Barnaby Rudge & A Tale of Two Cities. Charles Dickens

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 clock 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, Evremonde!” 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 Evremonde,” 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 that 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 Evremonde, 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 Evremonde. 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 Evremonde. I hoped it was true?”

      “It was. But, I was again taken and condemned.”

      “If I may ride with you, Citizen Evremonde, 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 Evremonde; is it not?”

      It is.

      “Hah! Evremonde has an assignation elsewhere. Lucie, her child. English. This is she?”

      She and no other.

      “Kiss me, child of Evremonde. 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.”

      Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous buildings, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, open country, avenues of leafless trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us, the soft deep mud is on either side. Sometimes, we strike into the skirting mud, to avoid the stones that clatter us and shake us; sometimes, we stick in ruts and sloughs there. The agony of our impatience is then so great, that in our wild alarm and hurry we are for getting out and running—hiding—doing anything but stopping.

      Out СКАЧАТЬ