“Do I ask you, my dear Darnay, to pass the door?When I ask that, refuse.There are pen and ink and paper on this table.Is your hand steady enough to write?”
“It was when you came in.”
“Steady it again, and write what I shall dictate. Quick, friend, quick!”
Pressing his hand to his bewildered head,Darnay sat down at the table. Carton,with his right hand in his breast,stood close beside him.
“Write exactly as I speak.”
“To whom do I address it?”
“To no one.” Carton still had his hand in his breast.
“Do I date it?”
“No.”
The prisoner looked up, at each question. Carton,standing over him with his hand in his breast, looked down.
“‘If you remember,’” said Carton, dictating,“‘the words that passed between us, long ago,you will readily comprehend this when you see it.You do remember them, I know.It is not in your nature to forget them.’”
He was drawing his hand from his breast;the prisoner chancing to look up in his hurried wonder as he wrote,the hand stopped, closing upon something.
“Have you written ‘forget them’?” Carton asked.
“I have. Is that a weapon in your hand?”
“No; I am not armed.”
“What is it in your hand?”
“You shall know directly. Write on;there are but a few words more.” He dictated again.“‘I am thankful that the time has come,when I can prove them.That I do so is no subject for regret or grief.’” As he said these words with his eyes fixed on the writer,his hand slowly and softly moved down close to the writer’s face.
The pen dropped from Darnay’s fingers on the table,and he looked about him vacantly.
“What vapour is that?” he asked.
“Vapour?”
“Something that crossed me?”
“I am conscious of nothing; there can be nothing here.Take up the pen and finish. Hurry, hurry!”
As if his memory were impaired,or his faculties disordered,the prisoner made an effort to rally his attention.As he looked at Carton with clouded eyes and with an altered manner of breathing, Carton--his hand again in his breast--looked steadily at him.
“Hurry, hurry!”
The prisoner bent over the paper, once more.
“‘If it had been otherwise;’” Carton’s hand was again watchfully and softly stealing down;“‘I never should have used the longer opportunity.If it had been otherwise;’” the hand was at the prisoner’s face;“‘I should but have had so much the more to answer for.If it had been otherwise--’” Carton looked at the pen and saw it was trailing off into unintelligible signs.
Carton’s hand moved back to his breast no more.The prisoner sprang up with a reproachful look,but Carton’s hand was close and firm at his nostrils,and Carton’s left arm caught him round the waist.For a few seconds he faintly struggled with the man who had come to lay down his life for him; but, within a minute or so, he was stretched insensible on the ground.
Quickly, but with hands as true to the purpose as his heart was,Carton dressed himself in the clothes the prisoner had laid aside,combed back his hair,and tied it with the ribbon the prisoner had worn.Then, he softly called, “Enter there!Come in!” and the Spy presented himself.
“You see?” said Carton, looking up,as he kneeled on one knee beside the insensible figure,putting the paper in the breast:“is your hazard very great?”
“Mr. Carton,” the Spy answered,with a timid snap of his fingers,“my hazard is not _that_,in the thick of business here,if you are true to the whole of your bargain.”
“Don’t fear me. I will be true to the death.”
“You must be, Mr. Carton,if the tale of fifty-two is to be right.Being made right by you in that dress,I shall have no fear.”
“Have no fear!I shall soon be out of the way of harming you,and the rest will soon be far from here, please God!Now, get assistance and take me to the coach.”
“You?” said the Spy nervously.
“Him, man, with whom I have exchanged.You go out at the gate by which you brought me in?”
“Of course.”
“I was weak and faint when you brought me in,and I am fainter now you take me out.The parting interview has overpowered me.Such a thing has happened here, often, and too often.Your life is in your own hands. Quick!Call assistance!”
“You swear not to betray me?” said the trembling Spy,as he paused for a last moment.
“Man, man!” returned Carton, stamping his foot;“have I sworn by no solemn vow already,to go through with this,that you waste the precious moments now?Take him yourself to the courtyard you know of,place him yourself in the carriage,show him yourself to Mr. Lorry,tell him yourself to give him no restorative but air,and to remember my words of last night,and his promise of last night, and drive away!”
The Spy withdrew, and Carton seated himself at the table,resting his forehead on his hands.The Spy returned immediately, with two men.
“How, then?” said one of them, contemplating the fallen figure.“So afflicted to find that his friend has drawn a prize in the lottery of Sainte Guillotine?”
“A good patriot,” said the other,“could hardly have been more afflicted if the Aristocrat had drawn a blank. ”
They raised the unconscious figure,placed it on a litter they had brought to the door,and bent to carry it away.
“The time is short, Evrémonde,” said the Spy, in a warning voice.
“I know it well,” answered Carton.“Be careful of my friend, I entreat you, and leave me.”
“Come, then, my children,” said Barsad. “Lift him, and come away!”
The door closed, and Carton was left alone.Straining his powers of listening to the utmost,he listened for any sound that might denote suspicion or alarm.There was none. Keys turned, doors clashed,footsteps passed along distant passages:no cry was raised, or hurry made, that seemed unusual.Breathing more freely in a little while,he sat down at the table,and listened again until the clock struck Two.
Sounds that he was not afraid of,for he divined their meaning, then began to be audible.Several doors were opened in succession,and finally his own. A gaoler, with a list in his hand,looked in, merely saying, “Follow me, Evrémonde!” and he followed into a large dark room, at a distance.It was a dark winter day,and what with the shadows within,and what with the shadows without,he could but dimly discern the others who were brought there to have their arms bound. Some were standing; some seated. Some were lamenting, and in restless motion; but, these were few. The great majority were silent and still, looking fixedly at the ground.
As he stood by the wall in a dim corner,while some of the fifty-two were brought in after him,one man stopped in passing, to embrace him,as having a knowledge of him.It thrilled him with a great dread of discovery;but the man went on. A very few moments after that,a young woman, with a slight girlish form,a sweet spare face in which there was no vestige of colour,and large widely opened patient eyes,rose from the seat where he had observed her sitting,and came to speak to him.
“Citizen Evrémonde,” she said,touching him with her cold hand.“I am a poor little seamstress,who was with you in La Force.”
He murmured for answer: “True.I forget what you were accused of?”
“Plots. Though the just Heaven knows that I am innocent of any. Is it likely?Who would think of plotting with a poor little weak creature like me?”
The forlorn smile with which she said it,so touched him, that tears started from his eyes.
“I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evrémonde,but I have done nothing. I am not unwilling to die,if the Republic which is to do so much good to us poor,will profit by my death;but I do not know how that can be, Citizen Evrémonde.Such a poor weak little creature!”