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ONE of the first considerations which arose in the business mind of Mr. Lorry when business hours came round, was this:--that he had no right to imperil Tellson's by sheltering the wife of an emigrant prisoner under the Bank roof. His own possessions, safety, life, he would have hazarded for Lucie and her child, without a moment's demur; but the great trust he held was not his own, and as to that business charge he was a strict man of business.
At first, his mind reverted to Defarge, and he thought of finding out the wine-shop again and taking counsel with its master in reference to the safest dwelling-place in the distracted state of the city. But, the same consideration that suggested him, repudiated him; he lived in the most violent Quarter, and doubtless was influential there, and deep in its dangerous workings.
Noon coming, and the Doctor not returning, and every minute's delay tending to compromise, Tellson's, Mr. Lorry advised with Lucie. She said that her father had spoken of hiring a lodging for a short term, in that Quarter, near the Banking-house. As there was no business objection to this, and as he foresaw that even if it were all well with Charles, and he were to be released, he could not hope to leave the city, Mr. Lorry went out in quest of such a lodging, and found a suitable one, high up in a removed by-street where the closed blinds in all the other windows of a high melancholy square of buildings marked deserted homes.
To this lodging he at once removed Lucie and her child, and Miss Pross: giving them what comfort he could, and much more than he had himself. He left Jerry with them, as a figure to fill a doorway that would bear considerable knocking on the head, and returned to his own occupations. A disturbed and doleful mind he brought to bear upon them, and slowly and heavily the day lagged on with him.
It wore itself out, and wore him out with it, until the Bank closed. He was again alone in his room of the previous night, considering what to do next, when he heard a foot upon the stair. In a few moments, a man stood in his presence, who, with a keenly observant look at him, addressed him by his name.
`Your servant,' said Mr. Lorry. `Do you know me?'
He was a strongly made man with dark curling hair, from forty-five to fifty years of a e. For answer he repeated, without any change of emphasis, the words:
`Do you know me?'
`I have seen you somewhere.'
`Perhaps at my wine-shop?'
Much interested and agitated, Mr. Lorry said: `You come from Doctor Manette?'
`Yes. I come from Doctor Manette.'
`And what says he? What does he send me?'
Defarge gave into his anxious hand, an open scrap of paper. It bore the words in the Doctor's writing:
`Charles is safe, but I cannot safely leave this place yet. I have obtained the favour that the bearer has a short note from Charles to his wife. Let the bearer see his wife.'
It was dated from La Force, within an hour.
`Will you accompany me,' said Mr. Lorry, joyfully relieved after reading this note aloud, `to where his wife resides?'
`Yes,' returned Defarge.
Scarcely noticing as yet, in what a curiously reserved and mechanical way Defarge spoke, Mr. Lorry put on his hat and they went down into the court-yard. There, they found two women; one, knitting.
`Madame Defarge, surely!' said Mr. Lorry, who had left her in exactly the same attitude some seventeen years ago.
`It is she,' observed her husband.
`Does madame go with us?' inquired Mr. Lorry, seeing that she moved as they moved.
`Yes. That she may be able to recognise the faces and know the persons. It is for their safety.'
Beginning to be struck by Defarge's manner, Mr. Lorry looked dubiously at him, and led the way. Both the women followed; the second woman being The Vengeance.
They passed through the intervening streets as quickly as they might, ascended the staircase of the new domicile, were admitted by Jerry, and found Lucie weeping, alone. She was thrown into a transport by the tidings Mr. Lorry gave her of her husband, and clasped the hand that delivered his note---little thinking what it had been doing near him in the night, and might, but for a chance, have done to him.
`DEAREST,--Take courage. I am well, and your father has influence around me. You cannot answer this. Kiss
our child for me.'
That was all the writing. It was so much, however, to her who received it, that she turned from Defarge to his wife, and kissed one of the hands that knitted. It was a passionate, loving, thankful, womanly action, but the hand made no response--dropped cold and heavy, and took to its knitting again.
There was something in its touch that gave Lucie a check. She stopped in the act of putting the note in her bosom, and, with her hands yet at her neck, looked terrified at Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge met the lifted eyebrows and forehead with a cold, impassive stare.
