hand at this moment, by the side of that infernal dog’s who has
just left us?”
“Stranger things than that will happen when it does come,”
answered madame. “I have them both here, of a certainty; and
they are both here for their merits; that is enough.”
She rolled up her knitting when she had said those words, and
presently took the rose out of the handkerchief that was wound
about her head. Either Saint Antoine had an instinctive sense that
the objectionable decoration was gone, or Saint Antoine was on
the watch for its disappearance; howbeit, the Saint took courage to
lounge in, very shortly afterwards, and the wine-shop recovered its
habitual aspect.
In the evening, at which season of all others Saint Antoine
turned himself inside out, and sat on doorsteps and window-
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A Tale of Two Cities
ledges, and came to the corners of vile streets and courts, for a
breath of air, Madame Defarge with her work in her hand was
accustomed to pass from place to place and from group to group: a
Missionary—there were many like her—such as the world will do
well never to breed again. All the women knitted. They knitted
worthless things, but, the mechanical work was a mechanical
substitute for eating and drinking; the hands moved for the jaws
and the digestive apparatus: if the bony fingers had been still, the
stomachs would have been more famine-pinched.
But, as the fingers went, the eyes went, and the thoughts. And
as Madame Defarge moved on from group to group, all three went
quicker and fiercer among every little knot of women that she had
spoken with, and left behind.
Her husband smoked at his door, looking after her with
admiration. “A great woman,” said he, “a strong woman, a grand
woman, a frightfully grand woman!”
Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of church
bells and the distant beating of the military drums in the Palace
Courtyard, as the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness
encompassed them. Another darkness was closing in as surely,
when the church bells, then ringing pleasantly in many an airy
steeple over France, should be melted into thundering cannon;
when the military drums should be beating to drown a wretched
voice, that night all potent as the voice of Power and Plenty,
Freedom and Life. So much was closing in about the women who
sat knitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing in
around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting,
knitting, counting dropping heads.
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A Tale of Two Cities
Chapter XXIII
ONE NIGHT
N ever did the sun go down with a brighter glory on the
quiet corner in Soho, than one memorable evening when
the Doctor and his daughter sat under the plane-tree
together. Never did the moon rise with a milder radiance over
great London, than on that night when it found them still seated
under the tree, and shone upon their faces through its leaves.
Lucie was to be married tomorrow. She had reserved this last
evening for her father, and they sat alone under the plane-tree.
“You are happy, my dear father?”
“Quite, my child.”
They had said little, though they had been there a long time.
When it was yet light enough to work and read, she h"};
