A Tale of Two Cities (Easy English) by Dave Mckay - HTML preview

15. The Footsteps Die Out Forever

Along the streets of Paris the death carts roll with a hard empty sound. Six of them, carrying the day's wine for Guillotine. All the hungry evil animals that man could think of from the time when he first recorded his thoughts had come together in this one, the guillotine. And yet there in France, with its good weather and good earth, there is no leaf, root, branch, or seed that could be more sure of growing into a full plant than it was that this awful machine would grow there. Squeeze people out of shape again, using hammers like those used there, and the same effects will come of it. Plant the same seeds of greedy freedom and cruel force again, and it will surely bring the same fruit again.

Six carts roll along the streets. If Time could change these carts back to what they would have been before, they could be seen as the coaches of kings with full control over everyone, the furniture of marquis, the clothes of their fat evil wives, the churches that are not my father's house but a hiding place for robbers, the rough little homes of millions of hungry poor people! But the great magician who makes things under God's rules never changes them back to what they were before. "If your shape is changed by the will of God," say the prophets to those who have been changed by other forces, in the wise stories of Arabia, "then you must stay that way! But if you have only been changed by magic tricks, then you can go back to how you were in the past!" Without change and without hope, the carts roll along.

As the serious wheels of the six carts go around, they seem to be like ploughs, cutting a long line through the crowds on the streets. Lines of faces are thrown to this side and to that, and the ploughs move by them all. People in the houses have seen so many of these carts that the windows of many of them are empty, and in others, what the people are doing with their hands does not stop while their eyes look out at the faces in the carts. Here and there, someone in a house may have a visitor who has come to see the show.

Then they point their fingers with the spirit of an expert, to this cart and to that, and seem to be saying something about who sat there yesterday, and who was there the day before.

For the riders in the carts, some see this, and everything else on their last ride, with a look that shows no emotion. Others show some interest in the ways of life and people. Some, seated with their heads hanging down are lost for words and hope. Again, there are some who are so much thinking about the people watching them that they look back at them like actors on a stage. A few close their eyes and think, trying to bring their thoughts together. Only one, and he is a sad one who seems to be crazy, is so broken and drunk by what has happened that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole number does anything by look or action to ask for mercy from the people.

There is a guard of a few men riding on horses beside the carts, and faces are often turned up to some of them. They are asked questions, and it always seems to be the same question, for it is always followed by people pushing toward the third cart. The men on horses beside that cart often point out one man in it with their swords. They all want to know which one he is. He stands at the back of the cart with his head bent down to talk with a very young woman who sits on the side of the cart and holds his hand. He has no interest in those looking on, as he is just talking to the girl. Here and there in the long street shouts are lifted against him. If they have any effect on him at all, it is only to bring a quiet smile, as he shakes his hair a little more losely around his face. He cannot easily touch his face because his arms are tied.

On the steps of a church, waiting for the carts to arrive, stands the prison sheep... the spy. He looks into the first of them: not there. He looks into the second: not there. He is already asking himself, "Has he turned me in?” when his face clears as he looks into the third.

"Which one is Evremonde?” asks a man behind him. "That one. At the back there."

"With his hand in the girl's?"

"Yes."

The man cries, "Down with Evremonde! To the guillotine, all of the rich class! Down with Evremonde!"

"Quiet. Quiet!" the spy begs him shyly.

"And why not, countryman?"

"He is going to pay the price. It will be over in five minutes. Let him be at peace."

Because the man is still saying, "Down with Evremonde!" the face of Evremonde turns for a second toward him. Evremonde then sees the spy and looks with interest at him before moving on by.

The clocks are saying that it is three o'clock, and the line that has been ploughed through the crowd is turning around now to come up into the place of death, and the end. The lines of people thrown to this side and that now break up and come together behind the last cart as it moves on. They are all following it now to the guillotine. In front of the guillotine, sitting in chairs, like they were at a garden party, are a number of women busily knitting. On one of the front chairs, The Punisher is standing and looking around for her friend.

"Therese!" she cries in her high voice. "Has anyone seen her? Therese Defarge!"

"She has never missed it before," says a knitting sister.

"No, and she will not miss it now," cries The Punisher angrily. "Therese."

"Louder," the woman says.

Yes! Louder, Punisher, much louder, and still she will not be able to hear you. Louder still, Punisher, with a little curse or two added, and still it will not bring her. Send other women up and down to look for her hanging back somewhere, and yet, even these women who have worked hard for the movement, will probably not choose to go far enough to find her!

