consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage
dashed though the streets and swept round corners, with women
screaming before it, and men clutching each other and clutching
children out of its way. At last, swooping 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 wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened
valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the
horses’ bridles.
“What has gone wrong?” said Monsieur, calmly looking out.
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A Tale of Two Cities
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.
“Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!” said a ragged and submissive
man, “it is a child.”
“Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?”
“Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis—it is a pity—yes.”
The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where
it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall
man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the
carriage, Monsieur the Marquis 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 Monsieur the Marquis.
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.
Monsieur the Marquis 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 or the other of you
is for ever 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
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A Tale of Two Cities
heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down 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 Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than
to live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived
an hour as happily?”
“You are a philosopher, you there,” said the Marquis, smiling.
“How do they call you?”
“They call me Defarge.”
“Of what trade?”
“Monsieur 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 deigning to look at the assemblage a second time,
Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being
driven away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally
broken some common thing, and had paid for it, and could afford
to pay for it; when his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying
into his carriage, and ringing on"};
