《A Tale of Two Cities》 Book3 CHAPTER V The Wood-sawyer
by Charles Dickens
ONE a year and three
months. During all that time Lucie was never sure, from hour to hour, but that the
Guillotine would strike off her husband's head next day. Every day, through the stony
streets, the tumbrils now jolted heavily, filled with Condemned. Lovely girls; bright
women, brown-haired, black-haired, and grey; youths; stalwart men and old; gentle born and
peasant born; all red wine for La Guillotine, all daily brought into light from the dark
cellars of the loathsome prisons, and carried to her through the street to slake her
devouring thirst. Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death;--the last, much the easiest to
bestow, O Guillotine!
If the suddenness of her calamity, and the whirling wheels of the time, had stunned the
Doctor's daughter into awaiting the result in idle despair, it would but have been with
her as it was with many. But, from the hour when she had taken the white head to her fresh
young bosom in the garret of she had been true to her duties. She was truest to them in
the season of trial, as all the quietly loyal and good will always be.
As soon as they were established in their new residence, and her father had entered on the
routine of his avocations, she arranged the little household as exactly as if her husband
had been there. Everything had its appointed place and its appointed time. Little Lucie
she taught, as regularly, as if they had all been united in their English home. The slight
devices with which she cheated herself into the show of a belief that they would soon be
reunited-the little preparations for his speedy return, the setting aside of his chair and
his books--these, and the solemn prayer at night for one dear prisoner especially, among
the many unhappy souls in prison and the shadow of death--were almost the only outspoken
reliefs of her heavy mind.
She did not greatly alter in appearance. The plain dark dresses, akin to mourning dresses,
which she and her child wore, were as neat and as well attended to as the brighter clothes
of happy days. She lost her colour, and the old and intent expression was a constant, not
an occasional, thing; otherwise, she remained very pretty and comely. Sometimes, at night
on kissing her father, she would burst into the grief she had repressed all day, and would
say that her sole reliance, under Heaven, was on him. He always resolutely answered:
`Nothing can happen to him without my knowledge, and I know that I can save him, Lucie.'
They had not made the round of their changed life many weeks, when her father said to her,
on coming home one evening:
`My dear, there is an upper window in the prison, to which Charles can sometimes gain
access at three in the afternoon. When he can get to it-which depends on many
uncertainties and incidents-he might see you in the street, he thinks, if you stood in a
certain place that I can show you. But you will not be able to see him, my poor child, and
even if you could, it would be unsafe for you to make a sign of recognition.'
`O show me the place, my father, and I will go there everyday.'
From that time, in all weathers, she waited there two hours. As the clock struck two, she
was there, and at four she turned resignedly away. When it was not too wet or inclement
for her child to be with her, they went together; at other times she was alone; but she
never missed a single day.
It was the dark and dirty corner of a small winding street. The hovel of a cutter of wood
into lengths for burning, was the only house at that end; all else was wall. On the third
day of her being there, he noticed her.
`Good day, citizeness.'
`Good day, citizen.'
This mode of address was now prescribed by decree. It had been established voluntarily
some time ago, among the more thorough patriots; but, was now law for everybody.
`Walking here again, citizeness?'
`You see me, citizen!'
The wood-sawyer, who was a little man with a redundancy of gesture (he had once been a
mender of roads), cast a glance at the prison, pointed at the prison, and putting his ten
fingers before his face to represent bars, peeped through them jocosely.
`But it's not my business,' said he. And went on sawing his wood.
Next day he was looking out for her, and accosted her the moment she appeared.
`What? Walking here again, citizeness?'
`Yes, citizen.'
`Ah! A child too! Your mother, is it not, my little citizeness?'
`Do I say yes, mamma?' whispered little Lucie, drawing close to her.
`Yes, dearest.'
`Yes, citizen.'
`Ah! But it's not my business. My work is my business. See my saw! I call it my Little
Guillotine. La, la, la; La, la, la! And off his head comes!'
The billet fell as he spoke, and he threw it into a basket.
`I call myself the Samson of the firewood guillotine. See here again! Loo, loo, loo; Loo,
loo, loo! And off her head comes! Now, a child. Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle! And off
its head comes. All the family!'
Lucie shuddered as he threw two more billets into his basket, but it was impossible to be
there while the wood-sawyer was at work, and not be in his sight. Thenceforth, to secure
his good will, she always spoke to him first, and often gave him drink-money, which he
readily received.
He was an inquisitive fellow, and sometimes when she had quite forgotten him in gazing at
the prison roof and grates, and in lifting her heart up to her husband, she would come to
herself to find him looking at her, with his knee on his bench and his saw stopped in its
work. `But it's not my business!' he would generally say at those times, and would briskly
fall to his sawing again.
In all weathers, in the snow and frost of winter, in the bitter winds of spring, in the
hot sunshine of summer, in the rains of autumn, and again in the snow and frost of winter,
Lucie passed two hours of every day at this place; and every day on leaving it, she kissed
the prison wall. Her husband saw her (so she learned from her father) it might be once in
five or six times: it might be twice or thrice running: it might be, not for a week or a
fortnight together. It was enough that he could and did see her when the chances served,
and on that possibility she would have waited out the day, seven days a week.