"Bad luck!" cries The Punisher, hitting her foot on the chair, "and here are the carts! Evremonde will be dead in a minute, and she is not here! I have her knitting here in my hands, and her empty chair is waiting for her. I am so sad and angry that I think I will cry."

As The Punisher comes down from the chair to do it, the carts start to empty out what they are carrying. The servants of Saint Guillotine have their robes on and are ready. Crash! A head is held up and the knitting women who did not lift an eye to look at it when it could speak, count One.

The second cart empties and moves on, and the third comes up. Crash! And the knitting women, never stopping their work, count Two.

The one they think is Evremonde steps down, and the dressmaker is lifted out next after him. He has not let loose of her patient hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. He kindly turns her so her back is to the crashing instrument that keeps being pulled up and then falling. She looks into his face and thanks him.

"If it were not for you, good stranger, I would not be so relaxed, because most of the time I am weak and filled with fear. Without you, I would not have been able to lift my thoughts to the One who died so that we could have hope here today. I think God sent you to me."

"Or God sent you to me," says Sydney Carton. "Keep your eyes on me, child, and do not think of anything else."

"I am thinking of nothing while I hold your hand, and I will think of nothing when I let it go if they are fast."

"They will be fast. Do not be afraid!"

The two stand in the crowd that is quickly growing thin, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the same spiritual Mother, so very different in other ways, have come together on the highway of death, so that they can go home together, where they will rest in her love.

"Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last question? I don't understand, and it troubles me... just a little."

"Tell me what it is."

"I have a cousin, my only living relative. Like myself, her parents are dead too. She is five years younger than me, and she lives in a farmer's house in the south country. Because we were poor, we were separated. She knows nothing of what has happened to me here -- for I cannot write -- and if I could, how would I tell her? Is it better for her not to know?"

"Yes, yes. It's better as it is."

"What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face, which gives me so much strength, is this: If the new government really does good to the poor, and if they are less hungry, and in all other ways their life is better, she may live for a long time. She may even live to be old."

"So what do you want to know, little sister?"

"Do you think," and those trusting eyes which have been through so much, fill with tears and the lips open a little more and start to shake, "that it will seem like a long wait for me to see her, when we are in the better land where I trust both you and I will go by God's mercy?"

"It cannot be a long time, my child, because there is no Time in that place, and no trouble either."

"That is very encouraging! There is so much that I do not know. Am I to kiss you now? Is it my time?”

"Yes."

She kisses his lips. He kisses her lips. They seriously bless each other. Her hand does not shake when it leaves his. Nothing worse than a sweet, confident strength shows in her patient face. She is the next before him. She is gone. The knitting women count Twenty-Two.

"I am Life and the Giver of Life, said the Lord. He that believes in me, even if he dies, he will still live again; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

The sound of many voices, the turning of many heads, the forward movement of many at the borders of the crowd so that the whole crowd like one big wave moves toward him, all disappear. Twenty-three.

They said of him around the city that night that it was the most relaxed face of any man they had ever seen there. Many added that he looked like a prophet or a king.

One of the other people they talked about from the same group was a woman who had, not long before he stepped up, asked to be able to write down what she was thinking before she died. If he had done the same thing, and if he was a prophet, this is what he would have said:

"I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Punisher, the man from the jury, the judge, long lines of new leaders who have taken the place of the old ones, all dying from this instrument of punishment before it is finished. I see a beautiful city and a great people coming up from this hell, and in their fight to be really free, in their winnings and in their losings, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and the evil of the time that gave birth to it, slowly paying its price and wearing out.

"I see the lives for which I gave my life, living in peace, doing good, being rich and happy in that England which I will never see again. I see Her with another child on her breast, and he has my name. I see her father, old and bent, but apart from that, in his right mind, helping many others through his work, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years' time making them all rich with all that he owned, as he goes quietly to his reward.

"I see that there is a place for me in their hearts, and in the hearts of their children and their children's children for a long time to come. I see her, an old woman, crying for me on the day that marks this day. I see her and her husband, at the end of their lives, lying side by side in their last bed on earth, and I know that each did not think of the other more highly and as more holy than they both thought of me.

"I see that child who was lying on her breast, the one with my name, moving up in the world in the same job that I once had. I see him doing so well that my name is made beautiful by the light that comes from him. I see the dirt I put on that name disappearing. I see the one who is the Judge of all judges and the most loved man who ever lived, bringing a boy who has my name, and his mother's forehead and golden hair, to this place -- at a time when this will be a beautiful place again, with no sign of the ugly things that are happening here now -- and I hear him tell the child my story, with a soft and breaking voice.

"It is a far far better thing I do than I have ever done. It is a far far better rest I go to than I have ever known.”

THE END