Two Cities

Chapter 38: Echoing Footsteps (2)
The whirlpool of boiling water always has a center, and the center of this chaotic crowd is the hotel of Defarge.Every drop (everyone) in the boiling pot is attracted to Defarge at the center of the chaos.Defarge, filthy with gunpowder and sweat, was giving orders, distributing weapons, pushing this man back, pulling that man forward, handing one man's weapon to another, deafeningly Going on amidst the noise.

"Don't leave me, Jacques Three," cried Defarge. "Jacques One, Jacques Two, you two, move separately, and gather as many patriots as you can. Where is my wife?"

"Uh, here, you saw it!" The proprietress was as calm as ever, but she didn't knit.In her stubborn right hand clutched an ax rather than the more tender usual tools, and in her belt was a pistol and a dreadful knife.

"Where are you going, wife?" "I'll be where you are," said the landlady. "In the future you will see me at the forefront of the women's ranks."

"Come then!" cried Defarge. "Patriots, friends! We are ready. To the Bastille!"

The crowd began to surge and let out a roar, as if the voices of the whole of France were concentrated on that disgusting word.Wave after wave of people, more and more, flooded the city and came to that place.The alarm bells and the drums were sounded, and the crowd was frantic and howling loudly on the new shore.The attack begins.

Deep moats, double suspension bridges, heavy stone walls, and eight huge towers.Cannons, muskets, flames and smoke.Defarge, the innkeeper, passed through the flames, through the smoke, and into the flames and the smoke.The crowd sent him to a cannon, and in an instant he was gunner.He fought like a gallant soldier for two hours.

Deep moats, single suspension bridges, thick stone walls, and eight huge towers.Cannons, muskets, flames and smoke.The suspension bridge has collapsed! "Go on, comrades, fight, Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques One Thousand, Jacques Two Thousand, Jacques Twenty-five Thousand. In the name of all angels and demons—whatever you are, Do it!" Defarge, the innkeeper, was still working in front of the cannon, which was already hot.

"Come with me, women!" cried his wife, the proprietress. "What are you doing! Victory, we can kill like men!" The women followed her, screaming hungrily.Their weapons are not unified, but their hunger and revenge are the same.

Cannon, muskets, fire and smoke, but still a deep moat, a single drawbridge, heavy stone walls and eight huge towers.Someone was injured and fell, and the surging crowd made a slight adjustment.Shining weapons, bright torches, carts of wet firewood smoking, hard fighting on fortifications in different directions.Screaming, firing, cursing, bravery, cannon, crash, clang, the angry howl of the crowd.But it is still a deep moat, still a single suspension bridge, heavy stone walls and those eight huge towers.Defarge, the innkeeper, was still before his cannon.The cannon had been fired vigorously for four hours, and it was already very hot.

White flags were hoisted in the battlegrounds, negotiations—the white flags swayed among the storms of battle, but no sound was heard.The crowd suddenly expanded and surged immeasurably, and swept the innkeeper Defarge over the lowered drawbridge, into the heavy outer wall, and into the surrendered eight towers.

The tide of people surrounding him was unstoppable, and it was difficult to even take a breath and turn his head, as if he was struggling in the waves of the South Pacific.At last he came to the yard outside the Bastille.There he took advantage of the corner of a wall to barely look around.Jacques Three was almost at his side.Madame Defarge, still with several women, was very close to the prison, looming, with a knife in her hand.There was commotion, excitement, deafening mad chaos, shocking shouts, but also enraged pantomime.

"prisoner!"

"Record!" "Secret cell!"

"Tools!"

"Prisoner!" Among all the shouts, among the broken words "Prisoner!"

It was the one that was shouted the most by the surging crowd.It seems that there are infinite people cooperating in countless times and spaces.Those who entered first escorted the prison officials and threatened to kill them immediately if any of the secrets were not revealed.After the crowd had passed, Defarge had placed his strong hand on the breast of a jailer—an elderly man, carrying a torch.He separated him from the others and pushed him against the wall.

"Tell me where the North Tower is!" said Defarge. "Quick!" "I will tell you carefully," replied the man, "if you will come with me. But there is no one there."

"How do you explain Beta 0?" asked Defarge. "Quick!" "What do you mean, sir?" "Is that the name of the prisoner or the cell? You don't want to live?" "Kill him!" cried Jacques Three, who was approaching. "It's the name of the cell, sir."

"Lead me the way." "Then come this way."

Jacques III, with his usual hopeful expression, was obviously disappointed that the conversation did not lead to bloodshed.He gripped Defarge's arm, and he gripped the guard's arm.During this brief conversation their three heads came together—the only way they could hear each other at that time, because the crowd had rushed into the fortress, covering the passages and stairs, and there was a violent clamor.Outside, the crowd also hit the walls on all sides with a low roar.In the midst of the roar, there are occasional bursts of shouts, like waves rising into the air.

Holding hands, Defarge, the guard and Jacques No. [-] quickly walked through the arch that never sees the sun, passed through the dark cave and the hideous narrow door, walked down the cave-like steps, climbed up the stone and A dangerous stone staircase of bricks—it looked more like a waterless waterfall than a staircase.Crowds still pass them in places, especially at first.But after they descended and ascended a tower, they were alone.Here, between the heavy stone walls and arches, the storm within the keep was only a muffled sound in their ears, as if the noise outside had nearly spoiled their hearing.

