A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens - FULL AudioBook 🎧📖 | Greatest🌟AudioBooks (B1 of 3) V2

book the first chapter 1 of A Tale of Two Cities this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by paul adams a Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens book 1 chapter 1 the period it was the best of times it was the worst of times it was the age of wisdom it was the age of foolishness it was the epoch of belief it was the epoch of incredulity it was the season of the light it was a season of darkness it was the spring of hope it was the winter of despair we had everything before us we had nothing before us we've all going direct to heaven we were all going direct the other way in short the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received for good or for evil in the superlative degree of comparison only there was a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face on the throne of England there was a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face on the throne of France in both countries it was clearer than crystal to the laws of the state preserves of loaves and fishes that things in general were settled forever it was the year of our Lord 1775 spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favored period as at this misses South got had recently obtained a five and twentieth blessed birthday of whom a prophetic private in the lifeguards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster even the Lane ghost had been laid only around a dozen of years after wrapping out it's messages of the spirits of this very last year passed supernaturally deficient in originality wrapped out there's mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English crown and people from a congress of British subjects in America which strange to relate have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Lane brood France less favoured on the hall as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and Trident rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill making paper money and spending it under the guidance of a Christian pastors she entertained herself besides with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off his tongue torn out with pincers and his body burned alive because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honor to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view at a distance of some 50 or 60 yards it is likely enough that rooted in the woods of France and Norway they were growing trees when that suffre was put to death already marked by the Woodman fate to come down and be sawn into boards to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it terrible in history it is likely enough in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris there were sheltered from the weather that very day rude carts bespattered with rustic mire snuffed about by pigs and roasted in by poultry which the farmer death have already set apart to be his tumbles of the revolution but that Woodman and that farmer though they work unceasingly work silently and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread the rather for as much as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake was to be atheist achill and traitorous in England there was scarce an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting daring burglars by armed men and highway robberies took place in the capital itself every night families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers warehouses for security the highwayman in the dark was a city tradesman in the light and being recognized and challenged by his fellow tradesmen who be stopped in his character of the captain gallantly shot him through the head and rode away the male was waylaid by seven robbers and the guard shot three dead and then got shot dead himself by the other four in consequence of the failure of his ammunition after which the male was robbed in peace that magnificent potentate the Lord Mayor of London was made to stand and deliver on turn and green by one highwayman who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue prisoners in London jails fought battles with their turnkeys and the majesty of the law five blunderbusses in among them loaded with rounds of shot and ball thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble Lords at court and drawing-rooms Musketeers went into sand giles is to search for contraband goods and the mob fired on the musketeers and the musketeers fired on the mob and nobody thought any of these occurrence is much out of the common way in the midst of them the hangman ever busy and ever worse than useless was in constant requisition now stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals now hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday now burning people in the hand at Newgate by the Dozen and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall today taking the life of an atrocious murderer and tomorrow of a wretched pilfer who had robbed a pharmacy of sixpence all these things and a thousand like them came to pass in and close upon the dear old year 1007 175 environment by them why the Woodman and the farmer worked unheeded those two of the large jaws and those other two of the plain and the fair faces trot with stir enough and carried their divine rights with a high hand thus did the year 1775 conduct their greatnesses and myriads of small creatures the creatures of this Chronicle among the rest along the roads that lay before them end of book 1 chapter 1 recording by Paul Adams www.ge.com book 1 chapter 2 of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Paul Adams chapter 2 the mail it was the Dover Road that lay on a Friday night late in November before the first of the persons with whom this history has business the Dover Road lay as to him beyond the Dover mail as it lumbered up Shooters Hill he walked up hill in the mire by the side of the mail as the rest of the passengers did not because they had the least relish for walking exercise under the circumstances but because the hill and the harness and the mud and the mail were all so heavy that the horses had three times already come to a stop besides once drawing the coach across the road with the mutinous intent of taking it back to Blackheath reins and whip and coachman and guard however in combination had read that article of war which for bad a purpose otherwise strongly in favor of the argument that some brute animals are endued with reason and the team had capitulated and returned to their duty with drooping heads and tremulous tails they mashed their way through the thick mud floundering and stumbling between whiles as if they were falling to pieces at the large joints as often as the driver rested them and brought them to a stand with a weary wall sajo then the nearly that violently shook his head and everything upon it like an unusually emphatic hoarse denying that the coach could be got up the hill whenever the leader made this rattle the passengers started as a nervous passing from might and was disturbed in mind there was a steaming mist in all the hollows and it had roamed in its forlorn as' up the hill like an evil spirit seeking rest and finding none a clammy and intensely cold mist it made it slow way through the air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread one another if the waves of an unwholesome sea might do it was dense enough to shut out everything from the light of the coach lamps but these its own workings and a few yards of road and the reek of the lair bring horses steamed into it as if they had made it all to other passengers besides the one were plotting up the hill by the side of the male all three were wrapped to the cheekbones and over the ears and wore jackboots not one of the three could have said from anything he saw what either of the other two was like and each was hidden under almost as many rappers from the eyes of the mind as from the eyes of the body of his two companions in those days travelers were very shy of being confidential on a short notice for anybody on the road might be a robber or in league with robbers as to the latter when every posting housed an alehouse could produce somebody in the captain's pay ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable nondescript it was the likeliest thing upon the cards so the guard of the Dover mail thought to himself that Friday night in November 1775 lumbering up Shooters Hill as he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail beating his feet and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm chest before him where a loaded blunder lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse pistols deposited on a substrate 'm of cutlass the Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guards suspected the passengers the passengers suspected one another and the guard they all suspected everybody else and the coachman was sure of nothing but the horses as to which cattle he could with a clear conscience have taken his oath on the two Testaments that they were not fit for the journey wha-ho said the coachman so then one more pull on you at the top and be damned to you for I have had trouble enough to get you to it Joe hello the guard replied what o'clock do you make it Joe ten minutes good past eleven my bloodied Jack you lated the vexed coachman and not a top of shooters yet yeah get on with you the emphatic horse cut short by the whip in a most decided negative May the decided scramble for it and the three other horses followed suit once more the Dover mail struggled on with the jack boots of its passengers squashing along by its side they had stopped when the coat stopped and they kept close company with it if any one of the three had had the hardihood to propose to another to walk one a little ahead into the mist and darkness he would have put himself in a fair way of getting shot instantly as a highwayman the last burst carried the mail to the summit of the hill the horses stopped to breathe again and the guard got down to skid the wheel for the descent and open the Coach door to let the passengers in just Joe cried the coachman in a warning voice looking down from his box what do you say Tom they both listened I say a horse at a canter coming up Joe I say a horse at a Calot Tom returned the guard leaving his hold at the door and mounting nimbly to his place gentlemen in the King's name all of you with this hurried adjuration he cocked his blunderbuss and stood on the offensive the passenger booked by his history was on the coach step getting in the two other passengers were close behind him and about to follow he remained on the step half in the coach and half out off they remained in the road below him they all looked from the coachman to the guard and from the guard to the coachman and listened the coachman looked back and the guard looked back and even the emphatic leader pricked up his ears and looked back without contradicting the stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling and labouring of the coach added to the stillness of the night made it very quiet indeed the panting of the horses communicated the tremulous motion to the coach as if it were in a state of agitation the hearts of the passengers beat loud enough perhaps to be heard but at any rate the quiet pause was audibly expressive of people out of breath and holding the breath and having the pulses quickened by expectation the