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

He was not surprised when he heard the clock mark one o'clock. The hour had passed as any other hour. Seriously thanking God for his new control, he thought, "Only one more hour now," and he turned to walk again.

Steps on the stone floor outside his door. He stopped.

The key was put in the lock and turned. Before the door was opened, or as it opened, a man said softly in English, "He has never seen me here. I have stayed out of his way. You go in alone; I'll wait close by. Waste no time!"

The door was quickly opened and closed, and there stood before him face to face, quiet, looking into his eyes with a little smile on his face and a finger on his lips to warn him, Sydney Carton.

There was something so alive and special in his look that, at first, the prisoner did not think he was real, that he was a ghost that had come from inside his mind. But he spoke, and it was really his voice; he shook his hand, and it was really his hand.

"Of all the people on earth, you did not think it would be me?” he asked.

"I didn't believe it was you. I almost cannot believe it now. You are not...” -- And fear quickly returned to his mind. -- "a prisoner?"

"No. By accident, I have found some power over one of the guards here, and that is why I am standing here in front of you. I have come from her... your wife, good Darnay."

The prisoner squeezed his hands together.

"She has asked for you to do something."

"What is it?"

"She has begged seriously and deeply, in the saddest voice... the voice you remember and love so much."

The prisoner turned his face partly away.

"You have no time to ask me why I bring it, or what it means; I have no time to tell you. You must just do it... Take off those shoes you are wearing and put on these of mine."

There was a chair against the wall of the room, behind the prisoner. Carton, moving as fast as lightning, set him down in it and stood over him, wearing no shoes himself.

"Put these shoes on. Take them and move. Quickly!"

"Carton, there is no way to get out of this place; it can never be done. You will only die with me. It is foolishness."

"It would be foolish for me to ask you to run away, but have I asked you to do that? When I ask you to go out through that door, then you tell me that I am crazy, and you can stay here. Change that tie for this of mine, and that coat for this of mine. While you do that, let me take this cloth from your hair, and shake out your hair like mine!"

He moved so quickly and with such strong confidence and action that his control over Darnay seemed like a miracle. He forced all these changes on him, and the prisoner was like a young child in his hands.

"Carton! Good Carton! You're crazy. It can't work; it'll never happen; it has been tried before and always they have been stopped. I beg you not to add your death to the pain of mine."

"Do I ask you, my good friend, to go through the door? When I ask for that, you can say No. I see you have pen and ink and paper on this table. Is your hand relaxed enough to write?"

"It was when you came in."

"Relax it again, and write what I tell you to write. Quickly, my friend. Quickly!"

Putting his hand on his confused head, Darnay sat down at the table. Carton, with his right hand inside his shirt, stood close beside him.

"Write just what I say."

"Whom is it to?"

"To no one.” Carton still had his hand in his shirt.

"Do I put the day on it?"

"No."

The prisoner looked up at each question. Carton, standing over him, with his hand in his shirt, looked down.

"If you remember," said Carton, waiting for him to write that, "the words that passed between us long ago, you will easily understand this when you see it. I know you remember them. It is not like you to forget them."

He was pulling his hand out from under his shirt. The prisoner looked up at one point in his hurried surprise as he wrote, and the movement of the hand stopped, closing around something.

"Have you written forget them?” Carton asked.

"I have. Is that a weapon in your hand?"

"No. I am not armed."

"What is it in your hand?"

"I'll show you soon. Write on. There are only a few words more.” He started again, "I'm glad the time has come that I can prove them. My doing it should not be reason for anyone to feel sad.” As he said these words with his eyes closely watching the writer, his hand slowly and softly moved down close to the writer's face.

The pen dropped from Darnay's fingers onto the table, and he turned his head with an empty look in his eyes.

"What smell is that?” he asked.

"Smell?"

"Something that crossed me?"

"I don't smell anything. There can be nothing here. Take up the pen and finish. Hurry. Hurry!"

As if he could not remember clearly, or his mind was confused, the prisoner was fighting to think about what he was doing. He looked at Carton with clouded eyes and his breathing had changed. Carton, with his hand back under his coat, looked straight into his eyes.

"Hurry, hurry!"

The prisoner bent over the paper again.

"If this had not happened...” Carton's hand was again, carefully and secretly moving down. "...I never would have been able to help you. If this had not happened...” His hand was at the prisoner's face. "...I would have had more to answer for. If it had not happened...” Carton looked at the pen and could see it was making lines that were not letters.

Carton's hand did not return to his coat. The prisoner jumped up with a look to show that he disagreed, but Carton's hand was close and strong against his nose, and Carton's left arm was around his waist. Darnay fought with the man who had come to give his life for him, for only a few seconds, but a minute or so later he was lying flat on the ground, fully 'asleep'.

Quickly, but with his hands as true to what he was doing as his heart was, Carton dressed himself in the clothes the prisoner had put to one side, pulled back his hair, and tied it with the piece of cloth that the prisoner had been wearing. Then he called softly, "Come in here! Come in!" and the spy came in.

