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

Good evening, countryman.” Filling his glass he said, "Ah! And good wine. I drink to the new government."

Defarge went back to the counter and said, "True, he is a little like him.” Madam seriously argued back, "I tell you, he is a lot like him.” Jack Three, trying to make peace, said, "He is so much in your mind, Madam, that you see him there.” The Punisher answered with a friendly laugh, "Yes, quite true! And you are looking forward with so much enthusiasm to seeing him again tomorrow!"

Carton followed the lines and words of his paper with a slowly moving finger, and with a serious, studying face. They were all leaning their arms on the counter close together and talking softly.

After a short time when they said nothing and just looked toward him, without seeing any sign that he was thinking about anything but the magazine he was reading, they returned to talking.

"It's true what Madam says," pointed out Jack Three. "Why stop? Things are going well, so why stop now?"

"Well, well," reasoned Defarge, "but one must stop somewhere. After all, the question is still, Where?"

"When they are all gone," said Madam.

"Perfect!" said Jack Three. The Punisher also agreed highly.

"Killing all of them is a good plan, my wife," said Defarge, a little worried. "For the most part I say nothing against it. But this Doctor has been through so much. You saw him today. You saw his face when the paper was read."

"Yes, I did see his face!" repeated Madam with a show of anger and hate. "Yes. I have seen his face. I have seen that it is not the face of a true friend of the new government. Let him be careful about that face!"

"And did you see, my wife," asked Defarge, humbly disagreeing with her, "the pain that his daughter was going through? That must have brought an awful pain to him!"

"I have seen the daughter," repeated Madam. "Yes, I have seen his daughter more than once. I saw her today, but I have seen her other days too. I have seen her in the court and I have seen her in the street by the prison. Just let me lift my finger...!" The listener's eyes were always on his paper, but it seemed that she lifted her finger and let it fall with a bump on the counter in front of her, as if the axe had dropped.

"The countrywoman knows best!" said the man from the jury.

"She is an angel!" said The Punisher, and she hugged her.

"As for you," went on Madam, whose anger was not going to be stopped, as she turned to her husband, "if it was up to you, and I am happy that it is not, you would rescue this man even now."

"No!" argued Defarge. "Not even if just lifting this glass would do it! But I would leave it there. I say stop there."

"See this, Jack," said Madam Defarge, angrily, "and see you too, my little Punisher. Listen, both of you! For many evil acts I have had this family on my list for a long time, named to be destroyed. Ask my husband if this is so."

"It is so," said Defarge, without being asked.

"At the start of the great days, when the prison fell, he found the paper we read today. He brought it home in the middle of the night, when this place was empty and closed. We read it here, where we are now, by the light of this lantern. Ask him if it is so."

"It is so," agreed Defarge.

"That night, I told him, when we had finished reading the paper, and when the lantern had burned out, and the morning was starting to show through those window covers and between those iron bars, that I had a secret to tell him. Ask him, if that is so."

"It is so," agreed Defarge again.

"I told him that secret. I hit both of my hands on my chest as I am doing now, and I told him, 'Defarge, I was brought up by people who fish on the beach, and that poor family that was so hurt by the two Evremonde brothers, as that prison paper says, is my family! Defarge, that sister of the boy who was on the ground dying was my sister, and that husband who was killed was my sister's husband. That baby that was never born was their child, that brother was my brother, that father was my father, and those dead are my dead. The job of making someone answer for those things falls to me!' Ask him if it is so."

"It is so," said Defarge one more time.

"So tell wind and fire where to stop," returned Madam, "but don't tell me."

Both of the people hearing the story listened with a sick enthusiasm for the cruel spirit of her anger, and they said as much.

The other, secret, listener could feel how white she had turned, without looking up at her. Defarge, who was on his own, said a few words for the loving wife of the Marquis, but that only brought from his wife a repeat of the words she had just said. "Tell the wind and fire where to stop; not me!"

Some people came into the shop, and the group broke up. The Englishman paid for his drink, showed confusion when counting his coins; and asked, as if he was a stranger there, how to find the government building. Madam Defarge took him to the door, putting her arm in his as she pointed out the road. The Englishman had the thought at the time that it might be good for everyone if he were to grab that arm, lift it, and hit under it both sharply and deeply.

But he went on his way, and was soon standing in the shadow of the prison wall. At the right time, he left there to go see Mr. Lorry in his room again. He found the man walking up and down in great worry and fear. He said he had been with Lucie until just then, and he had only left her for a few minutes to come and keep his meeting with Sydney Carton. Her father had not been seen since he left the bank just before four o'clock. She had some weak hope that his actions might save Charles, but they were very weak. He had been gone more than five hours now. Where could he be?

