A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations (Oprah's Book Club) (51 page)

The door was quickly opened and closed, and there stood before him face to face, quiet, intent upon him, with the light of a smile on his features and a cautionary finger on his lip, Sydney Carton.

There was something so bright and remarkable in his look, that, for the first moment, the prisoner misdoubted him to be an apparition of his own imagining. But, he spoke, and it was his voice; he took the prisoner’s hand, and it was his real grasp.

‘Of all the people upon earth, you least expected to see me!’ he said.

‘I could not believe it to be you. I can scarcely believe it now. You are not’ – the apprehension came suddenly into his mind – ‘a prisoner?’

‘No. I am accidentally possessed of a power over one of the keepers here, and in virtue of it I stand before you. I come from her – your wife, dear Darnay.’

The prisoner wrung his hand.

‘I bring you a request from her.’

‘What is it?’

‘A most earnest, pressing, and emphatic entreaty, addressed to you in the most pathetic tones of the voice so dear to you, that you well remember.’

The prisoner turned his face partly aside.

‘You have no time to ask me why I bring it, or what it means; I have no time to tell you. You must comply with it – take off those boots you wear, and draw on these of mine.’

There was a chair against the wall of the cell, behind the prisoner. Carton, pressing forward, had already, with the speed of lightning, got him down into it, and stood over him barefoot.

‘Draw on these boots of mine. Put your hands to them; put your will to them. Quick!’

‘Carton, there is no escaping from this place; it never can be done. You will only die with me. It is madness.’

‘It would be madness if I asked you to escape; but do I? When I ask you to pass out at that door, tell me it is madness and remain here. Change that cravat for this of mine, that coat for this of mine. While you do it, let me take this ribbon from your hair, and shake out your hair like this of mine!’

With wonderful quickness, and with a strength, both of will and action, that appeared quite supernatural, he forced all these changes upon him. The prisoner was like a young child in his hands.

‘Carton! Dear Carton! It is madness. It cannot be accomplished, it never can be done, it has been attempted, and has always failed. I implore you not to add your death to the bitterness of mine.’

‘Do I ask you, my dear Darnay, to pass the door? When I ask that, refuse. There are pen and ink and paper on this table. Is your hand steady enough to write?’

‘It was, when you came in.’

‘Steady it again, and write what I shall dictate. Quick, friend, quick!’

Pressing his hand to his bewildered head, Darnay sat down at the table. Carton, with his right hand in his breast, stood close beside him.

‘Write exactly as I speak.’

‘To whom do I address it?’

‘To no one.’ Carton still had his hand in his breast.

‘Do I date it?’

‘No.’

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

‘ “If you remember,” said Carton, dictating, “the words that passed between us, long ago, you will readily comprehend this when you see it. You do remember them, I know. It is not in your nature to forget them.” ’

He was drawing his hand from his breast; the prisoner chancing to look up in his hurried wonder as he wrote, the hand stopped, closing upon 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?’

‘You shall know directly. Write on; there are but a few words more.’ He dictated again. ‘ “I am thankful that the time has come, when I can prove them. That I do so, is no subject for regret or grief.” ’ As he said these words with his eyes fixed on the writer, his hand slowly and softly moved down close to the writer’s face.

The pen dropped from Darnay’s fingers on the table, and he looked about him vacantly.

‘What vapour is that?’ he asked.

‘Vapour?’

‘Something that crossed me?’

‘I am conscious of nothing; there can be nothing here. Take up the pen and finish. Hurry, hurry!’

As if his memory were impaired, or his faculties disordered, the prisoner made an effort to rally his attention. As he looked at Carton with clouded eyes and with an altered manner of breathing, Carton – his hand again in his breast – looked steadily at him.

‘Hurry, hurry!’

The prisoner bent over the paper, once more.

