II. The Grindstone
Tellson's Bank, established in the Saint Germain Quarter of Paris, wasin a wing of a large house, approached by a courtyard and shut off fromthe street by a high wall and a strong gate. The house belonged toa great nobleman who had lived in it until he made a flight from thetroubles, in his own cook's dress, and got across the borders. Amere beast of the chase flying from hunters, he was still in hismetempsychosis no other than the same Monseigneur, the preparationof whose chocolate for whose lips had once occupied three strong menbesides the cook in question.
Monseigneur gone, and the three strong men absolving themselves from thesin of having drawn his high wages, by being more than ready andwilling to cut his throat on the altar of the dawning Republic one andindivisible of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, Monseigneur'shouse had been first sequestrated, and then confiscated. For, allthings moved so fast, and decree followed decree with that fierceprecipitation, that now upon the third night of the autumn monthof September, patriot emissaries of the law were in possession ofMonseigneur's house, and had marked it with the tri-colour, and weredrinking brandy in its state apartments.
A place of business in London like Tellson's place of business in Paris,would soon have driven the House out of its mind and into the Gazette.For, what would staid British responsibility and respectability havesaid to orange-trees in boxes in a Bank courtyard, and even to a Cupidover the counter? Yet such things were. Tellson's had whitewashed theCupid, but he was still to be seen on the ceiling, in the coolestlinen, aiming (as he very often does) at money from morning tonight. Bankruptcy must inevitably have come of this young Pagan, inLombard-street, London, and also of a curtained alcove in the rear ofthe immortal boy, and also of a looking-glass let into the wall, andalso of clerks not at all old, who danced in public on the slightestprovocation. Yet, a French Tellson's could get on with these thingsexceedingly well, and, as long as the times held together, no man hadtaken fright at them, and drawn out his money.
What money would be drawn out of Tellson's henceforth, and what wouldlie there, lost and forgotten; what plate and jewels would tarnish inTellson's hiding-places, while the depositors rusted in prisons,and when they should have violently perished; how many accounts withTellson's never to be balanced in this world, must be carried over intothe next; no man could have said, that night, any more than Mr. JarvisLorry could, though he thought heavily of these questions. He sat bya newly-lighted wood fire (the blighted and unfruitful year wasprematurely cold), and on his honest and courageous face there was adeeper shade than the pendent lamp could throw, or any object in theroom distortedly reflect--a shade of horror.
He occupied rooms in the Bank, in his fidelity to the House of whichhe had grown to be a part, like strong root-ivy. It chanced that theyderived a kind of security from the patriotic occupation of the mainbuilding, but the true-hearted old gentleman never calculated aboutthat. All such circumstances were indifferent to him, so that he didhis duty. On the opposite side of the courtyard, under a colonnade,was extensive standing--for carriages--where, indeed, some carriagesof Monseigneur yet stood. Against two of the pillars were fastened twogreat flaring flambeaux, and in the light of these, standing out in theopen air, was a large grindstone: a roughly mounted thing which appearedto have hurriedly been brought there from some neighbouring smithy,or other workshop. Rising and looking out of window at these harmlessobjects, Mr. Lorry shivered, and retired to his seat by the fire. He hadopened, not only the glass window, but the lattice blind outside it, andhe had closed both again, and he shivered through his frame.
From the streets beyond the high wall and the strong gate, there camethe usual night hum of the city, with now and then an indescribable ringin it, weird and unearthly, as if some unwonted sounds of a terriblenature were going up to Heaven.
”Thank God,” said Mr. Lorry, clasping his hands, ”that no one near anddear to me is in this dreadful town to-night. May He have mercy on allwho are in danger!”
Soon afterwards, the bell at the great gate sounded, and he thought,”They have come back!” and sat listening. But, there was no loudirruption into the courtyard, as he had expected, and he heard the gateclash again, and all was quiet.
