XV
The
Footsteps Die Out For Ever
Along
the
Six
tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again to what they were,
thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the carriages of
absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring
Jezebels, the churches that are not my father's house but dens of thieves, the
huts of millions of starving peasants! No; the great magician who majestically
works out the appointed order of the Creator, never reverses his
transformations. "If thou be changed into this shape by the will of
God," say the seers to the enchanted, in the wise Arabian stories,
"then remain so! But, if thou wear this form through mere passing
conjuration, then resume thy former aspect!" Changeless and hopeless, the
tumbrils roll along.
As
the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem to plough up a long
crooked furrow among the populace in the streets. Ridges of faces are thrown to
this side and to that, and the ploughs go steadily onward. So used are the
regular inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle, that in many windows there
are no people, and in some the occupation of the hands is not so much as
suspended, while the eyes survey the faces in the tumbrils. Here and there, the
inmate has visitors to see the sight; then he points his finger, with something
of the complacency of a curator or authorised exponent, to this cart and to
this, and seems to tell who sat here yesterday, and who there the day before.
Of
the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things, and all things on their
last roadside, with an impassive stare; others, with a lingering interest in
the ways of life and men. Some, seated with drooping heads, are sunk in silent
despair; again, there are some so heedful of their looks that they cast upon
the multitude such glances as they have seen in theatres, and in pictures. Several
close their eyes, and think, or try to get their straying thoughts together.
Only one, and he a miserable creature, of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and
made drunk by horror, that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole
number appeals by look or gesture, to the pity of the people.
There
is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the tumbrils, and faces are
often turned up to some of them, and they are asked some question. It would
seem to be always the same question, for, it is always followed by a press of
people towards the third cart. The horsemen abreast of that cart, frequently
point out one man in it with their swords. The leading curiosity is, to know
which is he; he stands at the back of the tumbril with his head bent down, to
converse with a mere girl who sits on the side of the cart, and holds his hand.
He has no curiosity or care for the scene about him, and always speaks to the
girl. Here and there in the long street of St. Honore, cries are raised against
him. If they move him at all, it is only to a quiet smile, as he shakes his
hair a little more loosely about his face. He cannot easily touch his face, his
arms being bound.
On
the steps of a church, awaiting the coming-up of the tumbrils, stands the Spy
and prison-sheep. He looks into the first of them: not there. He looks into the
second: not there. He already asks himself, "Has he sacrificed me?"
when his face clears, as he looks into the third.
"Which
is Evremonde?" says a man behind him.
"That.
At the back there."
"With
his hand in the girl's?"
"Yes."
The
man cries, "Down, Evremonde! To the Guillotine all aristocrats! Down,
Evremonde!"
"Hush,
hush!" the Spy entreats him, timidly.
"And
why not, citizen?"
"He
is going to pay the forfeit: it will be paid in five minutes more. Let him be
at peace."
But
the man continuing to exclaim, "Down, Evremonde!" the face of
Evremonde is for a moment turned towards him. Evremonde then sees the Spy, and
looks attentively at him, and goes his way.
The
clocks are on the stroke of three, and the furrow ploughed among the populace
is turning round, to come on into the place of execution, and end. The ridges
thrown to this side and to that, now crumble in and close behind the last
plough as it passes on, for all are following to the Guillotine. In front of
it, seated in chairs, as in a garden of public diversion, are a number of
women, busily knitting. On one of the fore-most chairs, stands The Vengeance,
looking about for her friend.
"Therese!"
she cries, in her shrill tones. "Who has seen her? Therese Defarge!"
"She
never missed before," says a knitting-woman of the sisterhood.
"No;
nor will she miss now," cries The Vengeance, petulantly.
"Therese."
"Louder,"
the woman recommends.
Ay!
Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still she will scarcely hear thee. Louder
yet, Vengeance, with a little oath or so added, and yet it will hardly bring
her. Send other women up and down to seek her, lingering somewhere; and yet,
although the messengers have done dread deeds, it is questionable whether of
their own wills they will go far enough to find her!
"Bad
Fortune!" cries The Vengeance, stamping her foot in the chair, "and
here are the tumbrils! And Evremonde will be despatched in a wink, and she not
here! See her knitting in my hand, and her empty chair ready for her. I cry
with vexation and disappointment!"
As
The Vengeance descends from her elevation to do it, the tumbrils begin to
discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are robed and ready.
Crash!--A head is held up, and the knitting- women who scarcely lifted their
eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could think and speak, count One.
The
second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes up. Crash! --And the knitting-women,
never faltering or pausing in their Work, count Two.
The
supposed Evremonde descends, and the seamstress is lifted out next after him.
He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but still holds it as
he promised. He gently places her with her back to the crashing engine that
constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into his face and thanks him.
"But
for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, for I am naturally a poor
little thing, faint of heart; nor should I have been able to raise my thoughts
to Him who was put to death, that we might have hope and comfort here to-day. I
think you were sent to me by Heaven."
"Or
you to me," says Sydney Carton. "Keep your eyes upon me, dear child,
and mind no other object."
"I
mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall mind nothing when I let it go, if
they are rapid."
"They
will be rapid. Fear not!"
The
two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they
were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two
children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come
together on the dark highway, to repair home together, and to rest in her
bosom.
"Brave
and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last question? I am very
ignorant, and it troubles me--just a little."
"Tell
me what it is."
"I
have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom I love very
dearly. She is five years younger than I, and she lives in a farmer's house in
the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows nothing of my fate--for I
cannot write--and if I could, how should I tell her! It is better as it
is."
"Yes,
yes: better as it is."
"What
I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still thinking now, as I
look into your kind strong face which gives me so much support, is this:--If
the Republic really does good to the poor, and they come to be less hungry, and
in all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time: she may even live to be
old."
"What
then, my gentle sister?"
"Do
you think:" the uncomplaining eyes in which there is so much endurance,
fill with tears, and the lips part a little more and tremble: "that it
will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better land where I trust
both you and I will be mercifully sheltered?"
"It
cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no trouble there."
"You
comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you now? Is the moment
come?"
"Yes."
She
kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand
does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than a sweet, bright
constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before him--is gone; the
knitting-women count Twenty-Two.
"I
am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in
me shall never die."
The
murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many
footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass,
like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three.
They
said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face
ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic.
One
of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe--a woman--had asked at the
foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to write down the
thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given any utterance to his, and
they were prophetic, they would have been these:
"I
see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks
of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing
by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I
see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in
their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long
years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which
this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing
out.
"I
see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and
happy, in that
"I
see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their
descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the
anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying
side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more
honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both.
"I
see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his
way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well,
that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I
threw upon it, faded away. I see him, fore-most of just judges and honoured
men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to
this place-- then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's
disfigurement --and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a
faltering voice.
"It
is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far
better rest that I go to than I have ever known."