sound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously up the hill Soho the guards sang out as loud as he could Roy yo there stand I shall fire the pace was suddenly checked and with much splashing and floundering a man's voice called from the mist is that the Dover mail never you mind what it is the guard retorted what are you it's that the Dover mail why do you want to know I want a passenger if it is what passenger mr. Jarvis lorry our booked passenger showed in a moment that it was his name the guard the coachman and the two other passengers ID him distrustfully keep where you are the guard called the voice in the mist because if I should make a mistake it could never be set right in your lifetime gentlemen of the name of lorry answers straight what is the matter asked the passenger then with mildly quivering speech who wants me is it Jerry I don't like Jerry's voice if it is Jerry growled the guard to himself he's horse of them suits me as Jerry yes mr. lorry what is the matter a dispatch sent after you from over yonder t & Co I know this messenger guard said Mr lorry getting down into the road assisted from behind more swiftly than politely by the other two passengers who immediately scrambled into the coach shut the door and pulled up the window he may come close there's nothing wrong I hope they're eight but I can't make so nation tour that said the guard in gruff soliloquy hello you well and how are you said Jerry more hoarsely than before come on afoot paced you mind me and if you got holsters to that Sadler yo and don't let me see your hand go nyam for I'm a devil as a quick mistake and when I make one it takes the form of lead so now let's look at you the figures of a horse and rider came slowly through the eddying mist and came to the side of the male whether passenger stood the rider stooped and casting up his eyes at the guard handed the passenger a small folded paper the rider's horse was blown and both horse and rider were covered with mud from the hoof of the horse to the Hat of the man God said the passenger in a tone of quiet business confidence the watchful guard with his right hand at the stock of his raised blunderbuss his left at the barrel and his eye on the horsemen answered curtly sir there is nothing to apprehend I belong to tell son's bank you must note elsens Bank in London I'm going to Paris on business a crown to drink I may read this if so beers you're quick sir he opened it in the light of the coach lamp on that side and read first to himself and then aloud wait at Dover for mam'selle it's not long you see guard Jerry say that my answer was recalled to life Jerry started in his saddle that's a blazing stranger answer to said he it is horses take that message back and they will know that I received this as well as if I wrote make the best of your way good night with those words the passenger opened the coach door and got in not at all assisted by his fellow passengers who had expeditiously secreted their watches and purses in their boots and are now making a general pretence of being asleep with no more definite purpose than to escape the hazard of originating any other kind of action the coach lumbered on again with heavier wreaths of mist closing round it as it began the descent the guard soon replaced his blunderbuss in his arm chest and having looked the rest of its contents and having looked the supplementary pistols that he wore in his belt looked to a smaller chest beneath his seat in which there were a few Smith's tools a couple of torches and a tinderbox for he was furnished with a completeness that if the coach lamps have been blown and stormed out which did occasionally happen he had only to shut himself up inside keep the flint and steel sparks well off the straw and get a light with tolerable safety and ease if he were lucky in five minutes Tom softly over the Coach roof hello Joe did you hear the message I did show what did you make of it Tom nothing at all Joe that's the coincidence - the guard mused for I made the same of it myself Jerry left alone in the mist and darkness dismounted meanwhile not only to ease his spent horse but to wipe the mud from his face and shake the wet out of his hat-brim which might be capable of holding about half a gallon after standing with the bridle over his heavily splashed arm until the wheels of the male were no longer within hearing and the night was quite still again he turned to walk down the hill after that there galloped from temple bar old lady I won't trust your forelegs I get you on the level said this horse messenger glancing at his mare we called to life that's a blazing strange message much of that wouldn't do for you Jerry I say Jerry you'd be in a blazing bad way if recalling to life was to come into fashion Jerry in the book 1 chapter 2 recording by Paul Adams www.narang.com book 1 chapter 3 of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Paul Adam Lee chapter three the night shadows a wonderful fact to reflect upon that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other a solemn consideration when I enter a great city by night that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there is in some of its imaginings a secret to the heart nearest it something of the awfulness even a death itself is referral to this no more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved and vainly hope in time to read it all no more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water wherein as momentary lights glanced into it I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged it was appointed that the book should shut with a spring for ever and for ever when I had read but a page it was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost when the light was playing on its surface and I stood in ignorance on the shore my friend is dead my neighbor is dead my love the darling of my soul is dead it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality on which I shall carry in mind my life's end in any of the burial places of this city through which I pass is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are in their innermost personality to me more than I am to them as to this is natural and not to be alienated inheritance the messenger on horseback had exactly the same possessions as the king the first minister of state all the richest merchant in London so with the three passengers shut up in the narrow compass of one lumbering old male coach they were mistress to one another as complete as if each had been in his own coach and six or his own coach and sixty with the breadth of a country between him and the next the messenger rode back at an easy trot stopping pretty often at ale houses by the way to drink but evincing a tendency to keep his own counsel and to keep his hat cocked over his eyes he had eyes that are sorted very well with that decoration being of a surface black with no depth in the color or form and much too near together as if they were afraid of being found out in something singly if they kept too far apart they had a sinister expression under an old cocked hat like a three-cornered spittoon and over a great muffler for the chin and throat which descended nearly to the wearer's knees when he stocked the drink he moved this muscle with his left hand only while he poured his liquor in with his right as soon as that was done he muffled again no Jerry no said the messenger harping on one theme as he rode it wouldn't do for you Jerry Jerry you honest tradesman it wouldn't suit your line of business recalled bust me if I don't think he'd been a-drinking his message perplexed his mind to that degree that he was fain several times to take off his hat to scratch his head except on the crown which was raggedly bald he had stiff black hair standing jaggedly all over it and growing downhill almost to his broad blunt nose it was so like Smith's work so much more like the top of a strongly spiked war than a head of hair that the best of players at leapfrog might have declined him as the most dangerous man in the world to go over while he trotted back with the mess if he was to deliver to the night watchmen in his box at the door of telson spanked by temple bar who was to deliver it to greater authorities within the shadows of the night took such shapes to him as arose out of the message and took such shapes to the mayor as a rose out of her private topics of uneasiness they seemeth be numerous for she shied every shadow on the road what time the male coach lumbered jolted rattled and bumped upon its tedious way with its three fellow inscrutable since I'd to whom likewise the shadows of the night revealed themselves in the forms there dozing eyes and wandering thoughts suggested tell Simms bank had a run upon it in the mail as the bank passenger with an arm drawn through the leathern strap which did what lay in it to keep him from pounding against the next passenger and driving him into his corner whenever the coach got a special jolt nodded in his place with half-shut eyes the little coach windows and the coach lamp dimly gleaming through them and the bulky bundle of opposite passenger became the bank and did a great stroke of business the rattle of the harness was the of money and more drafts were honoured in five minutes than even tell sense with all its foreign and home connection ever paid in thrice the time then the strong rooms underground at TELUS ins with such of their valuable stores and secrets as were known to the passenger and it was not a little that he knew about them opened before him and he went in among them with the great keys and the feebly burning candle and found the safe and strong and sound and still just as he had last seen them but though the bank was almost always with him and though the coach in a confused way like the presence of pain under an opiate was always with him there was another current of impression that never ceased to run all through the night he was on his way to dig someone out of a grave now which of the multitude of faces that showed themselves before him was the true face for the buried person the shadows of the night did not indicate but they were all the faces of a man of five and forty by years and they differed principally in the passions they expressed and in the ghastliness of their worn and wasted state pride contempt defiance stubbornness submission lamentation succeeded one another so did varieties of sunken cheek cadaverous color emaciated hands and figures but the face was in the main one face and every head was prematurely white a hundred times the dozing passenger inquired of this Specter buried how long the answer was always the same almost eighteen years you had abandoned all hope of being dug out long ago you know that you are recalled to life they tell me so I hope you care to live I can't say so I show her to you will you come and see her the answers to this question were various and contradictory sometimes the broken reply was wait it will kill me if I saw her too soon sometimes it was given in a tender rain of Tears and then it was take me to her sometimes it was staring and bewildered and then it was I don't know her III don't understand after such imaginary discourse the passenger in his fancy would dig and dig dig now with a spade now with a great key now with his hands to dig this wretched creature out got out at last with earth hanging about his face and hair he would suddenly fan away to dust the passenger would then start to himself