A TALE OF TWO CITIES BOOK CLUB - WEEK 11 - BOOK 3 - CHAPTERS 7 - 10

A TALE OF TWO CITIES by Charles Dickens

Buckle up!! The next two weeks are about to be intense as we wrap up A Tale of Two Cities!

CHAPTER 7 - A KNOCK AT THE DOOR

FRANCE

Remember last week I asked you if you expected the outcome that happened at court revolving around Charles Darnay? Did you think things could go so easily especially since Lucie trembles so much at the end? But before we get into that, I've got to pull out one more thing I noticed. Did you catch the fact that when someone has been accused and released from court, their name must be painted onto the front door or the doorpost? Even though the household tries to live below the radar by sending Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher out to run errands and do the shopping, it's virtually impossible to disappear. Darnay, Lucie, Little Lucie, and Dr. Manette sit around when the fire when Lucie cries out. She thinks she hears strange footsteps on the stairs. Note Manette's response to her. "The staircase is as still as Death." A simile, yes, but encased in it is foreshadowing, because Death has just shown up. The dreaded knock occurs on the door, and Darnay is taken away. He was released and retaken on the same day. Not even one whole day in freedom. (Chapter 10) Who is it that's denounced him this time? It's Citizen and Citizeness Defarge. Remember the imagery we had earlier of Madame Defarge being compared to a cat as she played with a mouse. The game continues on.

CHAPTER 8 - A HAND AT CARDS

FRANCE

What is the National Razor that will shave a man close? It's the guillotine.

Remember Pross and Cruncher are out shopping while everything is going on. Proper, English Miss Pross gets the shock of her life. Standing up from among the Republicans looking like a peasant Frenchman is Pross's crooked brother, Solomon aka John Barsad. Do you remember who John Barsad is? He was one of the original men who spoke against Darnay when he was accused of being a spy in England. (Who's the real spy?) Barsad is also the spy that went into the wineshop and tried to get the Defarges to talk with him. (Guess what that means? Since we now find him as a Republican that makes him s a triple spy which could get him in serious trouble.) Pross is shocked that her brother, who in her eyes could do no wrong, is standing before her dressed as a Frenchman. She is horrified by this. As they stand and talk, Sydney Carton joins the group. When did he enter the picture? Remember the end of Chapter 5 there was a stranger standing with Lorry. Here's our stranger!

Carton recognizes Barsad. He knows who he is, and he uses it to his advantage. He takes him off where the two of them can talk, and as Miss Pross notices there is an unusual light in Carton's eyes. A metaphorical game of cards is played as Carton knows that Barsad can get people into the prison. At first, Barsad thinks that Carton is going to attempt to get Darnay out, but that's not what he has planned..

CHAPTER 9 - THE GAME MADE

FRANCE

An arrangement has been made between Barsad and Carton. Carton tells Lorry and Cruncher that he has secured one visit with Darnay. As Carton tells this to them, Lorry's anxiety grows and the tears began to fall. Remember at the beginning of the book when we first met Lorry, he was extremely calm and collected. He wore his work like a suit of clothes that he could slip in and out of. Gone are those days. The weight and connection that he has to the Manettes has taken its toll. Note also Carton's response to all of this. He's care and concern for others has grown even more past Lucie.

Speaking of Lucie, now she becomes the center of Carton and Lorry's conversation. Notice that Carton will not say her name. Carton asks how she is, and Lorry responds that she is anxious but as beautiful as ever. Carton's response is a grievous sigh that borders on a sob. Foreshadowing is all I will say at this point.

What follows is a beautiful conversation between Lorry and Carton as they look back over their lives. Who will mourn for them when they are gone? Carton asks if Lorry's childhood seems like it was a long time ago. Pay attention to the fact that Carton is acting as if he is as old a man as Lorry. They walk together to the gate of the house where Lucie is. Carton refuses to go in, but as he turns to walk away, he touches the gate and says to himself it is the gate that she has touched. He walks along where she would have walked.

There's a few more things that I could touch on with this chapter, but I'm going to pick and choose just a couple more items..

Carton stops by the chemist shop and picks up some powders with a warning on their usage. We'll know why next week.

As he walks the streets he reminiscences about his childhood, and we are given the answer to Carton's apathetic approach to life. Once, he was a bright and competitive youth intent on becoming the best among his peers. His mother died when he was young, but somehow he managed to continue on. It appears that the rug was swept out from under his feet when his father died. His whole life changed after that moment. Now, as he walks the city, he thinks back to his father's funeral and the words that were spoken that we often hear even today at funerals. "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die." We really have to stop and ask ourselves why Carton is repeating these words to himself. As he walks, he encounters two separate things: a young girl and the stream that appears purposeless, yet is absorbed into the ocean and likens it to himself. There are big things at work here. The man who has appeared to live his whole life as an uncaring, unconcerned, borderline waste of a life has been metamorphosing over the second half of this book, and I can guarantee you that the butterfly that is about to emerge is more beautiful than any of us could imagine within a character.

The real trial begins. Not the one for show and for toying. The one that is meant for finality. We were lead to believe that there were two voices coming forth to accuse Darnay, the Defarges. Now, we are shocked into the reality that there is a third voice, and the owner of the voice is shocked even more than we are. The voice of Dr, Manette in testimony won't be heard in his vocal voice but in his written hand. Remember how Manette shook the night that Darnay talked about the letter that was found in the English prison he was held in? We knew that there was a letter somewhere that had an intense weight attached to it. There was no way it could be the letter Darnay mentioned, because Manette was held in a French prison not an English one. Remember also, how at the storming of the Bastille Defarge immediately went looking for Manette's cell? He was on the hunt for something, and it was the piece of paper that is about to be read in the courtroom. The very man that made it his life mission to get Darnay released for the love of his daughter will be the one who puts the final nail in his coffin without ever having intended to.

