有声名著之双城记
Chapter06CHAPTER VI
The Shoemaker
`GOOD DAY!' said Monsieur Defarge, looking down at he white head that bentlow over the shoemaking.
It was raised for a moment, and a very faint voice responded to thesalutation, as if it were at a distance:
`Good day!'
`You are still hard at work, I see?'
After a long silence, the head was lifted for another moment, and the voicereplied, `Yes--I am working.' This time, a pair of haggard eyes had lookedat the questioner, before the face had dropped again.
The faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful. It was not thefaintness of physical weakness, though confinement and hard fare no doubthad their part in it. Its deplorable peculiarity was, that it was thefaintness of solitude and disuse. It was like the last feeble echo of asound made long and long ago. So entirely had it lost the life and resonanceof the human voice, that it affected the senses like a once beautiful colourfaded away into a poor weak stain. So sunken and suppressed it was, that itwas like a voice under-ground. So expressive it was, of a hopeless and lostcreature, that a famished traveller, wearied Out by lonely wandering in awilderness, would have remembered home and friends in such a tone beforelying down to die.
Some minutes of silent work had passed: and the haggard eyes had looked upagain: not with any interest or curiosity, but with a dull mechanicalperception, beforehand, that the spot where the only visitor they were awareof had stood, was not yet empty.
`I want,' said Defarge, who had not removed his gaze from the shoemaker,`to let in a little more light here. You can bear a little more?'
The shoemaker stopped his work; looked with a vacant air of listening, atthe floor on one side of him; then similarly, at the floor on the other sideof him; then, upward at the speaker.
`What did you say?'
`You can bear a little more light?'
`I must bear it, if you let it in.' (Laying the palest shadow of a stressupon the second word.)The opened half-door was opened a little further, and secured at that anglefor the time. A broad ray of light fell into the garret, and showed theworkman with an un-finished shoe upon his lap, pausing in his labour. Hisfew common tools and various scraps of leather were at his feet and on hisbench. He had a white beard, raggedly cut, but not very long, a hollow face,and exceedingly bright eyes. The hollowness and thinness of his face wouldhave caused them to look large, under his yet dark eyebrows and his confusedwhite hair, though they had been really otherwise; but, they were naturallylarge, and looked un-naturally so. His yellow rags of shirt lay open at thethroat, and showed his body to be withered and worn. He, and his old canvasfrock, and his loose stockings, and all his poor tatters of clothes, had, ina long seclusion from direct light and air, faded down to such a dulluniformity of parchment-yellow, that it would have been hard to say whichwas which.
He had put up a hand between his eyes and the light, and the very bones ofit seemed transparent. So he sat, with a steadfastly vacant gaze, pausing inhis work. He never looked at the figure before him, without first lookingdown on this side of himself, then on that, as if he had lost the habit ofassociating place with sound; he never spoke, without first pandering inthis manner, and forgetting to speak.
`Are you going to finish that pair of shoes to-day?' asked Defarge,motioning to Mr. Lorry to come forward.
`What did you say?'
`Do you mean to finish that pair of shoes to-day?' `I can't say that I meanto. I suppose so. I don't know.'
But, the question reminded him of his work, and he bent over it again.
Mr. Lorry came silently forward, leaving the daughter by the door. When hehad stood, for a minute or two, by the side of Defarge, the shoemaker lookedup. He showed no surprise at seeing another figure, but the unsteady fingersof one of his hands strayed to his lips as he looked at it (his lips and hisnails were of the same pale lead-colour), and then the hand dropped to hiswork, and he once more bent over the shoe. The look and the action hadoccupied but an instant.
`You have a visitor, you see,' said Monsieur Defarge.
`What did you say?'
`Here is a visitor.'
The shoemaker looked up as before, but without removing a hand from hiswork.
`Come!' said Defarge. `Here is monsieur, who knows a well-made shoe when hesees one. Show him that shoe you are working at. Take it, monsieur.'
Mr. Lorry took it in his hand.
`Tell monsieur what kind of shoe it is, and the maker's name.'
There was a longer pause than usual, before the shoe-maker replied:
`I forget what it was you asked me. What did you say?'
`I said, couldn't you describe the kind of shoe, for monsieur'sinformation?'
`It is a lady's shoe. It is a young lady's walking-shoe. It is in thepresent mode. I never saw the mode. I have had a pattern in my hand.' Heglanced at the shoe with some little passing touch of pride.
`And the maker's name?' said Defarge.
Now that he had no work to hold, he laid the knuckles of the right hand inthe hollow of the left, and then the knuckles of the left hand in the hollowof the right, and then passed a hand across his bearded chin, and so on inregular changes, without a moment's intermission. The task of recalling himfrom the vacancy into which he always sank when he had spoken, was likerecalling some very weak person from a swoon, or endeavouring, in the hopeof some disclosure, to stay the spirit of a fast-dying man.
