to be accused than to be confronted with all the crowd. Standing as it were, apart with her on the edge of his grave, not all the staring curiosity that looked on could for the moment nerve him to remain quite still. His hurried right hand parceled out the herbs before him into imaginary beds of flowers in a garden and his efforts to control and steady his breathing shook the lips from which the color rushed to his heart. The buzz of the great flies was loud again. Miss Minette, have you seen the prisoner before? Yes, sir. Where? On board of the package ship just now referred to sir and on the same occasion. You are the young lady just now referred to? Almost unhappily I am. The plaintive tone of her compassion merged into the less musical voice of the judge as he said something fiercely. Answer the questions put to you and make no remark upon them. Miss Minette, had you any conversation with the prisoner on that passage across the channel? Yes, sir. Recall it. In the midst of a profound stillness, she faintly began. When the gentleman came on board, do you mean the prisoner? Inquired the judge, knitting his brows. Yes, my lord. Then say the prisoner. When the prisoner came on board, he noticed that my father turning her eyes lovingly to him as he stood beside her, was much fatigued and in a very weak state of health. My father was so reduced that I was afraid to take him out of the air and I had made a bed for him on the deck near the cabin steps and I sat on the deck at his side to take care of him. There were no other passengers that night, but we four. The prisoner was so good as to beg permission to advise me how I could shelter my father from the wind and weather better than I had done. I had not known how to do it well, not understanding how the wind would set when we were out of the harbor. He did it for me. He expressed great gentleness and kindness for my father's state and I'm sure he felt it. That was the manner of our beginning to speak together. Let me interrupt you for a moment. Had he come on board alone? No. How many were with him? Two French gentlemen? Had they conferred together? They had conferred together until the last moment when it was necessary for the French gentlemen to be landed in their boat. Had any papers been handed about among them, similar to these lists? Some papers had been handed about among them, but I don't know what papers. Like these in shape and size? Possibly, but indeed I don't know, although they stood whispering very near to me because they stood at the top of the cabin steps to have the light of the lamp that was hanging there. It was a dull lamp and they spoke very low and I did not hear what they said and only saw that they looked at papers. Now to the prisoner's conversation, Ms. Minet. The prisoner was as open in his confidence with me, which arose out of my helpless situation as he was kind and good and useful to my father. I hope, bursting into tears, I may not repay him by doing him harm today, buzzing from the blue flies. Ms. Minet, if the prisoner does not perfectly understand that you give the evidence which it is your duty to give, which you must give and which you cannot escape from giving with great unwillingness, he is the only person present in that condition, pleased to go on. He told me that he was traveling on business of a delicate and difficult nature, which might get people into trouble and that he was therefore traveling under an assumed name. He said that this business had within a few days taken him to France and might at intervals take him backwards and forwards between France and England for a long time to come. Did he say anything about America, Ms. Minet? Be particular. He tried to explain to me how that quarrel had arisen and he said that so far as he could judge it was a wrong and foolish one on England's part. He added in a jesting way that perhaps George Washington might gain almost as great a name in history as George III, but there was no harm in his way of saying this. It was said laughingly and to be guile at the time. And he strongly marked expression of face on the part of a chief actor in a scene of great interest to whom many eyes are directed will be unconsciously imitated by the spectators. Her forehead was painfully anxious and intent as she gave this evidence and in the pauses when she stopped for the judge to write it down, watched its effect upon the counsel for and against. Among the lookers on there was the same expression in all quarters of the court in so much that a great majority of the foreheads there might have been mirrors reflecting the witness when the judge looked up from his notes to glare at that tremendous heresy about George Washington. Mr. Attorney General now signified to my Lord that he deemed it necessary as a matter of precaution and form to call the young lady's father Dr. Minet who was called accordingly. Dr. Minet, look upon the prisoner. Have you ever seen him before? Once when he called at my lodgings in London some three years or three years and a half ago. Can you identify him as your fellow passenger on board the packet or speak to his conversation with your daughter? Sir, I can do neither. Is there any particular and special reason for your being unable to do either? He answered in a low voice, there is. Has it been your misfortune to undergo a long imprisonment without trial or even accusation in your native country, Dr. Minet? He answered in a tone that went to every heart, along the imprisonment. Were you newly released on the occasion in question? They tell me so. Have you no remembrance of the occasion? None, my mind is a blank. From some time I cannot even say what time when I employed myself in my captivity in making shoes to the time when I found myself living in London with my dear daughter here. She had become familiar to me when a gracious God restored my faculty. But I am quite unable even to say how she had become familiar. I have no remembrance of the process. Mr. Attorney General sat down and the father and daughter sat down together. A singular circumstance then arose in the case. The object in hand being to show that the prisoner went down with some fellow plotter untracked in the Dover mail on that Friday night in November five years ago and got out of the mail in the night as a blind at a place where he did not remain but from which he traveled back some dozen miles or more to a garrison and dockyard and there collected information. A witness was called to identify him as having been at the precise time required in the coffee room of a hotel in that garrison and dockyard town waiting for another person. The prisoner's counsel was cross examining this witness with no result except that he had never seen the prisoner on any other occasion. When the wig gentleman who had all this time been looking at the ceiling of the court wrote a word or two on a little piece of paper, screwed it up and tossed it to him. Opening this piece of paper in the next pause the counsel looked with great attention and curiosity at the prisoner.  The witness was quite sure. Did you ever see anybody very like the prisoner? Not so like the witness said as that he could be mistaken. Look well upon that gentleman, my learned friend there pointing to him who had tossed the paper over and then look well upon the prisoner.  Allowing for my learned friend's appearance being careless and slovenly if not debauched they were sufficiently like each other to surprise not only the witness but everybody present when they were thus brought into comparison. My Lord being prayed to bid my learned friend lay aside his wig and giving no very gracious consent the likeness became much more remarkable. My Lord inquired of Mr. Stryver at the prisoner's counsel whether they were next to try Mr. Carton in the name of my learned friend for treason but Mr. Stryver replied to my Lord no but he would ask the witness to tell him whether what happened once might happen twice whether he would have been so confident if he had seen this illustration of his rashness sooner whether he would be so confident having seen it and more the upshot of which was to smash this witness like a crockery vessel and shiver his part of the case to useless lumber. Mr. Cruncher had by this time taken quite a lunch of rust off his fingers and his following of the evidence. He had now to attend while Mr. Stryver fitted the prisoner's case on the jury like a compact suit of clothes showing them how the patriot Barsad was a hired spy and traitor an unblushing trafficker in blood and one of the greatest scoundrels upon earth since the curse of Judas which he certainly did look rather like. How the virtuous servant Kly was his friend and partner and was worthy to be. How the watchful eyes of those foragers and false swears had rested on the prisoner as a victim because some family affairs in France he being of French extraction it require his making those passages across the channel though what those affairs were consideration for others who were near and dear to him for bad him even for his life to disclose. How the evidence that had been warped and rested from the young lady whose anguish and giving that they had witnessed came to nothing involving the mere little innocent gallantries and politenesses likely to pass between any young gentleman and young lady so thrown together with the exception of that reference to George Washington which was altogether too extravagant and impossible to be regarded in any other light than as a monstrous joke. How it would be a weakness in the government to break down in this attempt to practice for popularity on the lowest national antipathy in fears and therefore Mr. Attorney General had made the most of it. How nevertheless it rested upon nothing save that vile and infamous character of evidence too often disfiguring such cases and of which the state trials of this country were full but there my Lord interposed with as grave a face as if it had not been true saying that he could not sit upon that bench and suffer those illusions. Mr. Stryver then called his few witnesses and Mr. Cruncher had next to attend while Mr. Attorney General turned the whole suit of clothes Mr. Stryver had fitted on the jury inside out showing how Barsad and Cly were even a hundred times better than he had thought them and the prisoner a hundred times worse. Lastly came my Lord himself turning the suit of clothes now inside out, now outside in but on the whole decidedly trimming and shaping them into grave clothes for the prisoner. And now the jury turned to consider and the great flies swarmed again. Mr. Carton who had so long sat looking at the ceiling of the court changed neither his place nor his attitude even in excitement. While his learned friend Mr. Stryver massing his papers before him whispered with those who sat near and from time to time glanced anxiously at the jury. While all the spectators moved more or less and grouped themselves anew while even my Lord himself arose from his seat and slowly paced up and down his platform not unattended by a suspicion in the minds of the audience that his state was feverish. This one man sat leaning back with his torn gown half off him. His untidy wig put on just as it had happened to light on his head after its removal. His hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ceiling as they had been all day. Something especially reckless in his demeanor not only gave him a disreputable look but so diminished the strong resemblance he undoubtedly bore to the prisoner which his momentary earnestness when they were compared together had strengthened. That many of the lookers on taking note of him now said to one another they would hardly have thought the two were so alike. Mr. Cruncher made the observation to his neighbor and added, I'd hold half a guinea that he don't get no law work to do. Don't look like the sort of one to get any, do we? Yet this Mr. Carton took in more of the details of the scene than he appeared to take in. For now, when Miss Manette's head dropped upon her father's breast he was the first to see it and to say audibly, Officer, look to that young lady. Help the gentleman to take her out. Don't you see she will fall? There was much commiseration for her as she was removed and much sympathy with her father. It had evidently been a great distress to him to have the days of his imprisonment recalled. He had shown strong internal agitation when he was questioned and that pondering or brooding look which made him old had been upon him like a heavy cloud ever since. As he passed out, the jury who had turned back and paused a moment spoke through their foremen. They were not agreed and wished to retire. My lord, perhaps with George Washington on his mind, showed some surprise that they were not agreed but signified his pleasure that they should retire under watch and ward and retired himself. The trial had lasted all day and the lamps in the court were now being lighted. It began to be rumored that the jury would be out a long while. The spectators dropped off to get refreshment and the prisoner withdrew to the back of the dock and sat down. Mr. Laurie who had gone out when the young lady and her father went out now reappeared and beckoned to Jerry who in the slackened interest could easily get near him. Jerry, if you wish to take something to eat, you can but keep in the way. You will be sure to hear when the jury come in. Don't be a moment behind them for I want you to take the verdict back to the bank. You are the quickest messenger I know and we'll get to Temple Bar long before I can. Jerry had just enough forehead to knuckle and he knuckled it in acknowledgement of his communication and a shilling. Mr. Carton came up at the moment and touched Mr. Laurie on the arm. How is the young lady? She is greatly distressed but her father is comforting her and she feels the better for being out of court. I'll tell the prisoner so. It won't do for a respectable bank gentleman like you to be seen speaking to him publicly, you know. Mr. Laurie reddened as if he were conscious of having debated the point in his mind and Mr. Carton made his way to the outside of the bar. The way out of court lay in that direction and Jerry followed him. All eyes, ears and spikes. Mr. Darnay, the prisoner came forward directly. You will naturally be anxious to hear of the witness, Miss Manette. She will do very well. You have seen the worst of her agitation. I am deeply sorry to have been the cause of it. Could you tell her so for me with my fervent acknowledgments? Yes, I could. I will if you ask it. Mr. Carton's manner was so careless as to be almost insolent. He stood half turn from the prisoner lounging with his elbow against the bar. I do ask it, except my cordial thanks. What, said Carton, still only half turn towards him, do you expect, Mr. Darnay? The worst. It's the wisest thing to expect and the likeliest, but I think their withdrawing is in your favor. Loitering on the way out of court, not being allowed, Jerry heard no more, but left them so like each other in feature, so unlike each other in manner, standing side by side, both reflected in the glass above them. An hour and a half limped heavily away in the thief and rascal crowded passages below, even though assisted off with mutton pies and ale. The horse messenger, uncomfortably seated on a form, after taking that reflection, had dropped into a doze when a loud murmur and a rapid type of people, setting up the stairs that led to the court, carried him along with them. Jerry, Jerry, Mr. Laurie was already calling at the door when he got there. Here, sir, it's a fight to get back in. Here I am, sir. Mr. Laurie handed him a paper through the throng. Quick, have you got it? Yes, sir. He still he written on the paper was the word acquitted. If you had sent the message recalled to life again, Mother Jerry, as he turned, I should have known what you meant this time. He had no opportunity of saying or so much as thinking anything else until he was clear of the old Bailey. For the crowd came pouring out with a vehemence that nearly took him off his legs and a loud buzz swept into the street as if the baffled blue flies were dispersing in search of other carrion. End of chapter. Book two, chapter four of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Richard Reiman, audiblyspeaking.com. Congratulatory. From the dimly-lighted passages of the court, the last sediment of the human stew that had been boiling there all day was straining off when Dr. Minette, Lucy Minette, his daughter, Mr. Laurie, the solicitor for the defense and its counsel, Mr. Stryver, stood gathered round Mr. Charles Darne, just released, congratulating him on his escape from death. It would have been difficult by a far brighter light to recognize in Dr. Minette, intellectual at face and upright of bearing, the shoemaker of the garret in Paris. Yet no one could have looked at him twice without looking again, even though the opportunity of observation had not extended to the mournful cadence of his low grave voice and to the abstraction that overcrowded him fitfully without any apparent reason. While one external cause, and that a reference to his long-lingering agony would always, as on the trial, evoke this condition from the depths of his soul, it was also in its nature to arise of itself and to draw a gloom over him as incomprehensible to those unacquainted with his story as if they had seen the shadow of the actual Bastille thrown upon him by a summer sun when the substance was 300 miles away. Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from his mind. She was the golden thread that united him to a past beyond his misery and to a present beyond his misery. And the sound of her voice, the light of her face, the touch of her hand had a strong beneficial influence with him almost always. Not absolutely always, for she could recall some occasions on which her power had failed, but they were few and slight and she believed them over. Mr. Darne had kissed her hand fervently and gratefully and it turned to Mr. Stryver whom he warmly thanked. Mr. Stryver, a man of little more than 30, but looking 20 years older than he was, stout, loud, red, bluff, and free from any drawback of delicacy had a pushing way of shouldering himself morally and physically into companies and conversations that argued well for his shouldering his way up in life. He still had his wig and gown on and he said squaring himself at his late client to that degree that he squeezed the innocent Mr. Laurie clean out of the group. I'm glad to have brought you off with honor, Mr. Darne. It was an infamous prosecution, grossly infamous, but not the less likely to succeed on that account. You have laid me under an obligation to you for life in two senses, said his late client, taking his hand. I have done my best for you, Mr. Darne, and my best is as good as another man's, I believe. It clearly being incumbent on someone to say much better. Mr. Laurie said it, perhaps not quite disinterestedly, but with the interested object of squeezing himself back again. You think so, said Mr. Striper.  And as such, quote Mr. Laurie, whom the council learned in the law had now shouldered back into the group, just as he had previously shouldered him out of it. As such, I will appeal to Dr. Minette to break up this conference and order us all to our homes. Miss Lucy looks ill. Mr. Darne has had a terrible day. We are worn out. Speak for yourself, Mr. Laurie, said Striper. I have a night's work to do yet. Speak for yourself. I speak for myself, answered Mr. Laurie, and for Mr. Darne, and for Miss Lucy, and Miss Lucy, do you not think I may speak for us all? He asked her the question pointedly and with a glance at her father. His face had become frozen, as it were, in a very curious look at Darne. An intent look deepening into a frown of dislike and distrust, not even unmixed with fear. With this strange expression on him, his thoughts had wandered away. My father, said Lucy, softly laying her hand on his. He slowly shook the shadow off and turned to her. Shall we go home, my father? With a long breath, he answered, yes. The friends of the acquitted prisoner had dispersed under the impression, which he himself had originated, that he would not be released that night. The lights were nearly all extinguished in the passages, the iron gates were being closed with a jar and a rattle, and the dismal place was deserted until tomorrow morning's interest of gallows, pillory, whipping post and branding iron should repeal it. Walking between her father and Mr. Darne, Lucy Manette passed into the open air. A hackney coach was called and the father and daughter departed in it. Mr. Striver had left them in the passages to shoulder his way back to the robing room. Another person who had not joined the group or interchanged a word with any one of them, but who had been leaning against the wall where its shadow was darkest, had silently strolled out after the rest and had looked on until the coach drove away. He now stepped up to where Mr. Laurie and Mr. Darne stood upon the pavement. So, Mr. Laurie, men of business may speak to Mr. Darne now. Nobody had made any acknowledgement of Mr. Carton's part in the day's proceedings. Nobody had known of it. He was unrobed and was none the better for it in appearance. If you knew what a conflict goes on in the business mind, when the business mind is divided between good-natured impulse and business appearances, you would be amused, Mr. Darne. Mr. Laurie reddened and said warmly, you have mentioned that before, sir. We men of business who serve a house are not our own masters. We have to think of the house more than ourselves. I know, I know, rejoined Mr. Carton carelessly. Don't be meddled, Mr. Laurie. You are as good as another. I have no doubt. Better, I daresay. And indeed, sir, pursued Mr. Laurie, not minding him. I really don't know what you have to do with the matter. If you'll excuse me, as very much your elder, for saying so, I really don't know that it is your business.  It is a pity you have not, sir. I think so too. If you had pursued Mr. Laurie, perhaps you would attend to it. Lord love you, no, I shouldn't, said Mr. Carton. Well, sir, cried Mr. Laurie, thoroughly heated by his indifference. Business is a very good thing, a very respectable thing. And, sir, if business imposes its restraints and its silences and impediments, Mr. Darnay, as a young gentleman of generosity, knows how to make allowance for that circumstance. Mr. Darnay, good night, God bless you, sir. I hope you have been this day preserved for a prosperous and happy life. Chair there. Perhaps a little angry with himself, as well as with the barrister. Mr. Laurie bustled into the chair and was carried off to Telsons. Carton, who smelt of port wine and did not appear to be quite sober, laughed then and turned to Darnay. This is a strange chance that throws you and me together. This must be a strange night to you, standing alone here with your counterpart on these street stones. I hardly seen yet, returned Charles Darnay, to belong to this world again. I don't wonder at it, it's not so long since you were pretty far advanced on your way to another. You speak faintly. I began to think I am faint. Then why the devil don't you dine? I dined myself while those numskulls were deliberating which world you should belong to, this or some other. Let me show you the nearest tavern to dine well at. Throwing his arm through his own, he took him down Ludgate Hill to Fleet Street and so up a cupboard way into a tavern. Here they were shown into a little room where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine, while Carton sat opposite to him at the same table with a separate bottle of port before him and his fully half insolent manner upon him. Do you feel yet that you belong to this terrestrial scheme again, Mr. Darnay? I am frightfully confused regarding time and place, but I am so far mended as to feel that. It must be an immense satisfaction. He said it bitterly and filled up his glass again, which was a large one. As to me, the greatest desire I have is to forget that I belong to it. It has no good in it for me, except wine like this, nor I for it. So we are not much alike in that particular. Indeed, I began to think we are not much alike in any particular you and I. Confused by the emotion of the day and feeling his being there with this double, of course, deportment to be like a dream, Charles Darnay was at a loss how to answer. Finally, answered not at all. Now your dinner is done, Carton presently said. Why don't you call the health, Mr. Darnay? Why don't you give your toast? What health? What toast? Why, it's on the tip of your tongue. It ought to be. It must be. I'll swear it's there. Miss Manette then. Miss Manette then. Looking his companion full in the face while he drank the toast, Carton flung his glass over his shoulder against the wall where it shivered to pieces. Then rang the bell and ordered it in another. That's a fair young lady to hand to a coach in the dark, Mr. Darnay, he said, filling his new goblet. A slight frown and a laconic, yes, or the answer. That's a fair young lady to be pity by and wep for by. How does it feel? Is it worth being tried for one's life to be the object of such sympathy and compassion, Mr. Darnay? Again, Darnay answered not a word. She was mightily pleased to have your message when I gave it her. Not that she showed she was pleased, but I suppose she was. The allusion served as a timely reminder to Darnay that this disagreeable companion had, of his own free will, assisted him in the straight of the day. He turned the dialogue to that point and thanked him for it. I neither want any thanks nor merit any, was the careless rejoinder. It was nothing to do in the first place and I don't know why I did it in the second. Mr. Darnay, let me ask you a question. Willingly and a small return for your good offices. Do you think I particularly like you? Really, Mr. Carton, returned the other oddly disconcerted. I have not asked myself the question, but ask yourself the question now. You have acted as if you do, but I don't think you do. I don't think I do, said Carton. I begin to have a very good opinion of your understanding. Nevertheless, pursued Darnay, rising to ring the bell, there is nothing in that I hope to prevent my calling the reckoning and our parting without ill blood on either side. Mr. Carton rejoining, nothing in life, Darnay rang. Do you call the whole reckoning, said Carton? On his answering in the affirmative, then bring me another pint of this same wine drawer and come and wake me at 10. The bill being paid, Charles Darnay rose and wished him good night. Without returning the wish, Carton rose too with something of a threat of defiance in his manner and said, I'll ask word, Mr. Darnay. You think I am drunk? I think you have been drinking, Mr. Carton. Think, you know I have been drinking. Since I must say so, I know it. Then you shall likewise know why. I am a disappointed drudge, sir. I care for no man on earth and no man on earth cares for me. Much to be regretted, you might have used your talents better. Maybe so, Mr. Darnay, maybe not.  You don't know what it may come to. Good night. When he was left alone, this strange being took up a candle, went to a glass that hung against the wall and surveyed himself minutely in it. Do you particularly like the man he muttered at his own image? Why should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing in you to like, you know that. Ah, confound you. What a change you have made in yourself. A good reason for taking to a man that he shows you what you have fallen away from and what you might have been. Change places with him. And would you have been looked at by those blue eyes as he was and commiserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on and have it out in plain words.  He resorted to his pint of wine for consolation, drank it all in a few minutes and fell asleep on his arms with his hair straggling over the table and a long winding sheet in the candle dripping down upon him. End of chapter. Book 2, Chapter 5 of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recorded by Richard Reiman, audiblyspeaking.com. The Jackal. Those were drinking days and most men drank hard. So very great is the improvement time has brought about in such habits that a moderate statement of the quantity of wine and punch which one man would swallow in the course of a night without any detriment to his reputation as a perfect gentleman would seem in these days a ridiculous exaggeration. The learned profession of the law was certainly not behind any other learned profession in its bacchanalian propensities. Neither was Mr. Stryver already fast-shouldering his way to a large and lucrative practice behind his compiers in this particular any more than in the drier parts of the legal race. A favorite at the Old Bailey and Ike at the Sessions, Mr. Stryver had begun consciously to hew away the lower staves of the ladder on which he mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey had now to summon their favorite, especially, to their longing arms and shouldering itself towards the visage of the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of Kings bench, the fluoride countenance of Mr. Stryver might be daily seen bursting out of the bed of wigs like a great sunflower pushing its way at the sun from among a rank garden full of flaring companions. It had once been noted at the bar that while Mr. Stryver was a glib man and an unscrupulous and a ready and a bold, he had not that faculty of extracting the essence from a heap of statements which is among the most striking and necessary of the Advocate's accomplishments. But a remarkable improvement came upon him as to this. The more business he got, the greater his power seemed to grow at getting at its pith and marrow. And however late at night, he sat carousing with Sidney Carton. He always had his points at his fingers ends in the morning. Sidney Carton, idlest and most unpromising of men, was Stryver's great ally. What the two drank together between Hilary Term and Miklamis might have floated a king ship. Stryver never had a case in hand anywhere but Carton was there with his hands in his pockets staring at the ceiling of the court. They went the same circuit and even there they prolonged their usual orgies late into the night. And Carton was rumored to be seen at broad day going home stealthily and unsteadily to his lodgings like a dissipated cat. At last it began to get about among such as were interested in the matter that although Sidney Carton would never be a lion, he was an amazingly good jackal and that he rendered suit and service to Stryver in that humble capacity. "'Ten o'clock, sir,' said the man at the tavern whom he had charged to wake him. "'Ten o'clock, sir.' "'What's the matter?' "'Ten o'clock, sir.' "'What do you mean? "'Ten o'clock at night?' "'Yes, sir.' "'Your honor told me to call you.' "'Oh, I remember. "'Very well, very well.' After a few dull efforts to get to sleep again, which the man dexterously combated by stirring the fire continuously for five minutes, he got up, tossed his hat on, and walked out. He turned into the temple and, having revived himself by twice-pacing the pavements of King's Benchwalk and paper buildings, turned into the Stryver chambers. The Stryver Clark, who never assisted at these conferences, had gone home and the Stryver principal opened the door. He had his slippers on and a loose bed gown and his throat was bare for his greater ease. He