CHAPTER 10 THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW

Now it's time to understand why Madame Defarge has such an intense hatred for Charles Darnay that goes far beyond just that of a "mother bear" forced to endure watching the mistreatment of her loved ones her entire life. No, this hatred is even more deeply rooted, and the story arises and smashes everyone who hears it just as white water rapids rush through a canyon sweeping and drowning anyone who should happen to stand in its path.

In the tenth year of his imprisonment, Manette, with the help of a rusty nail, soot from his chimney mixed with blood writes out the tale of what happened to bring about his incarceration. Did your soul weep as you read this part of the story?

One night, he had the misfortune to be so well known as an up-and-coming doctor. Isn't it interesting that I say that? He was honorable, reliable, and talented, and it was these things that caused him to be sought after by two disgusting, aristocratic brothers: the Marquis de Evremonde and his younger brother, Darnay's father. Manette has no choice but to go with them. He is taken to a "damp, decayed" home (note the setting completely sets the tone for what he is about to see!) where he sees the two brothers in the light and realizes they are twins. They take him to an upper room where a beautiful, young, peasant woman lays in bad shape and is bound by gentlemen's attire including a scarf that bears the letter "E" on it. Manette removes the scarf from her mouth, and being half crazed out of her mind, she begins shrieking, "My Husband, my brother, and my father!" counts to twelve, and then cries, "Hush!" over and over again. He tends to her. Givers her medicine and lays a reassuring hand on her for half an hour. Then the elder brother tells him there is one more person for him to examine.

The other is a handsome, peasant boy about seventeen who is in the loft over the stable. He is clearly dying from a sword wound, but before he passes he has a story to share. He is the brother to the screeching woman locked away in the room. The story he relays to Manette is as horrific as we could ever encounter. The younger Evremonde brother (Darnay's father - he is married at this point and Charles is a toddler) notices the beautiful young woman who is a tenant on the Evremonde land. (Notice that the boy accuses both of the brothers, the Marquis for the way he taxes them and forces them to live, and the younger for his actions against his sister. ) He wants the girl for his pleasure even though she is married. Her husband agrees to the arrangement, but she refuses. To punish the husband and bring him under submission where he will force his wife to go with Darnay's father, the Evremonde brothers (note the "they" in the accusation) harnessed him to a cart by day and worked him endlessly. By night he was forced to stay up and quiet the frogs so the nobles could sleep. It didn't take long before his body couldn't handle the strain, and he collapsed as the noon bell chimed twelve times. He gave twelve sobs and died. We begin to understand the cries that the woman makes - the counting to twelve and the shriek for her husband. As the woman is taken away to be used for the pleasure of Darnay's father, her brother sees them. He rushes home, tells his father (whose heart bursts and he dies - the "my father" of her screams), he takes his younger sister and hides her, and he tracks his sister and Darnay's father with a sword in his hand to the very building where he now lays. At first, Darnay's father tosses money at him as if money could solve it all! (Did it solve the death of the boy beneath the wheels of the Marquis' carriage?) When that doesn't work, he struck at him with a whip. When that still didn't work Darnay's father drew his sword to protect his life, and he stabbed the woman's brother. But it's what happens next that absolutely seals the deal The boy, gallant to the very end asks to be lifted up to see Darnay's father who isn't there. The boy then turns his head to the Marquis, dips his finger into the blood that flows out of his wound and marks a cross in the air while cursing everyone of the Marquis' family, and then he dies (the "my brother" of the woman's screams). Hush, they're all dead.

For 26 hours the woman screams, and then she begins to fade. Note that the Marquis couldn't care less about the personhood of the woman dying. He is only amazed how long a peasant can hold on. The woman lasted for a week before she finally died. The Marquis and his brother tell Manette he is not to tell anyone what happened that night. They attempt to pay Manette, but he refuses the money and goes home. The next morning the gold is found on his doorstep. Manette cannot keep the secret. He writes to the Minister knowing full well that nothing will probably ever come of it due to the brothers' position. As he finishes the letter he is told that a woman waits to talk with him. It is the younger Evremonde brother's wife. Note that she says she is the Marquis' wife. I looked this up and according to what I could find the twins were joint inheritors both with the title of Marquis. She knows what her husband did, and she is sick about it. Bringing her little son with her, Charles, she has come to try and find the younger sister (who was hidden away), so she can support her in private. She knows that there will be fallback from this horrific deed, and she looks to protect her son from it. She brings what little she owns personally, a few jewels, that she wishes to give to the younger, unknown sister. Of course, Manette has no idea who she is. Charles witnesses all of this, and the mother entreats her little son to be "faithful."

Later that night a call comes for Dr, Manette, and he is taken instead to the prison where he spends the next 18 years of his life imprisoned wrongly. Before he is taken inside, the brothers step out from the darkness and identify him. The Marquis holds Manette's letter in his hand, lights it on fire, and burns it. Manette has just been buried without a trace.

And so, the doctor who set out to save Darnay's life, becomes the very one who unknowingly convicts him. And we know who that missing sister is, don't we?!

As I close today's post, my mind is flooded with so much scripture. Do not commit adultery. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding. He who does so destroys his own soul. Looking at a woman with lust is the same as committing adultery. The words go on and on. How amazing and understandable that the actions of one event can tear an entire family down for generations.

I look forward to any comments! Next week, we'll wrap it all up!