`Did you ask me for my name?'
`Assuredly I did.'
`One Hundred and Five, North Tower.'
`Is that all?'
`One Hundred and Five, North Tower.' #p#副标题#e#With a weary sound that was not a sigh, nor a groan, he bent to work again,until the silence was again broken.
`You are not a shoemaker by trade?' said Mr. Lorry, looking steadfastly athim.
His haggard eyes turned to Defarge as if he would have transferred thequestion to him: but as no help came from that quarter, they turned back onthe questioner when they had sought the ground.
`I am not a shoemaker by trade? No, I was not a shoe-maker by trade. I--Ilearn't it here. I taught myself. I asked leave to---'
He lapsed away, even for minutes, ringing those measured changes on hishands the whole time. His eyes came slowly back, at last, to the face fromwhich they had wandered; when they rested on it, he started, and resumed, inthe manner of a sleeper that moment awake, reverting to a subject of lastnight.
`I asked leave to teach myself, and I got it with much difficulty after along while, and I have made shoes ever since.'
As he held out his hand for the shoe that had been taken from him, Mr.
Lorry said, still looking steadfastly in his face:
`Monsieur Manette, do you remember nothing of me?'
The shoe dropped to the ground, and he sat looking fixedly at thequestioner.
`Monsieur Manette;' Mr. Lorry laid his hand upon Defarge's arm; `do youremember nothing of this man? Look at him. Look at me. Is there no oldbanker, no old business, no old servant, no old time, rising in your mind,Monsieur Manette?'
As the captive of many years sat looking fixedly, by turns, at Mr. Lorryand at Defarge, some long obliterated marks of an actively intentintelligence in the middle of the fore-head, gradually forced themselvesthrough the black mist that had fallen on him. They were overclouded again,they were fainter, they were gone; but they had been there. And so exactlywas the expression repeated on the fair young face of her who had creptalong the wall to a point where she could see him, and where she now stoodlooking at him, with hands which at first had been only raised in frightenedcompassion, if not even to keep him off and shut out the sight of him, butwhich were now extending towards him, trembling with eagerness to lay thespectral face upon her warm young breast, and love it back to life and hope--so exactly was the expression repeated (though in stronger characters) onher fair young face, that it looked as though it had passed like a movinglight, from him to her.
Darkness had fallen on him in its place. He looked at the two, less andless attentively, and his eyes in gloomy abstraction sought the ground andlooked about him in the old way. Finally, with a deep long sigh, he took theshoe up, and resumed his work.
`Have you recognised him, monsieur?' asked Defarge in a whisper.
`Yes; for a moment. At first I thought it quite hope-less, but I haveunquestionably seen, for a single moment, the face that I once knew so well.
Hush! Let us draw further back. Hush!'
She had moved from the wall of the garret, very near to the bench on whichhe sat. There was something awful in his unconsciousness of the figure thatcould have put out its hand and touched him as lie stooped over his labour.
Not a word was spoken, not a sound was made. She stood, like a spirit,beside him, and he bent over his work.
It happened, at length, that he had occasion to change the instrument inhis hand, for his shoemaker's knife. It lay on that side of him which wasnot the side on which she stood. He had taken it up, and was stooping towork again, when his eyes caught the skirt of her dress. He raised them, andsaw her face. The two spectators started forward, hut she stayed them with amotion of her hand. She had no fear of his striking at her with the knife,though they had.
He stared at her with a fearful look, and after a while his lips began toform some words, though no sound proceeded from them. By degrees, in thepauses of his quick and laboured breathing, he was heard to say:
`What is this?'
With the tears streaming down her face, she put her two hands to her lips,and kissed them to him; then clasped them on her breast, as if she laid hisruined head there.
`You are not the gaoler's daughter?'
She sighed `No.'
`Who are you?'
Not yet trusting the tones of her voice, she sat down on the bench besidehim. He recoiled, but she laid her hand upon his arm. A strange thrillstruck him when she did so, and visibly passed over his frame; he laid theknife down softly, as he sat staring at her.
Her golden hair, which she wore in long curls, had been hurriedly pushedaside, and fell down over her neck. Advancing his hand by little and little,he took it up and looked at it. In the midst of the action he went astray,and, with another deep sigh, fell to work at his shoemaking.
But not for long. Releasing his arm, she laid her hand upon his shoulder.
After looking doubtfully at it, two or three times, as if to be sure that itwas really there, he laid down his work, put his hand to his neck, and tookoff a blackened string with a scrap of folded rag attached to it. He openedthis, carefully, on his knee, and it contained a very little quantity ofhair: not more than one or two long golden hairs, which he had, in some oldday, wound on upon his finger.
