Page 51 - A Tale of Two Cities

Chapter 8

One afternoon, more than a year after Charles had fi rst been
imprisoned, her father met her at the corner where she was standing
as usual, and said, ‘When I left the prison just now, he was going
up to the window. Wave your hand towards that high roof.’ She did
what he said, and he took her arm.
‘That will make him strong. His trial is tomorrow. Don’t be afraid,
my dear. I have done everything I can to help him.’
Apart from a group of men who sat often in the corner at the
same table, there was only one person in the Defarges’ café that
evening, and he was an Englishman. Although she had never
seen him before, Madame Defarge looked closely at him when she
brought him his drink.
‘He is exactly like Evrémonde,’ she said to her husband, when she
came back to where he was standing talking with a tall, thin man.
Defarge looked up at the Englishman. ‘Yes, they are alike,’ he
said.
‘He is in your mind, you see, Madame Defarge,’ said the man. ‘You
are looking forward so much to seeing him tomorrow!’
The Englishman was reading his newspaper, and did not look up.
‘I am, Jacques,’ said Madame Defarge. ‘I will see that family
destroyed.’
‘But the doctor has suffered a lot, my wife,’ said Defarge, his face
troubled. ‘And he worries for his daughter.’
‘His daughter, yes!’ said Madame Defarge. ‘I have seen her in the
street by the prison every day, making signs to Evrémonde. I only
need to tell that to the court, and then she, too, will hang with him.’

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