Two Cities

Chapter 39 The tide continues to rise
Poor emaciated St. Antoine was only happy for a week.His sweet friendship hugs and celebrations made his lousy bread as soft as it could be.Madame Defarge sat behind her counter to receive customers as usual, but she left roses on her head, because the deep brotherhood of the spies had been transformed into special vigilance in just a week, and they dared not take Send it to your door to let St. Antoine solve it.The street lamps on the pavement were shaking with an uneasy elasticity!
Madame Defarge sat with folded hands on her breast in the soft morning light, studying the tavern and the street, where there were filthy and wretched idlers, but whose distressed faces now showed With a palpable sense of power.The tattered nightcap that is cocked on the wretched head carries this haughty meaning: "I know how hard life is in a battered hat, but you know how easy it is for me to kill you in a battered hat." ?” The thin, bare arm that had no work before was now ready to work, because it could do things.The women who do the knitting have strong fingers, and they have experienced tearing.St. Antoine changed his appearance.Hundreds of years of hammering had knocked him into the same appearance, but the last few hammers had the greatest effect, hammering him out of other expressions.

Madame Defarge sat watching with the understated admiration of the leading women of St. Antoine.One of her fellow women knits beside her.The woman was a stocky woman, the wife of a hungry grocer and the mother of two children.The female compatriot has already earned the praise of "Nemesis".

"Listen!" said the Nemesis. "Watch out! Who's coming?" There was a rapid-fire sound, like a series of firecrackers suddenly exploding from the edge of the Saint-Antoine district directly to the door of the hotel. "It's Defarge," said the landlady, "keep it down, patriots!" Defarge ran into the house out of breath, pulled off his red cap, and looked around. "Attention everywhere!" said the landlady again, "listen to him!" Defarge stood panting, with his back to the anxious eyes and open mouth outside the door.Everyone in the hotel jumped to their feet.

"Tell me, boss, what's the matter?" "News from another world!"

"What's going on?" the proprietress yelled contemptuously, "Another world?"

"Do people here remember old Furen? He said the starving man can eat grass. Isn't he dead and in hell?"

"Remember!" said all the voices. "It's about him. He's still with us." "With us!" cried all the people. "Dead and still with us?" "Not dead! He was so frightened—he had reason to be—so he tried to pretend he was dead and had a fake funeral. But he was found alive and fled to I saw him go to the town hall a little while ago, already a prisoner. As I said, he has reason to be afraid of us. Say it, everyone! Should he be afraid of us?"

If the 70-year-old unfortunate sinner heard this unanimous answer, he would be afraid from the bottom of his heart even if he didn't know why he was afraid.

There was a moment of silence.Defarge and his wife gazed at each other for a moment.Nemesis bent down, and there was the sound of a big drum, and it was she who moved it out from behind the counter with her feet.

"Patriots!" said Defarge in a sonorous voice, "are you ready?"

Madame Defarge's knife was immediately in her belt.The big drums sounded in the street, as if by magic the big drums flew out with the drummer.With a horrific shriek, Furies flailed her arms above her head, as if forty Furies in one body rushed from house to house to persuade the women to take to the streets.

The men were terrible, flooding the streets with a rage like blood, looking out of the window, grabbing anything as a weapon.The sight of the women can make the heart of the bravest tremble.Leaving behind the chores of poverty, the children, the hungry old and the sick lying on the bare floor, they ran out like madmen, answering each other, with the most savage cries and Behavior went into frenzied activity "Sister, Furen the Scoundrel has been caught!" women joined their movement.They screamed in rage, "Fulen's alive." "Furren, the fellow told the poor that they could eat grass." "Fulen, the fellow when I had no bread for my father But he said he could eat grass." "Furren, because there is no food in my milk, there is no milk, but he said that my baby is going to eat grass." "Oh, Holy Mother, this Furren." "Oh, God, O our misery." "Listen, my dead child and my sickly father: I kneel on the ground, on the stone, and swear I will avenge Furen for you! Husbands, brethren, young men, give The blood of our Furen." "Give us Furen's head, give us Furen's heart." "Give us Furen's body." "Kill Furen and bury him in the earth, let the grass grow from him Grow it!" Shouting like this, many women went crazy, forgot everything, beat and tore with their friends, and made a fuss, all relying on the men at home to save them from being trampled underfoot.However, they didn't waste any time!Furren is at City Hall at this time and may be released.As long as St. Antoine had not forgotten the suffering, the humiliation and the injustice they had endured, he could never be released.Armed men and women poured out of the Saint-Antoine district, running fast, and carrying the last of them with great momentum.Before long, St. Antoine's heart was filled with nothing but wrinkled old crones and rowdy children.