‘ “If it had been otherwise;” ’ Carton’s hand was again watch-fully and softly stealing down; ‘ “I never should have used the longer opportunity. If it had been otherwise;”’ the hand was at the prisoner’s face; ‘ “I should but have had so much the more to answer for. If it had been otherwise—”’ Carton looked at the pen, and saw that it was trailing off into unintelligible signs.

Carton’s hand moved back to his breast no more. The prisoner sprang up, with a reproachful look, but Carton’s hand was close and firm at his nostrils, and Carton’s left arm caught him round the waist. For a few seconds he faintly struggled with the man who had come to lay down his life for him; but, within a minute or so, he was stretched insensible on the ground.

Quickly, but with hands as true to the purpose as his heart was, Carton dressed himself in the clothes the prisoner had laid aside, combed back his hair, and tied it with the ribbon the prisoner had worn. Then, he softly called ‘Enter there! Come in!’ and the Spy presented himself.

‘You see?’ said Carton, looking up at him, as he kneeled on one knee beside the insensible figure, putting the paper in the breast: ‘is your hazard very great?’

‘Mr Carton,’ the Spy answered, with a timid snap of his fingers, ‘my hazard is not
that
, in the thick of business here, if you are true to the whole of your bargain.’

‘Don’t fear me. I will be true to the death.’

‘You must be, Mr Carton, if the tale of fifty-two is to be right. Being made right by you in that dress, I shall have no fear.’

‘Have no fear! I shall soon be out of the way of harming you, and the rest will soon be far from here, please God! Now, get assistance and take me to the coach.’

‘You?’ said the spy, nervously.

‘Him, man, with whom I have exchanged. You go out at the gate by which you brought me in?’

‘Of course.’

‘I was weak and faint when you brought me in, and I am fainter now you take me out. The parting interview has overpowered me. Such a thing has happened here, often, and too often. Your life is in your own hands. Quick! Call assistance!’

‘You swear not to betray me?’ said the trembling spy, as he paused for a last moment.

‘Man, man!’ returned Carton, stamping his foot; ‘have I sworn by no solemn vow already, to go through with this, that you waste the precious moments now? Take him yourself to the court-yard you know of, place him yourself in the carriage, show him yourself to Mr Lorry, tell him yourself to give him no restorative but air, and to remember my words of last night and his promise of last night, and drive away!’

The spy withdrew, and Carton seated himself at the table, resting his forehead on his hands. The Spy returned immediately, with two men.

‘How, then?’ said one of them, contemplating the fallen figure. ‘So afflicted to find that his friend has drawn a prize in the lottery of Sainte Guillotine?’

‘A good patriot,’ said the other, ‘could hardly have been more afflicted if the Aristocrat had drawn a blank.’

They raised the unconscious figure, placed it on a litter they had brought to the door, and bent to carry it away.

‘The time is short, Evrémonde,’ said the Spy, in a warning voice.

‘I know it well,’ answered Carton. ‘Be careful of my friend, I entreat you, and leave me.’

‘Come, then, my children,’ said Barsad. ‘Lift him, and come away!’

The door closed, and Carton was left alone. Straining his powers of listening to the utmost, he listened for any sound that might denote suspicion or alarm. There was none. Keys turned, doors clashed, footsteps passed along distant passages: no cry was raised, or hurry made, that seemed unusual. Breathing more freely in a little while, he sat down at the table, and listened again until the clocks struck Two.

Sounds that he was not afraid of, for he divined their meaning, then began to be audible. Several doors were opened in succession, and finally his own. A gaoler, with a list in his hand, looked in, merely saying, ‘Follow me, Evrémonde!’ and he followed into a large dark room, at a distance. It was a dark winter day, and what with the shadows within, and what with the shadows without, he could but dimly discern the others who were brought there to have their arms bound. Some were standing; some seated. Some were lamenting, and in restless motion; but, these were few. The great majority were silent and still, looking fixedly at the ground.

