time? Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the
rule.”
“It does not take a long time to strike a man with lightning,”
said Defarge.
“How long,” demanded madame, composedly, “does it take to
make and store the lightning? Tell me.”
Defarge raised his head thoughtfully, as if there were
something in that too.
“It does not take a long time,” said madame. “for an earthquake
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A Tale of Two Cities
to swallow a town. Eh well! Tell me how long it takes to prepare
the earthquake?”
“A long time, I suppose,” said Defarge.
“But when it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces
everything before it. In the meantime, it is always preparing,
though it is not seen or heard. That is your consolation. Keep it.”
She tied a knot with flashing eyes, as if it throttled a foe.
“I tell thee,” said madame, extending her right hand, for
emphasis, “that although it is a long time on the road, it is on the
road and coming. I tell thee it never retreats, and never stops. I tell
thee it is always advancing. Look around and consider the lives of
all the world that we know, consider the rage and discontent to
which the Jacquerie addresses itself with more and more of
certainty every hour. Can such things last? Bah! I mock you.”
“My brave wife,” returned Defarge, standing before her with
his head a little bent, and his hands clasped at his back, like a
docile and attentive pupil before his catechist, “I do not question
all this. But it has lasted a long time, and it is possible—you know
well, my wife, it is possible—that it may not come, during our
lives.”
“Eh well! How then?” demanded madame, tying another knot,
as if there were another enemy strangled.
“Well!” said Defarge, with a half complaining and half
apologetic shrug. “We shall not see the triumph.”
“We shall have helped it,” returned madame, with her extended
hand in strong action. “Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I
believe with all my soul, that we shall see the triumph. But even if
not, even if I knew certainly not, show me the neck of an aristocrat
and tyrant, and still I would—” Then madame, with her teeth set,
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A Tale of Two Cities
tied a very terrible knot indeed.
“Hold!” cried Defarge, reddening a little as if he felt charged
with cowardice; “I too, my dear, will stop at nothing.”
“Yes! But it is your weakness that you sometimes need to see
your victim and your opportunity, to sustain you. Sustain yourself
without that. When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil;
but wait for the time with the tiger and the devil chained—not
shown—yet always ready.”
Madame enforced the conclusion of this piece of advice by
striking her little counter with her chain of money as if she
knocked its brains out, and then gathering the heavy handkerchief
under her arm in a serene manner, and observing that it was time
to go to bed.
Next noontide saw the admirable woman in her usual place in
the wine-shop knitting away assiduously. A rose lay beside her,
and if she now and then glanced at the flower, it was with no
infraction of her usual preoccupied air. There were a few
cust"};
