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

Answering to this soft side of Sydney Carton, Mr. Lorry said:

"Twenty years back, I would have said yes. But at this time of my life, no. For, as I come closer and closer to the end, I travel in a circle, nearer and nearer to the start. It seems to be one of the kind things that prepares me and smooths the way for me. My heart is touched now by many things that I remember, which had been buried in my mind before now. Things about my beautiful young mother (as old as I am!), and about thoughts and feelings I had before what we call 'the World' was so real to me, and before others knew how many things were wrong with me."

"I understand the feeling!" said Carton with some enthusiasm. "And are you better for it?"

"I hope so."

Carton ended his talk there, by standing to help Mr. Lorry on with his over coat. "But you," said Mr. Lorry, returning to what they had been talking about, "you are young."

"Yes," said Carton. "I am not old, but my young way was never the way to become old either. But enough about me."

"And about me, too, I'm sure," said Mr. Lorry. "Are you going out?"

"I'll walk with you to her gate. You know my strange ways. If I should be out walking the streets for a long time, don't worry. I'll be back in the morning. Are you going to the court tomorrow?"

"Yes, sadly."

"I'll be there, but only as one of the crowd. My spy friend will find a place for me. Take my arm, sir."

Mr. Lorry did so, and they went down the steps and out in the streets. In a few minutes Mr. Lorry reached where he had been planning to go. Carton left him there, but waited around near there, and turned back to the gate again after it was closed, to touch it. He had heard about her going to the prison every day. "She came out here," he said, looking around him, "turned this way, must have stepped on these stones often. I will follow in her steps."

It was ten o'clock at night when he stood before La Force, where she had stood hundreds of times. A little woodcutter, having closed for the night, was smoking his pipe at the door of his shop.

"Good evening, countryman," said Sydney Carton, stopping as he was going by, because the man looked like he wanted to know why he was there.

"Good evening, countryman."

"And how is the country going?"

"You mean Guillotine. Not badly. Sixty-three today. We will jump to a hundred soon. Samson and his men say at times that they are too tired from all the work. Ha, ha, ha! He is so funny. And the way he shaves!"

"Do you often go to see him..."

"See him shave? Always. Every day. What a man! Have you seen him at work?”

"Never."

"Go and see him when he has a good group to work on. Work this out, countryman: He shaved the sixty-three today in less than two pipes! Less than two pipes. I give you my word!"

As the happy little man held out the pipe he was smoking, to show how he timed the killings, Carton was so full of a growing wish to knock the life out of him, that he turned away.

"But are you not English," said the woodcutter, "for you wear English clothes."

"Yes," said Carton, stopping again and answering over his shoulder.

"You speak like a Frenchman."

"I was a student here in the past."

"Ah, a perfect Frenchman! Good night, Englishman."

"Good night, countryman."

"But do go and see that funny dog," the little man went on, calling after him. "And take a pipe with you!"

Sydney had not gone far past where the man could see him when he stopped in the middle of the street under a lantern, and wrote with his pencil on a piece of paper. Then, covering with the confident steps of one who knew the way well, quite a few dark and dirty streets... much dirtier than in the past, because even the best roads were not cleaned in those times of killing and fear... he stopped at a shop where he could buy medicines and chemicals, where the owner was just closing up for the night. It was a small dark bent shop kept on a steep hill by a small dark bent man.

Giving this countryman, too, a good evening, as he met him at his counter, he put the piece of paper in front of him. "Well!" the owner whistled softly as he read it. "Hello, hello, hello!"

Sydney Carton showed no interest, and the man said: "For you, countryman?"

"For me."

"You will be careful to keep them separate, countryman? You know what will happen if you mix them?"

"Perfectly."

Some small containers were made and given to him. He put them, one by one, in the top pocket of his under coat, counted out the money for them, and confidently left the shop. "There is nothing more to do," he said to himself, looking up toward the moon, “until tomorrow. But I can't sleep."

He was not saying those words in anger, as he said them out loud under the fast-sailing clouds. They were not said in a lazy way either. They were said by a tired man who had gone the wrong way, became lost, and then, at last, found his way again and could see where it was leading.

Long ago, when other students saw him as one with great ability, he had buried his father. His mother had died years before that. The words that were read as his father was being buried came to him now as he went down the dark streets with their heavy shadows, and with the moon and the clouds sailing by high above him. "I am life and the giver of life, says the Lord. He that believes in me, even when he dies, he will still live. And anyone who lives and believes in me will never die."

