Book I - Chapter VI. The Shoemaker

by Charles Dickens

　　"Good day!" said Monsieur Defarge, looking down at the white headthat bent low 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 thevoice replied, "Yes--I am working." This time, a pair of haggard eyeshad looked at 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 nodoubt had their part in it. Its deplorable peculiarity was, that itwas the faintness of solitude and disuse. It was like the lastfeeble echo of a sound made long and long ago. So entirely had itlost the life and resonance of the human voice, that it affected thesenses like a once beautiful colour faded away into a poor weakstain. So sunken and suppressed it was, that it was like a voiceunderground. So expressive it was, of a hopeless and lost creature,that a famished traveller, wearied out by lonely wandering in awilderness, would have remembered home and friends in such a tonebefore lying down to die.

　　Some minutes of silent work had passed: and the haggard eyes hadlooked up again: not with any interest or curiosity, but with a dullmechanical perception, beforehand, that the spot where the onlyvisitor they were aware of had stood, was not yet empty.

　　"I want," said Defarge, who had not removed his gaze from theshoemaker, "to let in a little more light here. You can bear alittle more?"

　　The shoemaker stopped his work; looked with a vacant air of listening,at the floor on one side of him; then similarly, at the floor on theother side of 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 astress upon the second word.)

　　The opened half-door was opened a little further, and secured at thatangle for the time. A broad ray of light fell into the garret, andshowed the workman with an unfinished shoe upon his lap, pausing inhis labour. His few common tools and various scraps of leather wereat his feet and on his bench. He had a white beard, raggedly cut,but not very long, a hollow face, and exceedingly bright eyes. Thehollowness and thinness of his face would have caused them to looklarge, under his yet dark eyebrows and his confused white hair,though they had been really otherwise; but, they were naturallylarge, and looked unnaturally so. His yellow rags of shirt lay openat the throat, and showed his body to be withered and worn. He, andhis old canvas frock, and his loose stockings, and all his poortatters of clothes, had, in a long seclusion from direct light andair, faded down to such a dull uniformity of parchment-yellow, thatit would have been hard to say which was which.

　　He had put up a hand between his eyes and the light, and the verybones of it seemed transparent. So he sat, with a steadfastly vacantgaze, pausing in his work. He never looked at the figure before him,without first looking down on this side of himself, then on that, asif he had lost the habit of associating place with sound; he neverspoke, without first wandering in this 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 mean to. 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 he had stood, for a minute or two, by the side of Defarge, theshoemaker looked up. He showed no surprise at seeing another figure,but the unsteady fingers of one of his hands strayed to his lips ashe looked at it (his lips and his nails were of the same pale lead-colour), and then the hand dropped to his work, and he once more bentover the shoe. The look and the action had occupied 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 his work.

　　"Come!" said Defarge. "Here is monsieur, who knows a well-made shoewhen he sees 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 shoemaker 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's information?"

　　"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."He glanced 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 handin the hollow of the left, and then the knuckles of the left hand in thehollow of the right, and then passed a hand across his bearded chin,and so on in regular changes, without a moment's intermission.The task of recalling him from the vagrancy into which he alwayssank when he had spoken, was like recalling some very weak personfrom a swoon, or endeavouring, in the hope of 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."

　　With a weary sound that was not a sigh, nor a groan, he bent to workagain, until the silence was again broken.

　　"You are not a shoemaker by trade?" said Mr. Lorry, looking steadfastlyat him.

　　His haggard eyes turned to Defarge as if he would have transferredthe question to him: but as no help came from that quarter, theyturned back on the questioner when they had sought the ground.

　　"I am not a shoemaker by trade? No, I was not a shoemaker by trade.I-I learnt it here. I taught myself. I asked leave to--"

　　He lapsed away, even for minutes, ringing those measured changes onhis hands the whole time. His eyes came slowly back, at last, to theface from which they had wandered; when they rested on it, he started,and resumed, in the manner of a sleeper that moment awake,reverting to a subject of last night.

