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

light has not even reached our planet yet. Out there, the shadows of the night were wide and black. All through the cold rough night those shadows whispered again to Mr. Jarvis Lorry, who was sitting opposite the buried man who had been uncovered. He was asking himself what abilities had left the man forever and what abilities could be returned to him with time. The old question came to him again:

"I hope you want to be called back to life?” And the old answer: "I cannot say."

The End of the First Book

The Second Book: The Golden Thread

1. Five Years Later

Tellson's Bank in Temple Bar was behind the times, even in 1780. It was very small, dark, ugly, and not at all comfortable. Part of this was because its owners were proud that it was small, dark, ugly, and not comfortable. They would argue that it if were comfortable and not so old, small, dark, and ugly, it would not be the good bank that it was. They used these qualities like a weapon, to prove that they were better than their competition in the banking world. Tellson's, they would say, was not interested in such things as more space and light, or having more beautiful and comfortable furniture. The competition might want to waste money on such things, but not Tellson's.

Any one of the men who owned Tellson's would have kicked his own son out of the family if his son had encouraged him to build a new bank. In this way, Tellson's was much like the country as a whole, for England would often kick out its sons if they talked of changing things that were very wrong, at a time when most people still believed them to be good.

And so it happened that Tellson's was the most perfectly awful bank in England. After forcing a sticky door open that had a bad sound in its throat as it turned, one would fall down two steps into a very little shop, with two little counters, where the oldest men in the world would shake your cheque like it was blowing in the wind, while they studied your name on it through what little light was coming through a dirty little window that was always being hit by mud from the coaches going by on the street outside. The window was made to look worse by the strong iron bars across it.

If you needed to see 'the house' to finish your business, they would put you in a little room out the back, like the one that prisoners stay in before they are hanged. There you could think about all the bad things you have done with your life until 'the house' came with his hands in his pockets to see you.

Your money would come out of, or go into, old drawers that had worms eating away at them, so that some of the powdered timber would go up your nose when they were opened or shut. Paper money had the smell of paper being destroyed by the wet. Silver was forced to live in a place where everything next to it was old and dirty; the effect of living close to such bad neighbours was that a bright piece of silver today would turn grey tomorrow. Papers showing you owned your house would be put on shelves in an old kitchen, and boxes of less important family papers went to the room above, which always had a big dinner table in it, even if no one ever ate there. Even in 1780, the first letters written to you by your old love or by your little children would have just then been moved away from the window, where people had looked through at them with as little feeling for you as one would find in cruelest Africa or India.

At that time putting people to death was the thing to do, all over England. Tellson's too was a part of it. Death is the end to all of life's problems, and so the government chose to fix its problems in the same way. If one signed a false name to an important paper, they were put to death. If one passed counterfeit money they were put to death. If one opened a letter that was not theirs, they were put to death. If one robbed forty shillings, they were put to death. If one was left to hold a horse at the door to Tellson's and then made off with it, they were put to death. Three out of four of the rules used in the courts were made right by putting someone to death. Not that it did the least good in stopping such actions. Truth is, the opposite seemed to happen. But it had a way of putting an end to a lot of paper work if the courts could just put someone to death and be finished with it. And so it was that Tellson's, like other banks at the time, had helped to take so many lives that if the heads that had been cut off had been put one on the other in front of the bank, instead of being buried quietly, they would probably have shut out what little light the ground floor now had.

Pushed into all kinds of dark corners, the oldest of men at Tellson's carried on their business very seriously. If young men worked there at all, the old men would hide them until they, too, became old. A young man must be put in a dark place like a cheese, waiting for him to get the Tellson smell and colour. Only then would he be let out to be seen leaning over big books and adding his pants and shirt to the general weight of the business.

Outside Tellson's -- never in it unless asked in -- was a worker who would take and bring letters and other things when he was needed. When he was not doing that, he was like a living sign for the bank. He was there at all hours when the bank was open, apart from when he was off doing a job for the bank; and when he was doing that, his son would be there in his place. The son was a poor, rough boy of twelve, who looked just like his father. People understood that Tellson's was being kind to keep the man, as it had always been kind enough to keep such a man. His last name was Cruncher, and when he was baptised, he received a first name... Jerry.

The scene is Mr. Cruncher's room, at 7:30 on a windy March morning, in the year of our Lord 1780. (Mr. Cruncher always called the year of our Lord 'Anna Dominoes', maybe thinking that the Christian church started with the invention of dominoes by a woman named Anna.)

