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    A Tale of Two Cities
    A Tale of Two Cities
    A Tale of Two Cities
    Ebook514 pages7 hours

    A Tale of Two Cities

    By Charles Dickens

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    It was the best of times,
    it was the worst of times,
    it was the age of wisdom,
    it was the age of foolishness,
    it was the epoch of belief,
    it was the epoch of incredulity,
    it was the season of Light,
    it was the season of Darkness,
    it was the spring of hope,
    it was the winter of despair,
    we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way— in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCharles Dickens
    Release dateSep 13, 2015
    ISBN9786050415827
    Author

    Charles Dickens

    Charles Dickens (1812-1870) var þekktur enskur skáldsagnahöfundur og samfélagsgagnrýnandi, almennt talinn einn af merkustu rithöfundum Viktoríutímans. Dickens fæddist í Portsmouth á Englandi og upplifði erfiða æsku, sem einkenndist af fjárhagserfiðleikum, sem síðar hafði áhrif á mikið af skrifum hans. Dickens öðlaðist frægð með raðmyndasögum og varð þekktur fyrir hæfileika sína til að sameina húmor, mikla félagslega athugun og djúpt mannlegar persónur. Verk hans varpa ljósi á baráttu fátækra, galla stofnanakerfa og mikið misræmi á milli þjóðfélagsstétta í Englandi á 19. öld. Í dag er Dickens ekki aðeins fagnað fyrir sannfærandi frásagnir heldur einnig fyrir varanleg áhrif hans á bókmenntir og samfélag.

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    Reviews for A Tale of Two Cities

    4/5

    6,696 ratings194 reviews

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    • 4/5
      It was my first Dickens, it was not my last. It was summer in Chicago and I was surrounded by lovely albeit unruly children. Oh dear, it was a struggle at times, watching three kids while my wife and their mother were in the city. Still I finished the novel over a long afternoon without drugging my charges.

      It is a story of sacrifice, maybe of redemption. I felt for everyone, zealots and drunkards alike. The concluding scaffold scene engendered tears, it has to be admitted. Is there a better novel about the French Revolution, its aspirations and its contradictions?
    • 5/5
      Suuuuuper glad I read this as an adult. I'm sure I appreciated it a lot more than I would have at 15. Not sure if it was reading via audiobook (Dickens' writing is incredibly lyrical), but I really enjoyed this book.
    • 2/5
      over rated
    • 2/5
      The French Revolution takes an interest in a family of expatriates.2/4 (Indifferent).There are some good characters (and also some terrible ones who exist purely to be noble or evil). About half the book is spent dwelling on Big Important Historical Tragedy in a way that guarantees the book is regarded as a Big Important Historical Work. A Tale of Two Cities is to Charles Dickens what Schindler's List is to Steven Spielberg.
    • 5/5
      Read this book now.
    • 4/5
      My favorite Dickens book!
    • 5/5
      "... all through it, I have known myself to be quite undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire..."

      [sigh]

      My love of books began with this novel. When I think about A Tale of Two Cities, and Sydney Carton in particular, I feel the same ache in my chest that I feel when I think about real people I love.

      Dickens had such a brilliant mind. Even his non-fiction work captivates me. Read his "A Visit to Newgate" if you don't know what I'm talking about, and this novel, well there's simply none better.

    • 4/5
      This is book number 22 of the Kings Treasuries of Literature Series. Beside the text of the story itself, the book contains commentaries on: The structure of the story, the historical basis of the story, a memoir of Dickens and some notes and suggestions for student readers. As with all of these little books, it is a pleasure to hold, to see on your shelf and to read.
    • 5/5
      One of my favourite Dickens novels, with a gripping plot and memorable characters, and an ending that will make the strongest man sob like a child.
    • 3/5
      Listened to this on CD. 20 CDs. I am a Dickens fan, but this one was too much for me. To romance-y and not hilarious like Pickwick, and often kind of stiffly moralistic and prune-faced. So far this is my least favorite Dickens, by about a mile. It's still better than 90% of everything else, of course. Dickens' characters are so rich, so real, and ultimately so believable.
    • 2/5
       Just okay. I thought it was mostly boring with a few interesting parts thrown in. Glad I listened to the audiobook rather than read it because I don't think I would have been able to finish it otherwise.
    • 2/5
      Story:
      Okay, so, to be entirely affair, I confess that, for reasons I will go into greater detail about later, I did not manage to pay too much attention to this audiobook. The result of which is that I have only a vague idea of what happened. I mean, I think I have the overarching plot pretty firm in my mind, but if there were subtle beauties here, they were lost to me.

      From what I did gather, A Tale of Two Cities is never going to be a favorite Dickens novel for me. Really, it was going to be either his best, most original work or his least good, failed attempt at novelty. His bread and butter was writing about those suffering in England, the poverty, the terrible schools, the diseases, the hypocrisy. Here, he is tackling the French Revolution, which is something rather different.