　　"I asked leave to teach myself, and I got it with much difficultyafter a long 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 you remember nothing of this man? Look at him. Look at me.Is there no old banker, 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, atMr. Lorry and at Defarge, some long obliterated marks of an activelyintent intelligence in the middle of the forehead, gradually forcedthemselves through the black mist that had fallen on him. They wereoverclouded again, they were fainter, they were gone; but they hadbeen there. And so exactly was the expression repeated on the fairyoung face of her who had crept along the wall to a point where shecould see him, and where she now stood looking at him, with handswhich at first had been only raised in frightened compassion, if noteven to keep him off and shut out the sight of him, but which werenow extending towards him, trembling with eagerness to lay thespectral face upon her warm young breast, and love it back to lifeand hope--so exactly was the expression repeated (though in strongercharacters) on her fair young face, that it looked as though it hadpassed like a moving light, from him to her.

　　Darkness had fallen on him in its place. He looked at the two, lessand less attentively, and his eyes in gloomy abstraction sought theground and looked about him in the old way. Finally, with a deeplong sigh, he took the shoe 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 hopeless, but I haveunquestionably seen, for a single moment, the face that I once knewso well. Hush! Let us draw further back. Hush!"

　　She had moved from the wall of the garret, very near to the bench onwhich he sat. There was something awful in his unconsciousness ofthe figure that could have put out its hand and touched him as hestooped over his labour.

　　Not a word was spoken, not a sound was made. She stood, like aspirit, beside him, and he bent over his work.

　　It happened, at length, that he had occasion to change the instrumentin his hand, for his shoemaker's knife. It lay on that side of himwhich was not the side on which she stood. He had taken it up, andwas stooping to work again, when his eyes caught the skirt of herdress. He raised them, and saw her face. The two spectators startedforward, but she stayed them with a motion of her hand. She had nofear of his striking at her with the knife, though they had.

　　He stared at her with a fearful look, and after a while his lipsbegan to form some words, though no sound proceeded from them. Bydegrees, in the pauses of his quick and laboured breathing, he washeard to say:

　　"What is this?"

　　With the tears streaming down her face, she put her two hands to herlips, and kissed them to him; then clasped them on her breast, as ifshe laid his ruined 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 benchbeside him. He recoiled, but she laid her hand upon his arm. Astrange thrill struck him when she did so, and visibly passed overhis frame; he laid the knife down' softly, as he sat staring at her.

　　Her golden hair, which she wore in long curls, had been hurriedlypushed aside, and fell down over her neck. Advancing his hand bylittle and little, he took it up and looked at it. In the midst ofthe action he went astray, and, with another deep sigh, fell to workat his shoemaking.

　　But not for long. Releasing his arm, she laid her hand upon hisshoulder. After looking doubtfully at it, two or three times, as ifto be sure that it was really there, he laid down his work, put hishand to his neck, and took off a blackened string with a scrap offolded rag attached to it. He opened this, carefully, on his knee,and it contained a very little quantity of hair: not more than one ortwo long golden hairs, which he had, in some old day, wound off uponhis finger.

　　He took her hair into his hand again, and looked closely at it. "Itis the same. How can it be! When was it! How was it!"

　　As the concentrated expression returned to his forehead, he seemed tobecome conscious that it was in hers too. He turned her full to thelight, and looked at her.

　　"She had laid her head upon my shoulder, that night when I wassummoned out--she had a fear of my going, though I had none--and whenI was brought to the North Tower they found these upon my sleeve.'You will leave me them? They can never help me to escape in thebody, though they may in the spirit.' Those were the words I said.I remember them very well."

　　He formed this speech with his lips many times before he could utterit. But when he did find spoken words for it, they came to himcoherently, 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, andonly said, in a low voice, "I entreat you, good gentlemen, do notcome 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 hiswhite hair, which they tore in a frenzy. It died out, as everythingbut his shoemaking did die out of him, and he refolded his littlepacket and tried to secure it in his breast; but he still looked ather, and gloomily shook his head.