Mr. Lorry waited until ten, but when Doctor Manette had not returned, he felt he must go back and see how Lucie was, and return to the bank room again at midnight. Carton could wait for the Doctor by himself in front of the fire.

He waited and waited, and by midnight the Doctor had still not come back. Mr. Lorry returned with no news of him, and he found none. Where could he be?

They were talking about this and were starting to hope that the long wait was because the Doctor had found someone to help him, when they heard him coming up the steps. The minute he came into the room they could see that all hope was lost.

They never learned if he had really been to see anyone or if he had been walking the streets all that time. As he stood looking at them, they asked him no question, because his face told them everything.

"I cannot find it," he said. "I must have it. Where is it?"

He had no hat or scarf on, and as he spoke with that sad lost look all around himself, he took off his coat and let it drop on the floor.

"Where is my bench? I have been looking everywhere for my bench, and I can't find it. What have they done with my work. Time is coming to an end; I must finish those shoes."

They looked at each other and their hearts died inside them.

"Come, come!" he said in a weak, crying way. "Let me get to work. Give me my work."

Receiving no answer, he pulled at his hair and hit his feet on the ground like a confused child.

"Don't be cruel to a poor lost man," he begged them, with a sad cry. "Just give me my work! What is to become of us if those shoes are not finished tonight?"

Lost,. In every way lost!

There was so clearly no hope of being able to say anything that would help him, that they each, as if by agreement, put a hand on his shoulder and encouraged him to sit down in front of the fire, with a promise that he would soon have his work. He dropped into the chair and looked into the fire as tears rolled down his face. As if all that had happened since his days in the room over the wine shop was only a dream, Mr. Lorry saw him return to the same man that Defarge had kept safe many years earlier.

This awful change filled them both with fear, but they knew it was not a time for giving in to such feelings. The needs of his daughter, who would now be without help from her last hope, were too strong for them to do that. Again, as if by agreement, they looked at one another with the same meaning in their faces. Carton was the first to speak:

"Our last hope is gone; it never was much anyway. Yes, he should be taken to her; but, before you go, will you listen very closely to me for a minute? Don't ask me why I make the rules I am going to make, or why I ask for the promise for which I am going to ask. I have a reason... a very good one."

"I trust you on that," answered Mr. Lorry. "Go on."

The person in the chair between them did not stop moving forward and backward in it, and making sad sounds as he did. Their quiet, serious voices were like those of people sitting by the bed of a sick person through the night.

Carton leaned over to pick up the coat, which was lying at his feet. As he did, a leather container that the Doctor used to hold a list of jobs that he needed to do each day, fell lightly on the floor. He picked it up and there was a folded piece of paper in it. "We should look at this!" he said. Mr. Lorry moved his head to show that he agreed. Carton opened it and cried out, "Thank God!"

"What is it?” asked Mr. Lorry with great interest.

"Just a minute! Let me show you something else first.” He put his hand in his coat and took out another paper from it. "That is the paper that makes it possible for me to leave the city. You see... Sydney Carton, Englishman."

Mr. Lorry held the open paper in his hand as he looked at Sydney's serious face.

"Keep it for me until tomorrow. I'll see him tomorrow, remember, and I had better not take it into the prison."

"Why not?"

"I don't know; I just don't want to take it with me. Now, take this paper that Doctor Manette was carrying. It is the same kind of paper for him and his daughter and her child, and will let them go through all of the gates between here and the border. See?"

"Yes."

"He may have asked for it as his last protection against evil yesterday. What is the day on it? But it's not important; don't take time to look now; put it with mine and with your own. Now, listen! I had always thought, before now, that he either had such a paper or that he could easily get one. The pass is good until they ask for it back. But that could soon happen, and I have reason to think that it will."

"Are they in danger?"

"They are in great danger. They are in danger of Madam Defarge pointing her finger at them. I have heard it from her own lips. Just tonight I heard her talking and what she said painted a clear picture of the danger. I have not wasted any time, and since then I have been to see our spy friend. He agrees. He knows that a woodcutter, living by the prison wall, is under the control of the Defarges, and he has been talked to by Madam Defarge about having seen her making signs to prisoners.” Sydney Carton never used Lucie's name. "It's easy to see that they'll use the argument that they have used against so many others, which is that they are part of a secret plan against the government. If they do, her life, maybe her child's life, and maybe her father's too -- for both have been seen with her there -- will be in danger. Do not look so awfully afraid. You can save them all."

"May God help me to do that, Carton! But how?"

"I am going to tell you how. You are the only one who can make it work, and there could be no better man for the job. This new attack on the Manettes will surely not