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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library - A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens


214

He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling of
common wine and tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots,
asleep and awake, drunk and sober, and in various neutral states
between sleeping and waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were
standing and lying about. The light in the guard-house, half
derived from the waning oil-lamps of the night, and half from the
overcast day, was in a correspondingly uncertain condition. Some
registers were lying open on a desk, and an officer of a coarse, dark
aspect, presided over these.

“Citizen Defarge,” said he to Darnay’s conductor, as he took a slip
of paper to write on. “Is this the emigrant Evremonde?” “This is
the man.” “Your age, Evremonde?”

“Thirty-seven.” “Married, Evremonde?” “Yes.” “Where married?”
“In England.” “Without doubt. Where is your wife, Evremonde?”
“In England.” “Without doubt. Your are consigned, Evremonde, to
the prison of La Force.” “Just Heaven!” exclaimed Darnay. “Under
what law, and for what offence?” The officer looked up from his
slip of paper for a moment.

“We have new laws, Evremonde, and new offences, since you were
here.” He said it with a hard smile, and went on writing.

“I entreat you to observe that I have come here voluntarily, in
response to that written appeal of a fellow-countryman which lies
before you. I demand no more than the opportunity to do so
without delay. Is not that my right?” “Emigrants have no rights,
Evremonde,” was the stolid reply. The officer wrote until he had
finished, read over to himself what he had written, sanded it, and
handed it to Defarge, with the words “In secret.”

Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner that he must
accompany him.

The prisoner obeyed, and a guard of two armed patriots attended
them.

“Is it you,” said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down the
guardhouse steps and turned into Paris, “who married the
daughter of Doctor Manette, once a prisoner in the Bastille that is
no more?” “Yes,” replied Darnay, looking at him with surprise.
“My name is Defarge, and I keep a wine-shop in the Quarter Saint
Antoine.

Possibly you have heard of me.” “My wife came to your house to
reclaim her father? Yes!” The word “wife” seemed to serve as a
gloomy reminder to Defarge, to say with sudden impatience, “In
the name of that sharp female newlyborn, and called La Guillotine,
why did you come to France?” “You heard me say why, a minute
ago. Do you not believe it is the truth?” “A bad truth for you,” said
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