      My biggest problem, as with so many of the books I do not like, is that I did not connect with any of the characters. The narrative does not really focus on anyone in particular. The omniscient narrator is definitely high above everyone looking down, and, to me, no one looks all that interesting. The bad guys, the good guys...all of them struck me as really blah.

      Sydney Carton is the one I think I'm supposed to sympathize or empathize with. I mean, what could be more romantic than giving up your life so that the woman you love can be happy. Umm, how about you both loving each other and getting to be together? Is that just me? I have never thought tragic, doomed, unrequited, etc. romances were romantic. Romeo and Juliet does not thrill me either. And, really, the reason Sydney doesn't get the girl is that he's kind of an ass. Just sayin'. Also, I really don't get his noble sacrifice. In the real world, would he ever have been able to swap himself in for the guillotine? Because I doubt it.

      From my imperfect trip through this novel, I would recommend going back and watching the Wishbone episode instead of reading it, but, again, I may be wrong.
      Performance:
      Now, you may be wondering how on earth I spent over 14 hours of my life listening to a novel and end up having very little idea of most of what happened within that book. Well, here's how. Simon Prebble has narrated a lot of things, which must mean a lot of people think he's a really great narrator. I do not however.

      Prebble seems to have just the wrong voice for me. I don't know if I'm unique in this or not, but I literally cannot pay attention to his voice. Part of the joy of audiobooks is that you can read and do other things (laundry, your dishes, pet the cat, rake the lawn, grocery shopping, drive, etc.). I have done so with all of the ones I have listened to. With this one, though, I could not pay attention. Desperate, I tried reading along with the audiobook. Even then, it took every bit of brain power for me to focus on this man.

      You may think I'm exaggerating, but I'm really not. Something about Prebble's voice made me tune out, and tuning back in was pretty much impossible. This was just the strangest and most unfortunate experience. There are narrators I've hated more, but I missed nothing. How is that possible?
    • 4/5
      Heart strings definitely pulled on this one. I never had to read this in high school, and I'm actually glad because I don't think I would have appreciated it as much. I enjoyed the blend of history, drama, and romance. The characters are all so richly developed, you really become vested in their respective journeys. I practically cried reading the last paragraph. Awesome.
    • 2/5
      Okay, so technically I haven't finished reading it but as far as I am concerned I have. Let's not be pedantic about this - I read over half and found it so excruciatingly tiresome that I couldn't force myself through the remaining pages. I looked up what happened next on wikipedia and concluded that nothing much happened next that would validate me wasting more hours or days dragging myself through a book I did not like.For a book that is "One of the most beloved of Dickens' stories" according to the quote on the front cover or "The greatest of his historical novels" I feel very cheated and rather sad too.This book starts with the famous opener: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."That is fantastic! Reading that I thought I was going to be onto a good 'un! However, just shows that you can't judge a book by its opening paragraph.I have loved Bleak House, Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol so it's a shame I find myself giving two stars to an author I have loved in the past. I'm glad this was not my first Dickens as I do not think I would have read any others. I am very disappointed in this book as well as in part, myself for not finishing it. This would have made a much better short story I believe. There was not a plot worth speaking of and the characters were all very thin and one dimensional. Much of the French revolution was described in metaphors and complex symbolism unravelling it all was a bit like trying to find your way through a maze.I have loved Dicken's writing style, it is beautiful, humorous and full of heart, soul and humanity. However, this time it felt like digging my way through a lot of surplus words which had lost their effect long before I could appreciate them. I don't know what got into Dickens when writing this book. It felt very empty and devoid of his usual humour and interesting characters. I can't wait to read another one of his and put this one firmly at the back of my memory so that I can once again hold a high opinion of Charles Dickens.
    • 3/5
      I'm not really sure what to say about this; parts of it were really good, but huge chunks felt like filler. It's rather obvious that this was published as a serial; a substantial amount of it has the feelings of a "penny a page" hack type work. The overall story was good, but just so.much.crap in the middle of it.
    • 4/5
      First of all, Dickens deserves some credit for creating the popular image of the French Revolution. Its portrayal in movies and other books such as The Scarlet Pimpernel series is based far more on A Tale of Two Cities than on reality. He also earns some points for the fact that, being Dickens, he shows remarkable sympathy for the poor in France leading up to the revolution. Even if once the revolution begins he tends to depict them as fiendish vultures and the the entire period of the republic as just as bloody as the most intense weeks of the Terror, he shows the justification for the revolution more than many of the authors who followed him did. The story itself is serial melodrama, but it's very good serial melodrama, and holds up to rereading.
    • 4/5
      Less flowing and coherent than I expected. Sections are good (and highly quotable) reads but the frequency of quotations from this isn't a reflection of the prose throughout - overall it is very uneven. Different for Dickens, in that it is historical, but the same in that his reliance on outrageous coincidence and the Victorian trademark sentimentality are strongly present. The city hopping makes it still more bitty.
    • 4/5
      Difficult read at times, but worth the effort. Really good tale of wartime France with multiple viewpoints weaved together.
    • 3/5
      Maybe the most memorable opening and closing lines of any novel ever. And in between, well...a whole lot of Dickens.
    • 5/5
      I re-read this after first reading it about 12 years ago in high school. I remembered it as a slow burner, taking a while to build momentum but having an unforgettable ending, and I was pleased to find that I like it more on the 2nd read. I'm now in a position to appreciate the more subtle literary flourishes that Dickens employed -- all of the wonderful foreshadowing, and social commentary through satire and irony. It's an intensely satisfying read, with a wonderful story and memorable characters, less cartoonish than any of his previous works. Sydney Carton is the tragic hero of modern times, and his devotion to Lucie is a beautiful thing to witness. The characters help make the emotional impact of the story stronger than almost any other book I've ever read. Sure it's cheesy, and very contrived in all of the coincidental meetings among characters, but it's toned down as far as Dickens go. The last two pages equal those of 100 Years of Solitude as my favorite all-time endings.