He took her hair into his hand again, and looked closely at it. `It is thesame. How can it be! When was it! How was it!'
As the concentrating expression returned to his forehead, he seemed tobecome conscious that it was in hers too. He turned her full to the light,and looked at her.
`She had laid her head upon my shoulder, that night when I was summonedout--she had a fear of my going, though I had none--and when I was broughtto the North Tower they found these upon my sleeve. "You will leave me them?
They can never help me to escape in the body, though they may in thespirit." Those were the words I said. I remember them very well.'
He formed this speech with his lips many times before he could utter it.
But when he did find spoken words for it, they came to him coherently,though slowly.
`How was this?--Was it you?'
Once more, the two spectators started, as he turned upon her with afrightful suddenness. But she sat perfectly still in his grasp, and onlysaid, in a low voice, `I entreat you, good gentlemen, do not come near us,do not speak, do not move!'
`Hark!' he exclaimed. `Whose voice was that?'
His hands released her as he uttered this cry, and went up to his whitehair, which they tore in a frenzy. It died out, as everything but hisshoemaking did die out of him, and he refolded his little packet and triedto secure it in his breast; but he still looked at her, and gloomily shookhis head.
`No, no, no; you are too young, too blooming. It can't be. See what theprisoner is. These are not the hands she knew, this is not the face sheknew, this is not a voice she ever heard. No, no. She was--and He was--before the slow years of the North Tower--ages ago. What is your name, mygentle angel?'
Hailing his softened tone and manner, his daughter fell upon her kneesbefore him, with her appealing hands upon his breast.
`O, sir, at another time you shall know my name, and who my mother was, andwho my father, and how I never knew their hard, hard history. But I cannottell you at this time, and I cannot tell you here. All that I may tell you,here and now, is, that I pray to you to touch me and to bless me. Kiss me,kiss me! O my dear, my dear!'
His cold white head mingled with her radiant hair, which warmed and lightedit as though it were the light of Freedom shining on him.
`If you hear in my voice--I don't know that it is so, but I hope it is--ifyou hear in my voice any resemblance to a voice that once was sweet music inyour ears, weep for it, weep for it! If you touch, in touching my hair,anything that recalls a beloved head that lay on your breast when you wereyoung and free, weep for it, weep for it! If, when I hint to you of a Homethat is before us, where I will be true to you with all my duty and with allmy faithful service, I bring back the remembrance of a Home long desolate,while your poor heart pined away, weep for it, weep for it!' #p#副标题#e#She held him closer round the neck, and rocked him on her breast like achild.
`If' when I tell you, dearest dear, that your agony is over, and that Ihave come here to take you from it, and that we go to England to be at peaceand at rest, I cause you to think of your useful life laid waste, and of ournative France so wicked to you, weep for it, weep for it! And if' when Ishall tell you of my name, and of my father who is living, and of my motherwho is dead, you learn that I have to kneel to my honoured father, andimplore his pardon for having never for his sake striven all day and lainawake and wept all night, because the love of my poor mother hid his torturefrom me, weep for it, weep for it! Weep for her, then, and for me! Goodgentlemen, thank God! I feel his sacred tears upon my face, and his sobsstrike against my heart. O, see Thank God for us, thank God!'
He had sunk in her arms, and his face dropped on her breast: a sight sotouching, yet so terrible in the tremendous wrong and suffering which hadgone before it, that the two beholders covered their faces.
When the quiet of the garret had been long undisturbed, and his heavingbreast and shaken form had long yielded to the calm that must follow allstorms--emblem to humanity, of the rest and silence into which the stormcalled Life must hush at last--they came forward to raise the father anddaughter from the ground. He had gradually dropped to the floor, and laythere in a lethargy, worn out. She had nestled down with him, that his headmight lie upon her arm; and her hair drooping over him curtained him fromthe light.
`If, without disturbing him,' she said, raising her hand to Mr. Lorry as hestooped over them, after repeated blowings of his nose, `all could bearranged for our leaving Paris at once, so that, from the very door, hecould be taken away---'
`But, consider. Is he fit for the journey?' asked Mr. Lorry.
`More fit for that, I think, than to remain in this city, so dreadful tohim.'
`It is true,' said Defarge, who was kneeling to look on and hear. `Morethan that; Monsieur Manette is, for all reasons, best out of France. Say,shall I hire a carriage and post-horses?'
`That's business,' said Mr. Lorry, resuming on the shortest notice hismethodical manners; `and if business is to be dune, I had better do it.'
`Then be so kind,' urged Miss Manette, `as to leave us here. You see howcomposed he has become, and you cannot be afraid to leave him with me now.
Why should you be? If you will lock the door to secure us from interruption,I do not doubt that you will find him, when you come back, as quiet as youleave him. In any case, I will take care of him until you return, and thenwe will remove him straight.'
