the night at Tellson's. We have had so much business all day, that it was hard to know where to start, or which way to turn. There is so much fear in Paris just now, that everyone is turning to us! The people we work with do not seem to be able to put their money with us fast enough. It is like a sickness, the way they all feel they must send their wealth to England."

"That doesn't sound good," said Darnay.

"Doesn't sound good, you say, my good Darnay? Maybe, but we don't know what the reason is for it. People often do stupid things! Some of us at Tellson's are getting old, and we really cannot be interested in change without a good reason."

"Too bad," said Darnay, "because you know how dark and dangerous the sky is."

"I know that, to be sure," agreed Mr. Lorry, trying to make himself believe that he was going to be angry, when he almost never was angry, "but I just want to be difficult after such a hard day at work. So where is Manette?"

"Here he is," said the Doctor, coming into the dark room at just that second.

"I am happy to see you're at home. The business and trouble that I have been a part of all day has made me worry without a good reason. You're not going out, I hope?"

"No. I am going to play a board game with you, if you like," said the Doctor.

"I don't think I would like to, if I may be honest. I am not in the right spirit to compete against you tonight. Is the tea still out, Lucie? I can't see."

"It sure is; it has been kept for you."

"Thank you, my sweet. Is your beautiful child safe in bed?”

"Yes, and sleeping nicely."

"Yes, all is safe and well! I know not why anything should not be safe and well here, thank God. But I have been so busy all day, and I am not as young as I was! My tea, my child! Thank you. Now, come and take your place in the circle, and let us sit quietly and listen to the sounds that are part of your beliefs."

"Not my beliefs; just my foolish thoughts."

"A foolish thought, then my wise one," said Mr. Lorry, touching her hand. "There are many of them, and they are quite loud, are they not? Listen to them!"

Angry, dangerous footsteps, out of control, and able to force their way into anyone's life. Footsteps that could not be cleaned again after they had turned red. Footsteps running in far off Saint Antoine, as the little circle sat in that dark London window.

Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a big dark crowd of hungry people moving from one place to another with many little touches of light showing above the wave of heads, where blades in hands and on the ends of guns moved in the sun. A great shout came up from the throat of Saint Antoine, and uncovered arms reached into the air like the dead branches of trees in a winter wind. All of the fingers were holding tightly to weapons or to something that could be used as a weapon, that grew up from the crowd below the arms, often passed to them from a long way off.

Who gave them out, where they started, how they moved in one direction and another dozens at a time, over the heads of the crowd like the movement of lightning, no eye in the crowd could say; but guns were being given out, as were bullets, iron and timber bars, knives, axes, every weapon that angry minds could find or make. People who could not find anything else had the job of forcing, with bleeding hands, stones and bricks out of their places in walls. Every heart in Saint Antoine was on fire. Every person living there had stopped thinking of life as important, and was ready with a crazy enthusiasm to give their life for what they wanted.

As wild water moving in a circle always has a center, so all of this anger circled around Defarge's wine shop, and every drop in that pot of hot water was pulled toward the place where Defarge himself, already dirty with gunpowder and sweat, was telling people what to do, giving out weapons, pushing one man back and pulling another forward, taking a weapon from one to give to another, working and fighting in the middle of the storm.

"Stay near me, Jack Three," cried Defarge. "And, Jack One and Two, separate and put yourselves at the head of as many of these men as you can. Where is my wife?"

"Ah! Here I am!" said Madam, relaxed as ever, but not knitting today. Madam's strong right hand was holding an axe, in the place of the softer tools, and in her belt were a gun and a cruel knife.

"Where will you go, my wife?"

"I go," said Madam, "with you for now. But before long you will see me at the head of the women."

"Come, then!" cried Defarge, in a strong voice. "Friends and lovers of our country, we are ready! To the prison!"

With a shout that sounded as if all the voices in France had been shaped into that hated word, the living ocean moved, wave on wave, and poured across the city to that place. Warning bells were ringing, drums were sounding, and the ocean was storming onto its new beach as the war started.