and lower the window to get the reality of mist and rain on his cheek yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain on the moving patch of light from the lamps and the hedge a roadside retreating by jerks the night shadows outside the coach would fall into the Train of the night shadows within the real banking-house by temple bar the real business of the past day the real strong rooms the real Express sent after him and the real message returned would all be there out of the midst of them the ghostly face would rise and he would have cost it again buried how long almost 18 years I hope you care to live I can't say dig dig dig until an impatient movement from one of the two passengers would have Mohnish him to pull up the window draw his arms securely through the leathern strap and speculate upon the two slumbering forms until his mind lost its hold of them and they again slid away into the bank and the grave buried how long almost 18 years you had abandoned all hope of being dug out long ago the words were still in his hearing as just spoken distinctly in his hearing has ever spoken words had been in his life when the weary passenger started to the consciousness of daylight and found that the shadows of the night were gone he lowered the window and looked out at the Rising Sun there was a ridge of ploughed land with a plough upon it where it had been left last night when the horses were unyoked beyond a quiet coppiced wood in which many leaves of burning red and golden yellow still remained upon the trees though the earth was cold on wet the sky was clear and the Sun rose bright placid and beautiful 18 years said the passenger looking at the Sun gracious creator of day to be buried alive for 18 years end of book 1 chapter 3 recording by Paul Adams www.narang.com book 1 chapter 4 of The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Paul Adams chapter 4 the preparation when the mail got successfully to Dover in the course of the forenoon the head draw at the Royal Gorge Hotel opened the coach door as his custom was he did it with some flourish of ceremony for a male journey from London in winter was an achievement to congratulate an adventurous traveler upon by that time there was only one adventurous traveler left be congratulated for the two others have been set down at their respective roadside destinations the mildewy inside of the coach with its damp and dirty straw its disagreeable smell and its obscurity was rather like a larger dog kennel mr. lorry the passenger shaking himself out of it in Chains of straw a tangle of shaggy wrapper flapping hat and muddy legs was rather like a larger sort of dog there will be a packet to Calais tomorrow draw yes sir if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerable fare the tide will surf pretty nicely at about 2:00 in the afternoon sir bed sir I shall not go to bed till tonight but I want a bedroom and a barber and then breakfast sir yes sir that way sir if you please show Concord gentleman's valise and walter de concorde pull-off gentleman's boots in Concorde you'll find a fine seat cold fire sir Fitz Barbour to Concorde stir about there now for Concorde the Concorde bedchamber being always assigned to the passenger by the mail and passengers by the mail being always heavily wrapped up from head to foot the room had the odd interest for the establishment of the Royal Gorge that although but one kind of man was seen to go into it all kinds and varieties of men came out of it consequently another drawer and two porters and several maids and the landlady were all loitering my accident at various points of the road between the con court in the coffee-room when a gentleman of sixty formally dressed in a brown suit of clothes pretty well warned that very well kept with large square cuts and large flaps to the pockets passed along on his way to his breakfast the coffee room had no other occupant that forenoon than the gentleman in brown his breakfast table was drawn before the fire and as he sat with its light shining on him waiting for the meal he sat so still that he might have been sitting for his portrait very orderly and methodical he looked with a hand on each knee and allowed watch ticking a sonorous sermon under his flapped waistcoat as though it pitted its gravity and longevity against the levity and Evanescence of the brisk fire he had a good leg and was a little vain of it for his brown stockings fitted sleek and close and were of a fine texture his shoes and buckles too though plain were trim he wore an odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig setting very close to his head which wig it is to be presumed was made of hair but which looked far more as though it was spun from filaments of silk or glass his linen though not of a finest in accordance with his stockings were as white as the tops of the waves that broke upon the neighbouring beach or the specs of that glinted in the sunlight far at sea a face habitually suppressed and quieted was still lighted up under the quaint wig by a pair of moist bright eyes that it must have cost their owner in years gone by some pains to drill to the compose and reserved expression at Tel sands Bank he had a healthy color in his cheeks and his face though lined for few traces of anxiety but perhaps the confidential bachelor Clark's intellisense Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people and perhaps secondhand cares like second-hand clothes come easily off and on completing his resemblance to a man who was sitting for his portrait mr. lorry dropped off to sleep the arrival of his breakfast roused him and he said to the drawer as he moved his chair to it I wish accommodation prepared for a young lady who may come here at any time today she may ask for mr. Jarvis lorry or she may only ask for a gentleman from Tellson's Bank please to let me know yes sir Charleston's Bank in London sir yes yes sir we have oftentimes the honour to entertain your gentlemen in there traveling backwards and forwards between London and Paris sir a vast deal of travelling sir in telson & Company's house yes we're quite a French house as well as an English one yes sir not much in the habit of such travelling yourself I think sir not at late years it is fifteen years since we've since I came last from France indeed sir that was before my time here sir before our people's time here sir the gorge was in other hands at that time sir I believe so but I would hold a pretty waiter sir that a house like telson and company was flourishing a matter of fifty not to speak of fifteen years ago you might treble that and say a hundred and fifty yet not be far from the truth indeed sir rounding his mouth both his eyes as he stepped backward from the table the waiter shifted his napkin from his right arm to his left dropped into a comfortable attitude and stood surveying the guest while he ate and drank as from an observatory or watchtower according to the mmm moral usage of waiters in all ages when mr. lorry had finished his breakfast he went out for a stroll on the beach the little narrow crooked town of Dover hid itself away from the beach and ran its head into the chalk cliffs like a marine ostrich the beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumbling wildly about and the sea did what it liked and what it liked was disruption it thundered at the town and thundered at the cliffs and brought the coast down madly the air among the houses was of so strong a piscatorial aver that one might have supposed sick fish went up to be dipped in it as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea a little fishing was done in the port and a quantity of strolling about by night and looking sea would particularly at those times when the tide made and was near flood small tradesmen who did no business whatever sometimes unaccountably realized large fortunes and it was remarkable that nobody in the neighbourhood could endure a Lamplighter as the day declined into the afternoon and the air which had been at intervals clear enough to allow the French coast to be seen became again charged with mist and vapor mr. loris thoughts seemed to cloud to when it was dark and he sat before the coffee-room fire awaiting his dinner as he had awaited his breakfast his mind was busily digging digging digging in the live red coals a bottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in the red coals no harm are the wise Dennis it has a tendency to throw him out of work mr. lorry had been idle a long time and had just poured out his last glass full of wine with his complete and appearance of satisfaction as is ever to be found in an elderly gentlemen of a fresh complexion who has got to the end of a bottle when a rattling of wheels came up the narrow street and rumbled into the inn-yard he set down his glass untouched this is mam'selle said he in a very few minutes the waiter came in to announce that miss Manette had arrived from London and would be happy to see the gentleman from Tellson's so soon miss Manette had taken some refreshment on the road and required none then and was extremely anxious to see the gentleman from Tellson's immediately if it suited his pleasure and convenience the gentleman from Tellson's had nothing left for it but to empty his glass with an air of solid desperation settle his odd little flaxen wig at the ears and follow the waiter to miss Manette's apartment it was a large dark room furnished in a funeral manner with black horsehair and loaded with heavy dark tables these had been oiled and oiled until the two tall candles on the table in the middle of the room were gloomily reflected on every leaf as if they were buried in deep graves of black mahogany and no light to speak of could be expected from them until they were dug out the obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that mr. lorry picking his way over the well-worn turkey carpet suppose Miss Manette to be for the moment in some adjacent room until having got past the two tall candles he saw standing to receive him by the table between them and the fire a young lady of not more than seventeen in a riding cloak and still holding her straw traveling hat by its ribbon in her hand as his eyes rested on a short slight pretty figure a quantity of golden hair a pair of blue eyes that met his own with an inquiring look and a forehead with a singular capacity remembering how young smooth it was of rifting and knitting itself into an expression that was not quite one of perplexity or wonder or alarm or merely of a bright fixed attention though it included all the four expressions as his eyes rested on these things a sudden vivid likeness passed before him of a child whom he had held in his arms on the passage across that very channel one cold time when the hail drifted heavily in the sea ran high the likeness passed away like a breath along the surface of the gaunt appear glass behind her on the frame of which a hospital procession of Negro Cupid's several headless and all cripples were offering black baskets of dead sea fruit two black divinities of the feminine gender and he made his formal bow to miss Manette pray take a seat sir in a very clear and pleasant young voice a little foreign in its accent but a very little indeed I kiss your hand miss said mr. lorry with the manners of an earlier date as he made his formal bow again and took his seat I received a letter from the bank sir yesterday informing me that some intelligence or a discovery the word is