      I'm almost done with reading all of Dickens' later works. And of Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, and this, Tale is my favorite, followed closely by Bleak. List subject to change, as I still have Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend to go.
    • 5/5
      Summary: Ahhh Dickens and one of my favorites.
    • 5/5
      It has been more than ten years since I've read this and in truth I cam to re-reading it in the strangest way - it was referenced in a YA novel and I was reading that and I remembered how much I had loved this book and decided it was past time I read it again and saw if it was as good as I remembered.

      As it was - it was every bit as good as my teenage memories led me to believe and if anything it just got more tragic as I aged. I am the first to admit that I find Dickens extremely hit and miss as an author, which I know is bordering on blasphemous in some circles, but it is really true for me. His prose is often too flowery, his characters too unsympathetic and the novels too bleak to warrant the attention they require. This, based on the subject, should be in that category yet somehow it rises above the potential traps. We have a dark subject, a truly tragic hero, a rather unsympathetic and/or unlucky counter hero who gets bailed out, along with a rather bland heroine yet despite all that the book and the story rises above it all. The opening and closing lines are two of the most perfect lines in literature and everything in between just works.

      There are faults, yet somehow they don't really detract from the story. Maybe I'm biased, but even some of the irritating moments (Lucie is just one of those characters you roll your eyes at and deep down you want to know how she can justify sending another man to his death when her husband had knowingly endangered his own life in the first place) yet I find myself willing to overlook it. There are also parts of the book that are driven by plot other than characterisation and that jars a little. When Charles abandons his wife and child to go on a suicide mission I know we are supposed to be sympathetic of his goodness, but you just want to strangle him for his martyr complex and other moments that in a lesser story I would have judged more harshly. As it was, I overlook the flaws and concentrate on the good stuff and the good stuff is very, very good.

      This is a book I would recommend to anyone, and even if Dickens intimidates you, give it a try. It is a beautiful book with a wonderful story and one of those characters you will grow to love and will stay with you long after you finish.
    • 4/5
      My only recorded comment while reading this was: "Dickens writes in a Victorian style, even if he is a big author." I think the reason I remember the story is not because I read the book but because I heard it dramatized on Cecil B. DeMille's Lux Radio Theater before I read the book.
    • 5/5
      A classic for all ages.
    • 4/5
      The ending was the best!!! Of course it was a little predictable, but nevertheless beautifully written. However, the language doesn't have true a realism, I feel it is more a tale than a novel, hence the title.
    • 3/5
      Great ending... brings the French revolution alive...
    • 3/5
      I liked the book but I think it should have boon a little shorter and less wordy.
    • 5/5
      What is there to say about this book that hasn't been said already a dozen times over? Dickens is a master, and I'm glad I finally took the time to read him. I expect to spend a great deal of time with other novels of his, as his delightful, powerful prose combines with a captivating sense of drama and truly magnificent characters to present a portrait of an era that remains compelling over a century and a half after publication.
    • 4/5
      I've no idea why it took me so long to get around to this, but I really enjoyed it. Dickens is a very skilled storyteller. No wonder people got so caught up in his serials.
    • 4/5
      Some of the coincidences are clunky and unbelievable, but that would be my own personal criticism.

    Book preview

    A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

    Ever

    Book the First—Recalled to Life

    I. The Period

    It was the best of times,

    it was the worst of times,

    it was the age of wisdom,

    it was the age of foolishness,

    it was the epoch of belief,

    it was the epoch of incredulity,

    it was the season of Light,

    it was the season of Darkness,

    it was the spring of hope,

    it was the winter of despair,

    we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way— in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

    There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.