`My dear,' said Mr. Lorry, striking in to explain; `there are frequent risings in the streets; and, although it is not likely they will ever trouble you, Madame Defarge wishes to see those whom she has the power to protect at such times, to the end that she may know them--that she may identify them. I believe,' said Mr. Lorry, rather halting in his reassuring words, as the stony manner of all the three impressed itself upon him more and more, `I state the case, Citizen Defarge?'
Defarge looked gloomily at his wife, and gave no other answer than a gruff sound of acquiescence.
`You had better, Lucie,' said Mr. Lorry, doing all he could to propitiate, by tone and manner, `have the dear child here, and our good Pross. Our good Pross, Defarge, is an English lady, and knows no French.'
The lady in question, whose rooted conviction that she was more than a match for any foreigner, was not to be shaken by distress and danger, appeared wish folded arms, and observed in English to The Vengeance, whom her eyes first encountered, `Well, I am sure, Boldface! I hope you are pretty well!' She also bestowed a British cough on Madame Defarge; but, neither of the two took much heed of her.
`Is that his child?' said Madame Defarge, stopping in her work for the first time, and pointing her knitting-needle at little Lucie as if it were the finger of Fate.
`Yes, madame,' answered Mr. Lorry; `this is our poor prisoner's darling daughter, and only child.'
The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed to fall so threatening and dark on the child, that her mother instinctively kneeled on the ground beside her, and held her to her breast. The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed then to fall, threatening and dark, on both the mother and the child.
`It is enough, my husband,' said Madame Defarge. `I have seen them. We may go.
But, the suppressed manner had enough of menace in it--not visible and presented, but indistinct and withheld--to alarm Lucie into saying, as she laid her appealing hand on Madame Defarge's dress:
`You will be good to my poor husband. You will do him no harm. You will help me to see him if you can?'
`Your husband is not my business here,' returned Madame Defarge, looking down at her with perfect composure. `It is the daughter of your father who is my business here.'
`For my sake, then, be merciful to my husband. For my child's sake! She will put her hands together and pray you to be merciful. We are more afraid of you than of these others.'
Madame Defarge received it as a compliment, and looked at her husband. Defarge, who had been uneasily biting his thumb-nail and looking at her, collected his face into a sterner expression.
`What is it that your husband says in that little letter?' asked Madame Defarge, with a lowering smile. `Influence; he says something touching influence?'
`That my father,' said Lucie, hurriedly taking the paper from her breast, but with her alarmed eyes on her questioner and not on it, `has much influence around him.'
`Surely it will release him!' said Madame Defarge. `Let it do so.'
`As a wife and mother,' cried Lucie, most earnestly, `I implore you to have pity on me and not to exercise any power that you possess, against my innocent husband, but to use it in his behalf. O sister-woman, think of me. As a wife and mother!'
Madame Defarge looked, coldly as ever, at the suppliant, and said, turning to her friend The Vengeance:
`The wives and mothers we have been used to see, since we were as little as this child, and much less, have not been greatly considered? We have known their husbands and fathers laid in prison and kept from them, often enough? All our lives, we have seen our sister-women suffer, in themselves and in their children, poverty, nakedness, hunger, thirst. sickness, misery, oppression and neglect of all kinds?'
`We have seen nothing else,' returned The Vengeance.
`We have borne this a long time,' said Madame Defarge, turning her eyes again upon Lucie. `Judge you! Is it likely that the trouble of one wife and mother would be much to us now?'
She resumed her knitting and went out. The Vengeance followed. Defarge went last, and closed the door.
`Courage, my dear Lucie,' said Mr. Lorry, as he raised her. `Courage, courage! So far all goes well with us--much, much better than it has of late gone with many poor souls. Cheer up, and have a thankful heart.'
`I am not thankless, I hope, but that dreadful woman seems to throw a shadow on me and on all my hopes.'
`Tut, tut!' said Mr. Lorry; `what is this despondency in the brave little breast? A shadow indeed! No substance in it, Lucie.'