not Material Miss either word will do I respecting the small property of my poor father whom I never saw so long dead mr. lorry moved in his chair and cast a troubled look towards the hospital procession of Negro Cupid's as if they had any help for anybody in their absurd baskets who rendered it necessary that I should go to Paris there to communicate with a gentlemen of the bank so good as to be despatched to Paris for the purpose myself as I was prepared to hear sir she Kurtz it to him young lady's maid Kurtz is in those days with a pretty desire to convey to him that she felt how much older and wiser he was than she he made her another bow I replied to the banks as as it was considered necessary by those who know and who are so kind as to advise me that I should go to France and that as I am an orphan and have no friend who could go with me I should esteem it highly if I might be permitted to place myself during the journey under that worthy gentleman's protection the gentleman had left London but I think a messenger was sent after him to make the favor of his waiting for me here I was happy said mr. lorry to be entrusted with the charge I should be more than happy to execute it sir I thank you indeed I thank you very gratefully it was told to me by the bank that the gentleman would explain to me the details with the business and that I must prepare myself to find them of a surprising nature I have done my best to prepare myself and I naturally have a strong and eager interest to know what they are naturally said mr. lorry yes I propose he added again settling the crisp flaxen wig at the ears it is very difficult to begin he did not begin but in his indecision met her glance the young forehead lifted itself into that singular expression it was pretty and Sarah turistic besides being singular and she raised her hand as if with an involuntary action she caught at or staid some passing shadow are you quite a stranger to me sir am I not mr. lorry opened his hands and extended them out was with an argumentative smile between the eyebrows and just over the little feminine nose the line of which was as delicate and fine as it was possible to be the expression deepened itself as she took her seat thoughtfully in the chair by which she had hitherto remained standing he watched her as she mused and the moment she raised her eyes again went on and your adopted country I presume I cannot do better than address you as a young English lady miss Manette if you please sir miss Manette I am a man of business I have a business charge to acquit myself off in your reception of it don't heed me any more than if I was a speaking machine truly I'm not much else I will with your leave relate to you miss this story of one of our customers story he seemed wilfully to mistake the word she had repeated when he added in a hurry yes customers in the banking business we usually call our connection our customers he was a French gentleman a scientific gentleman a man of great acquirements a doctor not of both a why yes of Beauvais like Monsieur Manette your father the gentleman was a Beauvais like Monsieur Manette your father the gentleman was of repute in Paris I had the honour of knowing him there our relations were business relations but confidential I was at that time in our French house and had been old 20 years at that time I may ask at what time sir I speak miss of 20 years ago he married an English lady and I was one of the trustees his affairs like the affairs of many other French gentleman and French families were entirely intell Sion's hands in a similar way I am or I have been trustee of one kind or another for scores of our customers these are mere business relations myths there is no friendship in them no particular interest nothing like sentiment I have passed from one to another in the course of my business life just as I passed from one of our customers to another in the course of my business day in short I have no feelings I am a mere machine to go on but this is my father's story sir and I begin to think the curiously rough and forehead was very intent upon him that when I was left an orphan through my mother's surviving my father only two years it was you who brought me to England and almost sure it was you mr. lorry took the hesitating little hand that confiding the advance to take his and he put it with some ceremony to his lips he then conducted the young ladies straightway to her chair again and holding the chair back with his left hand and using his right by turns to rub his chin pull his wig at the ears or point what he said stood looking down into her face while she sat looking up into his miss manette it was I and you'll see how truly I spoke of myself just now in saying I had no feelings and that all the relations I hold with my fellow-creatures a mere business relations when you reflect that I have never seen you since no you have been the ward of tell sands house since and I have been busy with the other business of tell since house since feelings I have no time for them no chance of them I passed my whole life miss in turning an immense pecuniary mangle after this odd description of his daily routine of employment mr. lorry flattened his flaxen wig upon his head with both hands which was most unnecessary for nothing could be flatter than its shining surface was before and resumed his former attitude so far myths as you have remarked this is the story of your regretted father now comes the difference if your father had not died when he did don't be frightened how you start she did indeed start and she caught his wrist with both her hands praise said mr. lorry in a soothing tone bringing his left hand from the back of the chair to lay it on the supplicate fingers that clasped him and so violent a tremble pray 'then trow your agitation a matter of business as i was saying her looks her discomposed him that he stopped wandered and began anew as I was saying if mr. Manette had not died if he had suddenly and silently disappeared if he had been spirited away if it had not been difficult to guess to what dreadful place though no art could trace him if he had an enemy in some compatriot who could exercise a privilege that I in my own time have known the boldest people afraid to speak off in a whisper across the water there for instance the privilege of filling up blank forms the consignment of anyone to the Oblivion of a prison for any length of time if his wife had implored the king the queen of the court the clergy for any tidings of him and all quite in vain then the history of your father would have been the history of this unfortunate gentleman the doctor of Beauvais I entreat you to tell me more sir I will I'm going to you can bear it I can bear anything but the uncertainty you leave me in at this moment you speak collectedly and you are collected that's good though his manner was less satisfied than his words a matter of business regarded as a matter of business business that must be done now if this doctor's wife though a lady of great courage and spirit had suffered so intensely from this cause before a little child was born the little child was a daughter sir a daughter a matter of business don't be distressed miss if the poor lady had suffered so intensely before her little child was born that she came to the determination of sparing the poor child the inheritance of any part of the agony she had known the pains off by rearing her in the belief that her father was dead no don't kneel in heaven's name why should you kneel to me for the truth o dear good compassionate sir for the truth a matter of business you confuse me and how can I transact business if I am confused let us be clear-headed if you could kindly mention now for instance what nine times nine pence are or how many shillings in twenty guineas it would be so encouraging I should be so much more at my ease about your state of mind without directly answering to this appeal she sat so still when he had very gently raised her and the hands that had not ceased to clasp his wrists was so much more steady than they had been that she communicated some reassurance to mr. Jarvis lorry that's right that's right courage business you have business before you useful business miss manette your mother took this course with you and when she died I believe brokenhearted having never slackened her unavailing search for your father she left you at two years old to grow to be blooming beautiful and happy without the dark cloud upon you of living in uncertainty whether your father soon wore his heart out in prison or wasted there through many lingering years as he said the words he looked down with an admiring pity on the flowing golden hair as if he pictured to himself that it might have been already tinged with gray you know that your parents had no great possession and that what they had was secured to your mother and to you there has been no new discovery of money or of any other property but he tells his wrist held closer and he stopped the expression in the forehead which had so particularly attracted his notice and which was now a moveable a deepen into one of pain and horror but he has been been found he is alive greatly changed it is too probable almost a wreck it is possible though we will hope the best still alive your father has been taken to the house of an old servant in Paris and we're going there I to identify him if I can you to restore him to life love Duty rest comfort a shiver ran through her frame and from it through his she said in a low distinct or stricken voice as if he were saying it in a dream I'm going to see his ghost it will be his ghost not him mr. lorry quietly shaped the hands that held his arm there there there seen now see now the best and the worst unknown to you now you are well on your way to the poor wronged gentleman and with a fair sea voyage and a fair land journey you'll be soon at his dear side she repeated in the same tone sunk to a whisper I have been free I have been happy yet his ghost has never haunted me only one thing more I said Mr lorry laying stress upon it as a wholesome means of enforcing her attention he has been found under another name his own long-forgotten are long concealed it would be worse than useless now to inquire which worse than useless to seek to know whether he has been for years overlooked or always design idli held prisoner it would be worse than useless now to make any inquiries because it would be dangerous better not to mention the subject anywhere or in any way and to remove him for a while at all events out of France even is safe as an Englishman and even tellus ins important as they are to french credit avoid all naming of the matter I carry about meat not a scrap of writing openly referring to it this is a secret service altogether my credentials enthis and memoranda are all comprehended in the one line recalled to life which may mean anything but what is the matter she doesn't notice a word miss Manette perfectly still in silent and not even fallen back in her chair she sat under his hand utterly insensible with her eyes open and fixed upon him and with at last expression looking as if it were carved or branded into her forehead so close was her hold upon his arm that he feared to detach himself lest he should hurt her therefore he called out loudly for assistance without moving a wild looking woman whom even in his agitation mr. lorry observed to be all of a red colour and to have red hair and to be dressed in