    It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-lane brood.

    France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous.

    In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of the Captain, gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, in consequence of the failure of his ammunition: after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of sixpence.

    All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights with a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures—the creatures of this chronicle among the rest—along the roads that lay before them.

    II. The Mail

    It was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late in November, before the first of the persons with whom this history has business. The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond the Dover mail, as it lumbered up Shooter's Hill. He walked up hill in the mire by the side of the mail, as the rest of the passengers did; not because they had the least relish for walking exercise, under the circumstances, but because the hill, and the harness, and the mud, and the mail, were all so heavy, that the horses had three times already come to a stop, besides once drawing the coach across the road, with the mutinous intent of taking it back to Blackheath. Reins and whip and coachman and guard, however, in combination, had read that article of war which forbade a purpose otherwise strongly in favour of the argument, that some brute animals are endued with Reason; and the team had capitulated and returned to their duty.

    With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their way through the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between whiles, as if they were falling to pieces at the larger joints. As often as the driver rested them and brought them to a stand, with a wary Wo-ho! so-ho-then! the near leader violently shook his head and everything upon it—like an unusually emphatic horse, denying that the coach could be got up the hill. Whenever the leader made this rattle, the passenger started, as a nervous passenger might, and was disturbed in mind.

    There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamed in its forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made its slow way through the air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread one another, as the waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out everything from the light of the coach-lamps but these its own workings, and a few yards of road; and the reek of the labouring horses steamed into it, as if they had made it all.

    Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the hill by the side of the mail. All three were wrapped to the cheekbones and over the ears, and wore jack-boots. Not one of the three could have said, from anything he saw, what either of the other two was like; and each was hidden under almost as many wrappers from the eyes of the mind, as from the eyes of the body, of his two companions. In those days, travellers were very shy of being confidential on a short notice, for anybody on the road might be a robber or in league with robbers. As to the latter, when every posting-house and ale-house could produce somebody in the Captain's pay, ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable non-descript, it was the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard of the Dover mail thought to himself, that Friday night in November, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter's Hill, as he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chest before him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, deposited on a substratum of cutlass.

    The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guard suspected the passengers, the passengers suspected one another and the guard, they all suspected everybody else, and the coachman was sure of nothing but the horses; as to which cattle he could with a clear conscience have taken his oath on the two Testaments that they were not fit for the journey.

    Wo-ho! said the coachman. So, then! One more pull and you're at the top and be damned to you, for I have had trouble enough to get you to it!—Joe!

    Halloa! the guard replied.

    What o'clock do you make it, Joe?

    Ten minutes, good, past eleven.

    My blood! ejaculated the vexed coachman, and not atop of Shooter's yet! Tst! Yah! Get on with you!

    The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided negative, made a decided scramble for it, and the three other horses followed suit. Once more, the Dover mail struggled on, with the jack-boots of its passengers squashing along by its side. They had stopped when the coach stopped, and they kept close company with it. If any one of the three had had the hardihood to propose to another to walk on a little ahead into the mist and darkness, he would have put himself in a fair way of getting shot instantly as a highwayman.

    The last burst carried the mail to the summit of the hill. The horses stopped to breathe again, and the guard got down to skid the wheel for the descent, and open the coach-door to let the passengers in.

    Tst! Joe! cried the coachman in a warning voice, looking down from his box.

    What do you say, Tom?

    They both listened.

    I say a horse at a canter coming up, Joe.

    " I say a horse at a gallop, Tom, returned the guard, leaving his hold of the door, and mounting nimbly to his place. Gentlemen! In the king's name, all of you!"

    With this hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, and stood on the offensive.

    The passenger booked by this history, was on the coach-step, getting in; the two other passengers were close behind him, and about to follow. He remained on the step, half in the coach and half out of; they remained in the road below him. They all looked from the coachman to the guard, and from the guard to the coachman, and listened. The coachman looked back and the guard looked back, and even the emphatic leader pricked up his ears and looked back, without contradicting.

    The stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling and labouring of the coach, added to the stillness of the night, made it very quiet indeed. The panting of the horses communicated a tremulous motion to the coach, as if it were in a state of agitation. The hearts of the passengers beat loud enough perhaps to be heard; but at any rate, the quiet pause was audibly expressive of people out of breath, and holding the breath, and having the pulses quickened by expectation.

    The sound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously up the hill.

    So-ho! the guard sang out, as loud as he could roar. Yo there! Stand! I shall fire!

    The pace was suddenly checked, and, with much splashing and floundering, a man's voice called from the mist, Is that the Dover mail?

    Never you mind what it is! the guard retorted. What are you?

    " Is that the Dover mail?"

    Why do you want to know?

    I want a passenger, if it is.

    What passenger?

