through the courtyard. She quickly brought them down and
handed them 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 postilion cracked his whip, and they clattered away under the
feeble over-swinging lamps.
Under the over-swinging lamps—swinging ever brighter in the
better streets, 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 guardhouse
there. “Your papers, travellers!” “See here then, Monsieur the
Officer,” said Defarge, getting down, and taking him gravely apart,
“these are the papers of monsieur inside, with the white head.
They were consigned to me, with him, at the—-” He dropped his
voice, there was a flutter among the military lanterns, and one of
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A Tale of Two Cities
them being handed into the coach by an arm in uniform, the eyes
connected with the arm looked, not an every day or an every night
look, at monsieur with the white head. “It is well. Forward!” from
the uniform. “Adieu!” from Defarge. And so, under a short grove
of feebler and feebler over-swinging lamps, out under the great
grove of stars.
Beneath that arch of unmoved and eternal lights; some, so
remote from this little earth that the learned tell us it is doubtful
whether their rays have even yet discovered it, as a point in space
where anything is suffered or done: the shadows of the night were
broad and black. All through the cold and restless interval, until
dawn, they once more whispered in the ears of Mr. Jarvis Lorry—
sitting opposite the buried man who had been dug out, and
wondering what subtle powers were for ever lost to him, and what
were capable of restoration—the old inquiry:
“I hope you care to be recalled to life?”
And the old answer:
“I can’t say.”
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A Tale of Two Cities
BOOK THE SECOND
THE GOLDEN
THREAD
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A Tale of Two Cities
Chapter VII
FIVE YEARS LATER
T ellson’s Bank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place,
even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty.
It was very small, very dark, very ugly, very
incommodious. It was an old-fashioned place, moreover, in the
moral attribute that the partners in the House were proud of its
smallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of its
incommodiousness. They were even boastful of its eminence in
those particulars, and were fired by an express conviction that, if it
were less objectionable, it would be less respectable. This was no
passive belief, but an active weapon which they flashed at more
convenient places of business. Tellson’s (they said) wanted no
elbow-room, Tellson’s wanted no light, Tellson’s wanted no
embellishment. Noakes and Co.’s might, or Snooks Brothers’
might; but Tellson’s, thank Heaven!— Any one of these partners
would have disinhe**d his son on the question of rebuilding
Tellson’s. In this respect the House was much on a par with the
Country; which did very often disinherit its sons for s**esting
improvements in laws and customs that had long been highly
objectionable, but were only the more respectable.
Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson’s was the triumphant
perfection of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic
obstinacy with a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson’s
down two steps, and came to your senses in a miserable little shop,
with two little counters, where the oldest of men made your
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cheque shake as if the wind rustled it, while they examined the
signature by the dingiest of windows, whi"};