But the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark upon himself, for all that, and in his secret mind it troubled him greatly. 业务时间一到，在罗瑞先生办惯业务的心里首先要考虑的问题之一就是：他无权让一个在押的外逃分子的妻子停留在台尔森银行的屋檐下，给公司带来危险。为了露西和她的孩子他可以拿自己的生命、财产和安全去冒险，但由他负责的巨大公司却不属于他，对待业务责任他一向是个严格的办事人员。
最初他想过德伐日，想再找到那家酒店，跟老板商量在这座疯狂状态下的城市里安排一个最安全的住所。但是那令他想起德伐日的念头同时也否定了他：德伐日住在骚乱最严重的地区，无疑在那儿很有影响，跟危险活动的关系很深。
快正午了，医生还没有回来。每一分钟的耽误都可能给台尔森银行带来危险。罗瑞先生只好跟露西商量。她说她父亲曾说过要在银行大厦附近租赁一个短期住处。这不但不会影响业务，对查尔斯也是好的，因为即使他被释放出来，也还没有离开巴黎的希望。罗瑞先生便出去找住处。他在一条小街的高层楼上找到了一套合适的住房。那楼靠着一个萧条的广场，广场周围高楼的百叶窗全都关闭，说明住户早走光了。
他立即把露西、孩子和普洛丝小姐搬到那里住下，尽可能为她们提供了舒适的条件——比自己的条件好多了。他把杰瑞—一他那脑袋很能挨几下——留给她们看门，自己便回去了。他为她们又是着急又是痛苦，日子过得极其缓慢沉重。
日子好难挨，一天终于过去，银行下班了。他又回到前一天晚上那屋里思考着往下的步骤。这时他听见楼梯上传来了脚步声。不一会儿，一个人已来到他面前。那人目光犀利地打量了他一会儿，便叫出了他的名字。
“愿为你效劳，”罗瑞先生说，“你认识我么？”
这人身体结实，深色鬈发，年纪在四十五至五十。因为想得到回答，来人重复了一下刚才的话，也不曾加重语气：
“你认识我么？”
“我在别的地方见过你。”
“也许是在我的酒店里。”
罗瑞先生很感兴趣，也很激动。罗瑞先生说：“你是曼内特先生打发来的么？”
“是的，是他打发来的。”
“他怎么说？他带来了什么消息？”
德伐日把一张打开的纸条递到他急迫的手里，那是医生的笔迹：
“查尔斯安然无恙。我尚难安全离此。已蒙批准让送信人给查尔斯之妻带去一便条。请让此人见地。”
纸条上的地址是拉福斯，时间是一小时前。
“跟我到他妻子的住地去一趟，好吗？”罗瑞先生大声读了条子，高高兴兴放下心来说。
“好的，”德伐日回答。
德伐日的回答奇特而机械，可是罗瑞先生几乎没注意到。他戴上帽子，两人便下楼进了院子。院子里有两个妇女，一个在打毛线。
“德伐日太太，肯定是：”罗瑞先生说，约莫十七年前他离开她时她几乎是同样的姿态。
“是她，”她的丈夫说。
“太太也跟我们一起去么？”罗瑞先生见她也跟着走，问道。
“是的。让她来认认面孔，认认人。为了他们的安全。”
罗瑞先生开始注意到了德伐日的生硬态度，便怀疑地望了他一下，然后带路前进。两个女入都跟了上来。另一个女人是复仇女神。
一行人尽快穿过了途中的街道，走上了新居的楼梯，被杰瑞放进门去。他们看见露西一个人在哭。她一得到罗瑞先生带给她的有关她丈夫的消息便高兴得发了狂，攥住交给她条子的手不放——她却没想到那只手晚上对她的丈夫干过些什么，若是有机会又有可能对他干什么。
“最亲爱的—一鼓起勇气来。我一切如常。你约父亲对我的周围很有影响。不能回信。为我吻我们的孩子。”
寥寥数语，再也没有了。但收信人已是喜出望外。她离开了德伐日转向他的太太，吻了吻一只干着编织活儿的手。那是一种热情的、挚爱的、感谢的女性动作，但那手却毫无反应——它只冷冷地、沉重地垂了下去，又开始编织起来。
在和那手的接触中有某种东西很令露西扫兴。她正要把字条往胸衣里放，却怔住了，两手停在了脖子边，惶恐地望着德伐日太太——那个女人正冷漠地、无动于衷地瞪着她那抬起的眉头。
