XIII
Fifty-two
In
the black prison of the Conciergerie, the doomed of the day awaited their fate.
They were in number as the weeks of the year. Fifty-two were to roll that
afternoon on the life-tide of the city to the boundless everlasting sea. Before
their cells were quit of them, new occupants were appointed; before their blood
ran into the blood spilled yesterday, the blood that was to mingle with theirs
to-morrow was already set apart.
Two
score and twelve were told off. From the farmer-general of seventy, whose
riches could not buy his life, to the seamstress of twenty, whose poverty and
obscurity could not save her. Physical diseases, engendered in the vices and
neglects of men, will seize on victims of all degrees; and the frightful moral
disorder, born of unspeakable suffering, intolerable oppression, and heartless
indifference, smote equally without distinction.
Charles
Darnay, alone in a cell, had sustained himself with no flattering delusion
since he came to it from the Tribunal. In every line of the narrative he had
heard, he had heard his condemnation. He had fully comprehended that no
personal influence could possibly save him, that he was virtually sentenced by
the millions, and that units could avail him nothing.
Nevertheless,
it was not easy, with the face of his beloved wife fresh before him, to compose
his mind to what it must bear. His hold on life was strong, and it was very,
very hard, to loosen; by gradual efforts and degrees unclosed a little here, it
clenched the tighter there; and when he brought his strength to bear on that
hand and it yielded, this was closed again. There was a hurry, too, in all his
thoughts, a turbulent and heated working of his heart, that contended against
resignation. If, for a moment, he did feel resigned, then his wife and child
who had to live after him, seemed to protest and to make it a selfish thing.
But,
all this was at first. Before long, the consideration that there was no
disgrace in the fate he must meet, and that numbers went the same road
wrongfully, and trod it firmly every day, sprang up to stimulate him. Next
followed the thought that much of the future peace of mind enjoyable by the
dear ones, depended on his quiet fortitude. So, by degrees he calmed into the
better state, when he could raise his thoughts much higher, and draw comfort
down.
Before
it had set in dark on the night of his condemnation, he had travelled thus far
on his last way. Being allowed to purchase the means of writing, and a light,
he sat down to write until such time as the prison lamps should be
extinguished.
He
wrote a long letter to Lucie, showing her that he had known nothing of her
father's imprisonment, until he had heard of it from herself, and that he had
been as ignorant as she of his father's and uncle's responsibility for that misery,
until the paper had been read. He had already explained to her that his
concealment from herself of the name he had relinquished, was the one
condition--fully intelligible now--that her father had attached to their
betrothal, and was the one promise he had still exacted on the morning of their
marriage. He entreated her, for her father's sake, never to seek to know
whether her father had become oblivious of the existence of the paper, or had
had it recalled to him (for the moment, or for good), by the story of the
Tower, on that old Sunday under the dear old plane-tree in the garden. If he
had preserved any definite remembrance of it, there could be no doubt that he
had supposed it destroyed with the Bastille, when he had found no mention of it
among the relics of prisoners which the populace had discovered there, and
which had been described to all the world. He besought her--though he added
that he knew it was needless--to console her father, by impressing him through
every tender means she could think of, with the truth that he had done nothing
for which he could justly reproach himself, but had uniformly forgotten himself
for their joint sakes. Next to her preservation of his own last grateful love
and blessing, and her overcoming of her sorrow, to devote herself to their dear
child, he adjured her, as they would meet in Heaven, to comfort her father.
To
her father himself, he wrote in the same strain; but, he told her father that
he expressly confided his wife and child to his care. And he told him this,
very strongly, with the hope of rousing him from any despondency or dangerous
retrospect towards which he foresaw he might be tending.
To
Mr. Lorry, he commended them all, and explained his worldly affairs. That done,
with many added sentences of grateful friendship and warm attachment, all was
done. He never thought of Carton. His mind was so full of the others, that he
never once thought of him.
He
had time to finish these letters before the lights were put out. When he lay
down on his straw bed, he thought he had done with this world.
