Barnaby Rudge & A Tale of Two Cities. Charles Dickens

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      XIV. The Knitting Done

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      In that same juncture of time when the Fifty-Two awaited their fate Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council with The Vengeance and Jacques Three of the Revolutionary Jury. Not in the wine-shop did Madame Defarge confer with these ministers, but in the shed of the wood-sawyer, erst a mender of roads. The sawyer himself did not participate in the conference, but abided at a little distance, like an outer satellite who was not to speak until required, or to offer an opinion until invited.

      “But our Defarge,” said Jacques Three, “is undoubtedly a good Republican? Eh?”

      “There is no better,” the voluble Vengeance protested in her shrill notes, “in France.”

      “Peace, little Vengeance,” said Madame Defarge, laying her hand with a slight frown on her lieutenant’s lips, “hear me speak. My husband, fellow-citizen, is a good Republican and a bold man; he has deserved well of the Republic, and possesses its confidence. But my husband has his weaknesses, and he is so weak as to relent towards this Doctor.”

      “It is a great pity,” croaked Jacques Three, dubiously shaking his head, with his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth; “it is not quite like a good citizen; it is a thing to regret.”

      “See you,” said madame, “I care nothing for this Doctor, I. He may wear his head or lose it, for any interest I have in him; it is all one to me. But, the Evremonde people are to be exterminated, and the wife and child must follow the husband and father.”

      “She has a fine head for it,” croaked Jacques Three. “I have seen blue eyes and golden hair there, and they looked charming when Samson held them up.” Ogre that he was, he spoke like an epicure.

      Madame Defarge cast down her eyes, and reflected a little.

      “The child also,” observed Jacques Three, with a meditative enjoyment of his words, “has golden hair and blue eyes. And we seldom have a child there. It is a pretty sight!”

      “In a word,” said Madame Defarge, coming out of her short abstraction, “I cannot trust my husband in this matter. Not only do I feel, since last night, that I dare not confide to him the details of my projects; but also I feel that if I delay, there is danger of his giving warning, and then they might escape.”

      “That must never be,” croaked Jacques Three; “no one must escape. We have not half enough as it is. We ought to have six score a day.”

      “In a word,” Madame Defarge went on, “my husband has not my reason for pursuing this family to annihilation, and I have not his reason for regarding this Doctor with any sensibility. I must act for myself, therefore. Come hither, little citizen.”

      The wood-sawyer, who held her in the respect, and himself in the submission, of mortal fear, advanced with his hand to his red cap.

      “Touching those signals, little citizen,” said Madame Defarge, sternly, “that she made to the prisoners; you are ready to bear witness to them this very day?”

      “Ay, ay, why not!” cried the sawyer. “Every day, in all weathers, from two to four, always signalling, sometimes with the little one, sometimes without. I know what I know. I have seen with my eyes.”

      He made all manner of gestures while he spoke, as if in incidental imitation of some few of the great diversity of signals that he had never seen.

      “Clearly plots,” said Jacques Three. “Transparently!”

      “There is no doubt of the Jury?” inquired Madame Defarge, letting her eyes turn to him with a gloomy smile.

      “Rely upon the patriotic Jury, dear citizeness. I answer for my fellow-Jurymen.”

      “Now, let me see,” said Madame Defarge, pondering again. “Yet once more! Can I spare this Doctor to my husband? I have no feeling either way. Can I spare him?”

      “He would count as one head,” observed Jacques Three, in a low voice. “We really have not heads enough; it would be a pity, I think.”

      “He was signalling with her when I saw her,” argued Madame Defarge; “I cannot speak of one without the other; and I must not be silent, and trust the case wholly to him, this little citizen here. For, I am not a bad witness.”

      The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with each other in their fervent protestations that she was the most admirable and marvellous of witnesses. The little citizen, not to be outdone, declared her to be a celestial witness.

      “He must take his chance,” said Madame Defarge. “No, I cannot spare him! You are engaged at three o’clock; you are going to see the batch of to-day executed.—You?”

      The question was addressed to the wood-sawyer, who hurriedly replied in the affirmative: seizing the occasion to add that he was the most ardent of Republicans, and that he would be in effect the most desolate of Republicans, if anything prevented him from enjoying the pleasure of smoking his afternoon pipe in the contemplation of the droll national barber. He was so very demonstrative herein, СКАЧАТЬ