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1"I stand aside, messieurs, by my heap of stones, to see the soldiers and their prisoner pass (for it is a solitary road,
2that, where any spectacle is well worth looking at), and at first, as they approach, I see no more than that they are
3six soldiers with a tall man bound, and that they are almost black to my sight--except on the side of the sun going to
4bed, where they have a red edge, messieurs. Also, I see that their long shadows are on the hollow ridge on the opposite
5side of the road, and are on the hill above it, and are like the shadows of giants. Also, I see that they are covered
6with dust, and that the dust moves with them as they come, tramp, tramp! But when they advance quite near to me, I
7recognise the tall man, and he recognises me. Ah, but he would be well content to precipitate himself over the hill-side
8once again, as on the evening when he and I first encountered, close to the same spot!" He described it as if he were
9there, and it was evident that he saw it vividly; perhaps he had not seen much in his life. "I do not show the soldiers
10that I recognise the tall man; he does not show the soldiers that he recognises me; we do it, and we know it, with our
11eyes. 'Come on!' says the chief of that company, pointing to the village, 'bring him fast to his tomb!' and they bring
12him faster. I follow. His arms are swelled because of being bound so tight, his wooden shoes are large and clumsy, and
13he is lame. Because he is lame, and consequently slow, they drive him with their guns--like this!" He imitated the
14action of a man's being impelled forward by the butt-ends of muskets. "As they descend the hill like madmen running a
15race, he falls. They laugh and pick him up again. His face is bleeding and covered with dust, but he cannot touch it;
16thereupon they laugh again. They bring him into the village; all the village runs to look; they take him past the mill,
17and up to the prison; all the village sees the prison gate open in the darkness of the night, and swallow him--like
18this!" He opened his mouth as wide as he could, and shut it with a sounding snap of his teeth. Observant of his
19unwillingness to mar the effect by opening it again, Defarge said, "Go on, Jacques." "All the village," pursued the
20mender of roads, on tiptoe and in a low voice, "withdraws; all the village whispers by the fountain; all the village
21sleeps; all the village dreams of that unhappy one, within the locks and bars of the prison on the crag, and never to
22come out of it, except to perish. In the morning, with my tools upon my shoulder, eating my morsel of black bread as I
23go, I make a circuit by the prison, on my way to my work. There I see him, high up, behind the bars of a lofty iron
24cage, bloody and dusty as last night, looking through. He has no hand free, to wave to me; I dare not call to him; he
25regards me like a dead man." Defarge and the three glanced darkly at one another. The looks of all of them were dark,
26repressed, and revengeful, as they listened to the countryman's story; the manner of all of them, while it was secret,
27was authoritative too. They had the air of a rough tribunal; Jacques One and Two sitting on the old pallet-bed, each
28with his chin resting on his hand, and his eyes intent on the road-mender; Jacques Three, equally intent, on one knee
29behind them, with his agitated hand always gliding over the network of fine nerves about his mouth and nose; Defarge
30standing between them and the narrator, whom he had stationed in the light of the window, by turns looking from him to
31them, and from them to him. "Go on, Jacques," said Defarge. "He remains up there in his iron cage some days. The village
32looks at him by stealth, for it is afraid. But it always looks up, from a distance, at the prison on the crag; and in
33the evening, when the work of the day is achieved and it assembles to gossip at the fountain, all faces are turned
34towards the prison. Formerly, they were turned towards the posting-house; now, they are turned towards the prison. They
35whisper at the fountain, that although condemned to death he will not be executed; they say that petitions have been
36presented in Paris, showing that he was enraged and made mad by the death of his child; they say that a petition has
37been presented to the King himself. What do I know? It is possible. Perhaps yes, perhaps no." "Listen then, Jacques,"
38Number One of that name sternly interposed. "Know that a petition was presented to the King and Queen. All here,
39yourself excepted, saw the King take it, in his carriage in the street, sitting beside the Queen. It is Defarge whom you
40see here, who, at the hazard of his life, darted out before the horses, with the petition in his hand." "And once again
41listen, Jacques!" said the kneeling Number Three: his fingers ever wandering over and over those fine nerves, with a
42strikingly greedy air, as if he hungered for something--that was neither food nor drink; "the guard, horse and foot,
43surrounded the petitioner, and struck him blows. You hear?" "I hear, messieurs." "Go on then," said Defarge. "Again; on
44the other hand, they whisper at the fountain," resumed the countryman, "that he is brought down into our country to be
45executed on the spot, and that he will very certainly be executed. They even whisper that because he has slain
46Monseigneur, and because Monseigneur was the father of his tenants--serfs--what you will--he will be executed as a
47parricide. One old man says at the fountain, that his right hand, armed with the knife, will be burnt off before his
48face; that, into wounds which will be made in his arms, his breast, and his legs, there will be poured boiling oil,
49melted lead, hot resin, wax, and sulphur; finally, that he will be torn limb from limb by four strong horses. That old
50man says, all this was actually done to a prisoner who made an attempt on the life of the late King, Louis Fifteen. But
51how do I know if he lies? I am not a scholar." "Listen once again then, Jacques!" said the man with the restless hand
52and the craving air. "The name of that prisoner was Damiens, and it was all done in open day, in the open streets of
53this city of Paris; and nothing was more noticed in the vast concourse that saw it done, than the crowd of ladies of
54quality and fashion, who were full of eager attention to the last--to the last, Jacques, prolonged until nightfall, when
55he had lost two legs and an arm, and still breathed! And it was done--why, how old are you?" "Thirty-five," said the
56mender of roads, who looked sixty. "It was done when you were more than ten years old; you might have seen it."
57"Enough!" said Defarge, with grim impatience. "Long live the Devil! Go on." "Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that;
58they speak of nothing else; even the fountain appears to fall to that tune. At length, on Sunday night when all the
59village is asleep, come soldiers, winding down from the prison, and their guns ring on the stones of the little street.
60Workmen dig, workmen hammer, soldiers laugh and sing; in the morning, by the fountain, there is raised a gallows forty
61feet high, poisoning the water." The mender of roads looked through rather than at the low ceiling, and pointed as if he
62saw the gallows somewhere in the sky. "All work is stopped, all assemble there, nobody leads the cows out, the cows are
63there with the rest. At midday, the roll of drums. Soldiers have marched into the prison in the night, and he is in the
64midst of many soldiers. He is bound as before, and in his mouth there is a gag--tied so, with a tight string, making him
65look almost as if he laughed." He suggested it, by creasing his face with his two thumbs, from the corners of his mouth
66to his ears. "On the top of the gallows is fixed the knife, blade upwards, with its point in the air. He is hanged there
67forty feet high--and is left hanging, poisoning the water." They looked at one another, as he used his blue cap to wipe
68his face, on which the perspiration had started afresh while he recalled the spectacle.
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