The guard stopped by a low gate.He put a key in a lock, opened the door gently, and said as they bowed their heads in:

"North Tower 0!" There is a window at the top of the wall. There is no glass on the window, and the security is heavily guarded. There is a stone screen in front of it. To see the sky, you have to bend down and look up.There is a small chimney not far from the entrance, and the entrance of the chimney is also closed with thick iron bars.There was a light pile of old wood ashes on the fireplace.There was a bench, a table, a bed with straw mats, four black walls, and a rusty iron ring on one wall.

"Take a torch and shine slowly on these walls, and I will take a look,"

said Defarge to the guard.The man obeyed, and Defarge followed the torch carefully with his eyes. "Stop!—here, Jacques!"

"A·M!" Jacques Three read greedily, his voice hoarse. "Alexander Manette," said Defarge into his ear, tracing the letters with his black, gunpowder-covered fingers. "Here he writes 'A hapless doctor.' And, of course, he was the one who drew the calendar on this rock. What's that you're holding? A crowbar? Give it to me."

In his hand he still held the matchlock for firing the cannon.He quickly changed tools, turned to the worn-out tables and stools, and smashed them to pieces with a few sticks.

"Light the torch higher!" he said angrily to the guard. "Jacques, take a good look at these splinters. Here! Here's a knife," he tossed it to him. "Slash the mattress and look for some grass. Hold the torch higher, you!"

He gave the watchman a hard look, climbed up the fireplace, looked up the chimney, and struck with the crowbar, knocking the chimney-walls and the iron bars that spanned the chimney.After a while some plaster and dust fell, and he turned his head to avoid it, and then he groped earnestly in the chimney, in the old pile of ashes, in the crack that his weapon had cut through.

"Not in the logs or in the grass, Jacques?" "No."

"Let's gather these things in the middle of the cell. There you go! Make a fire, you!"

The guard lit the pile, and the flames were high and hot.They let the fire burn, stooped out again through the low archway, and followed the same path back into the yard.At this time, their hearing seemed to recover, and they returned to the sound of the fierce waves.

They found the crowd ebbing and flowing, looking for Defarge.Saint-Antoine is yelling at its innkeepers to take charge of the prefect of the fortress who is guarding the Bastille and firing at the people.Without the Superintendent Defarge cannot be taken to the Town Hall for interrogation, without him the Superintendent will escape, and the blood feud of the people will not be paid (blood that has been worthless for so many years is now suddenly valuable).

In his gray cloak and red medals, the ruthless old officer stood out against the seething crowd that seemed to wrap him tightly.But amidst the din that was everywhere, there was one person who didn't move.That person is a woman. "Look, here comes my husband!" she cried, pointing out him. "Look, Defarge!" She stood still next to the cold old officer, and did not move while Defarge and others escorted him through the street.She didn't move when he was escorted to the destination and someone hit him from behind.When the knife fist that gathered the long-term hatred fell on him fiercely like the apex, she still didn't leave an inch.After he was injured and fell to the ground and died, she suddenly moved, stepped on his neck, and cut off his head with the vicious knife she had prepared earlier.

The time had come for St. Antoine to carry out his dreadful plans.He wants to hang people up like street lamps, to show what kind of person he can be and what kind of things he can do.St. Antoine was angry, and the blood of tyrannical and cruel rule was spilled, sprayed on the steps of the town hall where the corpse of the governor of the fortress lay, and on the soles of Madame Defarge's shoes-in order to chop the corpse a few more times, she He stomped on the dead body. "Put down that lamp over there!" St. Antoine opened his eyes wide and looked around for a new tool for killing, and then shouted, "He still has a soldier here, let him stand guard for him!" Easily hung on the sentry post.The crowd rushed forward again.

The black sea waves, the destructive rise and collision between the waves, the depth of the collision was incalculable at that time, and its strength was not yet known.The sea of ​​guiltless men tossed violently, the cries of vengeance, the faces hardened in the furnace of suffering, on which pity was no more to be found.

All kinds of ferocious and furious expressions flashed on the faces of the crowd, but there were two groups of seven people in each group, forming an inflexible contrast with the other faces.Never has the ocean washed out more memorable remnants of a shipwreck.Seven prisoners were suddenly released by the storm that broke through their tombs, and were held high above the people's heads.They felt terrified, bewildered, bewildered, astonished, as if the last judgment had come, and the souls of the rejoicing people around them were beyond redemption.There are seven more faces raised higher, seven dead faces, with lowered lids and half-revealed eyes awaiting the Last Judgment.Although the face was expressionless, it carried a hopeful and unrepentant expression, as if it had made a horrible pause, ready to raise the drooping eyelids, and testify with pale lips:

"You killed me!"

Seven prisoners freed, seven scarlet heads on spears, keys to the cursed fortress of eight fortresses, certain letters found, dead long ago with regrets Prisoner's Relics - Lamps and such were escorted through the streets of Paris in mid-July, 780, by the mighty footsteps of Saint-Antoine.Now, may Heaven beat Lucy Darnay's fantasies and let that footstep disturb her life!Because that's fast, crazy, and unsafe.And after years of breaking wine barrels in front of the Defarge Hotel, those footsteps, once stained with blood, are difficult to wash off.

(End of this chapter)