《A Tale of Two Cities》 Book3 CHAPTER
XV The Footsteps Die out for
Ever
by Charles Dickens
ALONG the Paris streets,
the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La
Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could
record itself, are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in
France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a
peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have
produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it
will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious licence and
oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.
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. Honoré, 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 Evrémonde?'
says a man behind him. `That. At the back there.' `With his hand in the girl's?' `Yes.'
The man cries, `Down, Evrémonde To the Guillotine all aristocrats! Down, Evrémonde!'
`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, Evrémonde!' the face of Evrémonde is for a moment turned towards him. Evrémonde 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 foremost chairs,
stands The Vengeance, looking about for her friend.
`Thérèse!' she cries, in her shrill
tones. `Who has seen her? Thérèse Defarge!'
`She never missed before,' says a knitting-woman of the sisterhood.
`No; nor will site miss now,' cries The Vengeance, petulantly. `Thérèse!'
`Louder,' the woman recommends.
Ay! Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still site 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 Evrémonde
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 Evrémonde
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 writ--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 an 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 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 England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears
my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men
in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten
years' time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward.
`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, foremost 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.' |