These occupations brought her round to the December month, wherein her father walked among
the terrors with a steady head. On a lightly-snowing afternoon she arrived at the usual
corner. It was a day of some wild rejoicing, and a festival. She had seen the houses, as
she came along, decorated with little pikes, and with little red caps stuck upon them;
also, with tricoloured ribbons; also, with the standard inscription (tricoloured letters
were the favourite), Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or
Death!
The miserable shop of the wood-sawyer was so small, that its whole surface furnished very
indifferent space for this legend. He had got somebody to scrawl it up for him, however,
who had squeezed Death in with most inappropriate difficulty. On his house-top, he
displayed pike and cap, as a good citizen must, and in a window he had stationed his saw
inscribed as his `Little Sainte Guillotine'--for the great sharp female was by that time
popularly canonised. His shop was shut and he was not there, which was a relief to Lucie,
and left her quite alone.
But, he was not far off, for presently she heard a troubled movement and a shouting coming
along, which filled her with fear. A moment afterwards, and a throng of people came
pouring round the corner by the prison wall, in the midst of whom was the wood-sawyer hand
in hand with The Vengeance. There could not be fewer than five hundred people, and they
were dancing like five thousand demons. There was no other music than their own singing.
They danced to the popular Revolution song, keeping a ferocious time that was like a
gnashing of teeth in unison. Men and women danced together, women danced together, men
danced together, as hazard had brought them together. At first, they were a mere storm of
coarse red caps and coarse woollen rags; but, as they filled the place, and stopped to
dance about Lucie, some ghastly apparition of a dance-figure gone raving mad arose among
them. They advanced, retreated, struck at one another's hands, clutched at one another's
heads, spun round alone, caught one another and spun round in pairs, until many of them
dropped. While those were down, the rest linked hand in hand, and all spun round together:
then the ring broke, and in separate rings of two and four they turned and turned until
they all stopped at once, began again, struck, clutched, and tore, and then reversed the
spin, and all spun round another way.
Suddenly they stopped again, paused, struck out the time afresh, formed into lines the
width of the public way, and, with their heads low down and their hands high up, swooped
screaming off. No fight could have been half so terrible as this dance. It was
so emphatically a fallen sport--a something, once innocent, delivered over to all
devilry--a healthy pastime changed into a means of angering the blood, bewildering the
senses, and steeling the heart. Such grace as was visible in it, made it the uglier,
showing how warped and perverted all things good by nature were become. The maidenly bosom
bared to this, the pretty almost-child's head thus distracted, the delicate foot mincing
in this slough of blood and dirt, were types of the disjointed time.'
This was the Carmagnole. As it passed, leaving Lucie frightened and bewildered in the
doorway of the wood-sawyer's house, the feathery snow fell as quietly and lay as white and
soft, as if it had never been.
`O my father!' for he stood before her when she lifted up the eyes she had momentarily
darkened with her hand; `such a cruel, bad sight.'
`I know, my dear, I know. I have seen it many times. Don't be frightened! Not one of them
would harm you.'
`I am not frightened for myself, my father. But when I think of my husband, and the
mercies of these people---'
`We will set him above their mercies very soon. I left him climbing to the window, and I
came to tell you. There is no one here to see. You may kiss your hand towards that highest
shelving roof.'
`I do so, father, and I send him my Soul with it!'
`You cannot see him, my poor dear?'
`No, father,' said, Lucie, yearning and weeping as she kissed her hand, `no.
A footstep in the snow. Madame Defarge. `I salute you, citizeness,' from the Doctor. `I
salute you, citizen.' This in passing. Nothing more. Madame Defarge gone, like a shadow
over the white road.
`Give me your arm, my love. Pass from here with an air of cheerfulness and courage, for
his sake. That was well done;' they had left the spot; `it shall not be in vain. Charles
is summoned for to-morrow.'
`For to-morrow!'
`There is no time to lose. I am well prepared, but there are precautions to be taken, that
could not be taken until he was actually summoned before the Tribunal. He has not received
the notice yet, but I know that he will presently be summoned for to-morrow, and removed
to the Conciergerie; I have timely information. You are not afraid?'
She could scarcely answer, `I trust in you.'
`Do so, implicitly. Your suspense is nearly ended, my darling; he shall be restored to you
within a few hours; I have encompassed him with every protection. I must see Lorry.'
He stopped. There was a heavy lumbering of wheels within hearing. They both knew too well
what it meant. One. Two. Three. Three tumbrils faring away with their dread loads over the
hushing snow.
`I must see Lorry,' the Doctor repeated, turning her another way.
The staunch old gentleman was still in his trust; had never left it. He and his books were
in frequent requisition as to property confiscated and made national. What he could save
for the owners, he saved. No better man living to hold fast by what Tellson's had in
keeping, and to hold his peace.
A murky red and yellow sky, and a rising mist from the Seine, denoted the approach of
darkness. It was almost dark when they arrived at the Bank. The stately residence of
Monseigneur was altogether blighted and deserted. Above a heap of dust and
ashes in the court, ran the letters: National Property. Republic One and Indivisible.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death!
Who could that be with Mr. Lorry--the Owner of the riding-coat upon the chair--who must
not be seen? From whom newly arrived, did he come out, agitated and surprised, to take his
favourite in his arms? To whom did he appear to repeat her faltering words, when, raising
his voice and turning his head towards the door of the room from which he had issued, he
said: `Removed to the Conciergerie, and summoned for to-morrow?' |