The nervousness and dread that were upon him inspired that vagueuneasiness respecting the Bank, which a great change would naturallyawaken, with such feelings roused. It was well guarded, and he got up togo among the trusty people who were watching it, when his door suddenlyopened, and two figures rushed in, at sight of which he fell back inamazement.
Lucie and her father! Lucie with her arms stretched out to him, and withthat old look of earnestness so concentrated and intensified, that itseemed as though it had been stamped upon her face expressly to giveforce and power to it in this one passage of her life.
”What is this?” cried Mr. Lorry, breathless and confused. ”What is thematter? Lucie! Manette! What has happened? What has brought you here?What is it?”
With the look fixed upon him, in her paleness and wildness, she pantedout in his arms, imploringly, ”O my dear friend! My husband!”
”Your husband, Lucie?”
”Charles.”
”What of Charles?”
”Here.
”Here, in Paris?”
”Has been here some days--three or four--I don't know how many--I can'tcollect my thoughts. An errand of generosity brought him here unknown tous; he was stopped at the barrier, and sent to prison.”
The old man uttered an irrepressible cry. Almost at the same moment, thebell of the great gate rang again, and a loud noise of feet and voicescame pouring into the courtyard.
”What is that noise?” said the Doctor, turning towards the window.
”Don't look!” cried Mr. Lorry. ”Don't look out! Manette, for your life,don't touch the blind!”
The Doctor turned, with his hand upon the fastening of the window, andsaid, with a cool, bold smile:
”My dear friend, I have a charmed life in this city. I have beena Bastille prisoner. There is no patriot in Paris--in Paris? InFrance--who, knowing me to have been a prisoner in the Bastille, wouldtouch me, except to overwhelm me with embraces, or carry me in triumph.My old pain has given me a power that has brought us through thebarrier, and gained us news of Charles there, and brought us here. Iknew it would be so; I knew I could help Charles out of all danger; Itold Lucie so.--What is that noise?” His hand was again upon the window.
”Don't look!” cried Mr. Lorry, absolutely desperate. ”No, Lucie, mydear, nor you!” He got his arm round her, and held her. ”Don't be soterrified, my love. I solemnly swear to you that I know of no harmhaving happened to Charles; that I had no suspicion even of his being inthis fatal place. What prison is he in?”
”La Force!”
”La Force! Lucie, my child, if ever you were brave and serviceable inyour life--and you were always both--you will compose yourself now, todo exactly as I bid you; for more depends upon it than you can think, orI can say. There is no help for you in any action on your part to-night;you cannot possibly stir out. I say this, because what I must bid youto do for Charles's sake, is the hardest thing to do of all. You mustinstantly be obedient, still, and quiet. You must let me put you in aroom at the back here. You must leave your father and me alone fortwo minutes, and as there are Life and Death in the world you must notdelay.”
”I will be submissive to you. I see in your face that you know I can donothing else than this. I know you are true.”
The old man kissed her, and hurried her into his room, and turned thekey; then, came hurrying back to the Doctor, and opened the window andpartly opened the blind, and put his hand upon the Doctor's arm, andlooked out with him into the courtyard.
Looked out upon a throng of men and women: not enough in number, or nearenough, to fill the courtyard: not more than forty or fifty in all. Thepeople in possession of the house had let them in at the gate, and theyhad rushed in to work at the grindstone; it had evidently been set upthere for their purpose, as in a convenient and retired spot.
But, such awful workers, and such awful work!
