A Tale of Two Cities

etting it out of a cart; the cask had tumbled out with a run, the hoops had burst, and i

thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them, had dammed it into little pools; these were surrounded, each by its own jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneele

ows, darted here and there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new directions; others devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces of the cask licking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted fragments with eager relish. There

ere was a special companionship in it, an observable inclination on the part of every one to join some other one, which led, especially among the luckier or lighter-hearted, to frolicsome embraces, dri

a door-step the little pot of hot ashes, at which she had been trying to soften the pain in her own starved fingers and toes, or in those of her child, returned to it; men with bare arms, matt

ands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the stave

ld be spilled on the street-stones, and when

ding in the mill, and certainly not in the fabulous mill which ground old people young, shivered at every corner, passed in and out at every doorway, looked from every window, fluttered in every vestige of a garment that the wind shock. The mill which had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people old; the children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upo

inscription on the baker's shelves, written in every small loaf of his Scanty stock of bad bread; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that was offered for sale. Hunger rattled

of turning at bay. Depressed and slinking though they were, eyes of fire were not wanting among them; nor compressed lips, white with what they suppressed; nor foreheads knitted into the likeness of the gallows-rope they mused about enduring, or inflicting. The trade signs (and they were almost as many as the shops) were, all, grim illustrations of Want. The butcher and the porkma

stones of the pavement, with their many little reservoirs of mud and water, had

nd then it ran, by many eccentric fits, into the houses. Across the streets, at wide i

of dim wicks swung in a sickly manner overhead, as if they were at sea.

ched the lamplighter, in their idleness and hunger, so long, as to conceive the ide

; and every wind that blew over France shook the rags of the scarecr

had stood outside it, in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches, looking on at the struggle for the lost wine. `It'' no

the tall joker writing up his jok

Gaspard, what d

s is often the way with his tribe. It missed its mark, and

obliterating the jest with a handful of mud, picked up for the purpose and smeared over it. `Why do yo

his own, took a nimble spring upward, and came down in a fantastic dancing attitude, with one of his stained shoes jerked off his foo

, he wiped his soiled hand upon the joker's dress, such as it was--quite deliberately, as ha

olled up, too, and his brown arms were bare to the elbows. Neither did he wear anything more on his head than his own crisply-curling short dark hair. He was a dark man altogether, with good eyes and a good bold breadth between them. Go

me Defarge was a stout woman of about his own age, with a watchful eye that seld

and had a quantity of bright shawl twined about her head, though not to the concealment of her large earrings. Her knitting was before her, but she had laid it down to pick her teeth with a toothpick. Thus engaged, with her right elbow supported by her left hand, Madame Defarge said

opped in while he s

a corner. Other company were there: two playing cards, two playing dominoes, three standing by the counter lengthening out a short supp

galley there?' said Monsieur Defar

s, and fell into discourse with the triumvirat

f these three to Monsieur Defarge.

ques,' answered

arge, picking her teeth with her toothpick coughed another grain

Defarge, `that many of these miserable beasts know the taste of win

ues,' Monsieur

ill using her toothpick with profound composure, coughed another gra

say, as he put down his empty dri

such poor cattle always have in their mouths, and

es,' was the response

ed at the moment when Madame Defarge put her toothpick b

uttered her husband.

homage by bending her head, and giving them a quick look. Then she glanced in a casual manner round the w

nd `were inquiring for when I stepped out, is on the fifth floor. The doorway of the staircase gives on the little court-yard close to the left here,' pointin

Defarge were studying his wife at her knitting when the elderly g

ieur Defarge, and quietly s

ieur Defarge started and became deeply attentive. It had not lasted a minute, whe

nitted with nimble fingers and

c entrance to a great pile of houses, inhabited by a great number of people. In the gloomy tile-paved entry to the gloomy tile-paved staircase, Monsieur Defarge bent down on one knee to the child of his old master, and put her hand to his l

begin slowly.' Thus, Monsieur Defarge, in a stern vo

?' the latte

ould be with him?' said the

lways alo

Y

s own

r they found me and demanded to know if I would take him, a

reatly c

ang

tremendous curse. No direct answer could have been half so forcible. Mr. Lorry's

gh

s, would be bad enough now; but, at that time, it was vile indeed to unaccustomed a

he air, even if poverty and deprivation had not loaded it wit!' their intangible impurities; the Mo bad sources combined made it almost insupportable. Through such an atmosphere, by a steep dark shaft of dirt and poison, the way lay. Yielding to his own disturbance of mind, and to his you

neighbourhood; and nothing within range, nearer or lower than the summits of the

rati

here was yet an upper staircase, of a steeper inclination and of contracted dimensio

ough he dreaded to be asked any question by the young lady, turned himself about here, and

hen, my friend?' said

he grim reply of

to keep the unfortunat

y.' Monsieur Defarge whispered it cl

hy

would be frightened--rave--tear himself to pieces--die-

ble?' exclai

it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but

. But, by this time she trembled under such strong emotion, and her face expressed such deep anxiety, and, ab

the worst is over. Then, all the good you bring to him, all the relief, all the happiness you bring to him, begin

en, whose heads were bent down close together at the side of a door, and who were intently looking into the room to which the door belonged, through some chinks or hole

isit,' explained Monsieur Defarge. `Leav

ed by, and wen

er of the wine-shop going straight to this one when they were l

a show of Mon

e way you have see

hat w

k it is

ew? How do you

whom the sight is likely to do good. Enough you are English; th

gain, he struck twice or thrice upon the door--evidently with no other object than to make a noise there With the same intention

e room and said something. A faint voice answered something. Little

enter. Mr. Lorry got his arm securely round the daughte

with a moisture that was not of busines

it,' she answe

it?

him. Of m

drew over his neck the arm that shook upon his shoulder, lifted her a little, and hurri

hand. All this he did, methodically, and with as loud and harsh an accompaniment of noise as he could make. Fin

ction. To exclude the cold, one half of thin door was fast closed, and the other was opened but a very little way. Such a scanty portion of light was admitted through these means, that it was difficult, on first coming in, to see anything; and long habit alone could have slowly formed in any one, the ability t