As he stood by the wall in a dim corner, while some of the fifty-two were brought in after him, one man stopped in passing, to embrace him, as having a knowledge of him. It thrilled him with a great dread of discovery; but, the man went on. A very few moments after that, a young woman, with a slight girlish form, a sweet spare face in which there was no vestige of colour, and large widely opened patient eyes, rose from the seat where he had observed her sitting, and came to speak to him.

‘Citizen Evrémonde,’ she said, touching him with her cold hand. ‘I am a poor little seamstress who was with you in La Force.’

He murmured for answer: ‘True. I forget what you were accused of?’

‘Plots. Though the just Heaven knows I am innocent of any. Is it likely? Who would think of plotting with a poor little weak creature like me?’

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

‘I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evrémonde, but I have done nothing. I am not unwilling to die, if the Republic, which is to do so much good to us poor, will profit by my death; but I do not know how that can be, Citizen Evrémonde. Such a poor weak little creature!’

As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and soften to, it warmed and softened to this pitiable girl.

‘I heard you were released, Citizen Evrémonde. I hoped it was true?’

‘It was. But, I was again taken and condemned.’

‘If I may ride with you, Citizen Evrémonde, will you let me hold your hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and weak, and it will give me more courage.’

As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in them, and then astonishment. He pressed the work-worn, hunger-worn young fingers, and touched his lips.

‘Are you dying for him?’ she whispered.

‘And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.’

‘O you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?’

‘Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last.’

The same shadows that are falling on the prison, are falling, in that same hour of the early afternoon, on the Barrier with the crowd about it, when a coach going out of Paris drives up to be examined.

‘Who goes here? Whom have we within? Papers!’

The papers are handed out, and read.

‘Alexandre Manette. Physician. French. Which is he?’

This is he; this helpless, inarticulately murmuring, wandering old man pointed out.

‘Apparently the Citizen-Doctor is not in his right mind? The Revolution-fever will have been too much for him?’

Greatly too much for him.

‘Hah! Many suffer with it. Lucie. His daughter. French. Which is she?’

This is she.

‘Apparently it must be. Lucie, the wife of Evrémonde; is it not?’

It is.

‘Hah! Evrémonde has an assignation elsewhere. Lucie, her child. English. This is she?’

She and no other.

‘Kiss me, child of Evrémonde. Now, thou hast kissed a good Republican; something new in thy family; remember it! Sydney Carton. Advocate. English. Which is he?’

He lies here, in this corner of the carriage. He, too, is pointed out.

‘Apparently the English advocate is in a swoon?’

It is hoped he will recover in the fresher air. It is represented that he is not in strong health, and has separated sadly from a friend who is under the displeasure of the Republic.

‘Is that all? It is not a great deal, that! Many are under the displeasure of the Republic, and must look out at the little window. Jarvis Lorry. Banker. English. Which is he?’

‘I am he. Necessarily, being the last.’

It is Jarvis Lorry who has replied to all the previous questions. It is Jarvis Lorry who has alighted and stands with his hand on the coach door, replying to a group of officials. They leisurely walk round the carriage and leisurely mount the box, to look at what little luggage it carries on the roof; the country-people hanging about, press nearer to the coach-doors and greedily stare in; a little child, carried by its mother, has its short arm held out for it, that it may touch the wife of an aristocrat who has gone to the Guillotine.

‘Behold your papers, Jarvis Lorry, countersigned.’

‘One can depart, citizen?’

‘One can depart. Forward, my postilions! A good journey!’

‘I salute you, citizens. – And the first danger passed!’

These are again the words of Jarvis Lorry, as he clasps his hands, and looks upward. There is terror in the carriage, there is weeping, there is the heavy breathing of the insensible traveller.

‘Are we not going too slowly? Can they not be induced to go faster?’ asks Lucie, clinging to the old man.

‘It would seem like flight, my darling. I must not urge them too much: it would rouse suspicion.’

‘Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued!’

‘The road is clear, my dearest. So far, we are not pursued.’