A Tale of Two Cities

Congratulatory

From the dimly-lighted passages of the court, the last sediment of the human stew that had been boiling there all day, was straining off, when Doctor Manette, Lucie Manette, his daughter, Mr. Lorry, the solicitor for the defence, and its counsel, Mr. Stryver, stood gathered round Mr. Charles Darnay—­just released—­congratulating him on his escape from death.

It would have been difficult by a far brighter light, to recognise in Doctor Manette, intellectual of face and upright of bearing, the shoemaker of the garret in Paris.  Yet, no one could have looked at him twice, without looking again:  even though the opportunity of observation had not extended to the mournful cadence of his low grave voice, and to the abstraction that overclouded him fitfully, without any apparent reason.  While one external cause, and that a reference to his long lingering agony, would always—­as on the trial—­evoke this condition from the depths of his soul, it was also in its nature to arise of itself, and to draw a gloom over him, as incomprehensible to those unacquainted with his story as if they had seen the shadow of the actual Bastille thrown upon him by a summer sun, when the substance was three hundred miles away.

Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from his mind.  She was the golden thread that united him to a Past beyond his misery, and to a Present beyond his misery:  and the sound of her voice, the light of her face, the touch of her hand, had a strong beneficial influence with him almost always.  Not absolutely always, for she could recall some occasions on which her power had failed; but they were few and slight, and she believed them over.

Mr. Darnay had kissed her hand fervently and gratefully, and had turned to Mr. Stryver, whom he warmly thanked.  Mr. Stryver, a man of little more than thirty, but looking twenty years older than he was, stout, loud, red, bluff, and free from any drawback of delicacy, had a pushing way of shouldering himself (morally and physically) into companies and conversations, that argued well for his shouldering his way up in life.

He still had his wig and gown on, and he said, squaring himself at his late client to that degree that he squeezed the innocent Mr. Lorry clean out of the group:  “I am glad to have brought you off with honour, Mr. Darnay.  It was an infamous prosecution, grossly infamous; but not the less likely to succeed on that account.”

“You have laid me under an obligation to you for life—­in two senses,” said his late client, taking his hand.

“I have done my best for you, Mr. Darnay; and my best is as good as another man’s, I believe.”

It clearly being incumbent on some one to say, “Much better,” Mr. Lorry said it; perhaps not quite disinterestedly, but with the interested object of squeezing himself back again.

“You think so?” said Mr. Stryver.  “Well! you have been present all day, and you ought to know.  You are a man of business, too.”

“And as such,” quoth Mr. Lorry, whom the counsel learned in the law had now shouldered back into the group, just as he had previously shouldered him out of it—­“as such I will appeal to Doctor Manette, to break up this conference and order us all to our homes.  Miss Lucie looks ill, Mr. Darnay has had a terrible day, we are worn out.”

“Speak for yourself, Mr. Lorry,” said Stryver; “I have a night’s work to do yet.  Speak for yourself.”

“I speak for myself,” answered Mr. Lorry, “and for Mr. Darnay, and for Miss Lucie, and—­Miss Lucie, do you not think I may speak for us all?” He asked her the question pointedly, and with a glance at her father.

His face had become frozen, as it were, in a very curious look at Darnay:  an intent look, deepening into a frown of dislike and distrust, not even unmixed with fear.  With this strange expression on him his thoughts had wandered away.

“My father,” said Lucie, softly laying her hand on his.

He slowly shook the shadow off, and turned to her.

“Shall we go home, my father?”

With a long breath, he answered “Yes.”

The friends of the acquitted prisoner had dispersed, under the impression—­which he himself had originated—­that he would not be released that night.  The lights were nearly all extinguished in the passages, the iron gates were being closed with a jar and a rattle, and the dismal place was deserted until to-morrow morning’s interest of gallows, pillory, whipping-post, and branding-iron, should repeople it.  Walking between her father and Mr. Darnay, Lucie Manette passed into the open air.  A hackney-coach was called, and the father and daughter departed in it.

Mr. Stryver had left them in the passages, to shoulder his way back to the robing-room.  Another person, who had not joined the group, or interchanged a word with any one of them, but who had been leaning against the wall where its shadow was darkest, had silently strolled out after the rest, and had looked on until the coach drove away.  He now stepped up to where Mr. Lorry and Mr. Darnay stood upon the pavement.

“So, Mr. Lorry!  Men of business may speak to Mr. Darnay now?”

Nobody had made any acknowledgment of Mr. Carton’s part in the day’s proceedings; nobody had known of it.  He was unrobed, and was none the better for it in appearance.

“If you knew what a conflict goes on in the business mind, when the business mind is divided between good-natured impulse and business appearances, you would be amused, Mr. Darnay.”

Mr. Lorry reddened, and said, warmly, “You have mentioned that before, sir.  We men of business, who serve a House, are not our own masters.  We have to think of the House more than ourselves.”

“I know, I know,” rejoined Mr. Carton, carelessly.  “Don’t be nettled, Mr. Lorry.  You are as good as another, I have no doubt:  better, I dare say.”

“And indeed, sir,” pursued Mr. Lorry, not minding him, “I really don’t know what you have to do with the matter.  If you’ll excuse me, as very much your elder, for saying so, I really don’t know that it is your business.”

“Business!  Bless you, I have no business,” said Mr. Carton.

“It is a pity you have not, sir.”

“I think so, too.”

“If you had,” pursued Mr. Lorry, “perhaps you would attend to it.”

“Lord love you, no!—­I shouldn’t,” said Mr. Carton.

