A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (best young adult book series .TXT) ๐
Description
A doctor is released from the Bastille after being falsely imprisoned for almost eighteen years. A young woman discovers the father sheโs never known is not dead but alive, if not entirely well. A young man is acquitted of being a traitor, due in part to the efforts of a rather selfish lout who is assisting the young manโs attorney. A man has a wine shop in Paris with a wife who knits at the bar. These disparate elements are tied together as only Dickens can, and in the process he tells the story of the French Revolution.
Charles Dickens was fascinated by Thomas Carlyleโs magnum opus The French Revolution; according to Dickensโ letters, he read it โ500 timesโ and carried it with him everywhere while he was working on this novel. When he wrote to Carlyle asking him for books to read on background, Carlyle sent him two cartloads full. Dickens mimicked Carlyleโs style, his chronology, and his overall characterization of the revolution; although A Tale of Two Cities is fiction, the historical events described are largely accurate, sometimes exactly so. Even so, Dickens made his name and reputation on telling stories full of characters one could be invested in, care about, and despise, and this novel has all of those and more. It also, in its first and last lines, has two of the most famous lines in literature. With the possible exception of A Christmas Carol, it is his most popular novel, and according to many, his best.
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- Author: Charles Dickens
Read book online ยซA Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (best young adult book series .TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Charles Dickens
โIs that all? It is not a great deal, that! Many are under the displeasure of the Republic, and must look out at the little window. Jarvis Lorry. Banker. English. Which is he?โ
โI am he. Necessarily, being the last.โ
It is Jarvis Lorry who has replied to all the previous questions. It is Jarvis Lorry who has alighted and stands with his hand on the coach door, replying to a group of officials. They leisurely walk round the carriage and leisurely mount the box, to look at what little luggage it carries on the roof; the country-people hanging about, press nearer to the coach doors and greedily stare in; a little child, carried by its mother, has its short arm held out for it, that it may touch the wife of an aristocrat who has gone to the Guillotine.
โBehold your papers, Jarvis Lorry, countersigned.โ
โOne can depart, citizen?โ
โOne can depart. Forward, my postilions! A good journey!โ
โI salute you, citizens.โ โAnd the first danger passed!โ
These are again the words of Jarvis Lorry, as he clasps his hands, and looks upward. There is terror in the carriage, there is weeping, there is the heavy breathing of the insensible traveller.
โAre we not going too slowly? Can they not be induced to go faster?โ asks Lucie, clinging to the old man.
โIt would seem like flight, my darling. I must not urge them too much; it would rouse suspicion.โ
โLook back, look back, and see if we are pursued!โ
โThe road is clear, my dearest. So far, we are not pursued.โ
Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous buildings, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, open country, avenues of leafless trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us, the soft deep mud is on either side. Sometimes, we strike into the skirting mud, to avoid the stones that clatter us and shake us; sometimes, we stick in ruts and sloughs there. The agony of our impatience is then so great, that in our wild alarm and hurry we are for getting out and runningโ โhidingโ โdoing anything but stopping.
Out of the open country, in again among ruinous buildings, solitary farms, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, cottages in twos and threes, avenues of leafless trees. Have these men deceived us, and taken us back by another road? Is not this the same place twice over? Thank Heaven, no. A village. Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued! Hush! the posting-house.
Leisurely, our four horses are taken out; leisurely, the coach stands in the little street, bereft of horses, and with no likelihood upon it of ever moving again; leisurely, the new horses come into visible existence, one by one; leisurely, the new postilions follow, sucking and plaiting the lashes of their whips; leisurely, the old postilions count their money, make wrong additions, and arrive at dissatisfied results. All the time, our overfraught hearts are beating at a rate that would far outstrip the fastest gallop of the fastest horses ever foaled.
At length the new postilions are in their saddles, and the old are left behind. We are through the village, up the hill, and down the hill, and on the low watery grounds. Suddenly, the postilions exchange speech with animated gesticulation, and the horses are pulled up, almost on their haunches. We are pursued?
โHo! Within the carriage there. Speak then!โ
โWhat is it?โ asks Mr. Lorry, looking out at window.
โHow many did they say?โ
โI do not understand you.โ
โโ โAt the last post. How many to the Guillotine today?โ
โFifty-two.โ
โI said so! A brave number! My fellow-citizen here would have it forty-two; ten more heads are worth having. The Guillotine goes handsomely. I love it. Hi forward. Whoop!โ
The night comes on dark. He moves more; he is beginning to revive, and to speak intelligibly; he thinks they are still together; he asks him, by his name, what he has in his hand. O pity us, kind Heaven, and help us! Look out, look out, and see if we are pursued.
The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far, we are pursued by nothing else.
XIV The Knitting DoneIn that same juncture of time when the Fifty-Two awaited their fate Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council with The Vengeance and Jacques Three of the Revolutionary Jury. Not in the wine-shop did Madame Defarge confer with these ministers, but in the shed of the wood-sawyer, erst a mender of roads. The sawyer himself did not participate in the conference, but abided at a little distance, like an outer satellite who was not to speak until required, or to offer an opinion until invited.
โBut our Defarge,โ said Jacques Three, โis undoubtedly a good Republican? Eh?โ
โThere is no better,โ the voluble Vengeance protested in her shrill notes, โin France.โ
โPeace, little Vengeance,โ said Madame Defarge, laying her hand with a slight frown on her lieutenantโs lips, โhear me speak. My husband, fellow-citizen, is a good Republican and a bold man; he has deserved well of the Republic, and possesses its confidence. But my husband has his weaknesses, and he is so weak as to relent towards this Doctor.โ
โIt is a great pity,โ croaked Jacques Three, dubiously shaking his head, with his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth; โit is not quite like a good citizen; it is a thing to regret.โ
โSee you,โ said madame, โI care nothing for this Doctor, I. He may wear his head or lose it, for any interest I have in him; it is all one to me. But, the Evrรฉmonde people are to be exterminated, and the wife and child must follow the husband and father.โ
โShe has a fine head for it,โ croaked Jacques Three. โI have seen blue eyes and golden hair there, and they looked charming when Samson held them
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