Cruncher's rooms were not in a nice part of the city, and there were only two of them, if you can count a very little room with one small piece of glass for a window as the second. But the place was neat and clean. Even as early as it was, the room where Cruncher was still sleeping had been fully cleaned; and between the cups and dishes set out for breakfast, and the rough timber table was a very clean white cloth. Mr. Cruncher was lying under a brightly coloured quilt that made him look like a sleeping clown. He had been sleeping deeply at the start of the scene, but by steps he moved and turned until he lifted his messy head of hair to shout in anger, "Break my head if she's not at it again!"

A neat hard-working woman got up from her knees in a corner. She did it quickly enough and showing enough fear to make it clear that she was the person he was shouting about.

"What?” said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of the bed for a shoe. "You're at it again, aren't you?"

He followed this by throwing a boot at her. It was covered with mud, which is one of the strangest things. He often came home after banking hours with clean shoes, but when he got up the next morning, the same boots were covered with clay.

"What are you up to, Aggerawayter?"

"I was only saying my prayers."

"Saying your prayers, are you? What a nice woman! What do you mean by throwing yourself down and praying against me?"

"I wasn't praying against you. I was praying for you."

"No you weren't. And even if you was, I won't be used like that. Look here! Your mother's a nice woman, young Jerry, up and praying against your father's wealth. You have a faithful mother, you have, my son. You've got a religious mother, you have, my boy: going and throwing herself down and praying that the bread and butter may be taken out of the mouth of her only child."

The younger Cruncher, who was in his shirt, took this badly. He turned on his mother, angry at anyone who would pray away his food.

"And what do you think, you selfish woman," said Mr. Cruncher, "the worth of your prayers is? Name the price you put on them!"

"They only come from the heart, Jerry. They're worth no more than that."

"Worth no more than that?” Mr. Cruncher repeated. "They aren't worth much then. Worth much or not, I won't be prayed against, I tell you. It'll cost me too much. You won't take my luck away by throwing yourself down when I'm not looking. If you must go throwing yourself down, do it to help your husband and child, and not to hurt us. If I had had any but a religious wife, and this boy had had any but a religious mother, I might have made some money last week instead of being prayed against and religiously cut off from good luck. Break my head!" said Mr. Cruncher, who all this time had been putting on his clothes, "if I wasn't, with religion and one awful thing after another, pushed this last week into as bad luck as ever a poor devil of an honest worker met with! Young Jerry, dress yourself, my boy, and while I clean my boots keep an eye on your mother now and then, and if you see any signs of more throwing down, give me a call. For I tell you," and here he turned to his wife once more, "I won't be letting this happen again. I'm shaking like an old coach, as tired as if I was drugged; my nerves are pulled to the point that if it wasn't for the pain, I wouldn't know if I was me or if I was someone else. Yet I'm none the better for it in pocket. And it's my feeling that you've been at it from morning to night to stop me from being the better for it, too. I won't put up with it, Aggerawayter. And what do you say now?"

Angrily answering her with things like, "Oh, yes, you're religious too. You wouldn't put yourself against the interests of your husband and child, would you? Not you!" Mr. Cruncher went about the business of cleaning his boots and making himself ready for work. At the same time, his son, whose hair was as wild as his father's and whose young eyes were close to each other like his father's, watched his mother as he had been told to. He greatly worried her from time to time by racing out of his little room, where he was dressing, to shout, "You're going to throw yourself down, aren't you? Hello, father!" and after giving this false warning, racing back in again with an evil smile on his face.

Mr. Cruncher's spirit was no better when he came to breakfast. He was angry that Mrs. Cruncher thanked God for the food.

"Now, Aggerawayter! What're you up to? Are you at it agin?"

His wife said that she had only "asked a blessing".

"Don't do it!" said Mr. Cruncher, looking around like he believed the bread would disappear under the power of his wife's prayer. "I'm not to be blessed out of my house and home. I won't have my food blessed off my table. Now keep quiet!"

Jerry Cruncher's eyes were red and he was in bad spirits, like he had been up all night at a party that had been anything but friendly. He fought with his food, making sounds like some four-footed prisoner in a zoo. When it was close to nine o'clock, he smoothed himself and did the best he could to cover the truth about himself with a business-like look before leaving for work.

It was not much of a job, even if he liked to call himself an honest worker. His only tool was a little chair without a back, that young Jerry, walking at his father's side, carried every morning to the window of the bank in Temple Bar. After taking some dry grass from the first vehicle to go past, and putting it in his shoes to keep out the cold