“亲爱的，”罗瑞先生急忙解释，“街道上常常出事，虽然未必会波及到你，但德伐日太太却想见见她在这种情况下可以保护的人，跟她认识一下一—到时才能认得人，我相信是这样，”罗瑞先生说。他说着这些安慰的话，却也在犹豫，因为三个人的生硬表情给他的印象越来越深。“我说得对吧，德伐日公民？”
德伐日阴沉地望了望他的妻子，只哼了一声表示默认，却没说话。
“你最好把可爱的孩子和我们的好普洛丝都留在这儿，露西，”罗瑞先生竭力从口气和态度上进行安慰地说，“我们的好普洛丝是个英国小姐，不懂法语，德伐日。”
这位小姐有个根深蒂固的信念：她比任何外国人强；她这信念也绝不会因任何苦难和危险而改变。此刻她抱着膀子出来了，用英语向她第一个瞧见的人复仇女神说，“晤，没问题，冒失鬼！但愿你身体还不错！”她对德伐日太太则咳嗽了一声——那是不列颠式的，可那两位谁都没大注意。
“那是他的孩子么？”德伐日太太说，第一次停下编织，用编织针像命运的手指一样指着小露西。
“是的，太太，”罗瑞先生回答，“这是我们可怕的囚徒的唯一爱女。”，
德伐日太太和她的伙伴的影子落到了孩子身上，似乎咄咄逼人、阴森可怕，吓得她的母亲本能地跪倒在她身边的地上，把她搂在怀里。于是德伐日太太和她伙伴的阴影似乎又咄咄逼人、阴森可怕地落到母女俩身上。
“够了，当家的，”德伐日太太说。“我见到她们了，可以走了。”
但是她那勉强控制的神态中却已露出了隐约不明的威胁，虽只是些蛛丝马迹，却也使露西警觉起来。她伸出一只哀求的手拉住德伐日太太的衣服：
“你会善待我可怜的丈夫吧！你不会伤害他吧！如果可能，你会帮助我见到他吧？”
“在这儿你的丈夫跟我无关，”德伐日太太完全不动声色地望着她，回答道，“在这儿跟我有关的是你父亲的女儿。”
“那就请为了我怜悯我的丈夫，也为了我孩子怜悯他！我要合拢双手祈求你的怜悯。你们几个人里我们最害怕的就是你。”
德伐日太太把这话当作一种赞扬，望了望她的丈夫。一直在不安地啃着拇指指甲望着她的德伐日立即板起面孔露出严厉的样子。
“你丈夫在那封短信里说了些什么？”德伐日太太瞪了她一眼，笑着说，“影响，他说了有关影响的话么？”
“我的父亲对我丈夫周围的人有影响，”露西匆勿从胸衣里取出信来，惊惶的眼睛望着提问题的人，没有看着信。
“他的影响肯定能放他出来的！”德伐日太太说。“那就让那影响发挥作用吧！”
“作为妻子和母亲，”露西极其真诚地说，“我乞求你怜悯我，不要使用你的影响反对我无辜的丈夫。用它去帮助他吧！啊，大姐，请想一想我吧，作为妻子和母亲！”
德伐日太太一如平时冷冷地望了望乞求者，转身对复仇女神说：
“自从我们跟这孩子一样大以来—一甚至还没有她那么大以来，我们见过的妻子和母亲还少么？我们就没有想到过她们么？我们不是还常常见到她们的丈夫和父亲被关到监牢里，不能跟她们见面么？我们不是一辈子都在看见自己的姐妹们受苦么？看见自己受苦，孩子受苦，没有钱，没有穿的，没有吃的，没有喝的，受痛苦，受压迫，受轻贱么？”
“我们就没见过别的东西，”复仇女神回答。
“我们受了多年的苦，”德伐日太太的眼睛重新回到了露面身上，“现在你想想看！个
把妻子和母亲的苦对我们来说又算得了什么？”
她又继续打起毛线走了出去。复仇女神跟着她。德伐日是最后一个出去的，他关上了门。
“勇气，亲爱的露西，”罗瑞扶她起来说。“勇气，勇气！到目前为止我们的一切还算顺利一一比最近许多不幸的人不知要强多少倍。振作起来，要感谢上帝！”
“我希望，我并非不感谢上帝！但那可怕的女人似乎给我和我所有的希望笼上了阴影。”
“废话，废话！”罗瑞先生说，“你那小小的勇敢的胸怀里哪儿来的这种悲观失望呢！一道阴影，那算得了什么？虚无缥缈的东西，露西。”
尽管他这样说，德伐日夫妇的态度也留给了他一个阴影，他在心里的隐秘之处也十分着急。 |