had that rather wild, strained, seared marking about the eyes, which may be observed in all free livers of his class, from the portrait of Geoffrey's downward and which can be traced under various disguises of art through the portraits of every drinking age. "'You are a little late, memory,' said Stryver. "'About the usual time, "'it may be a quarter of an hour later.' They went into a dingy room lined with books and littered with papers where there was a blazing fire. A kettle steamed upon the hob and in the midst of the wreck of papers, a table shone with plenty of wine upon it and brandy and rum and sugar and lemons. "'You have had your bottle,' I perceived Sidney. "'Tue to night, I think. "'I've been dining with the day's client "'or seeing him dying. "'It's all one.' "'That was a rare point, Sidney, "'that you brought to bear upon the identification. "'How did you come by it? "'When did it strike you?' "'I thought he was a rather handsome fellow "'and I thought I should have been "'much the same sort of fellow if I had had any luck.' "'Mr. Stryver laughed till he shook his precocious punch. "'You and your luck, Sidney. "'Get to work, get to work.' "'Sell only enough,' the jackal, loosened his dress, "'went into an adjoining room "'and came back with a large jug of cold water, "'a basin and a towel or two. "'Steeping the towels in the water "'and partially ringing them out, "'he folded them on his head "'in a manner hideous to behold, "'sat down at the table "'and said, now I am ready. "'Not much boiling down to be done tonight, memory,' said Mr. Stryver gaily as he looked among his papers. "'How much? "'Only two sets of them. "'Give me the worst first. "'There they are, Sidney, fire away.' "'The lion then composed himself "'on his back on a sofa "'on one side of the drinking table "'while the jackal sat at his own paper "'bestrewn table proper. "'On the other side of it, "'with the bottles and glasses ready to his hand, "'both resorted to the drinking table without stint, "'but each in a different way. "'The lion, for the most part, reclining "'with his hands and his waistband, "'looking at the fire, "'or occasionally flirting with some lighter document. "'The jackal, with knitted brows "'and intent face so deep in his task "'that his eyes did not even follow the hand "'he stretched out for his glass, "'which often groped about for a minute or more "'before it found the glass for his lips. "'Two or three times, the matter in hand "'became so naughty that the jackal "'found it imperative on him to get up "'and steep his towels anew. "'From these pilgrimages to the jug and basin, "'he returned with such eccentricities of damp handgear "'as no words can describe, "'which were made the more ludicrous "'by his anxious gravity. "'At length, the jackal had got together "'a compact repast for the lion "'and proceeded to offer it to him. "'The lion took it with care and caution, "'made his selections from it, "'and his remarks upon it, "'and the jackal assisted both. "'When the repast was fully discussed, "'the lion put his hands in his waistband again "'and lay down to meditate. "'The jackal then invigorated himself "'with a bumper for his throttle "'and a fresh application to his head "'and applied himself to the collection "'of a second meal. "'This was administered to the lion "'in the same manner "'and was not disposed of "'until the clock struck three in the morning. "'And now we have done, Sidney, "'Villabupper of Punch,' said Mr. Stryler. "'The jackal removed the towels from his head, "'which had been steaming again, "'shook himself, yawned, shivered, "'and complied. "'You were very sound, Sidney, "'in the matter of those crown witnesses today. "'Every question told. "'I always am sound, am I not? "'I don't gain say it. "'What has roughened your temper? "'Put some punch to it and smooth it again. "'With the deprecatory grunt, "'the jackal again complied. "'The old Sidney Carton of Old Shrewsbury School,' "'said Stryler, nodding his head over him "'as he reviewed him in the present and the past. "'The old seesaw, Sidney, "'up one minute and down the next, "'now in spirits and now in despondency.' "'Ah,' returned the other sighing. "'Yes, the same Sidney with the same luck. "'Even then I did exercises for other boys "'and seldom did my own. "'And why not?' "'God knows. "'It was my way, I suppose. "'He sat with his hands in his pockets "'and his legs stretched out before him, "'looking at the fire. "'Carton,' said his friends, "'squaring himself at him with a bullying air, "'as if the fire grate had been the furnace "'in which the stained endeavor was forged. "'And the one delicate thing to be done "'for the old Sidney Carton of Old Shrewsbury School "'was to shoulder him into it. "'Your way is, and always was, a lame way. "'You summoned no energy and purpose. "'Look at me.' "'Oh, botheration,' returned Sidney "'with a lighter and more good-humored laugh. "'Don't you be moral.' "'How have I done what I have done?' said Striper. "'How do I do what I do?' "'Partly through paying me to help you, I suppose. "'But it's not worth your while to apostrophize me "'or the air about it. "'What you want to do, you do. "'You were always in the front rank "'and I was always behind. "'I had to get into the front rank. "'I was not born there, was I? "'I was not present at the ceremony, "'but my opinion is, you were,' said Carton. "'At this he laughed again and they both laughed. "'Before Shrewsbury and at Shrewsbury "'and ever since Shrewsbury pursued Carton, "'you have fallen into your rank "'and I have fallen into mine. "'Even when we were fellow students "'in the student quarter of Paris, "'picking up French and French law "'and other French crumbs "'that we didn't get much good of, "'you were always somewhere "'and I was always nowhere. "'And whose fault was that? "'Upon my soul, I'm not sure "'that it was not yours. "'You were always driving and riving "'and shouldering and passing "'to that restless degree "'that I had no chance for my life "'but in rust and repose. "'It's a gloomy thing, however, "'to talk about one's own past "'with the day-breaking. "'Turn me in some other direction before I go. "'Well then, pledge me to the pretty witness,' "'said Striper, holding up his glass. "'Are you turned in a pleasant direction? "'Apparently not, for he became gloomy again. "'Pretty witness? "'He muttered, looking down into his glass. "'I have had enough of witnesses today and tonight. "'Who's your pretty witness? "'The picturesque doctor's daughter, Miss Manette. "'She pretty? "'Is she not? "'No. "'Why, man, alive. "'She was the admiration of the whole court. "'Rot, the admiration of the whole court. "'Who made the old Bailey a judge of beauty? "'She was a golden-haired doll.  "'Do you know, I rather thought at the time "'that you sympathized with the golden-haired doll "'and were quick to see what happened "'to the golden-haired doll?' "'Quick to see what happened?  "'I pledge you, but I deny the beauty. "'And now I'll have no more drink. "'I'll get to bed.' When his host followed him out on the staircase with a candle, to light him down the stairs, the day was coldly looking in through its grimy windows. When he got out of the house, the air was cold and sad, the dull sky overcast, the river dark and dim, the whole scene like a lifeless desert, and wreaths of dust were spinning round and round before the morning blast as if the desert stand had risen far away and the first spray of it in its advance had begun to overwhelm the city. Waste forces within him and a desert all around, this man stood still on his way across a silent terrace and saw for a moment lying in the wilderness before him, a mirage of honorable ambition, self-denial, and perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airy galleries from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the fruits of life hung ripening, waters of hope that sparkled in his sight. A moment and it was gone. Climbing to a higher chamber in a well of houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglected bed and its pillow was wet with wasted tears. Sadly, sadly, the sun rose. It rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him and resigning himself to let it eat him away. End of chapter. Book II, chapter six of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recorded by Richard Reimann, audiblyspeaking.com. Hundreds of people. The quiet lodgings of Dr. Manette were in a quiet street corner not far from Soho Square. On the afternoon of a certain fine Sunday when the waves of four months had rolled over the trial for treason and carried it as to the public interest and memory far out to sea, Mr. Jarvis Laurie walked along the sunny streets from Clarkinwell where he lived on his way to dying with the doctor. After several relapses into business absorption, Mr. Laurie had become the doctor's friend and the quiet street corner was the sunny part of his life. On this certain fine Sunday, Mr. Laurie walked towards Soho early in the afternoon for three reasons of habit. Firstly, because on fine Sundays, he often walked out before dinner with the doctor and Lucy. Secondly, because on unfavorable Sundays, he was accustomed to be with them as the family friend, talking, reading, looking out a window and generally getting through the day. Thirdly, because he happened to have his own little shrew doubts to solve and knew how the waves of the doctor's household pointed to that time as a likely time for solving them. A quieter corner than the corner where the doctor lived was not to be found in London. There was no way through it and the front windows of the doctor's lodgings commanded a pleasant little vista of street that had a congenial air of retirement on it. There were few buildings then, north of the Oxford Road, and forest trees flourished and wildflowers grew and the Hawthorne blossomed in the now vanished fields. As a consequence, country heirs circulated in Soho with vigorous freedom, instead of languishing into the parish like stray poppers without a settlement and there was many a good south wall not far off on which the peaches ripened in their season. The summer light struck into the corner brilliantly in the earlier part of the day. But when the streets grew hot, the corner was in shadow, though not in shadow so remote that you could see beyond it into a glare of brightness. It was a cool spot, stayed but cheerful, a wonderful place for echoes and a very harbor from the raging streets. There ought to have been a tranquil bark in such an anchorage and there was. The doctor occupied two floors of a large stiff house where several collings purported to be pursued by day but whereof little was audible any day and which was shunned by all of them at night. In a building at the back, attainable by a courtyard, where a plain tree rustled its green leaves, church organs claimed to be made and silver to be chased and likewise gold to be beaten by some mysterious giant who had a golden arm starting out of the wall of the front hall as if he had beaten himself precious and menaced a similar conversion of all visitors. Very little of these trades or of a lonely lodger rumored to live upstairs or of a dim coach trimming maker asserted to have a counting house below was ever heard or seen. Occasionally, a stray workman putting his coat on traversed the hall or a stranger appeared about there or a distant clink was heard across the courtyard or a thump from the golden giant. These, however, were only the exceptions required to prove the rule that the sparrows in the plain tree behind the house and the echoes in the corner before it had their own way from Sunday morning until Sunday night. Dr. Manette received such patience here as his old reputation and its revival in the floating whispers of his story brought him. His scientific knowledge and his vigilance and skill in conducting ingenious experiments brought him otherwise into moderate request and he earned as much as he wanted. These things were within Mr. Jarvis Laurie's knowledge, thoughts and notice when he rang the doorbell of the tranquil house in the corner on the fine Sunday afternoon. Dr. Manette at home, expected home. Miss Lucy at home, expected home. Miss Pras at home, possibly at home but of a certainty impossible for handmade to anticipate intentions of Miss Pras as to admission or denial of the fact. As I am at home myself, said Mr. Laurie, I'll go upstairs. Although the doctor's daughter had known nothing of the country of her birth, she appeared to have innately derived from it that ability to make much of little means, which is one of its most useful and most agreeable characteristics. Simple as the furniture was, it was set off by so many little adornments of no value but for their taste and fancy that its effect was delightful. The disposition of everything in the rooms from the largest object to the least, the arrangement of colors, the elegant variety and contrast obtained by thrift in trifles, by delicate hands, clear eyes and good sense, were at once so pleasant in themselves and so expressive of their originator that as Mr. Laurie stood looking about him, the very chairs and tables seem to ask him with something of that peculiar expression which he knew so well by this time, whether he approved. There were three rooms on a floor and the doors by which they communicated being open that the air might pass freely through them all. Mr. Laurie, smilingly observant of that fanciful resemblance which he detected all around him, walked from one to another. The first was the best room and in it were Lucy's birds and flowers and books and desk and work table and box of watercolors. The second was the doctor's consulting room used also as the dining room. The third, changingly speckled by the rustle of the plane tree in the yard was the doctor's bedroom and there in a corner stood the disused shoemaker's bench and tray of tools, much as it had stood on the fifth floor of the dismal house by the wine shop in the suburb of San Antoine in Paris. I wonder, said Mr. Laurie, pausing in his looking about, that he keeps that reminder of his sufferings about him. And while I wonder at that, was the abrupt inquiry that made him start. He proceeded from Miss Pross, the wild red woman, strong of hand, whose acquaintance he at first made at the Royal George Hotel at Dover and it since improved. I should have thought, Mr. Laurie began. Poo, you'd have thought, said Miss Pross and Mr. Laurie left off. How do you do, inquired that lady then, sharply and yet as if to express that she bore him no malice. I am pretty well, I thank you, answered Mr. Laurie with meekness. How are you? Nothing to boast of, said Miss Pross. Indeed. Ah, indeed, said Miss Pross. I am very much put out about my lady bird. Indeed. Her gracious say something else besides indeed, or you'll fidget me to death, said Miss Pross, whose character disassociated from stature was shortness. Really then, said Mr. Laurie as an amendment. Really is bad enough, returned Miss Pross. But better, yes, I am very much put out. May I ask the cause? I don't want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of lady bird to come here looking after her, said Miss Pross. Do dozens come for that purpose? Hundreds, said Miss Pross. It was characteristic of this lady as of some other people before her time and since that whenever her original proposition was questioned, she exaggerated it. Dear me, said Mr. Laurie as the safest remark he could think of. I had lived with the darling or the darliness lived with me and paid me for it, which she certainly should never have done. You may take your affidavit. If I could have afforded to keep either myself or her for nothing since she was 10 years old and it's really very hard, said Miss Pross. Not seen with