stomachs for ordinary tight-fitting fashion and to have on her head a most wonderful bonnet like a Grenadier wouldn't measure and good measure - or great stills and cheese came running into the room in advance of the inn servants and soon settled the question of his detachment from the poor young lady by laying a brawny hand upon his chest and sending him flying back against the nearest wall I really think this must be a man with mister loris breathless reflection simultaneously with his coming against the wall why look at you all bored this figure addressing the inn servants why don't you go and fetch things instead of standing there staring at me I'm not so much to look at am I why don't you go and fetch things I'll let you know if you don't bring smelling salts cold water and vinegar quick I will there was an immediate dispersal for these restoratives and she softly laid the patient on a sofa and tended her with great skill and gentleness calling her my preface and my bird and spreading her golden hair aside over her shoulders with great pride and care and you in brown she said indignantly turning to mr. lorry couldn't you tell what you had to tell her without frightening her to death look at her with a pretty pale face and her cold hands do you call that being a banker mr. lorry was so exceedingly disconcerted by questions so hard to answer that he could only look on at a distance with much feebler sympathy and humility while the strong woman having banished the inn servant under the mysterious penalty of letting them know something not mentioned if they stayed there staring recovered her charge by a regular series of gradations and coaxed her to lay her drooping head upon her shoulder I hope she will do well now said Mr lorry no thanks to you in brown if he does my darling pretty I hope said Mr lorry after another pause of feeble sympathy and humility that you accompany miss Manette to France a likely thing to replied the strong woman if it was ever intended that I should go across salt water do you suppose Providence would have cast my lot in an island this being another question hard to answer mr. Jarvis lorry withdrew to consider it in the book one chapter for recording by Paul Adams WWWE enjoy calm book one chapter five of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Paul Adams chapter five the wine shop a large cask of wine had been dropped and broken in the street the accident had happened in getting it out of a cart the cask had tumbled out with a run the hoops had burst and it lay on the stones just outside the door of the wine shop shattered like a wall nutshell all the people within reach had suspended their business or their idleness to run to the spot and drink the wine the rough irregular stones of the street pointing every way and designed one might have thought expressly too lame all living creatures that approached them had dammed it into little pools these were surrounded if by its own jostling group or crowd according to its size some men kneeled down made scoops of their two hands joined and sipped or tried to help women who bent over their shoulders to sip before the wine had all run out between their fingers others men and women dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware or even with handkerchiefs from women's heads which were squeezed dry into infants mouths others made small mud embankments to stem the wide as it ran others directed by lookers on up at high windows darted here and there to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new directions others devoted themselves to the sodden and lead dyed pieces of the cask licking and even champing the moister wine rotted fragments with ego relish there was no drainage to carry off the wine and not only did it all get taken up but so much mud got taken up along with it that there might have been a scavenger in the street if anybody acquainted with it could have believed in such a miraculous presence a shrill sound of laughter and of amused voices voices of men women and children resounded in the street while this wine game lasted there was little roughness in the sport and much playfulness there was a special companionship in it an observable inclination on the part of everyone to join some other one which led especially among the luckier or lighter hearted to frolic some embraces drinking of Health's shaking of hands and even joining of hands and dancing a dozen together when the wine was gone and the places where it had been most abundant were raped into a gridiron pattern by fingers these demonstrations ceased as suddenly as they had broken out the man who had left his source ticking in the firewood he was cutting set it in motion again the woman who had left on a doorstep the little pot of hot ashes at which she had been trying to soften the pain in her own starved fingers and toes or in those of her child returned to it men with bare arms matted locks and cadaverous faces who had emerged into the winter light from cellars moved away to descend again and a gloom gathered on the scene that appeared more natural to it than sunshine the wine was red wine and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of San Antoine in Paris where it was spilled it had stayed many hands too and many faces and many naked feet and many wooden whose the hands of the man who sword the wood left red marks on the billets and the forehead of the woman who nursed the baby was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound around her head again those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask had acquired a tiger if smear about the mouth and one tall joker so besmirched his head more out of the long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it scrawled upon a wall with his finger dips in muddy wine Lee's blood the time was to come when that wine too would be spilled on the street stones and when the stain of it would be read upon many there and now that the cloud settled our sand one which a momentary gleam had driven from his sacred countenance the darkness of it was heavy cold dirt sickness ignorance and want were the laws in waiting on the saintly presence nobles of great power all of them but most especially the last samples of the people that had undergone a terrible grinding and regrinding in the mill and certainly not in the fabulous mill which ground old people young shiver to every corner passed in and out at every doorway looked from every window fluttered in every vestige of a garment that the wind shook the mill which had worked them down was the mill that grinds young people old the children had ancient faces and grave voices and upon them and upon the grown faces and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh with the sire hunger it was prevalent everywhere hunger was pushed out of the tall houses in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man soared off hung stared down from the smokeless chimneys and started up from the filthy street that had no awful among its refuse of anything to eat hunger was the inscription on the Baker's shelves written into every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread at the sausage shop in every dead dog preparation that was offered for sale hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turn cylinder hunger was shred into Atomics in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato fried with some reluctant drops of oil its abiding place was in all things fitted to it a narrow winding streets full of offence and stench with other narrow winding streets diverging all peopled by rags and nightcaps and all smelling of rags and nightcaps and all visible things with a brooding look upon them that looked ill in the hunted air of the people there was yet some wild beasts thought of the possibility of turning at bay depressed and slinking though they were eyes of fire were not wanting among them nor compressed lips white with what they suppressed nor foreheads knitted into the likeness of the gallows rope they mused about enduring or inflicting betrayed signs and they were almost as many as the shops were all grimmer illustrations of white the butcher and the pork man painted up only the leanest scrags of meat the baker the coarsest of meagre loaves the people rudely pictured as drinking in the wine shops croaked over their scanty measures of thin wine and beer and were glowering lee confidential together nothing was represented in a flourishing condition safe tools and weapons but the Cutler's knives and axes were sharp and bright the Smith's hammers were heavy and the gun makers was murderous the crippling stones of the pavement with their many little reservoirs of mud and water had no footways but broke off abruptly at the doors the kennel to make amends ran down the middle of the street when it ran at all which was only after heavy rains and then it ran by many eccentric fits into the houses across the streets at wide intervals one clumsy lamp was slung by a rope and pulley at night when the Lamplighter had let these down and lighted and hoisted them again a feeble grove of dim wicks swung in a sickly manner overhead as if they were at sea indeed they were at sea and the ship and crew were in peril of tempest for the time was to come when the gaunt scarecrows of that region should have watched the lap lighter in their idleness and hunger so long as to conceive the idea of improving on his method and hauling up men by those ropes and pulleys to flare upon the darkness of their condition but the time was not come yet and every wind that blew over France shook the rags of the scarecrows in vain for the birds fine of song and feather took no warning the wine-shop was a corner shop better than most others in its appearance and degree and the master of the wine shop had stood outside it in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches looking on at the struggle for the lost wine if not my affair said he with a final shrug of the shoulders the people from the market did it let them bring another there his eyes happening to catch the tall Joker writing up the joke he called him across the way say then my gasps bird what do you do there the fellow pointed to his joke with immense significance that is often the way with his pride it missed its mark and completely failed as is often the way with his tribe too what now you're subject for the mad hospital said the wine-shop keeper crossing the road and obliterating the jest with a handful of mud picked up for the purpose and smear over it why do you write in the public streets it's there tell me though is there no other place to write such words in in his expostulation he dropped his cleaner hand perhaps accidentally perhaps not upon the Joker's heart The Joker wrapped it with his own took a nimble spring upward and came down in a fantastic dancing attitude with one of his stained shoes jerked off his foot into his hand and held out a joker of an extremely not to say wolfishly practical character he looked under those circumstances put it on put it on said the other call wine wine and finished there with that advice he wiped his soiled hand upon the Joker's dress such as it was quite deliberately as having dirtied the hand on his account and then re crossed the road and entered the wine-shop the wine shop keeper was a bull-necked marshal looking man of thirty and he should have been of a hot temperament for although it was a bitter day he wore no coat but carried one slung over his