“Well, sir!” cried Mr. Lorry, thoroughly heated by his indifference, “business is a very good thing, and a very respectable thing.  And, sir, if business imposes its restraints and its silences and impediments, Mr. Darnay as a young gentleman of generosity knows how to make allowance for that circumstance.  Mr. Darnay, good night, God bless you, sir!  I hope you have been this day preserved for a prosperous and happy life.—­Chair there!”

Perhaps a little angry with himself, as well as with the barrister, Mr. Lorry bustled into the chair, and was carried off to Tellson’s.  Carton, who smelt of port wine, and did not appear to be quite sober, laughed then, and turned to Darnay: 

“This is a strange chance that throws you and me together.  This must be a strange night to you, standing alone here with your counterpart on these street stones?”

“I hardly seem yet,” returned Charles Darnay, “to belong to this world again.”

“I don’t wonder at it; it’s not so long since you were pretty far advanced on your way to another.  You speak faintly.”

“I begin to think I am faint.”

“Then why the devil don’t you dine?  I dined, myself, while those numskulls were deliberating which world you should belong to—­this, or some other.  Let me show you the nearest tavern to dine well at.”

Drawing his arm through his own, he took him down Ludgate-hill to Fleet-street, and so, up a covered way, into a tavern.  Here, they were shown into a little room, where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine:  while Carton sat opposite to him at the same table, with his separate bottle of port before him, and his fully half-insolent manner upon him.

“Do you feel, yet, that you belong to this terrestrial scheme again, Mr. Darnay?”

“I am frightfully confused regarding time and place; but I am so far mended as to feel that.”

“It must be an immense satisfaction!”

He said it bitterly, and filled up his glass again:  which was a large one.

“As to me, the greatest desire I have, is to forget that I belong to it.  It has no good in it for me—­except wine like this—­nor I for it.  So we are not much alike in that particular.  Indeed, I begin to think we are not much alike in any particular, you and I.”

Confused by the emotion of the day, and feeling his being there with this Double of coarse deportment, to be like a dream, Charles Darnay was at a loss how to answer; finally, answered not at all.

“Now your dinner is done,” Carton presently said, “why don’t you call a health, Mr. Darnay; why don’t you give your toast?”

“What health?  What toast?”

“Why, it’s on the tip of your tongue.  It ought to be, it must be, I’ll swear it’s there.”

“Miss Manette, then!”

“Miss Manette, then!”

Looking his companion full in the face while he drank the toast, Carton flung his glass over his shoulder against the wall, where it shivered to pieces; then, rang the bell, and ordered in another.

“That’s a fair young lady to hand to a coach in the dark, Mr. Darnay!” he said, ruing his new goblet.

A slight frown and a laconic “Yes,” were the answer.

“That’s a fair young lady to be pitied by and wept for by!  How does it feel?  Is it worth being tried for one’s life, to be the object of such sympathy and compassion, Mr. Darnay?”

Again Darnay answered not a word.

“She was mightily pleased to have your message, when I gave it her.  Not that she showed she was pleased, but I suppose she was.”

The allusion served as a timely reminder to Darnay that this disagreeable companion had, of his own free will, assisted him in the strait of the day.  He turned the dialogue to that point, and thanked him for it.

“I neither want any thanks, nor merit any,” was the careless rejoinder.  “It was nothing to do, in the first place; and I don’t know why I did it, in the second.  Mr. Darnay, let me ask you a question.”

“Willingly, and a small return for your good offices.”

“Do you think I particularly like you?”

“Really, Mr. Carton,” returned the other, oddly disconcerted, “I have not asked myself the question.”

“But ask yourself the question now.”

“You have acted as if you do; but I don’t think you do.”

“I don’t think I do,” said Carton.  “I begin to have a very good opinion of your understanding.”

“Nevertheless,” pursued Darnay, rising to ring the bell, “there is nothing in that, I hope, to prevent my calling the reckoning, and our parting without ill-blood on either side.”

Carton rejoining, “Nothing in life!” Darnay rang.  “Do you call the whole reckoning?” said Carton.  On his answering in the affirmative, “Then bring me another pint of this same wine, drawer, and come and wake me at ten.”

The bill being paid, Charles Darnay rose and wished him good night.  Without returning the wish, Carton rose too, with something of a threat of defiance in his manner, and said, “A last word, Mr. Darnay:  you think I am drunk?”

“I think you have been drinking, Mr. Carton.”

“Think?  You know I have been drinking.”

“Since I must say so, I know it.”

“Then you shall likewise know why.  I am a disappointed drudge, sir.  I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.”

“Much to be regretted.  You might have used your talents better.”

“May be so, Mr. Darnay; may be not.  Don’t let your sober face elate you, however; you don’t know what it may come to.  Good night!”

When he was left alone, this strange being took up a candle, went to a glass that hung against the wall, and surveyed himself minutely in it.

“Do you particularly like the man?” he muttered, at his own image; “why should you particularly like a man who resembles you?  There is nothing in you to like; you know that.  Ah, confound you!  What a change you have made in yourself!  A good reason for taking to a man, that he shows you what you have fallen away from, and what you might have been!  Change places with him, and would you have been looked at by those blue eyes as he was, and commiserated by that agitated face as he was?  Come on, and have it out in plain words!  You hate the fellow.”

He resorted to his pint of wine for consolation, drank it all in a few minutes, and fell asleep on his arms, with his hair straggling over the table, and a long winding-sheet in the candle dripping down upon him.