Madam Defarge and her husband returned happily to the heart of Saint Antoine, while one man on his own, and wearing a blue hat, walked through the night and through the dust over the many tiring miles toward that point where the castle of Sir the Marquis, now dead and buried, listened to the whispering trees. The stone faces of the castle now had so much time to listen to the trees and to the fountain, that the few thin people from the village who, in looking for weeds to eat or dry sticks to burn, came close enough to see the big open yard and the wide stone steps at the front of the castle, left knowing full well that the stone faces had changed in an important way. The saying in the village -- a weak saying like that of the people who lived there -- was that when the knife went into Sir the Marquis, the faces changed from being proud to being angry and hurt. It went on to say that when that man was hanged from forty feet above the fountain, the look on the statues changed to show cruel happiness at what had happened to him; and they would stay that way forever. In the stone face over the great window of the bedroom where the killing took place, there were found two little concave marks on each side of the nose (like Sir the Marquis had), which nobody could remember it having before. And at those times when two or three of the poor village people left the crowd to go and look at the stone statue of Sir the Marquis, a thin finger would not have pointed to it for a minute before they all ran into the forest in fear, like the lucky rabbits who were able to live there.
Castle and poor little house, stone face and hanging body, red blood on the stone floor and clean water in the village fountain... that whole part of the country -- or, if you like, all of France itself -- was only as big as a hair, from side to side, in the light of the night sky. That is how the whole world is, with all of its best and worst, when measured by the size of just one star. And just as scientists can take a piece of light and break it down into the different colours in it, so some other greater Mind may be able to read in the little light coming from this earth of ours, every thought and act, every good spirit and bad spirit, for every person living on it.
The Defarges, husband and wife, moved slowly, under the light of the stars, in that coach they had paid to ride in, toward the gate of Paris. There was the same old stop at the guard house, where a soldier would hold a lantern up to see them and ask them questions. Mr. Defarge stepped out, knowing one or two of the soldiers there, and one of the police. The policeman he knew very well, and he hugged him warmly.
When Saint Antoine had again folded his dark wings around the Defarges, and they, having left the coach at a stop near the border of Saint Antoine, were picking their way on foot through the black mud and rubbish of his streets, Madam Defarge spoke to her husband:
"Tell me, my friend, what did Jack the policeman tell you?"
"Very little tonight, but all that he knows. There is a new secret policeman working in our part of town who is trying to find information for the government. There may be others, but there is at least one."
"Oh well!" said Madam Defarge, lifting her eyebrows with a cool business air, "We will need to add him to the list. How do you say his name?"
"He is English."
"So much the better. His name?"
"Barsad," said Defarge, making it sound French by the way he said it. And then he gave her the letters for it.
"Barsaid," repeated Madam. "Good. And his Christian name?"
"John."
"John Barsad," repeated Madam, after saying it softly to herself first. "Good. And do you know what he looks like?"
"Age, about forty; about five feet nine; black hair; dark skin for a white man; on the whole good-looking; dark eyes; thin, long face; nose like that of an eagle, but not straight, having a strange bend toward his left cheek; and a look of one with evil plans."
"Oh, my God! It is as good as a picture!" said Madam, laughing. "It will all be in the list tomorrow."
They turned into the wine shop, which was closed, because it was the middle of the night, and Madam Defarge went straight to her place at the desk, counting what little money they had taken in while away, counting the barrels, going through the books and adding some numbers of her own, and in every other way making sure the servant who had been watching the place had done his job well, before he was free to go to bed. Then she poured out the coins in the bowl for a second time and started tying them up in her scarf, in a chain of separate knots, to keep them safe during the night. All this time, Defarge, with his pipe in his mouth, walked up and down, quietly looking on, but never saying anything, which is more or less how he acted toward her in all that they did.
The night was hot and the shop, being closed and being near very dirty houses, had a bad smell to it. Mr. Defarge was in no way an expert at smells, but the smell of the wine was always stronger than the taste, and the same was true of the whiskey and other stronger drinks that he sold. He tried to blow the mixture of smells away as he put down his smoked-out pipe.
"You are tired," said Madam, lifting her eyes as she tied the money. "The smells are no worse than at other times."
"I am a little tired," her husband agreed.
"You are a little sad too," said Madam, whose fast eyes were never so busy with studying the books that they did not have a look or two for him. "Oh, you're worried about the men!"
"But my love...” started Defarge.
"But my love!" repeated Madam, moving her head strongly. "But my love! You are a weak one tonight!"