shoulder his shirt sleeves were rolled up too and his brown arms were bare to the elbows neither did he wear anything more on his head than his own crisply curling short dark hair he was a dark man altogether with good eyes and a good bold breadth between them good-humoured looking on the whole but implacable looking too evidently a man of a strong resolution and a set purpose a man not desirable to be met rushing down a narrow pass with a dolphin either side for nothing would turn the man Madame Defarge his wife sat in the shop behind the counter as he came in Madame Defarge was a stout woman of about his own age with a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look at anything a large hand heavily ringed a steady face Strahm features and great composure of manner there was a character about Madame Lafarge from which one might have predicated that she did not often make mistakes against herself in any of the reckonings over which she presided Madame Lafarge being sensitive to cold was wrapped in fur and had a quantity of bright shawl twined about her head though not to the concealment of the large earrings her knitting was before her but she had laid it down to pick her teeth with a toothpick thus engaged with her right elbow supported by her left hand Madame Lafarge said nothing when her Lord came in but coughed just one grain of cough this in combination with the lifting of the darkly defied eyebrows over her toothpick by the breadth of a line suggested to her husband that he would do well to look around the shop among the customers for any new customer who had dropped in while he stepped over the way the wine shop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about until they rested upon an elderly gentleman and a young lady who was seated in a corner other company were there two playing cards two playing dominoes three standing by the counter lengthening out a short supply of wine as she passed behind the counter he took notice that the elderly gentleman said in the look to the young lady this is our man what the devil do you do in that galley there said Monsieur Defarge to himself I don't know you but he feigned not to notice to to strangers and fell into discourse with a triumvirate of customers who were drinking at the counter how goes it shucks said one of these three to Monsieur Defarge is all the spilt wine swallowed every drop Jacques answered Monsieur Defarge when this interchange of Christian name was effected Madame Defarge picking her teeth with her toothpick coughed another grain of cough and raised her eyebrows by the breath of another line it is not often said the second at the three aggressing monsieur defarge that many of these miserable beasts know the taste of wine or of anything but black bread and death is it not so Jacques it is so Chuck Monsieur Defarge returned at the second interchange of a Christian name Madame Defarge still using her toothpick with profound composure coughed another grain of cough and raised her eyebrows by the breath of another line the last of the three now said his say as he put down his empty drinking vessel and smacks his lips ah so much the worse a bitter taste it is that such poor cattle always having their mouths and hard lives they live shark and my right Jacques you are right Jacques was a responsive Monsieur Defarge this third interchange of the Christian name was completed at the moment when Madame Lafarge put a toothpick by kept her eyebrows up and slightly rustled in her seat hold then true muttered her husband gentlemen my wife the three customers pulled off their hats to Madame Lafarge with three flourishes she acknowledged their homage by bending her head and giving them a quick look then she glanced in a casual manner round the wine-shop took up her knitting with grace apparent calmness and repose of spirit and became absorbed in it gentlemen said her husband who had kept his bright eye observantly upon her good day the chamber furnished bachelor fashion that you wish to see and were inquiring for when I stepped out it's on the fifth floor the doorway of the staircase gives on the little courtyard close to the left here pointing with his hand near to the window of my establishment but now that I remember one of you has already been there and can show the way gentlemen adieu they paid for their wine and left the place the eyes of Monsieur Defarge was studying his wife at her knitting when the elderly gentleman had from his corner and begged the favor of a word wedding lessor said monsieur defarge and quietly stepped with him to the door their conference was very short but very decided almost sat the first word monsieur defarge started and became deeply attentive it had not lasted a minute when he nodded and went out the gentleman then beckoned to the young lady and they too went out Madame Defarge knitted with nimble fingers and steady eyebrows and saw nothing mr. Jarvis lorry and Miss Manette emerging from the wine shop thus joined and Monsieur Defarge in the doorway to which he had directed his own company just before it opened from a stinking little black courtyard and was the general public entrance to a great pile of houses inhabited by a great number of people in the gloomy tiled paved entry to the gloomy tiled paved staircase Monsieur Defarge bent down on one knee to the child of his old master and put her hand to his lips it was a gentle action but not at all gently done a very remarkable transformation had come over him in a few seconds he had no good humor in his face nor any openness of aspect left but had become a secret angry dangerous man it is very HEIs is a little difficult better to begin slowly thus Monsieur Defarge in a stern voice to mr. lorry as they began ascending the stairs is he alone the latter whispered alone god help him who should be with him said the other in the same low voice is he always alone then yes of his own desire of his own necessity as he was when I first saw him after they found me and demanded to know if I would take him and at my peril be discreet as he was then so he is now he is greatly changed change the keeper of the wine-shop stopped to strike the wall of his hand and mutter a tremendous curse no direct answer could have been half so forcible mr. Laura's spirits grew heavier and heavier as he and his two companions ascended higher and higher such a staircase with its accessories in the older and more crowded parts of Paris would be bad enough now but at that time it was vile indeed it too unaccustomed and unhardened senses every little habitation within the great foul nest of one high building that is to say the room or rooms within every door that opened on the general staircase left its own heap of refuse on its own landing besides flinging other refuse from its own windows the uncontrollable and hopeless mass of decomposition so engendered would have polluted the air even if poverty and deprivation had not loaded it with their intangible impurities the two bad sources combined made it almost insupportable through such an atmosphere by a steep dark shaft of dirt and poison the way lay yield into his own disturbance of mind and to his young companions agitation which became greater every instant mr. Jarvis lorries twice stopped to rest each of these stoppages was made as a doleful grating by which any languishing good airs that were left uncorrupted seemed to escape and all spoiled and sickly vapors seemed to crawl in through the rusted bars tastes rather than glimpses were caught of the jumbled neighbourhood and nothing within range nearer or lower than the summit's of the two great towers of not freedom had any promise on it of healthy life or wholesome aspirations at last the top of the staircase was gained and they stopped for the third time there was yet an upper staircase of a steeper inclination and have contracted dimensions to be ascended before the Garrett story was reached the keeper of the wine-shop always going a little in advance and always going on the side which mr. lorry took as though he dreaded to be asked any question by the young lady turned himself about here and carefully feeling in the pockets of the coat he carried over his shoulder took out a key the door is locked then my friend said Mr lorry surprised ah yes was the grim reply of Monsieur Defarge you think it necessary to keep the unfortunate gentleman so retired I think it necessary to turn the key Monsieur Defarge whispered it closer in his ear and frowned heavily why why because he has lived so long locked up that he would be frightened rave tear himself to pieces die come to I know not what harm if his door was left open is it possible exclaimed mr. lorry it is possible repeated Defarge bitterly yes and a beautiful world we live in when it is possible and when many other such things are possible and not only possible but done done see you under that sky there every day long live the devil let us go on this dialogue had been held in so very low a whisper that not a word of it had reached the young lady's ears but by this time she trembled under such strong emotion and her face expressed such deep anxiety and above all such dread and terror that mr. lorry felt it incumbent on him to speak a word or two of reassurance courage dear miss courage business the worst will be over in a moment it is but passing the room door and the worst is over then all the good you bring to him all the relief all the happiness you bring to him begin let our good friend here assist you on that side that's well friend Defarge come now business business they went up slowly and softly a staircase was short and they were soon at the top there as it had an abrupt turn in it they came all at once in sight of three men whose heads were bent down close together at the side of the door and who were intently looking into the room to which the door belonged through some chinks or holes in the wall on hearing footsteps close at hand these three turned and rose and showed themselves to be the three of one name who had been drinking in the wine shop I forgot them in the surprise of your visit explained monsieur defarge leave us good boys we have business here the three glided by and went silently down here appearing to be no other door on that floor and the keeper of the wine-shop going straight to this one when they were left alone mr. lorry asked him in a whisper with a little anger do you make a show of Monsieur Manette I show him in the way you have seen to it shows and few it's that well I think it is well who in a few how do you choose them I choose them as real men of my name Jacques my name to whom the sight is likely to do good enough your English that is another thing stay there if you please a little moment with an admonitory gesture to keep him back he stooped and looked in through the crevice in the war soon raising his head again he struck twice or thrice upon the door evidently with no other object than to make a noise there with the same intention he drew the key across it three or four times before he put it clumsily into the lock and turned it as heavily as he could the door slowly opened inward under his hand and he looked into the room and said something a faint voice answered something little more than a single syllable could have been spoken on either side he looked back over his shoulder and beckoned them to enter mr. lorry got his arms securely around the daughter's waist and held her so he felt that she was sinking business-business he urged