A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (best fiction books to read .txt) 📖

the room, and she shut them all. She then placed herself before the door of the chamber which Lucie had occupied.

Madame Defarge’s dark eyes followed her through this rapid movement, and rested on her when it was finished. Miss Pross had nothing beautiful about her; years had not tamed the wildness, or softened the grimness, of her appearance; but, she too was a determined woman in her different way, and she measured Madame Defarge with her eyes, every inch.

“You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.”

Madame Defarge looked at her scornfully, but still with something of Miss Pross’s own perception that they two were at bay. She saw a tight, hard, wiry woman before her, as Mr. Lorry had seen in the same figure a woman with a strong hand, in the years gone by. She knew full well that Miss Pross was the family’s devoted friend; Miss Pross knew full well that Madame Defarge was the family’s malevolent enemy.

“On my way yonder,” said Madame Defarge, with a slight movement of her hand towards the fatal spot, “where they reserve my chair and my knitting for me, I am come to make my compliments to her in passing. I wish to see her.”

“I know that your intentions are evil,” said Miss Pross, “and you may depend upon it, I’ll hold my own against them.”

Each spoke in her own language; neither understood the other’s words; both were very watchful, and intent to deduce from look and manner, what the unintelligible words meant.

“It will do her no good to keep herself concealed from me at this moment,” said Madame Defarge. “Good patriots will know what that means. Let me see her. Go tell her that I wish to see her. Do you hear?”

“If those eyes of yours were bed-winches,” returned Miss Pross, “and I was an English four-poster, they shouldn’t loose a splinter of me. No, you wicked foreign woman; I am your match.”

Madame Defarge was not likely to follow these idiomatic remarks in detail; but, she so far understood them as to perceive that she was set at naught.

“Woman imbecile and pig-like!” said Madame Defarge, frowning. “I take no answer from you. I demand to see her. Either tell her that I demand to see her, or stand out of the way of the door and let me go to her!” This, with an angry explanatory wave of her right arm.

“I little thought,” said Miss Pross, “that I should ever want to understand your nonsensical language; but I would give all I have, except the clothes I wear, to know whether you suspect the truth, or any part of it.”

Neither of them for a single moment released the other’s eyes. Madame Defarge had not moved from the spot where she stood when Miss Pross first became aware of her; but, she now advanced one step.

“I am a Briton,” said Miss Pross, “I am desperate. I don’t care an English Twopence for myself. I know that the longer I keep you here, the greater hope there is for my Ladybird. I’ll not leave a handful of that dark hair upon your head, if you lay a finger on me!”

Thus Miss Pross, with a shake of her head and a flash of her eyes between every rapid sentence, and every rapid sentence a whole breath. Thus Miss Pross, who had never struck a blow in her life.

But, her courage was of that emotional nature that it brought the irrepressible tears into her eyes. This was a courage that Madame Defarge so little comprehended as to mistake for weakness. “Ha, ha!” she laughed, “you poor wretch! What are you worth! I address myself to that Doctor.” Then she raised her voice and called out, “Citizen Doctor! Wife of Evremonde! Child of Evremonde! Any person but this miserable fool, answer the Citizeness Defarge!”

Perhaps the following silence, perhaps some latent disclosure in the expression of Miss Pross’s face, perhaps a sudden misgiving apart from either suggestion, whispered to Madame Defarge that they were gone. Three of the doors she opened swiftly, and looked in.

“Those rooms are all in disorder, there has been hurried packing, there are odds and ends upon the ground. There is no one in that room behind you! Let me look.”

“Never!” said Miss Pross, who understood the request as perfectly as Madame Defarge understood the answer.

“If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be pursued and brought back,” said Madame Defarge to herself.

“As long as you don’t know whether they are in that room or not, you are uncertain what to do,” said Miss Pross to herself; “and you shall not know that, if I can prevent your knowing it; and know that, or not know that, you shall not leave here while I can hold you.”

“I have been in the streets from the first, nothing has stopped me, I will tear you to pieces, but I will have you from that door,” said Madame Defarge.

“We are alone at the top of a high house in a solitary courtyard, we are not likely to be heard, and I pray for bodily strength to keep you here, while every minute you are here is worth a hundred thousand guineas to my darling,” said Miss Pross.