"Well, then," said Defarge, as if a thought was being squeezed out of him, "it is taking so long."
"It is taking a long time," repeated his wife. "And when has it not taken a long time? Paying someone back always takes a long time; it is the rule."
"It does not take a long time to hit a man with lightning," said Defarge.
"How long," asked Madam quietly, "does it take to make and save up the lightning? Tell me that."
Defarge lifted his head to think, as if he could find the answer.
"It does not take a long time," Madam went on, "for an earthquake to swallow a town; but tell me how long it takes to prepare the earthquake."
"A long time, I would think," said Defarge.
"But when it is ready, it happens, and it breaks into pieces everything that stands in its way. Until then, it is always preparing, even when we cannot see or hear it. That is your hope. Keep it in mind."
She tied some coins into her scarf with a look in her eyes like she was killing someone by squeezing their throat.
"I tell you," said Madam, reaching out with her right hand to show what she was saying, "that even if it is a long time on the road, it is on the road, and it is coming. I tell you that it never stops and it never turns back. I tell you that it is always coming closer. Look around and think about the lives of all the people we know; think about the faces of all these people; think about the anger that all of the Jacks are working to let loose and are becoming clearer by the hour about how to do that. Can such things go the distance? How stupid of you to think that they cannot!"
"My brave wife," Defarge returned, standing in front of her with his head bent forward a little, and his hands joined at his back, like a humble student listening to his teacher. "I am not questioning all of this. But it has lasted a long time, and it is possible... you know well, my wife, that it is possible, that it may not come during our lives."
"So? What then?” said Madam, tying another knot like she was squeezing the throat of another enemy.
"Well," said Defarge with a spirit that was partly sorry and partly arguing, "we will not be there to see it."
"But we will have helped it," returned Madam, making a strong movement with her right arm. "Nothing that we do now will be wasted. I believe with all of my heart that we will see it. But even if we do not, even if I knew for sure that we'd not see it, just show me the neck of a rich evil leader, and still I would..."
Then Madam, with her teeth squeezed tightly together, tied a very awful knot for sure.
"Wait!" cried Defarge, turning a little red as if he believed she was saying that he was afraid. "I too, my love, will stop at nothing."
"Yes, but it is your weakness that at times like this you need to see things happening to keep yourself going. Keep the anger alive with what I have said. When the time comes, you can let loose a tiger and a devil and they will do their work, but for now, keep a chain on them both. Don't show your feelings, but always keep them ready."
Madam pushed home the seriousness of what she was saying by hitting her little counter with the chain of coins as if she was knocking its brains out, and then putting the heavy scarf under her arm in a sweet way, and quietly saying that it must be time to go to bed.
At noon the next day this wonderful woman was in her same place in the wine shop knitting away without stopping. There was a red flower lying beside her on the counter, and if she now and then looked at it, it did not in any way take her away from her real interest. There were a few people, drinking or not drinking, standing or seated, around the shop. The day was very hot, and lots of flies were looking in the sticky glasses around Madam for something to drink, only to fall dead at the bottom of them. Their deaths had no effect on the other flies, out walking around, who looked at them in the coolest way (as if they themselves were elephants or some other very different animal with no interest in the deaths of other flies), until they too had died. It is interesting to think about how little thought flies give to such things! It may be that the King and all who were closest to him were acting in the same way that sunny summer day!
A man coming in the door threw a shadow on Madam Defarge which she felt to be a new one. She put down her knitting and started to put the flower in her head scarf even before looking up at the stranger.
Interestingly, the second Madam Defarge picked up the flower, people stopped talking, and one by one they started to leave the wine shop.
"Good day, Madam," said the visitor.
"Good day, sir."
That much she said out loud; but to herself she added, "Age, about forty; about five feet nine; black hair, dark skin for a white man, on the whole good-looking; dark eyes, thin, long face; nose like that of an eagle, but not straight, having a strange bend toward his left cheek; and the look on his face is one of evil plans. Good day, one and all!"
"Be good enough to give me a small glass of the strongest old wine you have, and a mouthful of cool clean water, Madam."
Madam did very nicely what was asked.
"Very good drink, this, Madam!"
It was the first time someone had said something so nice about the drink, and Madam Defarge knew enough about its past to know that it was not as he said. All the same, she said that the wine would be glad to hear that, and returned to her knitting. For a few seconds the visitor watched her fingers, and then used the break from talk to look around the shop itself.
"You are a very good knitter, Madam."
"I have done a lot of it."