The grindstone had a double handle, and, turning at it madly were twomen, whose faces, as their long hair flapped back when the whirlings ofthe grindstone brought their faces up, were more horrible and cruel thanthe visages of the wildest savages in their most barbarous disguise.False eyebrows and false moustaches were stuck upon them, and theirhideous countenances were all bloody and sweaty, and all awry withhowling, and all staring and glaring with beastly excitement and want ofsleep. As these ruffians turned and turned, their matted locks now flungforward over their eyes, now flung backward over their necks, some womenheld wine to their mouths that they might drink; and what with droppingblood, and what with dropping wine, and what with the stream of sparksstruck out of the stone, all their wicked atmosphere seemed gore andfire. The eye could not detect one creature in the group free fromthe smear of blood. Shouldering one another to get next at thesharpening-stone, were men stripped to the waist, with the stain allover their limbs and bodies; men in all sorts of rags, with the stainupon those rags; men devilishly set off with spoils of women's laceand silk and ribbon, with the stain dyeing those trifles throughand through. Hatchets, knives, bayonets, swords, all brought to besharpened, were all red with it. Some of the hacked swords were tied tothe wrists of those who carried them, with strips of linen and fragmentsof dress: ligatures various in kind, but all deep of the one colour. Andas the frantic wielders of these weapons snatched them from the streamof sparks and tore away into the streets, the same red hue was red intheir frenzied eyes;--eyes which any unbrutalised beholder would havegiven twenty years of life, to petrify with a well-directed gun.
All this was seen in a moment, as the vision of a drowning man, or ofany human creature at any very great pass, could see a world if itwere there. They drew back from the window, and the Doctor looked forexplanation in his friend's ashy face.
”They are,” Mr. Lorry whispered the words, glancing fearfully round atthe locked room, ”murdering the prisoners. If you are sure of what yousay; if you really have the power you think you have--as I believe youhave--make yourself known to these devils, and get taken to La Force. Itmay be too late, I don't know, but let it not be a minute later!”
Doctor Manette pressed his hand, hastened bareheaded out of the room,and was in the courtyard when Mr. Lorry regained the blind.
His streaming white hair, his remarkable face, and the impetuousconfidence of his manner, as he put the weapons aside like water,carried him in an instant to the heart of the concourse at the stone.For a few moments there was a pause, and a hurry, and a murmur, andthe unintelligible sound of his voice; and then Mr. Lorry saw him,surrounded by all, and in the midst of a line of twenty men long, alllinked shoulder to shoulder, and hand to shoulder, hurried out withcries of--”Live the Bastille prisoner! Help for the Bastille prisoner'skindred in La Force! Room for the Bastille prisoner in front there! Savethe prisoner Evremonde at La Force!” and a thousand answering shouts.
He closed the lattice again with a fluttering heart, closed the windowand the curtain, hastened to Lucie, and told her that her father wasassisted by the people, and gone in search of her husband. He foundher child and Miss Pross with her; but, it never occurred to him to besurprised by their appearance until a long time afterwards, when he satwatching them in such quiet as the night knew.
Lucie had, by that time, fallen into a stupor on the floor at his feet,clinging to his hand. Miss Pross had laid the child down on his ownbed, and her head had gradually fallen on the pillow beside her prettycharge. O the long, long night, with the moans of the poor wife! And Othe long, long night, with no return of her father and no tidings!
Twice more in the darkness the bell at the great gate sounded, and theirruption was repeated, and the grindstone whirled and spluttered.”What is it?” cried Lucie, affrighted. ”Hush! The soldiers' swords aresharpened there,” said Mr. Lorry. ”The place is national property now,and used as a kind of armoury, my love.”
Twice more in all; but, the last spell of work was feeble and fitful.Soon afterwards the day began to dawn, and he softly detached himselffrom the clasping hand, and cautiously looked out again. A man, sobesmeared that he might have been a sorely wounded soldier creeping backto consciousness on a field of slain, was rising from the pavement bythe side of the grindstone, and looking about him with a vacant air.Shortly, this worn-out murderer descried in the imperfect light one ofthe carriages of Monseigneur, and, staggering to that gorgeous vehicle,climbed in at the door, and shut himself up to take his rest on itsdainty cushions.
The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again,and the sun was red on the courtyard. But, the lesser grindstone stoodalone there in the calm morning air, with a red upon it that the sun hadnever given, and would never take away.