Two Cities

Chapter 60 52 (1)
In the dark cells of the subsidiary prison, the day's death row inmates silently awaited their fate.There are as many of them as there are weeks in the year.That afternoon, 52 people would join the tide of life in that city rolling into the abyss of eternal destruction.Their cells have not been vacated, and new tenants have been assigned.Their blood has not yet been sprinkled with yesterday's blood, and the blood to be mixed with theirs tomorrow has been chosen.

Fifty-two were named one by one, from a 52-year-old tax contractor to a 70-year-old seamstress.All the wealth of the former cannot buy back his life, and the poverty and lowliness of the latter cannot buy back her life.Physiological diseases arise from the sins and negligence of men, and they treat the sick equally regardless of their superiority or inferiority.Moral insanity, rooted in unspeakable suffering, unbearable oppression, and inhuman cruelty, strikes equally at the good and the bad.

Charles Darnay had a cell to himself.Since leaving the courtroom, he no longer consoled himself with fantasies.Yesterday he heard the indictment, and in every line of the indictment he heard his own ruin.He fully understood that no one could save his life.Objectively speaking, the people who sentenced him to death are all sentient beings, and the efforts of a few people are theoretically useless.

However, the face of his beloved wife is always so vivid in front of his eyes, which makes it difficult for him to kill him calmly. He is extremely obsessed with life, and he can't even give it up.One side finally loosened gradually, but the other side snapped together again.Use your strength there, make a little progress, but this side is closed again.He felt thousands of melancholy rushing to him, and he couldn't help his heart surging, he was so anxious that he couldn't let the fate of the heavens rest.Suppose there was a moment of peace, but the wife and children who had to live after his death seemed to protest again, calling the peace selfish.

However, this is only the beginning.After a while, he felt that there was no shame in the fate he was facing, and remembering that countless people had been wronged and wronged to the same end, and that every day someone walked through it calmly, so he took courage again.Then he remembered that in order for his relatives to be worthy of this in the future, he must also be calm now, so that he gradually stabilized and felt calmer. At this time, his thoughts reached a higher level, and he found the truth from heaven. comfort.

He had reached this point on the road to death before dark on the day he was sentenced to death.He was allowed to buy paper, pens and candles, so he sat down to write letters and continued to write until the uniformly enforced lights-out time in the prison.

He wrote a long letter to Lucy, saying that he did not know of her father's confinement until she told him, and that he did not know of his own father's and uncle's responsibility for the ordeal until the manuscript was read.He'd also explained to her why he hadn't told her the last name he had given up, because that was the only condition her father had made of their engagement, the only promise he'd asked for on the morning of their wedding—thinking about it now. The request is completely understandable.He asked her, for her father's sake, not to inquire whether he had forgotten the manuscript, nor whether the conversation about the Tower of London had temporarily or permanently changed that Sunday in the garden under the plane-tree. He remembered the manuscript.If he still remembered clearly, he definitely thought it had been destroyed with the Bastille, because it was not among the relics of the prisoners of the Bastille that he now advertised to the world.He begged her—although he said it was not necessary—to use all the tactful ways she could think of to persuade her father to make him understand the fact that he had not done anything to be responsible for, on the contrary, he had never done anything for their sake. Take care of yourself.He hoped that she would remember his last grateful love and blessings to her, and hoped that she would take care of herself and give all her love to their dear child.They can see each other in heaven.He also asks her to comfort her father.

In a similar tone, he wrote a letter to her father, entrusting him with his wife and children.He made the commission in a very solemn tone, hoping that he would cheer up, not despair, not be intoxicated with memories-he feared that he would have this tendency-it was extremely dangerous.

He entrusted the family to Mr. Lorry, and arranged his trivial affairs.Afterwards, he added some words to conclude, expressing deep friendship and ardent remembrance.He didn't mention Carlton.His mind was so full of other people that he didn't think of him at all.

He finished writing the letter before lights out.When he lay on the straw, he felt that this world no longer belonged to him.

But the world called him back from his dream, and unfolded before him a glorious image.Without knowing how, he was released, and happily and happily with Lucy went to the old house in Soho, although it was completely different from what it used to be.She told him that all this was just a dream, that he never left home, and after a while, he was beheaded again, died, and returned to her side without any ups and downs, nothing changed.After another groggy, he woke up in the dark morning.He had long forgotten where he was and what happened, until he suddenly remembered, "Today is my death day!"

He survived these hours in this way, and entered the day when the 52 heads would fall to the ground.At this time, he was very calm, and he only wanted to face death silently and bravely.But his waking mind suddenly surged with thoughts, and all kinds of new activities that could not be suppressed appeared.