precision, what was very hard? Mr. Laurie shook his head using that important part of himself as a sort of fairy cloak that would fit anything. All sorts of people who are not in the least degree worthy of the pet are always turning up, said Miss Pross. When you began it, I began it, Miss Pross. Didn't you? Who brought her father to life? Oh, if that was the beginning of it, said Mr. Laurie. It wasn't ending it, I suppose. I say when you began it, it was hard enough not that I have any fault to find with Dr. Minette except that he is not worthy of such a daughter, which is no imputation on him for it was not to be expected that anybody should be under any circumstances. But it really is doubly and trebly hard to have crowds and multitudes of people turning up after him. I could have forgiven him to take Lady Bird's affections away from me. Mr. Laurie knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew her by this time to be beneath the service of her eccentricity, one of those unselfish creatures found only among women who will, for pure love and admiration, bind themselves willingly slaves to youth when they have lost it, to beauty they never had, to accomplishments that they were never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never shown upon their own somber lives. He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart. So rendered and so free from any mercenary taint, he had such an exalted respect for it that in the retributive arrangements made by his own mind, we all make such arrangements more or less, he stationed Miss Pross much nearer to the lower angels than many ladies immeasurably better got up both by nature and art who had balances at Tillsons. There never was nor will be but one man worthy of ladybird, said Miss Pross. And that was my brother Solomon if he hadn't made a mistake in life. Here again, Mr. Lori's inquiries into Miss Pross's personal history had established the fact that her brother Solomon was a heartless scoundrel who had stripped her of everything she possessed as a stake to speculate with and had abandoned her in her poverty forevermore with no touch of compunction. Miss Pross's fidelity of belief in Solomon deducting a mere trifle for this slight mistake was quite a serious matter with Mr. Lori and had its weight in his good opinion of her. As we happen to be alone for the moment and are both people of business, he said, when they had got back to the drawing room and had sat down there in friendly relations, let me ask you, does the doctor in talking with Lucy never refer to the shoemaking time yet? Never. And yet kicks that bench in those tools beside him. Ah, return Miss Pross shaking her head, but I don't say he don't refer to it within himself. Do you believe that he thinks of it much? I do, said Miss Pross. Do you imagine, Mr. Lori had begun when Miss Pross took him up short with? Never imagine anything. Have no imagination at all. Thanks and corrected. Do you suppose you go so far as to suppose sometimes? Now and then, said Miss Pross. Do you suppose, Mr. Lori went on with a laughing twinkle in his bright eye as it looked kindly at her, that Dr. Meneth has any theory of his own preserved through all those years relative to the cause of his being so oppressed, perhaps even to the name of his oppressor? I don't suppose anything about it, but what Lady Bird tells me, and that is that she thinks he has.  Dull, Miss Pross inquired with placidity, rather wishing his modest adjective away, Mr. Lori replied, no, no, no, surely not. To return to business, is it not remarkable that Dr. Meneth, unquestionably innocent of any crime as we are all well assured he is, should never touch upon that question? I will not say with me, though he had business relations with me many years ago, and we are now intimate. I will say with the fair daughter to whom he is so devotedly attached and who was so devotedly attached to him, believe me, Miss Pross, I don't approach the topic with you out of curiosity, but out of zealous interest. Well, to the best of my understanding and bad's the best, you'll tell me, said Miss Pross, softened by the tone of the apology. He is afraid of the whole subject. Afraid? It's plain enough, I should think, why he may be. It's dreadful remembrance. Besides that, his loss of himself grew out of it. Not knowing how he lost himself or how he recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again. That alone wouldn't make the subject pleasant, I should think. It was a profounder remark than Mr. Laurie had looked for. True, said he, and fearful to reflect upon. Yet a doubt looks in my mind, Miss Pross, whether it is good for Dr. Minette to have that suppression always shut up within him. Indeed, it is this doubt and the uneasiness that sometimes causes me that has led me to our present confidence. Can't be helped, said Miss Pross, shaking her head. Touch that string, and he instantly changes for the worse. Better leave it alone. In short, must leave it alone, like or no like. Sometimes he gets up in the dead of the night and will be heard by us overhead there, walking up and down, walking up and down in his room. Lady Bird has learned to know then that his mind is walking up and down, walking up and down in his old prison.  But he never says a word of the true reason of his restlessness to her, and she finds it best not to hint at it to him. In silence they go walking up and down together till her love and company have brought him to himself. Not withstanding Miss Pross's denial of her own imagination, there was a perception of the pain of being monotonously haunted by one sad idea in her repetition of the phrase, walking up and down, which testified to her possessing such a thing. The corner has been mentioned as a wonderful corner for echoes. It had begun to echo so resoundingly to the tread of coming feet that it seemed as though the very mention of that weary pacing to and fro had set it going. Here they are, said Miss Pross, rising to break up the conference. And now we shall have hundreds of people pretty soon. It was such a curious corner in its acoustical properties, such a peculiar ear of a place that as Mr. Laurie stood at the open window, looking for the father and daughter whose steps he heard, he fancied they would never approach. Not only would the echoes die away as though the steps had gone, but echoes of other steps that never came would be heard in their stead and would die away for good when they seemed close at hand. However, father and daughter did at last appear and Miss Pross was ready at the street door to receive them. Miss Pross was a pleasant sight, albeit wild and red and grim, taking off her darling's bonnet when she came upstairs and touching it up with the ends of her handkerchief and blowing the dust off it and folding her mantle ready for laying by and smoothing her rich hair with as much pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hair if she had been the vainest and handsomest of women. Her darling was a pleasant sight too, embracing her and thanking her and protesting against her taking so much trouble for her, which last she only dared to do playfully or Miss Pross sorely hurt would have retired to her own chamber and cried. The doctor was a pleasant sight too, looking on at them and telling Miss Pross how she spoiled Lucy in accents and with eyes that had as much spoiling in them as Miss Pross had and would have had more if it were possible. Mr.  But no hundreds of people came to see the sights and Mr. Laurie looked in vain for the fulfillment of Miss Pross' prediction. Dinner time and still, no hundreds of people. In the arrangements of the little household, Miss Pross took charge of the lower regions and always acquitted herself marvelously. Her dinners of a very modest quality were so well cooked and so well served and so neat in their contrivances, half English and half French, that nothing could be better. Miss Pross' friendship being of the thoroughly practical kind, she had ravaged Soho and the adjacent provinces in search of impoverished French who tempted by shillings and half crowns would impart culinary mystery to her. From these decayed sons and daughters of Gaul, she had acquired such wonderful arts that the woman and girl who formed the staff of domestics regarded her as quite a sorceress or Cinderella's godmother who would send out for a fowl, a rabbit, a vegetable or two from the garden and change them into anything she pleased. On Sundays, Miss Pross dined at the doctor's table, but on other days persisted in taking her meals at unknown periods, either in the lower regions or in her own room on the second floor, a blue chamber to which no one but her ladybird ever gained admittance. On this occasion, Miss Pross, responding to ladybird's pleasant face and pleasant efforts to please her, unbent exceedingly, so the dinner was very pleasant too. It was an oppressive day and after dinner, Lucy proposed that the wine should be carried out under the plain tree and they should sit there in the air. As everything turned upon her and revolved about her, they went out under the plain tree and she carried the wine down for the special benefit of Mr. Lori. She had installed herself sometime before as Mr. Lori's cupbearer and while I sat under the plain tree talking, she kept his glass replenished. Mysterious backs and ends of houses peeped at them as they talked and the plain tree whispered to them in its own way above their heads. Still, the hundreds of people did not present themselves. Mr. Darne presented himself while they were sitting under the plain tree, but he was only one. Dr. Manette received him kindly and so did Lucy, but Miss Pross suddenly became afflicted with a twitching in the head and body and retired into the house. She was not unfrequently the victim of this disorder and she called it in familiar conversation, a fit of the jerks. The doctor was in his best condition and looked especially young. The resemblance between him and Lucy was very strong at such times and as they sat side by side, she leaning on his shoulder and he resting his arm on the back of her chair, he was very agreeable to trace the likeness. He had been talking all day on many subjects and with unusual vivacity. Pray Dr. Manette said Mr. Darne as they sat under the plain tree and he said it in the natural pursuit of the topic in hand which happened to be the old buildings of London. Have you seen much of the tower? Lucy and I have been there, but only casually. We have seen enough of it to know that it teams with interest a little more. I have been there as you remember, said Darne with a smile, though reddening a little angrily in another character and not in a character that gives facilities for seeing much of it. They told me a curious thing when I was there. What was that? Lucy asked. In making some alterations, the workmen came upon an old dungeon which had been for many years built up and forgotten. Every stone of its inner wall was covered by inscriptions which had been carved by prisoners. Dates, names, complaints and prayers. Upon a cornerstone in an angle of the wall, one prisoner who seemed to have gone to execution had cut as his last work three letters. They were done with some very poor instrument and hurriedly with an unsteady hand. At first they were read as D-I-C, but on being more carefully examined, the last letter was found to be G. There was no record or legend of any prisoner with those initials and many fruitless guesses were made what the name could have been. At length, it was suggested that the letters were not initials, but the complete word dig. The floor was examined very carefully under the inscription and in the earth beneath a stone or tile or some fragment of paving were found the ashes of a paper mingled with the ashes of a small leather case or bag. What the unknown prisoner had written will never be read, but he had written something and hidden it away to keep it from the jailer. My father, exclaimed Lucy, you're ill. He had suddenly started up with his hand to his head. His manner and his look quite terrified them all. No, my dear, not ill. There are large drops of rain falling and they made me start. We had better go in. He recovered himself almost instantly. Rain was really falling in large drops and he showed the back of his hand with raindrops on it, but he said not a single word in reference to the discovery that had been told of. And as they went into the house, the business eye of Mr. Laurie either detected or fancied it detected on his face as it turned towards Charles Darnay, the same singular look that had been upon it when it turned towards him in the passages of the courthouse. He recovered himself so quickly, however, that Mr. Laurie had doubts of his business eye. The arm of the golden giant in the hall was not more steady than he was when he stopped under it to remark to them that he was not yet proof against slight surprises if he ever would be and that the rain had startled him. Tea time and Miss Pross making tea with another fit of the jerks upon her and yet no hundreds of people. Mr. Carton had lounged in, but he made only two. The night was so very sultry that although they sat with doors and windows open, they were overpowered by heat. When the tea table was done with, they all moved to one of the windows and looked out into the heavy twilight. Lucy sat by her father. Darnay sat beside her. Carton leaned against the window. The curtains were long and white and some of the thunder gusts that whirled into the corner caught them up to the ceiling and waved them like spectral wings. The raindrops are still falling, large, heavy and few, said Dr. Minette. It comes slowly, it comes surely, said Carton. They spoke low as people watching and waiting mostly do. As people in a dark room, watching and waiting for lightning always do. There was a great hurry in the streets of people speeding away to get shelter before the storm broke. The wonderful corner for echoes resounded with the echoes of footsteps coming and going, yet not a footstep was there. A multitude of people, and yet a solitude, said Darnay, when they had listened for a while. Is it not impressive, Mr. Darnay, asked Lucy. Sometimes I have sat here of an evening until I have fancied, but even the shade of a foolish fancy makes me shudder tonight. When all is so black and solemn, let us shudder too. We may know what it is. It will seem nothing to you. Such whims are only impressive as we originate them, I think. They are not to be communicated. I have sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening until I have made the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are coming by and by into our lives. There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives. If that be so, Sidney Carton struck in, in his moody way. The footsteps were incessant and the hurry of them became more and more rapid. The corner echoed and re-echoed with the tread of feet. Some as it seemed under the windows. Some as it seemed in the room. Some coming, some going. Some breaking off. Some stopping altogether, all in the distant streets and not one within sight. Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss Manette? Or are we to divide them among us? I don't know, Mr. Darnay. I told you it was a foolish fancy, but you asked for it. When I have yielded myself to it, I have been alone and then I have imagined them the footsteps of the people who are to come into my life and my fathers. I take them into mine, said Carton. I ask no questions and make no stipulations. There is a great crowd bearing down upon us, Miss Manette. And I see them by the lightning. He added the last words after there had been a vivid flash which had shown him lounging in the window. And I hear them, he added again after a peel of thunder. Here they come, fast, fierce and furious. It was the rush and roar of rain that he typified. And it stopped him, for no voice could be heard in it. A memorable storm of thunder and lightning broke with that sweep of water. And there was not a moment's interval in crash and fire and rain until after the moon rose at midnight. The great bell of St. Paul's was striking one in the cleared air when Mr. Laurie, escorted by Jerry, high-booted and burying a lantern, set forth on his return passage to Clarkinwell. There were solitary patches of road on the way between Soho and Clarkinwell. And Mr. Laurie, mindful of foot-pads, always retained Jerry for this service, though it was usually performed a good two hours earlier. What a night it has been! Almost a night, Jerry, said Mr. Laurie, to bring the dead out of their graves. I never see the night myself, master, nor yet I don't expect to, what would do that? answered Jerry. Good night, Mr. Cartman, said the man of business. Good night, Mr. Darnay. Shall we ever see such a night again together? Perhaps, perhaps, see the great crowd of people with its rush and roar, bearing down upon them, too. End of chapter. Book two, chapter seven of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Richard Rhyman, audiblayspeaking.com. Monsignor in town. Monsignor, one of the great lords in power at the court, held his fortnightly reception in his grand hotel in Paris. Monsignor was in his inner room, his sanctuary of sanctuaries, the holiest of holiests to the crowd of worshipers in the suite of rooms without. Monsignor was about to take his chocolate. Monsignor could swallow a great many things with ease and was by some few selling minds supposed to be rather rapidly swallowing France. But his morning's chocolate could not so much as get into the throat of Monsignor without the aid of four strong men besides the cook. Yes, it took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous decoration, and the chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches in his pocket, emulative of the noble in chaste fashion set by Monsignor to conduct the happy chocolate to Monsignor's lips. One lack he carried the chocolate pot into the sacred presence. A second, nilled and frothed the chocolate with the little instrument he bore for that function. A third, presented the favored napkin. A fourth, he of the two gold watches, poured the chocolate out. It was impossible for Monsignor to dispense with one of these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high place under the admiring heavens. Deep would have been the blot upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobley waited on by only three men. He must have died of two. Monsignor had been out at a little supper last night where the comedy and the grand opera were charmingly represented. Monsignor was out at a little supper most nights with fascinating company. So polite and so impressable was Monsignor that the comedy and the grand opera had far more influence with him in the tiresome articles of state affairs and state secrets than the needs of all France. A happy circumstance for France as the like always is for all countries similarly favored always was for England by way of example, in the regretted days of the Mary Stuart who sold it. Monsignor had one truly noble idea of general public business, which was to let everything go on in its own way of particular public business. Monsignor had the other truly noble idea that it must all go his way tend to his own power and pocket. Of his pleasures, general and particular, Monsignor had the other truly noble idea that the world was made for them. The text of his order, altered from the original by only a pronoun, which is not much, ran the earth and the fullness thereof are mine, sayeth Monsignor. Yet Monsignor had slowly found that vulgar embarrassments crept into his affairs, both private and public, and he had as to both classes of affairs, allied himself perforce with a farmer general. As to finances public because Monsignor could not make anything out of all of them and must consequently let them out to somebody who could, as to finances private because farmer generals were rich and Monsignor after generations of great luxury and expense was growing poor. Hence Monsignor had taken his sister from a convent while there was yet time to ward off the impending veil, the cheapest garment she could wear and had bestowed her as a prize upon a very rich farmer general, poor in family, which farmer general carrying an appropriate cane with the golden apple on top of it was now among the company and the outer rooms much prostrated before by mankind, always accepting superior mankind of the blood of Monsignor, who his own wife included, looked down upon him with the loftiest contempt. A sumptuous man was the farmer general, 30 horses stood in his stables, 24 male domestics sat in his halls, six body women waited on his wife. As one who pretended to do nothing but plunder and forage where he could, the farmer general, how so ever his matrimonial relations conduced to social morality was at least the greatest reality among the personages who attended at the hotel of Monsignor that day. For the rooms though a beautiful scene to look at and adorn with every device of decoration that the taste and skill of the time could achieve were in truth not a sound business, considered with any reference to the scarecrows and the rags and nightcaps elsewhere. And not so far off either, but that the watching towers of Notre Dame almost equidistant from the two extremes could see them both. They would have been an exceedingly uncomfortable business. If that could have been anybody's business at the house of Monsignor. Military officers destitute of military knowledge, naval officers with no idea of a ship, civil officers without a notion of affairs, brazen ecclesiastics of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues and looser lives, all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in pretending to belong to them, but all nearly or remotely of the order of Monsignor and therefore foisted on all public employments from which anything was to be got. These were to be told off by the score and the score. People not immediately connected with Monsignor or the state, yet equally unconnected with anything that was real or with lives passed and traveling by any straight road to any earthly end were no less abundant. Doctors who made great fortunes out of dainty remedies for imaginary disorders that never existed smiled upon their courtly patients in the anti chambers of Monsignor. Projectors who had discovered every kind of remedy for the little evils with which the state was touched except the remedy of setting to work in earnest to root out a single sin, poured their distracting babble into any ears they could lay hold of at the reception of Monsignor. Unbelieving philosophers who were remodeling the world with words and making card towers of babel to scale the skies with, talked with unbelieving chemists who had an eye on the transmutation of medals at this wonderful gathering accumulated by Monsignor. Exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding which was at that remarkable time and has been since to be known by its fruits of indifference to every natural subject of human interest were in the most exemplary state of exhaustion at the hotel of Monsignor. Such homes had these various notabilities left behind them in the fine world of Paris that the spies among the assembled devotees of Monsignor forming a goodly half of the polite company would have found it hard to discover among the angels of that sphere one solitary wife who in her manners and appearance owned to being a mother. Indeed, except for the mere act of bringing a troublesome creature into this world which does not go far towards the realization of the name of mother, there was no such thing known to the fashion. Peasant women kept the unfashionable babies close and brought them up and charming grandmamas of 60 dressed and supped as at 20. The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance upon Monsignor. In the outermost room were half a dozen exceptional people who had for a few years some vague misgiving in them that things in general were going rather wrong. As a promising way of setting them right, half of the half dozen had become members of a fantastic sect of convulsionists and were even then considering within themselves whether they should foam, rage, roar and turn cataleptic on the spot, thereby setting up a highly intelligible finger post to the future for Monsignor's guidance. Besides these dervishes were other three who had rushed into another sect which mended matters with a jargon about the center of truth, holding that man had got out of the center of truth which did not need much demonstration but had not got out of the circumference and then he was to be kept from flying out of the circumference and was even to be shoved back into the center by fasting and seeing of spirits. Among these, accordingly, much discoursing with spirits went on and it did a world of good which never became manifest. But the comfort was that all the company at the Grand Hotel of Monsignor were perfectly dressed. If the day of judgment had only been ascertained to be a dress day, everybody there would have been eternally correct. Such frizzling and powdering and sticking up of hair, such delicate complexions artificially preserved and mended, such gallant swords to look at and such delicate honor to the sense of smell would surely keep anything going forever and ever. The exquisite gentleman of the finest breeding wore little pendant trinkets that chinked as they languidly moved.  And what with that ringing? And with the rustle of silk and brocade and fine linen, there was a flutter in the air that fan San Antoine and his devouring hunger far away. Dress was the one unfailing talisman and charm used for keeping all things in their places.  From the palace of the Tuileries through Monseigneur and the whole court, through the chambers, the tribunals of justice, and all society except the Scarecrows, the fancy ball descended to the common executioner who in pursuance of the charm was required to officiate frizzled, powdered in a gold lace coat, pumps, and white silk stockings. At the gallows and the wheel, the ax was a rarity, Monsieur Paris, as it was the Episcopal mode among his brother professors of the provinces, Monsieur Orleans and the rest to call him, presided in this dainty dress. And who among the company at Monseigneur's reception in that 1780th year of our Lord could possibly doubt that a system rooted in a frizzled hangman, powder, gold laced, pumped, and white silk stocking would see the very stars out. Monseigneur having eased his foreman of their burdens and taken his chocolate, caused the doors of the holiest of holiest to be thrown open and issued forth. Then what submission? What cringing and fawning? What servility? What abject humiliation? As to bowing down in body and spirit, nothing in that way was left for heaven, which may have been one among other reasons why the worshipers of Monseigneur never troubled it. Bestowing a word of promise here and a smile there, a whisper on one happy slave and a wave of the hand on another, Monseigneur affably passed through his rooms to the remote region of the circumference of truth. There Monseigneur turned and came back again. There Monseigneur turned and came back again, and so in due course of time, got himself shut up in his sanctuary by the chocolate sprites and was seen no more. The show being over, the flutter in the air became quite a little storm and the precious little bells went ringing downstairs. There was soon but one person left of all the crowd and he, with his hat under his arm and his snuff box in his hand, slowly passed among the mirrors on his way out. I devote you, said this person, stopping at the last door on his way and turning in the direction of the sanctuary, to the devil. With that he shook the snuff from his fingers as if he had shaken the dust from his feet and quietly walked downstairs. He was a man of about 60, handsomely dressed, haughty in manner, and with a face like a fine mask, a face of a transparent paleness, every feature in it clearly defined, one set expression on it. The nose, beautifully formed otherwise, was very slightly pinched at the top of each nostril. In those two compressions or dints, the only little change that the face ever showed resided. They persisted in changing color sometimes and they would be occasionally dilated and contracted by something like a faint pulsation. Then they gave a look of treachery and cruelty to the whole countenance. Examined with attention, its capacity of helping such a look was to be found in the line of the mouth and the lines of the orbits of the eyes being much too horizontal and thin. Still, in the effect of the face made, it was a handsome face and a remarkable one. Its owner went downstairs into the courtyard, got into his carriage and drove away. Not many people had talked with him at the reception. He had stood in a little space apart and Monsignor might have been warmer in his manner. It appeared under the circumstances rather agreeable to him to see the common people dispersed before his horses and often barely escaping from being run down. His man drove as if he were charging an enemy and the furious recklessness of a man brought no check into the face or to the lips of the master. The complaint had sometimes been made itself audible even in that deaf city and dumb age that in the narrow streets without footways, the fierce patrician custom of hard driving endangered and maimed the mere vulgar in a barbarous manner. But few cared enough for that to think of it a second time and in this matter, as in all others, the common wretches were left to get out of their difficulties as they could. With a wild rattle and clatter and an inhuman abandonment of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners with women screaming before it and men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, sweeping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt and there was a loud cry from a number of voices and the horses reared and plunged. But for the latter inconvenience the carriage probably would not have stopped. Carriages were often known to drive on and leave their little wounded behind and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry and there were 20 hands at the horse's bridles. What has gone wrong, said the mature, calmly looking out. A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses and had laid it on the basement of the fountain and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal. Barton, mature of the marquee, said a ragged and submissive man, it is a child. Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child? Excuse me, mature of the marquee, it is a pity, yes. The fountain was a little removed for the street opened where it was into a space some 10 or 12 yards square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground and came running at the carriage, mature of the marquee clapped his hand for an instant on his sword hilt. Killed, shrieked the man in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head and staring at him, dead. The people closed round and looked at mature of the marquee. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him, but watchfulness and eagerness. There was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything. After the first cry, they had been silent and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Mishor the marquee ran his eyes over them all as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes. He took out his purse. It is extraordinary to me, said he. That you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One of you or the other is forever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses? See, give him that. He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, dead. He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man for whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his shoulder sobbing and crying and pointing to the fountain where some women were stooping over the motionless bundle and moving gently about it. They were as silent, however, as the men. I know all, I know all, said the last comer. Be a brave man, my guest bard.  It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived an hour as happily?  How do they call you? They call me Defarge. Of what trade? Mishore the Marquis, vendor of wine. Pick up that, philosopher, and vendor of wine, said the Marquis, throwing him another gold coin and spend it as you will. The horses there, are they right? Without daining to look at the assemblage a second time, Mishore the Marquis leaned back in his seat and was just being driven away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally broke some common thing and could afford to pay for it. When his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage and ringing on its floor. Hold, said Mishore the Marquis. Hold the horses, who threw that? He looked to the spot where Defarge, the vendor of wine, had stood a moment before. But the wretched father was groveling on his face on the pavement in that spot. And the figure that stood beside him was the figure of a dark, stout woman knitting. You dogs, said the Marquis, but smoothly and with an unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose. I would ride over any of you very willingly and exterminate you from the earth. If I knew which rascal threw at the carriage and if that brigand were sufficiently near it, he should be crushed under the wheels. So cowed was their condition and so long and hard their experience of what such a man could do to them. Within the law and beyond it, that not a voice or a hand or even an eye was raised. Among the men not one, but the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily and looked the Marquis in the face. It was not for his dignity to notice it. His contemptuous eyes passed over her and over all the other rats.  He was driven on and other carriages came whirling by in quick succession, the minister, the state projector, the farmer general, the doctor, the lawyer, the ecclesiastic, the grand opera, the comedy, the whole fancy ball in a bright continuous flow came whirling by. The rats had crept out of their holes to look on and they remained looking on for hours. Soldiers and police often passing between them and the spectacle and making a barrier behind which they slunk and through which they peeped. The father had long ago taken up his bundle and bitten himself away with it when the women who had tended the bundle while it lay on the base of the fountain sat there watching the running of the water and the rolling of the fancy ball when the one woman who had stood conspicuous, knitting, still knitted on with the steadfastness of eight. The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening. So much life in the city ran into death according to rule. Time and tide waited for no man. The rats were sleeping close together in their dark holes again. The fancy ball was lighted up at supper. All things ran their course. End of chapter. Book two, chapter eight of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Richard Reiman, audibly speaking.com. Monsignor in the country. A beautiful landscape with the corn bright in it but not abundant. Patches of poor rye where corn should have been. Patches of poor peas and beans. Patches of most coarse vegetable substitutes for wheat. On inanimate nature as on the men and women who cultivated it, a prevalent tendency towards an appearance of vegetating unwillingly, a dejected disposition to give up and wither away. The share of the marquee in his traveling carriage which might have been lighter conducted by four post horses and two postillions fagged up a steep hill. A blush on the countenance of Monsignor of the Marquis was no impeachment of his high breeding. It was not from within. It was occasioned by an external circumstance beyond his control, the setting sun. The sunset struck so brilliantly into the traveling carriage when it gained the hilltop that its occupant was steeped in crimson.  In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment. When the heavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel and the carriage slid down hill with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of dust, the red glow departed quickly. The sun and the marquee going down together, there was no glow left when the drag was taken off. But there remained a broken country, bold and open, a little village at the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and rise beyond it, a church tower, a windmill, a forest for the chase and a crag with a fortress on it used as a prison. Round upon all these darkening objects as the night drew on, the marquee looked with the air of one who was coming near home.  It had its poor people too. All its people were poor and many of them were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions and the like for supper. While many were at the fountain, washing leaves and grasses and any such small yieldings of the earth that could be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them poor were not wanting. The tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax for the Lord, tax local and tax general were to be paid here and to be paid there according to solid inscription in the little village until the wonder was that there was any village left unswallowed. Few children were to be seen and no dogs. As to the men and women, their choice on earth was stated in the prospect, life on the lowest terms that could sustain it, down in the little village under the mill or captivity and death in the dominant prison on the crag. Herald did by a courier in advance and by the cracking of his postillions whips which twined snake-like about their heads in the evening air as if he came attended by the furies. Monsieur Le Marquis drew up in his traveling carriage at the posting house gate. It was hard by the fountain and the peasants suspended their operations to look at him. He looked at them and saw in them without knowing it the slow shore filing down of misery, warm face and figure that was to make the meagerness of Frenchmen and English superstition which should have survived the truth through the best part of a hundred years. Monsieur Le Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive faces that grouped before him as the like of himself had grouped before Monsignor of the court. Only the difference was that these faces grouped merely to suffer and not to propitiate when a grizzled mender of the roads joined the group. Bring me hither that fellow, said the Marquis to the courier. The fellow was brought cap in hand and the other fellows closed round to look and listen in the manner of the people at the Paris fountain. I passed you on the road. Monsignor, it is true. I had the honor of being passed on the road. Coming up the hill and at the top of the hill, both. Monsignor, it is true. What did you look at so fixedly? Monsignor, I looked at the man. He stooped a little and with his tattered blue cap pointed under the carriage. All his fellows stooped to look under the carriage. Black man, pig, and why look there? Pardon, Monsignor. He swung by the chain of the shoe, the drag. Who demanded the traveler? Monsignor, the man. May the devil carry away these idiots? How do you call the man? You know all the men of this part of the country. Who was he? Your clemency, Monsignor. He was not of this part of the country. Of all the days of my life I never saw him. Swinging by the chain to be suffocated? With your gracious permission, that was the wonder of it, Monsignor. His head hanging over, like this. He turned himself sideways to the carriage and leaned back with his face thrown up to the sky and his head hanging down. Then recovered himself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow. What was he like? Monsignor, he was whiter than the miller, all covered with dust. White as a spectre, tall as a spectre. The picture produced an immense sensation in the little crowd, but all eyes, without comparing notes with other eyes, looked at Monsieur the Marquis, perhaps to observe whether he had any spectre on his conscience. Truly you did well, said the Marquis, felicitously sensible that such vermin were not to ruffle him, to see a thief accompanying my carriage and not open that great mouth of yours. Put him aside, Monsieur Gabel. Monsieur Gabel was the postmaster and some other taxing functionary united. He had come out with great obsequiousness to assist at this examination and had held the examine by the drapery of his arm in an official manner. Bah, go aside, said Monsieur Gabel. Lay hands on this stranger if he seeks to lodge in your village tonight and be sure that his business is honest, Gabel. Monsignor, I am flattered to devote myself to your orders. Did he run away, fellow? Where is that accursed? The accursed was already under the carriage with some half-dozen particular friends, pointing out the chain with his blue cap. Some half-dozen other particular friends promptly hauled him out and presented him breathless to Monsieur the Marquis. Did the man run away, dolt, when we stopped for the drag? Monsignor, he precipitated himself over the hillside, head-first as a person plunges into the river. See to it, Gabel. Go on. The half-dozen who were peering at the chain were still among the wheels, like sheep. The wheels turned so suddenly that they were lucky to save their skins and bones. They had very little else to save, or they might not have been so fortunate. The burst with which the carriage started out of the village and up the rise beyond was soon checked by the steepness of the hill. Gradually it subsided to a foot pace, swinging and lumbering upward among the many sweet scents of a summer night. The postillions, with a thousand gossamer gnats circling about them in lieu of the furies, quietly mended the points to the lashes of their whips. The valet walked by the horses. The courier was audible, trotting on ahead into the dull distance. At the steepest point of the hill, there was a little burial ground with a cross and a new large figure of our savior on it. It was a poor figure in wood done by some inexperienced rustic carver, but he had studied the figure from the life, his own life, maybe, for it was dreadfully spare and thin. To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had long been growing worse and was not at its worst, a woman was kneeling. She turned her head as the carriage came up to her, rose quickly, and presented herself at the carriage door. It is you, Monsignor, Monsignor, a petition. With an exclamation of impatience, but with his unchangeable face, Monsignor looked out. How, then, what is it? Always petitions. Monsignor, for the love of the great God, my husband, the forester. What of your husband, the forester? Always the same with you people. He cannot pay something. He has paid all, Monsignor. He is dead. Well, he is quiet. Can I restore him to you? Alas, no, Monsignor.  Well? Monsignor, there are so many little heaps of poor grass. Again, well? She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner was one of passionate grief. By turn she clasped her veins and knotted hands together with wild energy, and laid one of them on the carriage door, tenderly, caressingly, as if it had been a human breast and could be expected to feel the appealing touch. Monsignor, hear me. Monsignor, hear my petition. My husband died of want. So many die of want.  Again, well? Can I feed them? Monsignor, the good God knows. But I don't ask it. My petition is that a morsel of stone or wood with my husband's name may be placed over him to show where he lies. Otherwise the place will be quickly forgotten. It will never be found when I am dead of the same malady I shall be laid under some other heap of poor grass. Monsignor, they are so many. They increase so fast there is so much want. Monsignor, Monsignor. The valet had put her away from the door. The carriage had broken into a brisk drop. The postilians had quickened the pace. She was left far behind. And Monsignor, again escorted by the furies, was rapidly diminishing the league or two of distance that remained between him and his chateau. The sweet sense of the summer night rose all around him and rose as the rain falls, impartially on the dusty, ragged and toil-worn group at the fountain not far away, to whom the mender of roads with the aid of the blue cap without which he was nothing, still enlarged upon his man like a specter, as long as they could bear it. By degrees, as they could bear no more, they dropped off one by one and lights twinkled in little casements, which lights, as the casements darkened and more stars came out, seemed to have shot up into the sky instead of having been extinguished. The shadow of a large high-roofed house and of many overhanging trees was upon mature the marquee by that time. And the shadow was exchanged for the light of a flambeau as his carriage stopped and the great door of his chateau was opened to him. Monsieur Charles, whom I expect, is he arrived from England? Monsignor, not yet. End of chapter. Book two, chapter nine of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Richard Reiman, audiblyspeaking.com. The Gorgons head. It was a heavy mass of building, that chateau of Monsieur and the marquee, with a large stone courtyard before it and two stone sweeps of staircase meeting in a stone terrace before the principal door. A stony business altogether with heavy stone balustrades and stone urns and stone flowers and stone faces of men and stone heads of lions in all directions, as if the Gorgons head had surveyed it when it was finished two centuries ago. Up the broad flight of shallow steps, Monsieur the marquee, flambeau, proceeded, went from his carriage, sufficiently disturbing the darkness to illicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the roof of the great pile of stable building away among the trees. All else was so quiet that the flambeau carried up the steps and the other flambeau held at the great door, burnt as if they were in a close room of state instead of being in the open night air. Other sound than the owl's voice there was none, saved the falling of a fountain into its stone basin, for it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together and then he'd have a long, low sigh and hold their breath again. The great door clanged behind him and Monsieur the marquee crossed a hall, grim with certain old boar spears, swords and knives of the chase, grimmer with certain heavy riding rods and riding whips, of which many a peasant gone to his benefactor, death, had felt the weight when his lord was angry. Avoiding the larger rooms, which were dark and made fast for the night, Monsieur the marquee, with his flambeau bearer going on before, went up the staircase to a door in a corridor. This throne open admitted him to his own private apartment of three rooms, his bed chamber and two others. High vaulted rooms with cool, uncarpeted floors, great dogs upon the hearths where the burning of wood in winter time and all luxuries befitting the state of a marquee in a luxurious age and country. The fashion of the last Louis, but one, of the line that was never to break, the four-teeth Louis, was conspicuous in their rich furniture, but it was diversified by