    Mr. Jarvis Lorry.

    Our booked passenger showed in a moment that it was his name. The guard, the coachman, and the two other passengers eyed him distrustfully.

    Keep where you are, the guard called to the voice in the mist, because, if I should make a mistake, it could never be set right in your lifetime. Gentleman of the name of Lorry answer straight.

    What is the matter? asked the passenger, then, with mildly quavering speech. Who wants me? Is it Jerry?

    (I don't like Jerry's voice, if it is Jerry, growled the guard to himself. He's hoarser than suits me, is Jerry.)

    Yes, Mr. Lorry.

    What is the matter?

    A despatch sent after you from over yonder. T. and Co.

    I know this messenger, guard, said Mr. Lorry, getting down into the road—assisted from behind more swiftly than politely by the other two passengers, who immediately scrambled into the coach, shut the door, and pulled up the window. He may come close; there's nothing wrong.

    I hope there ain't, but I can't make so 'Nation sure of that, said the guard, in gruff soliloquy. Hallo you!

    Well! And hallo you! said Jerry, more hoarsely than before.

    Come on at a footpace! d'ye mind me? And if you've got holsters to that saddle o' yourn, don't let me see your hand go nigh 'em. For I'm a devil at a quick mistake, and when I make one it takes the form of Lead. So now let's look at you.

    The figures of a horse and rider came slowly through the eddying mist, and came to the side of the mail, where the passenger stood. The rider stooped, and, casting up his eyes at the guard, handed the passenger a small folded paper. The rider's horse was blown, and both horse and rider were covered with mud, from the hoofs of the horse to the hat of the man.

    Guard! said the passenger, in a tone of quiet business confidence.

    The watchful guard, with his right hand at the stock of his raised blunderbuss, his left at the barrel, and his eye on the horseman, answered curtly, Sir.

    There is nothing to apprehend. I belong to Tellson's Bank. You must know Tellson's Bank in London. I am going to Paris on business. A crown to drink. I may read this?

    If so be as you're quick, sir.

    He opened it in the light of the coach-lamp on that side, and read—first to himself and then aloud: "'Wait at Dover for Mam'selle.' It's not long, you see, guard. Jerry, say that my answer was, Recalled to life ."

    Jerry started in his saddle. That's a Blazing strange answer, too, said he, at his hoarsest.

    Take that message back, and they will know that I received this, as well as if I wrote. Make the best of your way. Good night.

    With those words the passenger opened the coach-door and got in; not at all assisted by his fellow-passengers, who had expeditiously secreted their watches and purses in their boots, and were now making a general pretence of being asleep. With no more definite purpose than to escape the hazard of originating any other kind of action.

    The coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist closing round it as it began the descent. The guard soon replaced his blunderbuss in his arm-chest, and, having looked to the rest of its contents, and having looked to the supplementary pistols that he wore in his belt, looked to a smaller chest beneath his seat, in which there were a few smith's tools, a couple of torches, and a tinder-box. For he was furnished with that completeness that if the coach-lamps had been blown and stormed out, which did occasionally happen, he had only to shut himself up inside, keep the flint and steel sparks well off the straw, and get a light with tolerable safety and ease (if he were lucky) in five minutes.

    Tom! softly over the coach roof.

    Hallo, Joe.

    Did you hear the message?

    I did, Joe.

    What did you make of it, Tom?

    Nothing at all, Joe.

    That's a coincidence, too, the guard mused, for I made the same of it myself.

    Jerry, left alone in the mist and darkness, dismounted meanwhile, not only to ease his spent horse, but to wipe the mud from his face, and shake the wet out of his hat-brim, which might be capable of holding about half a gallon. After standing with the bridle over his heavily-splashed arm, until the wheels of the mail were no longer within hearing and the night was quite still again, he turned to walk down the hill.

    After that there gallop from Temple Bar, old lady, I won't trust your fore-legs till I get you on the level, said this hoarse messenger, glancing at his mare. 'Recalled to life.' That's a Blazing strange message. Much of that wouldn't do for you, Jerry! I say, Jerry! You'd be in a Blazing bad way, if recalling to life was to come into fashion, Jerry!

    III. The Night Shadows

    A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life's end. In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?

    As to this, his natural and not to be alienated inheritance, the messenger on horseback had exactly the same possessions as the King, the first Minister of State, or the richest merchant in London. So with the three passengers shut up in the narrow compass of one lumbering old mail coach; they were mysteries to one another, as complete as if each had been in his own coach and six, or his own coach and sixty, with the breadth of a county between him and the next.