with a moisture that was not of business shining on his cheek come in come in I'm afraid of it she answered shuddering of it what I mean of him of my father rendered in a manner desperate by her state and by the beckoning of their conductor he drew over his neck the arm that shook upon his shoulder lifted her a little and hurried her into the room he sat her down just within the door and held her clinging to him Defarge drew out the key close the door locked it on the inside took out the key again and held it in his hand all this he did it methodically and with his loud and harsh and a compliment of noise as he could make finally he walked across the room with a measured tread to where the window was he stopped there and faced round the garret built a beer depository for firewood and the like was dim and dark for the window of door misshape was in truth a door in the roof with a little crane over it for the hoisting up of stores from the street unglazed and closing up the middle in two pieces like any other door of French construction to exclude the cold one half of this door was fast closed and the other was opened but a very little way such a scanty portion of light was admitted through these means that it was difficult on first coming in to see anything and long habit alone could have slowly formed in anyone the ability to do any work requiring nicety in such obscurity yet work of that kind was being done in the garret for with his back towards the door and his face towards the window where the keeper of the wine-shop stood looking at him a white-haired man sat on a low bench stooping forward and very busy making shoes in the book one chapter 5 recording by Paul Adams www.hyundaiofwhiteplains.com komm book one chapter six of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Paul Adams chapter six the shoemaker g'day said Monsieur Defarge looking down at the white head that bent low over the shoe making it was raised for a moment and a very faint voice responded to the salutation as if it were as a distance good day you're still hard at work I see after a long silence the head was lifted for another moment and a voice replied yes I am working this time a pair of Haggard eyes had looked at the questioner before the face had dropped again the faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful it was not the faintest of physical weakness though confinement and hard fair no doubt had their part in it it's deplorable peculiarities was that it was the faithless of solitude and disuse it was like the last feeble echo of a sound made long and long ago so entirely had it lost the life and resonance of the human voice that it affected the senses like a once beautiful colour faded away into a poor weak stain so sunken and suppressed it was that it was like a voice underground so expressive it was of a hopeless and lost creature that a famished traveller we rat out my lonely wandering in a wilderness would have remembered home and friends in such a tone before lying down to die some minutes of silent work had passed and the Haggard eyes had looked up again not with any interest or curiosity but with a dull mechanical perception beforehand that the spot where the only visitor they were aware of had stood was not yet empty I want said too far who had not removed his gaze from the shoemaker to let in a little more light here you can bear a little more the shoemaker stopped his work looked with a vacant air of listening at the floor on one side of him then similarly at the floor on the other side of him then upward at the speaker what what did you say you can bear a little more light I must bear it if you let it in laying the palest shadow of a stress upon the second word the open half door was opened a little further and secured at that angle for the time a broad ray of light fell into the garret and showed the workman with an unfinished shoe upon his lap pausing in his labor his few common tools and various scraps of leather were at his feet and on his bench he had a white beard raggedly cut but not very long a hollow face an exceedingly bright eyes the hollowness and thinness of his face would have caused them to look large under his yet dark eyebrows and his confused white hair though they had been really otherwise but they were naturally lard and looked unnaturally so his yellow rags of shirt lay open at the throat and showed his body to be withered and worn he and his old canvas frock and his loose stockings and all his poor tatters of clothes had in a long seclusion from direct light and air faded down to such a uniformity of parchment yellow that it would have been hard to say which was which he had put up a hand between his eyes and the light and the very bones of it seemed to transparent so he sat with a steadfastly vacant gaze pausing in his work he never looked at the figure before him without first looking down on this side of himself then on that as if he had lost the habit of associating place with sound he never spoke without first wandering in this manner and forgetting to speak are you going to finish that pair of fuse today asked the fajr motioning to mr. lorry to come forward what did you say do you mean to finish that pair of shoes today I can't say that I mean to I suppose so I I don't know but the question reminded him of his work and he bent over it again mr. lorry came silently forward leaving the daughter by the door when he had stood for a minute or two by the side of Defarge the shoemaker looked up he showed no surprise at seeing another figure but the unsteady fingers of one of his hands strayed to his lips as he looked at it his lips and his nails were the same pale lead color and then the hand dropped to his work and he once more bent over the shoe the look and the action had occupied but an instant you have a visitor you see said Monsieur Defarge what did you say here is a visitor a shoemaker looked up as before but without removing a hand from his work come said Defarge here is Monsieur who knows a well-made shoe when he sees one show him that shoe you're working at take it Monsieur mr. lorry took it in his hand tell him Monsieur what kind of shoe it is and the makers name there was a longer pause than usual before the shoemaker replied I forget what it was you asked me what what did you say I said couldn't you describe the kind of shoe the Monsieur is information it is a lady's shoe it is a young lady's walking shoe it is in the present mode I never saw the mode I have had a pattern in my hand he glanced at the shoe with some little passing touch of Pride and the makers name said Defarge now as he had no work to hold he laid the knuckles of the right hand in the hollow of the left and then the knuckles of the left hand in the hollow of the right and then passed a hand across his bearded chin and so on in regular changes without a moment's intermission the task of recalling him from the vagrancy into which he always sank when he had spoken was like recalling some very weak person from a swoon or endeavouring in the hope of some disclosure to stay the spirit of a fast dying man did you ask me for my own name assuredly I did or 105 North Tower is that all 105 North Tower with a weary sound that was not a sign nor a groan he bent to work again until the silence was again broken you know a shoemaker by trade said Mr lorry looking steadfastly at him his Haggard eyes turned to Defarge as if he would have transferred the question to him but as no help came from that quarter they turned back on the questioner when they had sought the ground I am NOT a shoemaker by trade no I was not a shoemaker by trade I learnt it here I taught myself I asked leave to he lapsed away even for minutes ringing those measured changes on his hands the whole time his eyes came slowly back at last to the face from which they had wandered when they rested on it he started and resumed in the manner of a sleeper that moment awake reverting to a subject of last night I asked leave to teach myself and I got it with much difficulty after a long while and I have made shoes air ever since as he held out his hand for the shoe that had been taken from him mr. lorry said still looking steadfastly in his face Monsieur Manette do you remember nothing of me the shoot dropped to the ground and he's shat looking fixedly at the questioner Monsieur Manette mr. lorry laid his hand upon Defarge his arm do you remember nothing of this man look at him look at me is there no old banker no old business no old servant no old time rising in your mind Monsieur Manette as the captive of many years looking fixedly by turns at mr. lorry and at Defarge some long obliterated marks of an actively intent intelligence in the middle of the forehead gradually forced themselves through the black mist that had fallen on him they were over clouded again they were fainter they were gone they had been there and so exactly was the expression repeated on the fair young face of her who had crept along the war to a point where she could see him and where she now stood looking at him with hands which at first had been only raised in frightened compassion if not even to keep him off and shut out the sight of him but which were now extending towards him trembling with eagerness to lay the spectral faith upon her warm young breast and love it back to life and hope so exactly was the expression repeated though in stronger characters on her fair young face that it looked as though it had passed like a moving light from him to her darkness had fallen on him in its place he looked at the two less and less attentively and his eyes in gloomy abstraction sought the ground and looked about him in the old way finally with a deep long sigh he took the shoe up and resumed his work have you recognised him Monsieur asked Defarge in a whisper yes for a moment first I thought it quite hopeless but I have unquestionably seen for a single moment the face that I once knew so well huh let us draw further back harsh she had moved from the wall of the garret very near to the bench on which he sat there was something awful in his unconsciousness of the figure that could have put out its hand and touched him as he stooped over his labor not a word was spoken not a sound was made she stood like a spirit beside him and he bent over his work it happened at length that he had occasion to change the instrument in his hand for his shoemakers life it lay at that side of him which was not the side on which he stood he had taken it up and the stooping to work again when his eyes caught the skirt of her dress he raised them and saw her face the two spectators started forward but she stayed them with a motion of her hand she had no fear of his striking at her with the knife though they had he stared at her with a fearful look and after while his lips began to form some words though no sound proceeded from them by degrees in the pauses of his quick and labored breathing he was heard to say what is this with the tears streaming down her face she put her two hands to her lips and kissed them to him then clasped them on her breast as if she laid is ruined head there you are not the jailers daughter his side no who are you not yet trusting the tones of her voice he sat down on the bench beside him he recoiled but she laid her hand upon his arm a strange thrill struck and when she did so and visibly passed over his frame he laid the knife down softly as he sat staring at her her golden hair which she wore in long curls had been