many objects that were illustrations of old pages in the history of France. A supper table was laid for two in the third of the rooms, a round room in one of the Chateau's four extinguisher top towers, a small lofty room with its window wide open and the wooden jealousy blinds closed so that the dark night only showed in slight horizontal lines of black, alternating with their broad lines of stone color. My nephew, said the marquee, glancing at the supper preparation. They said he was not arrived, nor was he, but he had been expected with Monsignor. Ah, it is not probable he will arrive tonight. Nevertheless, leave the table as it is. I shall be ready in a quarter of an hour. In a quarter of an hour, Monsignor was ready and sat down alone to his sumptuous and joyous supper. His chair was opposite to the window and he had taken his soup and was raising his glass of Bordeaux to his lips when he put it down. What is that, he calmly asked, looking with attention at the horizontal lines of black and stone color. Monsignor, that? Outside the blinds. Open the blinds. It was done. Well, Monsignor, it is nothing. The trees and the night are all that are here. The servant who spoke had thrown the blinds wide, had looked out into the vacant darkness and stood with that blank behind him, looking around for instructions. Good, said the imperturbable master. Close them again. That was done too and the marquee went on with his supper. He was halfway through it when he again stopped with his glass in his hand, hearing the sound of wheels. It came on briskly and came up to the front of the chateau. Ask who was arrived? It was the nephew of Monsignor. He had been some few leagues behind Monsignor early in the afternoon. He had diminished the distance rapidly but not so rapidly as to come up with Monsignor on the road. He had heard of Monsignor at the posting houses as being before him. He was to be told, said Monsignor, that supper awaited him then and there and that he was prayed to come to it. In a little while he came. He had been known in England as Charles Darnay. Monsignor received him in a courtly manner but they did not shake hands. You left Paris yesterday, sir? He said to Monsignor as he took his seat at table. Yesterday and you? I came direct from London? Yes. You have been a long time coming, said the marquee with a smile. On the contrary, I come direct. Pardon me, I mean not a long time on the journey, a long time intending the journey. I have been detained by, the nephew stopped a moment in his answer, the various business. Without doubt, said the polished uncle. So long as the servant was present, no other words passed between them. When coffee had been served and they were alone together, the nephew looking at the uncle and meeting the eyes of the face that was like a fine mask opened a conversation. I have come back, sir, as you anticipate, pursuing the object that took me away. It carried me into great and unexpected peril, but it is a sacred object, and if it had carried me to death, I hope it would have sustained me. Not to death, said the uncle. It is not necessary to say, to death. I doubt, sir, return the nephew, whether if it had carried me to the utmost brink of death, you would have cared to stop me there. The deep and marks in the nose and the lengthening of the fine straight lines in the cruel face looked ominous as to that. The uncle made a graceful gesture of protest, which was so clearly a slight form of good reading that it was not reassuring. Indeed, sir, pursued the nephew, for anything I know you may have expressly worked to give a more suspicious appearance to the suspicious circumstances that surrounded me. No, no, no, said the uncle pleasantly. But however that may be, resumed the nephew glancing at him with deep distrust. I know that your diplomacy would stop me by any means and would know no scruple as to means. My friend, I told you so, said the uncle, with a fine pulsation in the two marks. Do me the favor to recall that I told you so long ago. I recall it. Thank you, said the marquee, very sweetly indeed. His tone lingered in the air, almost like the tone of a musical instrument. In effect, sir, pursued the nephew, I believe it to be at once your bad fortune and my good fortune that has kept me out of a prison in France here. I do not quite understand, returned the uncle sipping his coffee. Dare I ask you to explain? I believe that if you were not in disgrace with the court and had not been overshadowed by that cloud for years past, a letter to cachet would have sent me to some fortress indefinitely. It is possible, said the uncle with great calmness, for the honor of the family, I could even resolve to incommode you to that extent. Pray, excuse me. I perceive that happily for me, the reception of the day before yesterday was as usual, a cold one, observed the nephew. I would not say happily, my friend, return the uncle with refined politeness. I would not be sure of that. A good opportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude, might influence your destiny to far greater advantage than you influence it for yourself. But it is useless to discuss the question, I am, as you say, at a disadvantage. These little instruments of correction, these gentle aids to the power and honor of families, these slight favors that might so incommode you are only to be obtained now by interest and importunity. They are sought by so many and they are granted comparatively to so few. It used not to be so, but France and all such things has changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held the right of life and death over the surrounding vulgar. From this room, many such dogs have been taken out to be hanged. In the next room, my bedroom, one fellow, to our knowledge, was pioneered on the spot for professing some insolent delicacy respecting his daughter, his daughter. We have lost many privileges. A new philosophy has become the mode and the assertion of our station in these days might, I do not go so far as to say would, but might cause us real inconvenience. All very bad, very bad. The marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff and shook his head, as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be of a country still containing himself, that great means of regeneration. We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and in the modern time also, said the nephew, gloomily, that I believe our name to be more detested than any name in France. Let us hope so, said the uncle. Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low. There is not pursued the nephew in his former tone, a face I can look at in all the country around about us, which looks at me with any deference on it, but the dark deference of fear and slavery. A compliment, said the marquis, to the grandeur of the family, merited by the manner in which the family has sustained its grandeur. Ha! And he took another gentle little pinch of snuff and lightly crossed his legs. But when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, covered his eyes thoughtfully and dejectedly with his hand, the fine mass looked at him sideways with a stronger concentration of keenness, closeness and dislike than was comfortable with its wearer's assumption of indifference. Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend, observed the marquis, will keep the dog so obedient to the whip as long as this roof, looking up to it, shuts out the sky. That might not be so long as the marquis supposed. If a picture of the chateau as it was to be a very few years hence and a 50 like it as they too were to be a very few years hence could have been shown to him that night, he might have been at a loss to claim his own from the ghastly fire jarred plunder at Reign's. As for the roof he vaunted, he might have found that shutting out the sky in a new way to whip forever from the eyes of the bodies into which its lead was fired out of the barrels of a hundred thousand muskets. Meanwhile, said the marquis, I will preserve the honor and repose of the family if you will not. But you must be fatigued. Shall we terminate our conference for the night? One moment more. An hour if you please. Sir, said the nephew, we have done wrong and are reaping the fruits of wrong. We have done wrong, repeated the marquis with an inquiring smile and delicately pointing first to his nephew then to himself. Our family, our honorable family whose honor is of so much account to both of us in such different ways. Even in my father's time we did a world of wrong injuring every human creature who came between us and our pleasure, whatever it was. Why need I speak of my father's time when it is equally yours? Can I separate my father's twin brother, joint inheritor and next successor from himself? Death has done that, said the marquis. And has left me, answered the nephew, bound to a system that is frightful to me, responsible for it, but powerless in it seeking to execute the last request of my dear mother's lips and obey the last look of my dear mother's eyes which implored me to have mercy and to redress and tortured by seeking assistance and power in vain. Seeking them from me, my nephew, said the marquis, touching him on the breast with his forefinger, they were now standing by the hearth. You will forever seek them in vain, be assured. Every fine straight line in the clear whiteness of his face was cruelly, craftily and closely compressed while he stood looking quietly at his nephew with his snuff box in his hand. Once again he touched him on the breast as though his finger were the fine point of a small sword with which in delicate finesse he ran him through the body and said, my friend, I will die perpetuating the system under which I have lived. When he had said it, he took a culminating pinch of snuff and put his box in his pocket. Better to be a rational creature, he added then after ringing a small bell on the table and accept your natural destiny, but you are lost, Mr. Charles, I see. This property and France are lost to me, said the nephew sadly. I renounce them. Are they both yours to renounce? France may be, but is the property, it is scarcely worth mentioning, but is it yet? I had no intention in the words I used to claim it yet. If it passed to me from you tomorrow, which I have the vanity to hope is not probable or 20 years hence, you do me too much honor, said the Marquis. Still, I prefer that supposition. I would abandon it and live otherwise and elsewhere. It is little to relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery and ruin? Ha, said the Marquis, glancing around the luxurious room. To the eye it is fair enough here, but seen in its integrity under the sky and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression, hunger, nakedness and suffering. Ha, said the Marquis again in a well-satisfied manner. If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands better qualified to free it slowly if such a thing as possible from the weight that drags it down so that the miserable people who cannot leave it and who have been long rung to the last point of endurance may in another generation suffer less, but it is not for me. There is a curse on it and on all this land. And you, said the uncle, forgive my curiosity. Do you under your new philosophy graciously intend to live? I must do to live what others of my countrymen, even with nobility at their backs, may have to do someday work. In England, for example, yes, the family honor, sir, is safe from me in this country. The family name can suffer from me in no other, for I bear it in no other. The ringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bedchamber to be lighted. It now shone brightly through the door of communication. The Marquis looked that way and listened for the retreating step of his valet. England is very attractive to you, seeing how indifferently you have prospered there, he observed then, turning his calm face to his nephew with a smile. I have already said that for my prospering there, I am sensible, I may be indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it is my refuge. They say, those boastful English, that it is the refuge of many. You know a compatriot who has found a refuge there? A doctor? Yes. With a daughter? Yes. Yes, said the Marquis. You are fatigued. Good night. As he bent his head in his most courtly manner, there was a secrecy in his smiling face, and he conveyed an air of mystery to those words, which struck the eyes and ears of his nephew forcibly. At the same time, the thin, straight lines of the setting of the eyes and the thin, straight lips and the markings in the nose, curved with a sarcasm that looked handsomely diabolic. Yes, repeated the Marquis. A doctor with a daughter? Yes. So commences the new philosophy. You are fatigued. Good night. It would have been of as much avail to interrogate any stone face outside the chateau as to interrogate that face of his. The nephew looked at him in vain, in passing on to the door. Good night, said the uncle. I look to the pleasure of seeing you again in the morning. Good repose.  He added to himself before he rang his little bell again, and summoned his valet to his own bedroom. The valet had come and gone, who sure the Marquis walked to and fro in his loose chamber robe to prepare himself gently for sleep that hot, still night. Rustling about the room, his softly-slippered feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger, looked like some enchanted Marquis of the impenetently wicked sort. His story, whose periodical change into tiger form was either just going off or just coming on. He moved from end to end of his voluptuous bedroom, looking again at the scraps of the day's journey that came unbidden into his mind. The slow toil up the hill at sunset, the setting sun, the descent, the mill, the prison on the crag, the little village in the hollow, the peasants at the fountain, and the mender of roads with his blue cap pointing out the chain under the carriage. That fountain suggested the Paris fountain, the little bundle lying on the step, the women bending over it, and the tall man with his arms up, crying, dead, I am cool now, said mature the Marquis, and may go to bed. So, leaving only one light burning on the large hearth, he let his thin gauze curtains fall around him and heard the night break its silence with a long sigh as he composed himself to sleep. The stone faces on the outer walls stared blindly at the black night for three heavy hours. For three heavy hours, the horses and the stables rattled at their racks, the dogs barked, and the owl made a noise with very little resemblance in it to the noise conventionally assigned to the owl by men poets. But it is the obstinate custom of such creatures, hardly ever to say what is set down for them. For three heavy hours, the stone faces of the chateau, lion and human stared blindly at the night. Dead darkness lay on all the landscape. Dead darkness added its own hush to the hushing dust on all the roads. The burial place had got to the pass that its little heaps of poor grass were undistinguishable from one another. The figure on the cross might have come down for anything that could be seen of it. In the village, taxers and taxed were fast asleep, dreaming perhaps of banquets, as the starved usually do, and of ease and rest, as the driven slave and the yoked ox may, its lean inhabitants slept soundly and were fed and freed. The fountain in the village flowed unseen and unheard, and the fountain at the chateau dropped unseen and unheard, both melting away like the minutes that were falling from the spring of time through three dark hours. Then the gray water of both began to be ghostly in the light and the eyes of the stone faces of the chateau were opened. Lighter and lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops of the steel trees and poured its radiance over the hill. In the glow, the water of the chateau fountain seemed to turn to blood and the stone faces crimson. The carol of the birds was loud and high and on the weather-beaten sill of the great window of the bed chamber of Monsieur the Marquis, one little bird sang its sweetest song with all its might. At this, the nearest stone face seemed to stare amazed and with open mouth and dropped under jaw looked awe-stricken. Now the sun was full up and movement began in the village. Casement windows opened, crazy doors were unbarred, and people came forth shivery, chilled as yet by the new sweet air. Then began the rarely lightened toil of the day among the village population. Some to the fountain, some to the fields, men and women here to dig and delve, men and women there to see to the poor livestock and lead the bony cows out to such pasture as could be found by the roadside. In the church and at the cross, a kneeling figure or two, attended on the latter prayers, the lead cow trying for a breakfast among the weeds at its foot. The chateau awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke gradually and surely. First the lonely boar spears and knives of the chase had been reddened as of old. Then had gleamed trenchant in the morning sunshine. Now doors and windows were thrown open, horses in their stables looked round over their shoulders at the light and freshness pouring at doorways, leaves sparkled and rustled at iron-gated windows, dogs pulled hard at their chains and reared impatient to be loosed. All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life and the return of mourning. Surely not so the ringing of the great bell of the chateau, nor the running up and down the stairs, nor the hurried figures on the terrace, nor the booting and tramping here and there and everywhere, nor the quick saddling of horses and riding away. What winds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of roads, already at work on the hilltop beyond the village with his day's dinner, not much to carry, lying in a bundle that it was worth no crows while to peck at on a heap of stones. Had the birds carrying some grains of it to a distance dropped one over him as they sow chance seeds, whether or no, the mender of roads ran on the sultry morning as if for his life down the hill, knee-high in dust and never stopped till he got to the fountain. All the people of the village were at the fountain standing about in their depressed manner and whispering low, but showing no other emotions than grim curiosity and surprise. The lead cows hastily brought in and tethered to anything that would hold them, were looking stupidly on or lying down, chewing the cud of nothing particularly repaying their trouble, which they had picked up in their interrupted saunter. Some of the people of the Chateau and some of those of the posting house and all the taxing authorities were armed more or less and were crowded on the other side of the little street in a purposeless way that was highly fraught with nothing. Already the mender of roads had penetrated into the midst of a group of 50 particular friends and was smiting himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all this portend? And what portended the swift hoisting up of Mishor Gabel behind a servant on horseback and the conveying away of the said Gabel, double laden though the horse was at a gallop, like a new version of the German ballad of Leonora? It portended that there was one stone face too many up at the Chateau. The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night and had added the one stone face wanting, the stone face for which it had waited through about 200 years. It lay back on the pillow of Mishor the Marquis. It was like a fine mask, suddenly startled, made angry and petrified. Driven home into the heart of the stone figure attached to it was a knife. Round its hilt was a frill of paper on which was scrawled. Drive him fast to his tomb. This from Jacques, end of chapter. Book two, chapter 10 of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Richard Reimann, audiblyspeaking.com. Two promises. More months to the number of 12 had come and gone and Mr. Charles Darnay was established in England as a higher teacher of the French language who was conversant with French literature. In this age he would have been a professor. In that age he was a tutor. He read with young men who could find any leisure and interest for the study of a living tongue spoken all over the world and he cultivated a taste for its stores of knowledge and fancy. He could write of them besides in sound English and render them into sound English. Such masters were not at that time easily found. Princes that had been and kings that were to be were not yet of the teacher class and no ruined ability had dropped out of Telsen's ledgers to turn cooks and carpenters. As a tutor whose attainments made the students way unusually pleasant and profitable and as an elegant translator who brought something to his work besides mere dictionary knowledge, young Mr. Darnay soon became known and encouraged. He was well appointed moreover with the circumstances of his country and those were of ever growing interest. So with great perseverance and untiring industry he prospered. In London he had expected neither to walk on pavements of gold nor to lie on beds of roses. If he had had any such exalted expectation he would not have prospered. He had expected labor and he found it and he did it and made the best of it. In this his prosperity consisted. A certain portion of his time was passed at Cambridge where he read with undergraduates as a sort of tolerated smuggler who drove a contraband trade in European languages instead of conveying Greek and Latin through the custom house. The rest of his time he passed in London. Now from the days when it was always summer in Eden to these days when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the world of a man has invariably gone one way. Charles Darnay's way, the way of the love of a woman. He had loved Lucy Minette from the hour of his danger. He had never heard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound of her compassionate voice. He had never seen a face so tenderly beautiful as hers when it was confronted with his own on the edge of a grave that had been dug for him. But he had not yet spoken to her on the subject. The assassination at the deserted Chateau far away beyond the heaving water and the long, long dusty roads. The solid stone Chateau which had itself become the mere mist of a dream had been done a year and he had never yet by so much as a single spoken word disclosed to her the state of his heart. That he had his reasons for this, he knew full well. It was again a summer day when lately arrived in London from his college occupation. He turned into the quiet corner in Soho bent on seeking an opportunity of opening his mind to Dr. Minette. It was the close of the summer day and he knew Lucy to be out with Ms. Prost. He found the doctor reading in his armchair at a window. The energy which had at once supported him under his old sufferings and aggravated their sharpness had been gradually restored to him. He was now a very energetic man indeed with great firmness of purpose, strength of resolution and vigor of action. In his recovered energy, he was sometimes a little fitful and sudden as he had at first been in the exercise of his other recovered faculties. But this had never been frequently observable and had grown more and more rare. He studied much, slept little, sustained a great deal of fatigue with ease and was equably cheerful. To him now entered Charles Darnay at sight of whom he laid aside his book and held out his hand. Charles Darnay, I rejoice to see you. We have been counting on your return these three or four days past. Mr. Stryver and Cindy Carton were both here yesterday and both made you out to be more than due. I am obliged to them for their interest in the matter, he answered a little coldly as to them though very warmly as to the doctor. Ms. Minette as well said the doctor as he stopped short and your return will delight us all. She has gone out on some household matters but will soon be home. Dr. Minette I knew she was from home. I took the opportunity of her being from home to beg to speak to you. There was a blank silence. Yes said the doctor with outed constraint. Bring your chair here and speak on. He complied as to the chair but appeared to find the speaking on less easy. I have had the happiness Dr. Minette of being so intimate here. So he at length began for some year and a half that I hope the topic on which I'm about to touch may not he was stayed by the doctors putting out his hand to stop it. When he had kept it so a little while he said drawing it back. Is Lucy the topic? She is. It is hard for me to speak of her at any time. It is very hard for me to hear her spoken of in that tone of yours Charles Darnay. It is a tone of firm admiration, true homage and deep love Dr. Minette he said deferentially. There was another blank silence before her father rejoined. I believe it. I do you justice. I believe it. His constraint was so manifest and it was so manifest too that it originated in an unwillingness to approach the subject that Charles Darnay hesitated. Shall I go on sir? Another blank. Yes, go on. You anticipate what I would say though you cannot know how earnestly I say it. How earnestly I feel it without knowing my secret heart and the hopes and fears and anxieties with which it has long been laden. Dear Dr. Minette, I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her. You have loved yourself. Let your old love speak for me.  At the last words he stretched out his hand again hurriedly and cried, Not that, sir. Let that be. I adjure you to not recall that. His cry was so like a cry of actual pain that it rang in Charles Darnay's ears long after he had ceased. He motioned with the hand he had extended and it seemed to be an appeal to Darnay to pause. The latter so received it and remained silent. I ask your pardon, said the doctor in a subdued tone after some moments. I do not doubt your loving Lucy. You may be satisfied of it. He turned towards him in his chair but did not look at him or raise his eyes.  Have you spoken to Lucy? No, nor written, never. It would be ungenerous to effect not to know that your self-denial is to be referred to your consideration for her father. Her father thanks you. He offered his hand but his eyes did not go with it. I know, said Darnay respectfully, how can I fail to know, Dr. Minette? I will have seen you together from day to day that between you and Miss Minette there is an affection so unusual, so touching, so belonging to the circumstances in which it has been nurtured, that it can have few parallels, even in the tenderness between a father and a child. I know, Dr. Minette, how can I fail to know that mingled with the affection and duty of a daughter who has become a woman, there is in her heart towards you all the love and reliance of infancy itself. I know that as in her childhood she had no parent, so she is now devoted to you with all the constancy and fervor of her present years and character, united to the trustfulness and attachment of the early days in which you were lost to her. I know perfectly well that if you had been restored to her from the world beyond this life, you could hardly be invested in her sight with a more sacred character than that in which you are always with her. I know that when she is clinging to you, the hands of a baby, girl, and woman, all in one around your neck.  I have known this night and day since I have known you in your home. Her father sat silent with his face bent down. His breathing was a little quicken, but he repressed all other signs of agitation. Dear Dr. Manette, always knowing this, always seeing her and you with this hallowed light about you, I have foreborn and foreborn. As long as it was in the nature of man to do it, I have felt and do even now feel that to bring my love, even mine, between you is to touch your history with something not quite so good as itself. But I love her. Heaven is my witness that I love her. I believe it, answered her father mournfully. I have thought so before now. I believe it. But do not believe, said Darnay, upon whose ear the mournful voice struck with a reproachful sound that if my fortune were so cast as that, being one day so happiest to make her my wife, I must at any time put any separation between her and you, I could or would breathe a word of what I now say. Besides that, I should know it to be hopeless. I should know it to be a baseness. If I had any such possibility, even at a remote distance of years, harbored in my thoughts and hidden in my heart, if it ever had been there, if it ever could be there, I could not now touch this honored hand. He laid his own upon it as he spoke.  His touch still lingered on her father's hand, answering the touch for a moment, but not coldly, her father rested his hands upon the arms of his chair and looked up for the first time since the beginning of the conference. A struggle was evidently in his face, a struggle with that occasional look which had a tendency in it to darken out and dread. You speak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay, that I thank you with all my heart and will open all my heart, or nearly so. Have you any reason to believe that Lucy loves you? None, as yet none. Is it the immediate object of this confidence that you may at once ascertain that with my knowledge? Not even so. I might not have the hopefulness to do it for weeks. I might, mistaken or not mistaken, have that hopefulness tomorrow. Do you seek any guidance from me? I ask none, sir, but I have thought it possible that you might have it in your power if you should deem it right to give me some. Do you seek any promise from me? I do seek that. What is it? I well understand that without you I could have no hope. I well understand that even if Miss Minette held me at this moment in her innocent heart, do not think I have the presumption to assume so much. I could retain no place in it against her love for her father. If that be so, do you see what, on the other hand, is involved in it? I understand equally well that a word from her father in any suitor's favor would outweigh herself and all the world, for which reason, Dr. Minette, said Darnay modestly but firmly, I would not ask that word to save my life. I am sure of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of close love as well as out of wide division. In the former case they are subtle and delicate and difficult to penetrate. My daughter Lucy is, in this one respect, such a mystery to me. I can make no guess at the state of her heart. May I ask, sir, if you think she is, as he hesitated her father supplied the rest, is sought by any other suitor? It is what I meant to say. Her father considered a little before he answered. You have seen Mr. Carton here yourself. Mr. Stryver is here too occasionally. If it be at all, it can only be one of these. Or both, said Darnay. I had not thought of both. I should not think either, likely. You want a promise from me. Tell me what it is. It is that if Miss Minette should bring to you at any time, on her own part, such a confidence as I have ventured to lay before you, you will bear testimony to what I have said and to your belief in it. I hope you may be able to think so well of me as to urge no influence against me. I say nothing more of my stakenness. This is what I ask, the condition on which I ask it, and which you have an undoubted right to require. I will observe immediately. I give the promise, said the doctor, without any condition. I believe your obj