In a city with an axe hanging over it, alone at night, feeling sadness for the 63 people who had been killed that day, and for those in the prisons waiting to die tomorrow and in other tomorrows after that, it was easy to see how one thought would lead to the other like each circle in a chain, pulling a rusty old ship's anchor up from the deep. He did not go looking for those words, but still, they went through his head before he walked on.

Sydney Carton had a serious interest in the whole life and death of the city this night, from the lights in windows, where people were about to take a few hours of rest from the cruel and awful actions that were happening all around them, to the church towers where no prayers were being said because the people had lost faith in a Christianity where the priests were false, evil robbers. He thought of the burying grounds, where signs on the gates said they were for people who were in "eternal sleep", of the crowded prisons, and of so many sixties of prisoners rolling to their deaths on those streets that people never even thought of sad stories about the guilt the guillotine workers might feel now. Sydney Carton then crossed the river to the lighter streets.

There were few coaches these days, because those who had enough money to ride in them were afraid that it would give them away as being part of the rich class. The rich were now hiding their heads under red hats, and wearing heavy shoes that were made for long walks. But the theatres were all filled, and the people poured happily out of them as he walked by, and they walked home talking to each other. At one of the theatre doors there was a little girl with her mother, looking for a way to cross the street through the mud. He carried the child over, and before the shy arm was loosed from around his neck, he asked her for a kiss.

"I am life and the giver of life, says the Lord. He that believes in me, even when he dies, he will still live. And anyone who lives and believes in me will never die."

Now that the streets were quiet and the night was wearing on, the words came back to him at the sound of his own steps and through the night air. Perfectly relaxed and clear, he sometimes repeated the words to himself as he walked; but even when he was not saying them, he was hearing them.

The night was coming to an end, and, as he stood on the bridge listening to the water hitting against the sides of the island that is Paris, where the picture-like confusion of houses and churches could be seen clearly in the light of the moon, the day came coldly, looking like a dead face out of the sky. Then the night, with the moon and the stars, turned white and died, and for a little while it seemed as if those things that God had made had died with it.

But the wonderful sun, as it came up, seemed to write those words, the ones he had carried through the night, straight and warm on his heart. Looking along the lines of sunlight, with his hand half covering his eyes, it seemed like a bridge of light between him and the sun, with the river looking beautiful below it.

The strong movement of the river, so fast, so deep, and so sure, was like a welcome friend in the quiet early morning hours. He walked by the water, far from the houses, and in the light and heat of the sun, he fell asleep on the side of it. When he was awake and on his feet again, he stayed there for a short time, watching a round movement in the water that turned and turned without any clear direction, until the river swallowed it up and carried it on to the ocean. "Like me!" he thought.

A boat with a sail that was the same soft colour of a dead leaf moved quietly by him and died away. As the line behind the boat was swallowed up as well, a prayer that had come up out of his heart, asking forgiveness for all of his blind and selfish actions, ended in the words, "I am life, and the giver of life."

Mr. Lorry was already out when he returned, and it was easy to say where he had gone. Sydney Carton had nothing but a little coffee and some bread, and, having washed and changed clothes, went to the court.

The court room was already full when the black sheep (whom many fell away from in fear) squeezed him into a back corner. Mr. Lorry was there, and Doctor Manette. She was there, sitting beside her father.

When her husband was brought in, she turned a look toward him that was so strong, so encouraging, so full of love and kindness, yet so brave for him, that it brought healthy blood to her husband's face, lighting up his eyes, and moving his heart. If there had been any eyes looking to see the effect of her look on Sydney Carton, they would have seen the same thing there.

Before that awful court there was little or no plan that would give any prisoner brought there the feeling that they would be heard fairly. But there would never have been a change of government in the first place if all the laws and rules had not first been awfully broken. And now the winds of war had confused things even more.

Every eye was turned toward the jury. It was the same freedom fighters and countrymen who had been there yesterday and the day before, and who would be there tomorrow and the day after. One enthusiastic member who seemed to be a leader to the others, with a hungry face, and his fingers always moving around his lips, was well liked by the people in the crowd. This blood thirsty man of the jury was Jack Three from St. Antoine. The whole jury was like a group of wild dogs being asked to say what they should do with a deer.

Every eye then turned to the five judges and the lawyer for the government. There was no one in that group who would help them today. Their business was to cut down and kill without mercy. Then every eye looked for some other eye in the crowd, and they smiled at each other and moved their heads in agreement, before bending forward with serious interest in what was going to happen.

Charles Evremonde, called Darnay. Freed yesterday. Arrested again yesterday. Papers listing his wrongs given to him last night. Believed to be an enemy of the new government, from the rich class, one of a family of evil leaders, one of a group named for the same thing, because they had used their past powers in awful acts against the people. Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, if the arguments are true, will be perfectly dead