Deep ditches, two bridges, big stone walls, eight great towers, cannons, guns, fire, and smoke. Through the fire and through the smoke... in the fire and in the smoke, for the crowd pushed him against a cannon, and just so quickly he became the one using the cannon... Defarge of the wine shop worked like a brave soldier for two angry and wild hours.

One deep ditch, one bridge, big stone walls, eight great towers, cannons, guns, fire and smoke. One bridge down! "Work, brothers, work! Work, Jack One, Jack Two, Jack One Thousand, Jack Two Thousand, Jack Twenty-five Thousand. In the name of all the angels or devils -- You choose -- work!" It was Defarge of the wine shop, still at his gun, which was quite hot now.

"Follow me, women!" cried Madam his wife. "What! We can kill as well as the men when the place is taken!" And to her, with a high thirsty cry, came women with many different weapons, but all armed with hunger and hate.

Cannons, guns, fire and smoke; but still the deep ditch and the one bridge, the big stone walls, and the eight great towers. There were some small breaks in the waves of angry people, made by some being killed or hurt. Flaming weapons and burning torches, smoking carts full of wet straw to hide their movements, hard work at other carts on each side of them, shouts, explosions, angry words, brave actions without end, noise of all kinds, and the sound of the angry ocean of people over it all. But still the deep ditch and that one bridge, and the big stone walls, and the eight great towers, and still Defarge of the wine shop at his gun, now twice as hot after four hours of wild angry work.

Then a white flag from inside the prison, and a meeting between leaders on both sides -- this almost impossible to see, and not heard at all -- and the wave of people quickly growing wider and higher pushing Defarge of the wine shop over the bridge (now open) past the big stone walls and into the eight great towers, as the people holding them gave up!

So strong was the movement of the wave of people pouring into the prison that Defarge could not even breathe or turn his head against it, until he finished in the outside yard of the prison. There, against the side of a wall, he was able, at last, to look around and see what was happening. Jack Three was almost at his side. Madam Defarge, still leading some of the women, could be seen in the distance with her knife in her hand. Everywhere was noise and confusion, happy, crazy, wild, and so very loud, and yet nothing that could be understood.

"The prisoners!" "The papers!"

"The secret rooms!" "The torture tools!" "The prisoners!"

Of all their shouts, and ten thousand noises that could not be understood, "The Prisoners!" was the one most taken up by the wave that pushed forward, as if it was an eternity of people like there is in time and space. When the first wave rolled past, taking the prison officers with them, and warning them all of a fast death if they did not show them every secret place, Defarge put his strong hand on the chest of one of them -- a man with a grey head, who had a lighted torch in his hand -- separated him from the others, and put him between himself and the wall.

"Show me the North Tower!" said Defarge. "Quickly!"

"I will," answered the man, "if you will just follow me. but there is no one there."

"What is the meaning of one hundred and five North Tower?” asked Defarge. "Now!"

"The meaning, sir?"

"Is it the name of a person or a place? Or do you want us to kill you?"

"Kill him!" spoke Jack Three, who had come up close.

"Sir, it is a room for a prisoner."

"Show it to me!"

"Come this way, then."

Jack Three, with the same old hunger, and clearly not happy that the talk had turned away from killing, held Defarge's arm, and Defarge held the guard's. Their three heads had been close together during this, and even then it had been difficult for them to hear each other, so great was the noise of the living ocean as it poured into the prison, and flooded the rooms and walk ways and steps. All around outside too, the wave pushed against the walls with a deep, rough shout, from which at times, some side shouts broke away and jumped into the air on their own, like happens with the water in a wave.

Through dark sad rooms under the ground, where the light of day had never been, past ugly doors to dark holes and cages, down cave-like steps, and again up steep rough stone and brick steps, more like cliffs than steps, Defarge, the guard, and Jack Three, joined hand to arm, went as quickly as they could. Here and there, mostly at the start, they met people from the flood above, but when they were finished with going