　　"No, no, no; you are too young, too blooming. It can't be. See whatthe prisoner is. These are not the hands she knew, this is not theface she knew, this is not a voice she ever heard. No, no. Shewas--and He was--before the slow years of the North Tower--ages ago.What is your name, my gentle angel?"

　　Hailing his softened tone and manner, his daughter fell upon herknees before him, with her appealing hands upon his breast.

　　"O, sir, at another time you shall know my name, and who my motherwas, and who my father, and how I never knew their hard, hardhistory. But I cannot tell you at this time, and I cannot tell youhere. All that I may tell you, here and now, is, that I pray to youto 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 andlighted it 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 itis--if you hear in my voice any resemblance to a voice that once wassweet music in your ears, weep for it, weep for it! If you touch,in touching my hair, anything that recalls a beloved head that lay onyour breast when you were young and free, weep for it, weep for it!If, when I hint to you of a Home that is before us, where I will betrue to you with all my duty and with all my faithful service, Ibring back the remembrance of a Home long desolate, while your poorheart pined away, weep for it, weep for it!"

　　She held him closer round the neck, and rocked him on her breastlike a child.

　　"If, when I tell you, dearest dear, that your agony is over, and thatI have come here to take you from it, and that we go to England to beat peace and at rest, I cause you to think of your useful life laidwaste, and of our native France so wicked to you, weep for it, weepfor it! And if, when I shall tell you of my name, and of my fatherwho is living, and of my mother who is dead, you learn that I have tokneel to my honoured father, and implore his pardon for having neverfor his sake striven all day and lain awake and wept all night,because the love of my poor mother hid his torture from me, weep forit, weep for it! Weep for her, then, and for me! Good gentlemen,thank God! I feel his sacred tears upon my face, and his sobs strikeagainst my heart. O, see! Thank God for us, thank God!"

　　He had sunk in her arms, and his face dropped on her breast: a sightso touching, yet so terrible in the tremendous wrong and sufferingwhich had gone before it, that the two beholders covered their faces.

　　When the quiet of the garret had been long undisturbed, and hisheaving breast and shaken form had long yielded to the calm that mustfollow all storms--emblem to humanity, of the rest and silence intowhich the storm called Life must hush at last--they came forward toraise the father and daughter from the ground. He had graduallydropped to the floor, and lay there in a lethargy, worn out. She hadnestled down with him, that his head might lie upon her arm; and herhair drooping over him curtained him from the light.

　　"If, without disturbing him," she said, raising her hand to Mr. Lorryas he stooped over them, after repeated blowings of his nose, "allcould be arranged for our leaving Paris at once, so that, from the,very door, he could 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 to him."

　　"It is true," said Defarge, who was kneeling to look on and hear."More than that; Monsieur Manette is, for all reasons, best out ofFrance. Say, shall I hire a carriage and post-horses?"

　　"That's business," said Mr. Lorry, resuming on the shortest noticehis methodical manners; "and if business is to be done, I had better do it."

　　"Then be so kind," urged Miss Manette, "as to leave us here. You seehow composed he has become, and you cannot be afraid to leave himwith me now. Why should you be? If you will lock the door to secureus from interruption, I do not doubt that you will find him, when youcome back, as quiet as you leave him. In any case, I will take careof him until you return, and then we will remove him straight."

　　Both Mr. Lorry and Defarge were rather disinclined to this course,and in favour of one of them remaining. But, as there were not onlycarriage and horses to be seen to, but travelling papers; and as timepressed, for the day was drawing to an end, it came at last to theirhastily dividing the business that was necessary to be done, andhurrying away to do it.

　　Then, as the darkness closed in, the daughter laid her head down onthe hard ground close at the father's side, and watched him. Thedarkness deepened and deepened, and they both lay quiet, until alight gleamed through the chinks in the wall.