    The messenger rode back at an easy trot, stopping pretty often at ale-houses by the way to drink, but evincing a tendency to keep his own counsel, and to keep his hat cocked over his eyes. He had eyes that assorted very well with that decoration, being of a surface black, with no depth in the colour or form, and much too near together—as if they were afraid of being found out in something, singly, if they kept too far apart. They had a sinister expression, under an old cocked-hat like a three-cornered spittoon, and over a great muffler for the chin and throat, which descended nearly to the wearer's knees. When he stopped for drink, he moved this muffler with his left hand, only while he poured his liquor in with his right; as soon as that was done, he muffled again.

    No, Jerry, no! said the messenger, harping on one theme as he rode. "It wouldn't do for you, Jerry. Jerry, you honest tradesman, it wouldn't suit your line of business! Recalled—! Bust me if I don't think he'd been a drinking!"

    His message perplexed his mind to that degree that he was fain, several times, to take off his hat to scratch his head. Except on the crown, which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing jaggedly all over it, and growing down hill almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was so like Smith's work, so much more like the top of a strongly spiked wall than a head of hair, that the best of players at leap-frog might have declined him, as the most dangerous man in the world to go over.

    While he trotted back with the message he was to deliver to the night watchman in his box at the door of Tellson's Bank, by Temple Bar, who was to deliver it to greater authorities within, the shadows of the night took such shapes to him as arose out of the message, and took such shapes to the mare as arose out of her private topics of uneasiness. They seemed to be numerous, for she shied at every shadow on the road.

    What time, the mail-coach lumbered, jolted, rattled, and bumped upon its tedious way, with its three fellow-inscrutables inside. To whom, likewise, the shadows of the night revealed themselves, in the forms their dozing eyes and wandering thoughts suggested.

    Tellson's Bank had a run upon it in the mail. As the bank passenger—with an arm drawn through the leathern strap, which did what lay in it to keep him from pounding against the next passenger, and driving him into his corner, whenever the coach got a special jolt—nodded in his place, with half-shut eyes, the little coach-windows, and the coach-lamp dimly gleaming through them, and the bulky bundle of opposite passenger, became the bank, and did a great stroke of business. The rattle of the harness was the chink of money, and more drafts were honoured in five minutes than even Tellson's, with all its foreign and home connection, ever paid in thrice the time. Then the strong-rooms underground, at Tellson's, with such of their valuable stores and secrets as were known to the passenger (and it was not a little that he knew about them), opened before him, and he went in among them with the great keys and the feebly-burning candle, and found them safe, and strong, and sound, and still, just as he had last seen them.

    But, though the bank was almost always with him, and though the coach (in a confused way, like the presence of pain under an opiate) was always with him, there was another current of impression that never ceased to run, all through the night. He was on his way to dig some one out of a grave.

    Now, which of the multitude of faces that showed themselves before him was the true face of the buried person, the shadows of the night did not indicate; but they were all the faces of a man of five-and-forty by years, and they differed principally in the passions they expressed, and in the ghastliness of their worn and wasted state. Pride, contempt, defiance, stubbornness, submission, lamentation, succeeded one another; so did varieties of sunken cheek, cadaverous colour, emaciated hands and figures. But the face was in the main one face, and every head was prematurely white. A hundred times the dozing passenger inquired of this spectre:

    Buried how long?

    The answer was always the same: Almost eighteen years.

    You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?

    Long ago.

    You know that you are recalled to life?

    They tell me so.

    I hope you care to live?

    I can't say.

    Shall I show her to you? Will you come and see her?

    The answers to this question were various and contradictory. Sometimes the broken reply was, Wait! It would kill me if I saw her too soon. Sometimes, it was given in a tender rain of tears, and then it was, Take me to her. Sometimes it was staring and bewildered, and then it was, I don't know her. I don't understand.

    After such imaginary discourse, the passenger in his fancy would dig, and dig, dig—now with a spade, now with a great key, now with his hands—to dig this wretched creature out. Got out at last, with earth hanging about his face and hair, he would suddenly fan away to dust. The passenger would then start to himself, and lower the window, to get the reality of mist and rain on his cheek.

    Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, on the moving patch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at the roadside retreating by jerks, the night shadows outside the coach would fall into the train of the night shadows within. The real Banking-house by Temple Bar, the real business of the past day, the real strong rooms, the real express sent after him, and the real message returned, would all be there. Out of the midst of them, the ghostly face would rise, and he would accost it again.

    Buried how long?

    Almost eighteen years.

    I hope you care to live?

    I can't say.

    Dig—dig—dig—until an impatient movement from one of the two passengers would admonish him to pull up the window, draw his arm securely through the leathern strap, and speculate upon the two slumbering forms, until his mind lost its hold of them, and they again slid away into the bank and the grave.

    Buried how long?

    Almost eighteen years.

    You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?

    Long ago.

    The words were still in his hearing as just spoken—distinctly in his hearing as ever spoken words had been in his life—when the weary passenger started to the consciousness of daylight, and found that the shadows of the night were gone.