"You see?” said Carton, looking up as he went down on one knee beside the body on the floor, putting the paper in his shirt: "Is this so dangerous?"

"Mr. Carton," the spy answered with a shy movement of his fingers, "the danger is nothing, in the middle of all that is happening here, as long as you are true to your part of the promise."

"Don't be afraid of that. I will be true to the death."

"You must be, Mr. Carton, if the count of fifty-two is to be right. If you go dressed like that, I have nothing to fear."

"Have no fear! I will soon be in a place where I cannot hurt you, and others will soon be far away from here, with God's help. Now get someone to help take me to the coach."

"You?” asked the spy with a worried look.

"Him, man. The one who is me now. You will go out through the same gate you used to come in with me?"

"Yes."

"I was weak and faint when you brought me in, and I am fainter now that you are taking me out. The last talk with my friend has been too much for me. Such a thing has often happened here... too often. Your life is in your own hands. Quickly! Call for help!"

"Do you promise not to turn on me?” asked the spy, who was shaking, as he waited for one last second.

"Man, man!" returned Carton, hitting his foot on the ground. "Haven't I already made a holy promise, that you should want to waste more time now? Take him to the yard that we were at yesterday. You put him in the coach, and show yourself to Mr. Lorry. Tell him to give no medicine apart from air, and to remember my words from last night, and what he promised last night. Then you can drive away!"

The spy left, and Carton sat at the table, resting his forehead on his hands. The spy returned quickly with two men.

"How sad!" one of them said, studying the body on the floor. "So sick because his friend won a reward in the game of Saint Guillotine?"

"A good countryman," said the other, "would have fainted if this rich man had not been marked for death."

They lifted the sleeping body, put it on a cloth bed that the two men could carry, and bent over to carry it away.

"The time is short, Evremonde," said the spy in a warning voice.

"I know it well," answered Carton. "Be careful with my friend, I beg you, and leave me."

"Come, children," said Barsad. "Lift him and come with me."

The door closed, and Carton was left alone. Listening as well as he could, he waited for any sound that would show that there were problems. There was none. Keys turned, doors banged, steps moved along floors in the distance. No cry was heard, no running movement. Breathing more freely in a little while, he sat down at the table and listened again until the clock showed it was two.

Other sounds started, but he was not afraid of these, for he knew their meaning. A few doors were opened, one after the other, and the last one was his own. A guard, with a list in his hand, looked in, just saying, "Follow me, Evremonde!" and he followed into a big dark room, some distance from there. It was a dark winter day, and between the shadows inside and the shadows outside, he could not clearly see the others who were brought there to have their arms tied. Some were standing; some were sitting. Some were crying, and moving around in fear. But these were few; most were quiet and not moving, looking down at the ground.

As he stood by the wall in a dark corner, while some of the fifty-two were brought in after him, one man stopped in passing, to hug him, as one who knew him. He was afraid at the time that the man would know he was not Evremonde, but the man went on. A short time after that, a young woman, almost a girl, with a sweet, thin face with not a touch of colour to it, and big, wide open, patient eyes, stood up from where he had seen her sitting and came to talk to him.

"Countryman Evremonde," she said, touching him with her cold hand. "I am a poor little dressmaker, who was with you in La Force."

He answered softly, "True. I forget what you were there for."

"Planning to take over the government. But a fair God knows that I am innocent of that. How can they believe it? Who would think of using a poor little weak girl like me?"

The sad smile with which she said it so touched him that tears started from his eyes.

"I am not afraid to die, Countryman Evremonde, but I have done nothing. I am willing to die if the new government, which will do so much good for us poor will be helped by it; but I do not know how that can be, Countryman Evremonde. Such a poor weak little person!"

His heart grew warm and soft for this poor girl, as the last thing on earth that he would have such feelings for.

"I heard you were freed, Countryman Evremonde. I had hoped it was true."

"It was. But I was taken again and sent here."

"Can I ride with you, Countryman Evremonde? Will you let me hold your hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and weak, and it will help me to be brave."

As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw them change quickly, first to a little confusion, and then strong surprise. He squeezed her hungry, tired young fingers, and touched his lips.

"Are you dying for him?” she whispered.

"For him and his wife and child. Say nothing, okay?”

"Oh, do let me hold your brave hand, stranger."

"Say nothing more! Yes, my poor sister, to the end."

The same shadows that were falling on the prison, were falling, at that same time, in the early afternoon, on the city gate, with the crowd around it, when a coach leaving Paris came up to be looked at.

"Who is this? Who is in there? Papers!"

The papers are handed out and read.

"Alexander Manette. Doctor. French. Which is he?"

This is he. The poor old man with his mind going in strange directions was pointed out.

"It looks like the Countryman Doctor is not in his right mind. Has the sickness of the war been too much for him?"

Far too much for him.

"Ha! Many have felt