"A beautiful pattern too!"
"You think so?” Madam asked with a smile.
"Very much so. May I ask what it is for?"
"A way to use my time," said Madam, still looking at him with a smile while her fingers went on moving.
"Not to be used?"
"Maybe, and maybe not. I may find a use for it one day. If I do... well,...” said Madam, breathing in and moving her head as part of a serious game she was playing with him, "I'll use it!"
Strangely, the people of Saint Antoine did not seem to like that red flower on Madam Defarge's head. Two men, who had come in separately, and who were about to buy drinks, when seeing the flower acted like they had been hoping to meet a friend who was not there, and they went away. At the same time, all of the people who had been there when the stranger first came in, were now gone.
The man working secretly for the government had seen all of this, but he could not work out why it had happened. And they had all left in a way that did not seem to be planned, like it was only by accident that they all chose this time not to be there.
"JOHN," thought Madam to herself, reading over her work as her fingers knitted, and as her eyes looked at the stranger. "Stay long enough, and I will have knitted BARSAD before you leave."
"Are you married, Madam?” "Yes."
"Children?"
"No children."
"Is business bad?"
"Yes, very bad. The people are too poor."
"Oh the poor sad people! So badly used by the rich, as you say!"
"No, as you say," Madam answered, quickly knitting in an extra something after his name... something that would not help him in the future.
"Forgive me, it was I who said it; but surely you think so too, don't you?"
"I think?” returned Madam in a high voice. "I and my husband have enough to do to keep this wine shop open without thinking. All we think of here is how to live. That is what we think of, and it gives us, from morning to night, enough to think about without confusing our heads with thoughts for others. I should think for others? Oh, no!"
The man, who was there to pick up anything he could use against them, did not let it show on his face that she had won that one. But he stood, with his elbow leaning on Madam Defarge's little counter, like one who is relaxed and talking about nothing important, while taking a small drink from time to time from his glass of strong wine.
"A bad business this killing of Gaspard, Madam. Ah, poor Gaspard!" He said this breathing out sadly like he had a great feeling for the man who had been hanged above the fountain.
"Truly," returned Madam coolly and lightly, "if people use knives in such a way, they must pay for it. He knew before he did it what price he would have to pay; now he has paid the price."
"I believe," said the man, dropping his soft voice to one that would go with sharing a secret, and using every muscle in his face to show that he was angry about the hanging, and that he was one of those who wanted change, "...I believe there is much love for the poor man, and anger at what happened to him, here in this part of the city. Just between you and me!"
"Is there?” answered Madam without any feeling. "Is there not?"
"Oh, here is my husband!" said Madam Defarge.
As the owner of the wine shop walked in the door, the man working secretly for the government touched his hat and said with a smile, "Good day, Jack!" Defarge stopped where he was, and looked closely at him.
"Good day, Jack," the man repeated, but not with so much confidence or so much of a smile this time.
"You have tricked yourself, sir," returned the owner of the shop. "You must have me confused with someone else. That is not my name. My name is Ernest Defarge."
"It's all the same," said the stranger in a foolish but confused way. "Good day!"
"Good day," answered Defarge dryly.
"I was saying to Madam, with whom I was having a nice talk before you came in, that they say there is -- and it does not surprise me -- strong feelings of sadness and anger in Saint Antoine touching the sad death of poor Gaspard."
"No one has told me about it," said Defarge, shaking his head. "I know nothing of it."
Having said that, he moved behind the little counter and stood with his hand on the back of his wife's chair, looking over the counter at the man whom they both did not like, and whom they both would have gladly killed.
The stranger, who knew his business well, did not change his spirit, but emptied his glass of wine, had a little drink of water, and then asked for another glass of wine. Madam Defarge poured it for him, returned to her knitting again, and hummed a little song to herself.
"You seem to know this part of the city well, that is to say, better than I do," Defarge pointed out.
"Not at all. But I do hope to know it better. I am deeply interested in the sad people who live here.
"Ha!" Defarge said to himself.
"Talking to you, Mr. Defarge, has made me remember," went on the visitor, "that I have some very interesting information that is tied up with your name."
"Really?” said Defarge, showing no interest.
"Yes, it's true. I know that when Doctor Manette was let out of prison, you, as his old servant, had the job of caring for him. He was brought here. Do you see how much I know about it?"
"Surely it is what happened," said Defarge. A touch from his wife's elbow as she was knitting was enough to tell him to agree, but to say as little as possible.