But,
it beckoned him back in his sleep, and showed itself in shining forms. Free and
happy, back in the old house in
Thus,
had he come through the hours, to the day when the fifty-two heads were to
fall. And now, while he was composed, and hoped that he could meet the end with
quiet heroism, a new action began in his waking thoughts, which was very
difficult to master.
He
had never seen the instrument that was to terminate his life. How high it was from
the ground, how many steps it had, where he would be stood, how he would be
touched, whether the touching hands would be dyed red, which way his face would
be turned, whether he would be the first, or might be the last: these and many
similar questions, in nowise directed by his will, obtruded themselves over and
over again, countless times. Neither were they connected with fear: he was
conscious of no fear. Rather, they originated in a strange besetting desire to
know what to do when the time came; a desire gigantically disproportionate to
the few swift moments to which it referred; a wondering that was more like the
wondering of some other spirit within his, than his own.
The
hours went on as he walked to and fro, and the clocks struck the numbers he
would never hear again. Nine gone for ever, ten gone for ever, eleven gone for
ever, twelve coming on to pass away. After a hard contest with that eccentric
action of thought which had last perplexed him, he had got the better of it. He
walked up and down, softly repeating their names to himself. The worst of the
strife was over. He could walk up and down, free from distracting fancies,
praying for himself and for them.
Twelve
gone for ever.
He
had been apprised that the final hour was Three, and he knew he would be
summoned some time earlier, inasmuch as the tumbrils jolted heavily and slowly
through the streets. Therefore, he resolved to keep Two before his mind, as the
hour, and so to strengthen himself in the interval that he might be able, after
that time, to strengthen others.
Walking
regularly to and fro with his arms folded on his breast, a very different man
from the prisoner, who had walked to and fro at La Force, he heard One struck
away from him, without surprise. The hour had measured like most other hours.
Devoutly thankful to Heaven for his recovered self-possession, he thought,
"There is but another now," and turned to walk again.
Footsteps
in the stone passage outside the door. He stopped.
The
key was put in the lock, and turned. Before the door was opened, or as it
opened, a man said in a low voice, in English: "He has never seen me here;
I have kept out of his way. Go you in alone; I wait near. Lose no time!"
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 watchfully 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 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, 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 courtyard 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, Evremonde," 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 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
of the open country, in again among ruinous buildings, solitary farms,
dye-works, tanneries, and the like, cottages in twos and threes, avenues of leafless
trees. Have these men deceived us, and taken us back by another road? Is not
this the same place twice over? Thank Heaven, no. A village. Look back, look
back, and see if we are pursued! Hush! the posting-house.
Leisurely,
our four horses are taken out; leisurely, the coach stands in the little
street, bereft of horses, and with no likelihood upon it of ever moving again;
leisurely, the new horses come into visible existence, one by one; leisurely,
the new postilions follow, sucking and plaiting the lashes of their whips;
leisurely, the old postilions count their money, make wrong additions, and
arrive at dissatisfied results. All the time, our overfraught hearts are
beating at a rate that would far outstrip the fastest gallop of the fastest
horses ever foaled.
At
length the new postilions are in their saddles, and the old are left behind. We
are through the village, up the hill, and down the hill, and on the low watery
grounds. Suddenly, the postilions exchange speech with animated gesticulation,
and the horses are pulled up, almost on their haunches. We are pursued?
"Ho!
Within the carriage there. Speak then!"
"What
is it?" asks Mr. Lorry, looking out at window.
"How
many did they say?"
"I
do not understand you."
"--At
the last post. How many to the Guillotine to-day?"
"Fifty-two."
"I
said so! A brave number! My fellow-citizen here would have it forty-two; ten
more heads are worth having. The Guillotine goes handsomely. I love it. Hi
forward. Whoop!"
The
night comes on dark. He moves more; he is beginning to revive, and to speak
intelligibly; he thinks they are still together; he asks him, by his name, what
he has in his hand. O pity us, kind Heaven, and help us! Look out, look out,
and see if we are pursued.
The
wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is
plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far,
we are pursued by nothing else.