    He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. There was a ridge of ploughed land, with a plough upon it where it had been left last night when the horses were unyoked; beyond, a quiet coppice-wood, in which many leaves of burning red and golden yellow still remained upon the trees. Though the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear, and the sun rose bright, placid, and beautiful.

    Eighteen years! said the passenger, looking at the sun. Gracious Creator of day! To be buried alive for eighteen years!

    IV. The Preparation

    W hen the mail got successfully to Dover, in the course of the forenoon, the head drawer at the Royal George Hotel opened the coach-door as his custom was. He did it with some flourish of ceremony, for a mail journey from London in winter was an achievement to congratulate an adventurous traveller upon.

    By that time, there was only one adventurous traveller left be congratulated: for the two others had been set down at their respective roadside destinations. The mildewy inside of the coach, with its damp and dirty straw, its disagreeable smell, and its obscurity, was rather like a larger dog-kennel. Mr. Lorry, the passenger, shaking himself out of it in chains of straw, a tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddy legs, was rather like a larger sort of dog.

    There will be a packet to Calais, tomorrow, drawer?

    Yes, sir, if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerable fair. The tide will serve pretty nicely at about two in the afternoon, sir. Bed, sir?

    I shall not go to bed till night; but I want a bedroom, and a barber.

    And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if you please. Show Concord! Gentleman's valise and hot water to Concord. Pull off gentleman's boots in Concord. (You will find a fine sea-coal fire, sir.) Fetch barber to Concord. Stir about there, now, for Concord!

    The Concord bed-chamber being always assigned to a passenger by the mail, and passengers by the mail being always heavily wrapped up from head to foot, the room had the odd interest for the establishment of the Royal George, that although but one kind of man was seen to go into it, all kinds and varieties of men came out of it. Consequently, another drawer, and two porters, and several maids and the landlady, were all loitering by accident at various points of the road between the Concord and the coffee-room, when a gentleman of sixty, formally dressed in a brown suit of clothes, pretty well worn, but very well kept, with large square cuffs and large flaps to the pockets, passed along on his way to his breakfast.

    The coffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, than the gentleman in brown. His breakfast-table was drawn before the fire, and as he sat, with its light shining on him, waiting for the meal, he sat so still, that he might have been sitting for his portrait.

    Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on each knee, and a loud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under his flapped waist-coat, as though it pitted its gravity and longevity against the levity and evanescence of the brisk fire. He had a good leg, and was a little vain of it, for his brown stockings fitted sleek and close, and were of a fine texture; his shoes and buckles, too, though plain, were trim. He wore an odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting very close to his head: which wig, it is to be presumed, was made of hair, but which looked far more as though it were spun from filaments of silk or glass. His linen, though not of a fineness in accordance with his stockings, was as white as the tops of the waves that broke upon the neighbouring beach, or the specks of sail that glinted in the sunlight far at sea. A face habitually suppressed and quieted, was still lighted up under the quaint wig by a pair of moist bright eyes that it must have cost their owner, in years gone by, some pains to drill to the composed and reserved expression of Tellson's Bank. He had a healthy colour in his cheeks, and his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in Tellson's Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people; and perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.

    Completing his resemblance to a man who was sitting for his portrait, Mr. Lorry dropped off to sleep. The arrival of his breakfast roused him, and he said to the drawer, as he moved his chair to it:

    I wish accommodation prepared for a young lady who may come here at any time to-day. She may ask for Mr. Jarvis Lorry, or she may only ask for a gentleman from Tellson's Bank. Please to let me know.

    Yes, sir. Tellson's Bank in London, sir?

    Yes.

    Yes, sir. We have oftentimes the honour to entertain your gentlemen in their travelling backwards and forwards betwixt London and Paris, sir. A vast deal of travelling, sir, in Tellson and Company's House.

    Yes. We are quite a French House, as well as an English one.

    Yes, sir. Not much in the habit of such travelling yourself, I think, sir?

    Not of late years. It is fifteen years since we—since I—came last from France.

    Indeed, sir? That was before my time here, sir. Before our people's time here, sir. The George was in other hands at that time, sir.

    I believe so.

    But I would hold a pretty wager, sir, that a House like Tellson and Company was flourishing, a matter of fifty, not to speak of fifteen years ago?

    You might treble that, and say a hundred and fifty, yet not be far from the truth.

    Indeed, sir!

    Rounding his mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped backward from the table, the waiter shifted his napkin from his right arm to his left, dropped into a comfortable attitude, and stood surveying the guest while he ate and drank, as from an observatory or watchtower. According to the immemorial usage of waiters in all ages.