hurriedly pushed aside and fell down over her neck advancing his hand by little and little he took it up and looked at it in the midst of the action he went astray and with another deep sigh fell to work at his shoe making but not for long releasing his arm she laid her hand upon his shoulder after looking doubtfully at it two or three times as if to be sure that it was Rudi there he laid down his work put his hand to his neck and took off a blackened string with a scrap of folded rag attached to it he opened this carefully on his knee and it contained a very little quantity of hair not more than one or two long golden hairs which he had in some old day wound off upon his finger he took her hair into his hand again and looked closely at it it is the same how can it be when was it how was it as the concentrated expression returned to his forehead he seemed to become conscious that it was in hers too he turned her full to the light and looked at her she had laid her head upon my shoulder that night when I was summoned out she she had a fear of my going though I had none and when I was brought to the North Tower they found these upon my sleeve you will leave me then they can never help me to escape in the body though they may in the spirit those were the words I said I remember them very well he formed this speech with his lips many times before he could utter it when he did find spoken words for it they came to him coherently though slowly how was this was it you once more the two spectators started as he turned upon her with a frightful sudden 'us but she sat perfectly still in his grasp and only said in a low voice I entreat you good gentleman do not come near us do not speak do not move hark he exclaimed whose voice was that he has released her as he uttered this cry and went up to his white hair which they tore in a frenzy it died out as everything but his shoemaking did die out of him and he refolded his little packet and tried to secure it in his breast but he still looked at her and gloomily shook his head no no no he you're too young too blooming it can't be see what the prisoner is these are not the hand she knew this is not the faith in you this is not a voice heard no no she was and he was before the slow years at the North Tower ages ago what is your name my gentle angel hailing his softened tone and manner his daughter fell upon her knees before him with her appealing hands upon his breast host sir at another time you shall know my name and who my mother was and whom my father and how I never knew their hard hard history but I cannot tell you at this time and I cannot tell you here all that I may tell you here and now is that I pray to you to touch me and to bless me kiss me kiss me oh my dear my dear his cold white head mingled with her radiant hair which warmed and lighted it as though it were the light of freedom shining on him if you hear in my voice I don't know that it is so but I hope it is if you hear in my voice any resemblance to a voice that once was sweet music in your ears weep for it weep for it if you touch in touching my hair anything that recalls a beloved head that lay on your breast when you were young and free weep for it weep for it if when I hint to you of a home that is before us where I will be true to you with all my duty and with all my faithful service I bring back the remembrance of a home long desolate while your poor heart pined away weep for it weep for it she held him close around the neck and rocked him on her breast like a child if when I tell you dearest dear that your agony is over and that I have come here to take you from it and that we go to England to be at peace and at rest I cause you to think of your useful life laid waste and a van native France so wicked to you weep for it weep for it and if when I shall tell you of my name and of my father who is living and of my mother who is dead you learn if I have to kneel to my honored father and implore his pardon for having never for his sake striven all day and lain awake and wet all night because the love of my poor mother hid his torture from me weep for it weep for it weep for her then and for me good gentlemen thank God I feel his sacred tears upon my face and his soap strike against my heart Oh see thank God thank God he had sunk into her arms and his faith dropped on her breast a sight so touching yet so terrible in the tremendous wrong and suffering which had gone before it that the to be holders covered their faces when the quiet of the garret had been long undisturbed and his heaving breast and shaken form had long yielded to the calm that must follow all storms emblem to Humanity of the rest and silence into which the storm called life must harsh at last they came forward to raise the father and daughter from the ground he had gradually dropped to the floor and lay there in a lethargy worn out he had nestled down with him that his head might lie upon her arms and her hair drooping over him curtain'd him from the light if without disturbing him she said raising her hand to mr. lorry as he stooped over them after repeated blowings of his or could be arranged for our leaving Paris at once so that from the very door he could be taken away but consider is he fit for the journey asked mr. lorry more fit for that I think than to remain in the cities so dreadful to him it is true said too far she was kneeling to look on and hear more than that Monsieur Manette is for all reasons best out of France safe I hire a carriage and post horses that's business said Mr lorry resuming on the shortest notice his methodical manners and if business is to be done I had better do it and be so kind Oh miss Manette as to leave us here you see how composed he has become and you cannot be afraid to leave him with me now why should you be if you will lock the door to secure us from interruption I do not doubt that you will find him when you come back as quiet as you leave him in any case I will take care of him until you return and then we will remove him straight both mr. lorry and Defarge were rather disinclined to this course and in favor of one of them remaining but as they were not only carriage and horses to be seen to but travelling papers and as time pressed for the day was drawing to an end it came at last to their hastily dividing the business that was necessary to be done and hurrying a way to do it then as the darkness closed in the daughter laid her head down on the hard ground closed at the father's side and watched him the darkness deepened and deepened and they both lay quiet until a light gleamed through the chinks in the wall mr. lorry and Monsieur Defarge have made all ready for the journey and had brought with them besides traveling cloaks and wrappers bread and meat wine and hot coffee Monsieur Defarge put this province and the lamp he carried on the shoemaker's bench there was nothing else in the garret but a pallet bed and he and mr. lorry roused the captive and the assisted him to his feet no human intelligence could have read the mistress of his mind in the scared blank wonder of his face whether he knew what had happened whether he recollected what they had said to him whether he knew that he was free or questions which no sagacity could have solved they tried speaking to him but he was so confused and so very slow to answer that they took fright at his bewilderment and agreed for the time to tamper with him no more he had a wild lost manner of occasionally clasping his head in his hands that had not been seen in him before yet he had some pleasure in the mere sound of his daughter's voice and invariably turned to it when she spoke in the submissive way of one long accustomed to obey under coercion he ate and drank what they gave him to eat and drink and put on the cloak and other wrappings that they gave him to wear he readily responded to his daughters drawing her arm through his and took and kept her hand in both his own they began to descend monsieur defarge going first with the lamp mr. lorry closing the little procession they had not traversed many steps of the long main staircase when he stopped and stared at the roof and round at the walls you remember the place my father you remember coming up here what did what did you say but before she could repeat the question he murmured an answer as if she had repeated it remember no I don't remember it was so very long ago that he had no recollection whatever of his having been brought from his prison to that house was apparent to them they heard him mutter 105 North Tower and when he looked about him evidently was for the strong fortress walls which had long encompassed him on their reaching the courtyard he instinctively altered his tread as being in expect sniff a drawbridge and when there was no drawbridge and he saw the carriage waiting in the open Street he dropped his daughter's hand and clasped his head again no crowd was about the door no people were discernible any of the many windows not even a chance passerby was in the street and unnatural silence and desertion reigned there only one soul was to be seen and that was Madame Defarge who leaned against the doorpost knitting and saw nothing the prisoner got into a coach and his daughter had followed him when mr. Laura's feats were arrested on the step by his asking miserably for his shoemaking Talt in 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 doorpost knitting and saw nothing the fire 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 lamps swinging ever brighter in the better streets a nether dinner in the worse and 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 travelers see here then Monsieur the officer said to fajr getting down and taking him gravely apart these are the papers of monsieur inside with the white head they were consigned to me with him at there he dropped his voice there was a flutter among the military lanterns and one of them being handed in to the coach by an armed in uniform the eye is connected with the arm looked not in every day or on every night look at monsieur with the white head it is well forward from the uniform a juror from Defarge and so under a short grove of feebler and feebler over swinging lamps out under the great grove of stars beneath that arch of unmoved and eternal lights some so remote from this little earth that the learn had tell us it is doubtful whether their rays of even yet discovered it as a point in space where anything has suffered or done the shadows of the night were broad and black all through the cold and restless interval until dawn they once more whispered in the ears of mr. Jarvis lorry sitting opposite the Buried man who had been dug out and wondering what subtle powers were forever lost to him and what were capable of restoration the old inquiry I hope you care to be recalled to life and the old answer I can't say the end of the first book end of book 1 chapter 6 recording by paul adams www.yahoo.com you

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Keywords: Greatest Audio Books, Audiobook, 85686856, audiobooks, best, audio, book, books, A TALE OF TWO CITIES, Charles Dickens, London, Paris, Revolution, French, War, Battle, Literature, English, Best, Required, Top, Library, Writing, Author, Novel, Epic, Reading, Favorite, Classic, Tale, Two, Cities, Oliver Twist, famous, fiction, Darnay, Manette, England, France, Sydney Carton, audiobook

Id: 8GQ27Nu7Aqk

Length: 117min 7sec (7027 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2013