He hadn't seen the machine that would soon end his life.How high is it off the ground?How many steps are there?Where will he be detained?How would others touch him?Was the hand that touched him stained red?Will he be the first?Or the last one?These questions, and many others like them, came fiercely into his mind again and again, and came up again and again.All thoughts have nothing to do with fear.He wasn't scared at all, they just seemed to come from a strange, inescapable desire to know what to do when the time came.The time for that matter was so short, but his desire was so disproportionately huge, this kind of psychology could not be said to have originated from himself, but rather seemed to have originated from a certain spirit in his heart.

Hour by hour passed, and he kept walking up and down.The bells tolled the hours he would never hear again.Nine o'clock has completely passed, ten o'clock has completely passed, eleven o'clock has passed forever, twelve o'clock will come and pass.After a violent struggle with the rare thoughts that had beset him just now, he managed them.He has been walking up and down, silently repeating the names of his loved ones to himself.The most difficult time is over.He can concentrate on wandering, earnestly praying for himself and his loved ones.

Twelve o'clock passed forever.

He was notified that the last hour was three o'clock.He understands that the time of deportation may be a little earlier, and the death row vehicle is still bumping slowly and heavily on the street!So he made up his mind to keep two o'clock in his mind as the hour of the event.Before that, he had to make himself strong before he could make others strong.

He walked slowly with his arms folded across his chest.He was a very different man from the prisoner who had paced up and down La Force Prison.He was not surprised to hear one strike and leave him, the hour being exactly as long as the others.With self-control, he thanked Heaven from the bottom of his heart, thinking, "Only an hour left." Then he walked.

There was the sound of footsteps on the stone walkway outside, and he stood there.The key was inserted into the lock, and when he turned it, the door hadn't opened, maybe it was about to open, when he heard someone whispering, in English: "He has never seen me here, I avoided him. You yourself Go in, I'll be waiting nearby, hurry up."

The door opened and closed hastily.Standing in front of him face to face, with a smile on his face, staring at him quietly, with a finger in front of his lips in warning, was Sidney Carton.

His image was so radiant and distinguished that the prisoner mistook him for a phantom of his own imagination when he first saw him.But he spoke, and the voice was his own.He grasped the prisoner's hand, which was really his.

"Among all the people you least expect to meet with me is definitely me?" he said.

"I could hardly believe it was you. I can't believe it now. Are you in jail too?" He suddenly became anxious.

"No. I just happened to get hold of a jailer here, and came to see you. I came from her—your wife—from her, my dear Darnay."

The prisoner wrung his hands. "I've brought you a request from her." "What kind of request?"

"A most sincere, most urgent, and most important request. A request made in touching tones by the dear voice that you will never let go of."

The prisoner turned his face slightly to one side. "You're running out of time. Don't ask me why I brought this wish, and don't ask what it means. I don't have time to tell you. You must do as I say—change the boots on your feet for mine."

There is a chair against the wall in the cell, just behind the prisoner.Carlton pushed forward, shoving him into the chair like lightning, and looked down at him, barefoot himself.

"Put on my boots. Pull by hand, hard, fast!"

"Carlton, there is no escape from this place. Absolutely impossible. You will die with me. It is madness."

"It would be crazy if I told you to run away. But did I tell you to run away? It's not too late to go crazy when I tell you to escape through that door, and you can choose not to go! Put your bow tie and mine Exchange, and exchange the top with me. You change clothes, I will take off this headband for you, shake your hair out, and make it similar to mine."

Carlton moved very quickly.They relied on supernatural willpower and action to prompt him to quickly change clothes-the prisoner was completely like a child under his hands.

"Carton, dear Carton! It's madness. It won't work, it won't work. It's been done, and it hasn't been done. I beg you not to take your life on top of my pain. "

"Did I ask you to go out of that door? I will not comment until I ask you to go. There is a pen, ink, and paper on the table. Can your hands still write without shaking?"

"When you first came in, my hands didn't shake." "Then don't shake anymore, I say you write! Come on, friend, come on!" sat down.Carlton stood close to him with his right hand in his front. "I said you write."

"To whom?" "Not to whom." Carlton still put one hand in his front.

"Do you need to write the date?" "No."

The prisoner looked up when he asked it a question.Carlton, with one hand in his front, bent over him.

"If you still remember what we both said," Carton read, and made him write, "you will understand from this letter. I know you do, because your nature does."

He was about to take his hand out of the front, but the prisoner suddenly felt confused halfway through writing, and looked up hastily.The hand stopped there, pinching something in it.

"Have you finished forgetting?" asked Carlton. "I'm done. Do you have a weapon in your hand?" "No. I don't have a weapon." "What's in your hand?"

"You will know in a moment. Write it down, there are only a few words left." He continued to read and asked him to write.I thank God for giving me the opportunity to prove everything.I thank God that my actions will never again be regrettable or sad. "Speaking, he stared at the letter writer, and slowly and gently stretched out his hand in front of him."

The pen dropped from Darnay's fingers on the table, and he looked around in a daze.

"What fog is that?" he asked. "Fog?"

(End of this chapter)