第36章(2 / 3)

d his head again.

No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible at

any of the many windows; not even a chance passer-by was in the

street. An unnatural silence and desertion reigned there. Only one

soul was to be seen, and that was Madame Defargewho leaned

against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing.

The prisoner had got into a coach, and his daughter had

followed him, when Mr. Lorry’s feet were arrested on the step by

his asking, miserably, for his shoemaking tools and the unfinished

shoes. Madame Defarge immediately called to her husband that

she would get them, and went, knitting, out of the lamplight,

through the courtyard. She quickly brought them down and

handed them in;and immediately afterwards leaned against the

door-post, knitting, and saw nothing.

Defarge got upon the box, and gave the word “To the Barrier!”

The postilion cracked his whip, and they clattered away under the

feeble over-swinging lamps.

Under the over-swinging lampsswinging ever brighter in the

better streets, and ever dimmer in the worseand by lighted

shops, gay crowds, illuminated coffee-houses, and theatre-doors,

to one of the city gates. Soldiers with lanterns, at the guardhouse

there. “Your papers, travellers!” “See here then, Monsieur the

Officer,” said Defarge, getting down, and taking him gravely apart,

“these are the pa