Madame Defarge made at the door. Miss Pross, on the instinct of the moment, seized her round the waist in both her arms, and held her tight. It was in vain for Madame Defarge to struggle and to strike; Miss Pross, with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, clasped her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle that they had. The two hands of Madame Defarge buffeted and tore her face; but, Miss Pross, with her head down, held her round the waist, and clung to her with more than the hold of a drowning woman.

Soon, Madame Defarge’s hands ceased to strike, and felt at her encircled waist. “It is under my arm,” said Miss Pross, in smothered tones, “you shall not draw it. I am stronger than you, I bless Heaven for it. I hold you till one or other of us faints or dies!”

Madame Defarge’s hands were at her bosom. Miss Pross looked up, saw what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash and a crash, and stood alone—blinded with smoke.

All this was in a second. As the smoke cleared, leaving an awful stillness, it passed out on the air, like the soul of the furious woman whose body lay lifeless on the ground.

In the first fright and horror of her situation, Miss Pross passed the body as far from it as she could, and ran down the stairs to call for fruitless help. Happily, she bethought herself of the consequences of what she did, in time to check herself and go back. It was dreadful to go in at the door again; but, she did go in, and even went near it, to get the bonnet and other things that she must wear. These she put on, out on the staircase, first shutting and locking the door and taking away the key. She then sat down on the stairs a few moments to breathe and to cry, and then got up and hurried away.

By good fortune she had a veil on her bonnet, or she could hardly have gone along the streets without being stopped. By good fortune, too, she was naturally so peculiar in appearance as not to show disfigurement like any other woman. She needed both advantages, for the marks of gripping fingers were deep in her face, and her hair was torn, and her dress (hastily composed with unsteady hands) was clutched and dragged a hundred ways.

In crossing the bridge, she dropped the door key in the river. Arriving at the cathedral some few minutes before her escort, and waiting there, she thought, what if the key were already taken in a net, what if it were identified, what if the door were opened and the remains discovered, what if she were stopped at the gate, sent to prison, and charged with murder! In the midst of these fluttering thoughts, the escort appeared, took her in, and took her away.

“Is there any noise in the streets?” she asked him.

“The usual noises,” Mr. Cruncher replied; and looked surprised by the question and by her aspect.

“I don’t hear you,” said Miss Pross. “What do you say?”

It was in vain for Mr. Cruncher to repeat what he said; Miss Pross could not hear him. “So I’ll nod my head,” thought Mr. Cruncher, amazed, “at all events she’ll see that.” And she did.

“Is there any noise in the streets now?” asked Miss Pross again, presently.

Again Mr. Cruncher nodded his head.

“I don’t hear it.”

“Gone deaf in an hour?” said Mr. Cruncher, ruminating, with his mind much disturbed; “wot’s come to her?”

“I feel,” said Miss Pross, “as if there had been a flash and a crash, and that crash was the last thing I should ever hear in this life.”

“Blest if she ain’t in a queer condition!” said Mr. Cruncher, more and more disturbed. “Wot can she have been a takin’, to keep her courage up? Hark! There’s the roll of them dreadful carts! You can hear that, miss?”

“I can hear,” said Miss Pross, seeing that he spoke to her, “nothing. O, my good man, there was first a great crash, and then a great stillness, and that stillness seems to be fixed and unchangeable, never to be broken any more as long as my life lasts.”

“If she don’t hear the roll of those dreadful carts, now very nigh their journey’s end,” said Mr. Cruncher, glancing over his shoulder, “it’s my opinion that indeed she never will hear anything else in this world.”

And indeed she never did.

XV

The Footsteps Die Out For Ever

 

Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.

Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again to what they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches that are not my father’s house but dens of thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants! No; the great magician who majestically works out the appointed order of the Creator, never reverses his transformations. “If thou be changed into this shape by the will of God,” say the seers to the enchanted, in the wise Arabian stories, “then remain so! But, if thou wear this form through mere passing conjuration, then resume thy former aspect!” Changeless and hopeless, the tumbrils roll along.

As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem to plough up a long crooked furrow among the populace in the streets. Ridges of faces are thrown to this side and to that, and the ploughs go steadily onward. So used are the regular inhabitants of