Both Mr. Lorry and Defarge were rather disinclined to this course, and infavour of one of them remaining. But, as there were not only carriage andhorses to be seen to, but travelling papers; and as time pressed, for theday was drawing to an end, it came at last to their hastily dividing thebusiness that was necessary to be done, and hurrying away to do it.
Then, as the darkness closed in, the daughter laid her head down on thehard ground close at the father's side, and watched him. The darknessdeepened and deepened, and they both lay quiet, until a light gleamedthrough the chinks in the wall.
Mr. Lorry and Monsieur Defarge had made all ready for the journey, and hadbrought with them, besides travelling cloaks and wrappers, bread and meat,wine, and hot coffee. Monsieur Defarge put this provender, and the lamp hecarried, on the shoemaker's bench (there was nothing else in the garret buta pallet bed), and he and Mr. Lorry roused the captive, and assisted him tohis feet.
No human intelligence could have read the mysteries of his mind, in thescared blank wonder of his face. Whether he knew what had happened, whetherhe recollected what they had said to him, whether he knew that he was free,were questions which no sagacity could have solved. They tried speaking tohim; but, he was so confused, and so very slow to answer, that they tookfright at his bewilderment, and agreed for the time to tamper with him nomore. He had a wild, lost manner of occasionally clasping his head in hishands, that had not been seen in him before; yet, he had some pleasure inthe mere sound of his daughter's voice, and invariably turned to it when shespoke.
In the submissive way of one long accustomed to obey under coercion, he ateand drank what they gave him to eat and drink, and put on the cloak andother wrappings, that they gave him to wear. He readily responded to hisdaughter's drawing her arm through his, and took--and kept--her hand in bothhis own.
They began to descend; Monsieur Defarge going first with the lamp, Mr.
Lorry closing the little procession. They had not traversed many steps ofthe long main staircase when he stopped, and stared at the roof and round atthe walls.
`You remember the place, my father? You remember coming up here?
`What did you say?'
But, before she could repeat the question, he murmured an answer as if shehad repeated it.
`Remember? No, I don't remember. It was so very long ago.'
That he had no recollection whatever of his having been brought from hisprison to that house, was apparent to them. They heard him mutter, `OneHundred and Five, North Tower;' and when he looked about him, it evidentlywas for the strong fortress-walls which had long encompassed him. On theirreaching the courtyard he instinctively altered his tread, as being inexpectation of a drawbridge; and when there was no drawbridge, and he sawthe carriage waiting in the open street, he dropped his daughter's hand andclasped his head again.
No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible at any of the manywindows; not even a chance passer-by was in the street. An unnatural silenceand desertion reigned there. Only one soul has to be seen, and that wasMadame Defarge--who leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing.
The prisoner had got into a coach, and his daughter had followed him, whenMr. Lorry's feet were arrested on the step by his asking, miserably, for hisshoemaking tools and the unfinished shoes. Madame Defarge immediately calledto her husband that she would get them, and went, knitting, out of thelamplight, through the court-yard. She quickly brought them down and handedthem in ;--and immediately afterwards leaned against the door-post,knitting, and saw nothing.
Defarge got upon the box, and gave the word `To the Barrier!' The postilioncracked his whip, and they clattered away under the Feeble over swinginglamps.
Under the over-swinging lamps--swinging ever brighter in the betterstreets, and ever dimmer in the worse--and by lighted shops, gay crowds,illuminated coffee-houses, and theatre-doors, to one of the city gates.
Soldiers with lanterns, at the guard-house there. `Your papers, travellers!'
`See here then, Monsieur the Officer,' said Defarge, getting down, andtaking him gravely apart, `these are the papers of monsieur inside, with thewhite head. They were consigned to me, with him, at the---' He dropped hisvoice, there was a flutter among the military lanterns, and one of thembeing handed into the coach by an arm in uniform, the eyes connected withthe arm looked, not an every-day or an every-night look, at monsieur withthe white head. `It is well. Forward!' from the uniform. `Adieu!' fromDefarge. And so, under a short grove of feebler and feebler over swinginglamps, out under the great grove of stars.
Beneath that arch of unmoved and eternal lights; some, so remote from thislittle earth that the learned tell us it is doubtful whether their rays haveeven yet discovered it, as a point in space where anything is suffered ordone: the shadows of the night were broad and black. All through the coldand restless interval, until dawn, they once more whispered in the ears ofMr. Jarvis Lorry--sitting opposite the buried man who had been dug out, andwondering what subtle powers were for ever lost to him, and what werecapable of restoration--the old inquiry:
`I hope you care to be recalled to life?'
And the old answer:
`I can't say.'
THE END OF THE FIRST BOOK |