    When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for a stroll on the beach. The little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marine ostrich. The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumbling wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction. It thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and brought the coast down, madly. The air among the houses was of so strong a piscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fish went up to be dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea. A little fishing was done in the port, and a quantity of strolling about by night, and looking seaward: particularly at those times when the tide made, and was near flood. Small tradesmen, who did no business whatever, sometimes unaccountably realised large fortunes, and it was remarkable that nobody in the neighbourhood could endure a lamplighter.

    As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which had been at intervals clear enough to allow the French coast to be seen, became again charged with mist and vapour, Mr. Lorry's thoughts seemed to cloud too. When it was dark, and he sat before the coffee-room fire, awaiting his dinner as he had awaited his breakfast, his mind was busily digging, digging, digging, in the live red coals.

    A bottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in the red coals no harm, otherwise than as it has a tendency to throw him out of work. Mr. Lorry had been idle a long time, and had just poured out his last glassful of wine with as complete an appearance of satisfaction as is ever to be found in an elderly gentleman of a fresh complexion who has got to the end of a bottle, when a rattling of wheels came up the narrow street, and rumbled into the inn-yard.

    He set down his glass untouched. This is Mam'selle! said he.

    In a very few minutes the waiter came in to announce that Miss Manette had arrived from London, and would be happy to see the gentleman from Tellson's.

    So soon?

    Miss Manette had taken some refreshment on the road, and required none then, and was extremely anxious to see the gentleman from Tellson's immediately, if it suited his pleasure and convenience.

    The gentleman from Tellson's had nothing left for it but to empty his glass with an air of stolid desperation, settle his odd little flaxen wig at the ears, and follow the waiter to Miss Manette's apartment. It was a large, dark room, furnished in a funereal manner with black horsehair, and loaded with heavy dark tables. These had been oiled and oiled, until the two tall candles on the table in the middle of the room were gloomily reflected on every leaf; as if they were buried, in deep graves of black mahogany, and no light to speak of could be expected from them until they were dug out.

    The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr. Lorry, picking his way over the well-worn Turkey carpet, supposed Miss Manette to be, for the moment, in some adjacent room, until, having got past the two tall candles, he saw standing to receive him by the table between them and the fire, a young lady of not more than seventeen, in a riding-cloak, and still holding her straw travelling-hat by its ribbon in her hand. As his eyes rested on a short, slight, pretty figure, a quantity of golden hair, a pair of blue eyes that met his own with an inquiring look, and a forehead with a singular capacity (remembering how young and smooth it was), of rifting and knitting itself into an expression that was not quite one of perplexity, or wonder, or alarm, or merely of a bright fixed attention, though it included all the four expressions—as his eyes rested on these things, a sudden vivid likeness passed before him, of a child whom he had held in his arms on the passage across that very Channel, one cold time, when the hail drifted heavily and the sea ran high. The likeness passed away, like a breath along the surface of the gaunt pier-glass behind her, on the frame of which, a hospital procession of negro cupids, several headless and all cripples, were offering black baskets of Dead Sea fruit to black divinities of the feminine gender—and he made his formal bow to Miss Manette.

    Pray take a seat, sir. In a very clear and pleasant young voice; a little foreign in its accent, but a very little indeed.

    I kiss your hand, miss, said Mr. Lorry, with the manners of an earlier date, as he made his formal bow again, and took his seat.

    I received a letter from the Bank, sir, yesterday, informing me that some intelligence—or discovery—

    The word is not material, miss; either word will do.

    —respecting the small property of my poor father, whom I never saw—so long dead—

    Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and cast a troubled look towards the hospital procession of negro cupids. As if they had any help for anybody in their absurd baskets!

    —rendered it necessary that I should go to Paris, there to communicate with a gentleman of the Bank, so good as to be despatched to Paris for the purpose.

    Myself.

    As I was prepared to hear, sir.

    She curtseyed to him (young ladies made curtseys in those days), with a pretty desire to convey to him that she felt how much older and wiser he was than she. He made her another bow.

    I replied to the Bank, sir, that as it was considered necessary, by those who know, and who are so kind as to advise me, that I should go to France, and that as I am an orphan and have no friend who could go with me, I should esteem it highly if I might be permitted to place myself, during the journey, under that worthy gentleman's protection. The gentleman had left London, but I think a messenger was sent after him to beg the favour of his waiting for me here.

    I was happy, said Mr. Lorry, to be entrusted with the charge. I shall be more happy to execute it.

    Sir, I thank you indeed. I thank you very gratefully. It was told me by the Bank that the gentleman would explain to me the details of the business, and that I must prepare myself to find them of a surprising nature. I have done my best to prepare myself, and I naturally have a strong and eager interest to know what they are.

    Naturally, said Mr. Lorry. Yes—I—

    After a pause, he added, again settling the crisp flaxen wig at the ears, It is very difficult to begin.

    He did not begin, but, in his indecision, met her glance. The young forehead lifted itself into that singular expression—but it was pretty and characteristic, besides being singular—and she raised her hand, as if with

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