In crossing the bridge,she dropped the door key in the river.Arriving at the cathedral some few minutes before her escort,and waiting there, she thought,what if the key were already taken in a net,what if it were identified,what if the door were opened and the remains discovered,what if she were stopped at the gate, sent to prison,and charged with murder!In the midst of these fluttering thoughts,the escort appeared, took her in, and took her away.
“Is there any noise in the streets?” she asked him.
“The usual noises,” Mr. Cruncher replied;and looked surprised by the question and by her aspect.
“I don’t hear you,” said Miss Pross. “What do you say?”
It was in vain for Mr. Cruncher to repeat what he said;Miss Pross could not hear him. “So I’ll nod my head,” thought Mr. Cruncher, amazed,“at all events she’ll see that.” And she did.
“Is there any noise in the streets now?” asked Miss Pross again, presently.
Again Mr. Cruncher nodded his head.
“I don’t hear it.”
“Gone deaf in an hour?” said Mr. Cruncher, ruminating,with his mind much disturbed; “wot’s come to her?”
“I feel,” said Miss Pross,“as if there had been a flash and a crash,and that crash was the last thing I should ever hear in this life. ”
“Blest if she ain’t in a queer condition!” said Mr. Cruncher, more and more disturbed.“Wot can she have been a takin’,to keep her courage up?Hark!There’s the roll of them dreadful carts!You can hear that, miss?”
“I can hear,” said Miss Pross,seeing that he spoke to her, “nothing. O, my good man,there was first a great crash,and then a great stillness,and that stillness seems to be fixed and unchangeable,never to be broken any more as long as my life lasts.”
“If she don’t hear the roll of those dreadful carts,now very nigh their journey’s end,” said Mr. Cruncher,glancing over his shoulder,“it’s my opinion that indeed she never will hear anything else in this world. ”
And indeed she never did.
CHAPTER XV. The Footsteps Die Out For Ever
Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble,hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine.All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.
Six tumbrils roll along the streets.Change these back again to what they were,thou powerful enchanter, Time,and they shall be seen to be the carriages of absolute monarchs,the equipages of feudal nobles,the toilettes of flaring Jezebels,the churches that are not my father’s house but dens of thieves,the huts of millions of starving peasants!No; the great magician who majestically works out the appointed order of the Creator, never reverses his transformations. “If thou be changed into this shape by the will of God,” say the seers to the enchanted, in the wise Arabian stories, “then remain so!But, if thou wear this form through mere passing conjuration,then resume thy former aspect!” Changeless and hopeless, the tumbrils roll along.
As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round,they seem to plough up a long crooked furrow among the populace in the streets.Ridges of faces are thrown to this side and to that,and the ploughs go steadily onward.So used are the regular inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle,that in many windows there are no people,and in some the occupation of the hands is not so much as suspended,while the eyes survey the faces in the tumbrils.Here and there, the inmate has visitors to see the sight;then he points his finger,with something of the complacency of a curator or authorised exponent,to this cart and to this,and seems to tell who sat here yesterday,and who there the day before.
Of the riders in the tumbrils,some observe these things,and all things on their last roadside,with an impassive stare; others,with a lingering interest in the ways of life and men.Some, seated with drooping heads,are sunk in silent despair; again,there are some so heedful of their looks that they cast upon the multitude such glances as they have seen in theatres, and in pictures. Several close their eyes, and think, or try to get their straying thoughts together. Only one, and he a miserable creature, of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and made drunk by horror, that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole number appeals by look or gesture, to the pity of the people.
There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the tumbrils,and faces are often turned up to some of them,and they are asked some question.It would seem to be always the same question, for,it is always followed by a press of people towards the third cart.The horsemen abreast of that cart,frequently point out one man in it with their swords.The leading curiosity is, to know which is he;he stands at the back of the tumbril with his head bent down,to converse with a mere girl who sits on the side of the cart,and holds his hand.He has no curiosity or care for the scene about him,and always speaks to the girl.Here and there in the long street of St. Honore,cries are raised against him. If they move him at all,it is only to a quiet smile,as he shakes his hair a little more loosely about his face.He cannot easily touch his face, his arms being bound.
On the steps of a church,awaiting the coming-up of the tumbrils,stands the Spy and prison-sheep.He looks into the first of them: not there.He looks into the second: not there.He already asks himself, “Has he sacrificed me?” when his face clears, as he looks into the third.
“Which is Evrémonde?” says a man behind him.
“That. At the back there.”
“With his hand in the girl’s?”
“Yes.”
The man cries, “Down, Evrémonde!To the Guillotine all aristocrats!Down, Evrémonde!”
“Hush, hush!” the Spy entreats him, timidly.
“And why not, citizen?”
“He is going to pay the forfeit:it will be paid in five minutes more.Let him be at peace.”
But the man continuing to exclaim, “Down, Evrémonde!” the face of Evrémonde is for a moment turned towards him.Evrémonde then sees the Spy,and looks attentively at him, and goes his way.
The clocks are on the stroke of three,and the furrow ploughed among the populace is turning round,to come on into the place of execution, and end.The ridges thrown to this side and to that,now crumble in and close behind the last plough as it passes on,for all are following to the Guillotine.In front of it, seated in chairs,as in a garden of public diversion,are a number of women, busily knitting.On one of the fore-most chairs, stands The Vengeance,looking about for her friend.
“Thérèse!” she cries, in her shrill tones. “Who has seen her?Thérèse Defarge!”
“She never missed before,” says a knitting-woman of the sisterhood.
“No; nor will she miss now,” cries The Vengeance,petulantly. “Thérèse.”
“Louder,” the woman recommends.
Ay!Louder, Vengeance, much louder,and still she will scarcely hear thee. Louder yet,Vengeance, with a little oath or so added,and yet it will hardly bring her.Send other women up and down to seek her,lingering somewhere; and yet,although the messengers have done dread deeds,it is questionable whether of their own wills they will go far enough to find her!
“Bad Fortune!” cries The Vengeance, stamping her foot in the chair,“and here are the tumbrils!And Evrémonde will be despatched in a wink, and she not here!See her knitting in my hand,and her empty chair ready for her.I cry with vexation and disappointment!”