　　Mr. Lorry and Monsieur Defarge had made all ready for the journey,and had brought with them, besides travelling cloaks and wrappers,bread and meat, wine, and hot coffee. Monsieur Defarge put thisprovender, and the lamp he carried, on the shoemaker's bench (therewas nothing else in the garret but a pallet bed), and he andMr. Lorry roused the captive, and assisted him to his feet.

　　No human intelligence could have read the mysteries of his mind, inthe scared blank wonder of his face. Whether he knew what hadhappened, whether he recollected what they had said to him, whetherhe knew that he was free, were questions which no sagacity could havesolved. They tried speaking to him; but, he was so confused, and sovery slow to answer, that they took fright at his bewilderment, andagreed for the time to tamper with him no more. He had a wild, lostmanner of occasionally clasping his head in his hands, that had notbeen seen in him before; yet, he had some pleasure in the mere soundof his daughter's voice, and invariably turned to it when she spoke.

　　In the submissive way of one long accustomed to obey under coercion,he ate and drank what they gave him to eat and drink, and put on thecloak and other wrappings, that they gave him to wear. He readilyresponded to his daughter's drawing her arm through his, andtook--and kept--her hand in both his own.

　　They began to descend; Monsieur Defarge going first with the lamp,Mr. Lorry closing the little procession. They had not traversed manysteps of the long main staircase when he stopped, and stared at theroof and round at the wails.

　　"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 asif she had 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 fromhis prison to that house, was apparent to them. They heard him mutter,"One Hundred and Five, North Tower;" and when he looked about him, itevidently was for the strong fortress-walls which had long encompassed him.On their reaching the courtyard he instinctively altered his tread,as being in expectation of a drawbridge; and when there was nodrawbridge, and he saw the carriage waiting in the open street, hedropped his daughter's hand and clasped his head again.

　　No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible at any of themany windows; not even a chance passerby was in the street. An unnaturalsilence and desertion reigned there. Only one soul was to be seen,and that was Madame Defarge--who leaned against the door-post,knitting, and saw nothing.

　　The prisoner had got into a coach, and his daughter had followed him,when Mr. Lorry's feet were arrested on the step by his asking,miserably, for his shoemaking tools and the unfinished shoes. MadameDefarge immediately called to her husband that she would get them,and went, knitting, out of the lamplight, through the courtyard. Shequickly brought them down and handed them in;--and immediatelyafterwards 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 underthe feeble over-swinging lamps.

　　Under the over-swinging lamps--swinging ever brighter in the betterstreets, and ever dimmer in the worse--and by lighted shops, gaycrowds, illuminated coffee-houses, and theatre-doors, to one of thecity gates. Soldiers with lanterns, at the guard-house there."Your papers, travellers!" "See here then, Monsieur the Officer,"said Defarge, getting down, and taking him gravely apart, "these arethe papers of monsieur inside, with the white head. They wereconsigned to me, with him, at the--" He dropped his voice, there wasa flutter among the military lanterns, and one of them being handedinto the coach by an arm in uniform, the eyes connected with the armlooked, not an every day or an every night look, at monsieur with thewhite head. "It is well. Forward!" from the uniform. "Adieu!" fromDefarge. And so, under a short grove of feebler and feeblerover-swinging lamps, out under the great grove of stars.

　　Beneath that arch of unmoved and eternal lights; some, so remote fromthis little earth that the learned tell us it is doubtful whethertheir rays have even yet discovered it, as a point in space whereanything is suffered or done: the shadows of the night were broad andblack. All through the cold and restless interval, until dawn, theyonce more whispered in the ears of Mr. Jarvis Lorry--sitting oppositethe buried man who had been dug out, and wondering what subtle powerswere for ever lost to him, and what were capable of restoration--theold inquiry:

　　"I hope you care to be recalled to life?"

　　And the old answer:

　　"I can't say."