"It was to you," said the man, "that his daughter came; and it was from your care that his daughter took him, helped by a man in a neat brown suit. What was his name? He wears a little wig. Lorry! That's it! From the bank of Tellson's and Company, over in England."
"Yes?” said Defarge.
"You don't hear much about them now?” asked the stranger.
"No," said Defarge.
"In effect," Madam Defarge put in, looking up from her work and her little song, "we never hear about them at all. We received news that they had arrived safely, and since then maybe a letter or two. But they have taken their road in life, and we have taken ours. We do not write to each other."
"Perfectly true, Madam," answered the visitor. "She is going to be married."
"Going to? She was beautiful enough to have been married long before now. It seems to me that you English people are very cold."
"Oh, so you know that I am English."
"I can hear it in the way you talk," returned Madam, "and what the tongue says is what the man is."
He could tell that she did not like him any more for being English, but he made the best of it and turned it to the side with a laugh. After finishing his drink, he added:
"Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married; but not to anyone from England. She is going to marry one who, like yourself, was born in France. And speaking of Gaspard (Ah, poor Gaspard! It was so cruel!) -- it is a strange piece of news that she is going to marry the nephew of the man whom Gaspard killed. In other words, she is going to marry the new Marquis. He lives in England, without anyone knowing that he is a Marquis. He goes by the name of Charles Darnay now, and not his true name of Evremonde.
Madam Defarge did not change, as she went on knitting. But the information had an effect on her husband that one could feel. Try as he did, to hide his feelings by using a match to light his pipe, he was worried, and it showed in the shaking of his hands. The stranger would not be doing the job he was sent there for if he did not see this, and remember it later.
Having hit a sore nerve with this one piece of information, and with no one else coming in for him to question, Mr. Barsad paid for his drink and left, taking time to say very nicely that he looked forward to talking with Mr. and Madam Defarge again sometime. For some minutes after he left, the husband and wife stayed as they were, thinking that he could return.
"Can it be true," said Defarge in a low voice and looking down at his wife as he stood smoking, with his hand on the back of her chair: "what he said of Miss Manette?"
"Coming from him," said Madam Defarge, with the confidence she always had, "it is probably false. But it could be true."
"If it is...” Defarge started, and then stopped.
"If it is?” repeated his wife.
"...And if it happens, as we hope, that we live to win our war, I hope, for her, that God will keep her husband out of France."
"God will lead her husband," said Madam Defarge, with the same confidence, "and take him where he needs to go. God will lead him to the end that is right for him. That is all I know."
"But it is very strange -- at least for now, is it not very strange," said Defarge, almost begging his wife to see the truth in what he was saying, "that, after all of our love and care for her father, and for her, that her husband's name should now be written under your hand now, next to the name of that dog who has just left us?"
"Stranger things than that will happen when the time comes," answered Madam. "I have both names here, to be sure, and they are both here for a good reason. That is enough."
She rolled up her knitting when she had said those words, and then she took the flower out of her head scarf. Either Saint Antoine knew by magic that it was gone, or he had been watching secretly to see it go. Either way, the Saint now had confidence to walk in, and very soon after that, the wine shop was back in business.
In the evening, when Saint Antoine would turn its in side out, sitting on the steps, leaning out the windows, or standing on the corners of the dirty streets and yards, to breathe the night air, Madam Defarge, with her work in her hand, would often move from place to place and from council to council. She was a kind of missionary -- and there were many like her -- that the world would be better off never to have. All of the women knitted. They knitted things that were of no worth, but the work they were doing was something to make them forget about eating and drinking. Their hands moved in place of their mouths and stomachs. If they stopped, then the pain in their stomachs was too much.
But, as their fingers moved, their eyes moved too, and their thoughts. And as Madam Defarge moved from group to group, all three moved more quickly and with more anger in every little knot of women that she talked to and left behind.
Her husband smoked at his door, looking after her with love. "A wonderful woman," he said to himself, "a strong woman, a great woman, a woman great enough to scare anyone!"
Darkness closed around Saint Antoine, and with it came the ringing of church bells, and the far off sound of the army drums in the buildings where the King and all of his men lived, as the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness swallowed them up. But another darkness was closing in as surely, and with it, the bells that were now making such a nice sound all over France, would soon be melted into cannons. The sound of the drums would be trying to drown out the shouting of angry voices, on a night as strong as power and wealth, freedom and life. So much was closing in around these knitting women that they too were closing in around something else -- a machine, not yet made, where they would be sitting, knitting, and counting the heads as they dropped.