There is no one left.They had by this time filled the courtroom where the ugly, hideous old man was, and spread outward into the adjacent grounds and streets.The Defarges, Furies and Jacques III were the first to arrive and stood in the hall not far from the old man.

"Look!" cried the landlady, pointing her knife. "Look at that scoundrel there. Yes, put a bundle of straw on his back. Ha! ha! Well done. Let him eat grass at once!" With the knife under his arm, he clapped his hands as if watching a show.

The people behind Madame Defarge echoed her words, and the nearby streets burst into applause.Likewise, in the din of two or three hours sifting through an incomprehensible amount of words, Madame Defarge's often unbearable opinion was echoed at a distance with high speed, as a few nimble persons climbed outside the building, Look in from the window.They knew Madame Defarge well, and began a live telegram between her and the crowd outside.

At last the sun rose, and shone a ray of good hope or protection upon the head of the old prisoner.Such a gift is too great to be tolerated.

All the bastards who had been in his way for too long were blasted away, and St. Antoine had him!
Immediately word of it reached the peoples of the most distant lands directly.Defarge had just leaped over a railing and a table and hugged the unfortunate wretch tightly. Madame Defarge followed and seized one of the ropes that bound him tightly. Furies and Jacques III had not yet followed. Before the people on the windows had time to run down, there was a yell, which seemed to be yelling all over the city, "Get him out! Get him under the street lamp!"

I fell, got up, and fell headfirst on the steps outside the hall.One after another.Sometimes he fell to the ground, and sometimes he was dragged away.He was beaten and choked to death by handfuls of hay and grass stuffed into his face by countless hands.Being pulled, pulled, covered with bruises, panting, bleeding, always crying, always begging for mercy.Sometimes it was a struggle, full of pain.People pulled to make way for a small area to watch his performance.Sometimes a piece of dead wood is dragged out of the forest-like leg bushes.In this way he was taken to the nearest corner, where hung a terrible lamp.There Madame Defarge let him go--a cat can let a mouse go--and watched him quietly, silently, waiting for the others to prepare.And he begged her.The women kept yelling at him, and the men yelled cruelly to put grass in his mouth and kill him.The first time he was hoisted up, the rope snapped and he howled and was caught.The second time, he was hoisted up, the rope snapped and he was grabbed screaming.Then the rope showed mercy and hung him up.Immediately his head was impaled on the point of a spear, and enough grass was stuffed in his mouth to make all St. Antoine dance.The day's bad was not over yet.St. Antoine, already mad with shouts and dances, so at dusk his blood boiled with anger again.That was because it was said that the son-in-law of the man who had been dealt with, another enemy of the people who oppressed the people, had entered the city of Paris with a guard of five hundred cavalry.St. Antoine proclaimed his guilt on a large sheet of paper, then seized him—he would have taken him with Furren even if he had a huge army to protect him—and killed him.St. Antoine took the three trophies of the day and formed a procession of jackals to parade through the streets.

Men and women did not return to crying, hungry children until late at night.The unfortunate bakery is then surrounded by a long line of people earnestly waiting to buy crappy bread.Hugging each other as they lined up on empty bellies, celebrating the day's wins, passing the time, and reminiscing about the triumph in small talk.Several ragged strings slowly shortened and finally disappeared.There was a tiny light in the high windows, and a small fire was lit in the street. Several neighbors cooked on the fire, and then ate dinner at the door.

Dinner was not much, not enough, no meat, no other dishes, just bad bread.However, the friendship between people adds nutrition to this cold food, and a few sparks of happiness come out from the collision of people.Parents involved in the most horrific event of the day spoke warmly to their emaciated children.Lovers love and hope in the world around them and in front of them.

The sun was rising when the Defarge Hotel parted with the last guests.Monsieur Defarge, closing the door, whispered to his wife:
"The day has come at last, my dear!" "Well, yes!" replied the landlady. "Almost there." Saint-Antoine was asleep, the Defarges were asleep, even the Furies were asleep with her grocer, and so was the drum.The sound of the big drum was the only sound that hadn't changed for the panic.Nemesis, custodian of the drum, could also wake it up and make it sound as it did before the destruction of the Bastille or the capture of old Furren, but the throats of the men and women in Saint-Antoine's arms were all hoarse.

(End of this chapter)