" he calmly asked, looking with
attention
at
the horizontal lines of black and stone-color.
the horizontal lines of black and stone-color.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v08 - Dah to Dra
4671 (#465) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4671
"Killed! " shrieked the man in wild desperation, extending
both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him.
"Dead! "
The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis.
There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him
but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing
or anger.
Neither did the people say anything; after the first
cry they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of
the submissive man who had spoken was flat and tame in its
extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over
them all as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes.
He took out his purse.
"It is extraordinary to me," said he, "that you people cannot.
take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of
you is forever in the way. How do I know what injury you
have done my horses? See!
Give him that. "
He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all
the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it
as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly
cry, "Dead! "
He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for
whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature
fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying and pointing to the
fountain, where some women were stooping over the motionless
bundle and moving gently about it. They were as silent, how-
ever, as the men.
"I know all, I know all," said the last comer. "Be a brave
man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to
die so, than to live. It has died in a moment without pain.
Could it have lived an hour as happily? "
"You are a philosopher, you there," said the Marquis, smil-
ing. "How do they call you? "
"They call me Defarge. "
"Of what trade? "
"Monsieur the Marquis, vendor of wine. "
"Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine," said the
Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, "and spend it as you
will. The horses there; are they right? "
Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time,
Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being
driven away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally
broken some common thing, and had paid for it and could afford
## p. 4672 (#466) ###########################################
4672
CHARLES DICKENS
to pay for it, when his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin
flying into his carriage, and ringing on its floor.
"Hold! " said Monsieur the Marquis. "Hold the horses! Who
threw that? "
He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had
stood, a moment before; but the wretched father was groveling
on his face on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that
stood beside him was the figure of a dark stout woman, knitting.
"You dogs! " said the Marquis, but smoothly and with an
unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose: "I would
ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from
the earth. If I knew which rascal threw at the carriage, and if
that brigand were sufficiently near it, he should be crushed
under the wheels. "
So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their
experience of what such a man could do to them, within the
law and beyond it, that not a voice, or a hand, or even an eye
was raised. Among the men, not one. But the woman who
stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in the
face. It was not for his dignity to notice it; his contemptuous
eyes passed over her and over all the other rats; and he leaned
back in his seat again and gave the word, "Go on! "
He was driven on, and other carriages came whirling by in
quick succession; the Minister, the State-Projector, the Farmer-
General, the Doctor, the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the Grand
Opera, the Comedy, the whole Fancy Ball in a bright continuous
flow, came whirling by. The rats had crept out of their holes
to look on, and they remained looking on for hours; soldiers and
police often passing between them and the spectacle, and mak-
ing a barrier behind which they slunk, and through which they
peeped. The father had long ago taken up his bundle and hid-
den himself away with it, when the women who had tended the
bundle while it lay on the base of the fountain sat there watch-
ing the running of the water and the rolling of the Fancy
Ball when the one woman who had stood conspicuous, knitting,
still knitted on with the steadfastness of Fate. The water of
the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening,
so much life in the city ran into death according to rule, time
and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together
in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at sup-
per, all things ran their course.
## p. 4673 (#467) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4673
A BEAUTIFUL landscape, with the corn bright in it but not
abundant. Patches of poor rye where corn should have been,
patches of poor peas and beans, patches of most coarse vegeta-
ble substitutes for wheat. On inanimate nature, as on the men
and women who cultivated it, a prevalent tendency towards an
appearance of vegetating unwillingly-a dejected disposition to
give up and wither away.
Monsieur the Marquis in his traveling carriage (which might
have been lighter), conducted by four post-horses and two pos-
tilions, fagged up a steep hill. A blush on the countenance of
Monsieur the Marquis was no impeachment of his high breeding;
it was not from within; it was occasioned by an external circum-
stance beyond his control-the setting sun.
The sunset struck so brilliantly into the traveling carriage
when it gained the hill-top, that its occupant was steeped in
crimson. "It will die out," said Monsieur the Marquis, glancing
at his hands, "directly. "
In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment.
When the heavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel, and the
carriage slid down hill, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of
dust, the red glow departed quickly; the sun and the Marquis
going down together, there was no glow left when the drag was
taken off.
But there remained a broken country, bold and open, a little
village at the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and rise beyond
it, a church tower, a windmill, a forest for the chase, and a crag
with a fortress on it, used as a prison. Round upon all these
darkening objects as the night drew on, the Marquis looked, with
the air of one who was coming near home.
The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery,
poor tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relays of post-
horses, poor fountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its
poor people too. All its people were poor, and many of them
were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions and the like
for supper, while many were at the fountain, washing leaves,
and grasses, and any such small yieldings of the earth that could
be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them poor were not
wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax
for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and
to be paid there, according to solemn inscription in the little
village, until the wonder was that there was any village left
unswallowed.
VIII-293
## p. 4674 (#468) ###########################################
4674
CHARLES DICKENS
Few children were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the men
and women, their choice on earth was stated in the prospect—
Life on the lowest terms that could sustain it, down in the little
village under the mill; or captivity and Death in the dominant
prison on the crag.
Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of his
postilions' whips, which twined snake-like about their heads in the
evening air, as if he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur
the Marquis drew up in his traveling carriage at the posting.
house gate. It was hard by the fountain, and the peasants
suspended their operations to look at him. He looked at them,
and saw in them, without knowing it, the slow sure filing down
of misery-worn face and figure, that was to make the meagreness
of Frenchmen an English superstition which should survive the
truth through the best part of a hundred years.
Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive faces
that drooped before him, as the like of himself had drooped
before Monseigneur of the Court-only the difference was, that
these faces drooped merely to suffer and not to propitiate — when
a grizzled mender of the roads joined the group.
"Bring me hither that fellow! " said the Marquis to the courier.
The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellows
closed round to look and listen, in the manner of the people at
the Paris fountain.
"I passed you on the road? »
"Monseigneur, it is true. I had the honor of being passed
on the road. "
"Coming up the hill, and at the top of the hill, both? ”
"Monseigneur, it is true. "
"What did you look at so fixedly? "
«< Monseigneur, I looked at the man. "
He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed
under the carriage. All his fellows stooped to look under the
carriage.
"What man, pig? And why look there? »
"Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the chain of the shoe-
the drag. "
"Who? " demanded the traveler.
"Monseigneur, the man. "
"May the Devil carry away these idiots! How do you call
the man? You know all the men of this part of the count ry.
Who was he? "
## p. 4675 (#469) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4675
"Your clemency, Monseigneur! He was not of this part of
the country. Of all the days of my life, I never saw him. "
"Swinging by the chain? To be suffocated? »
"With your gracious permission, that was the wonder of it,
Monseigneur. His head hanging over-like this! "
He turned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned back,
with his face thrown up to the sky, and his head hanging down;
then recovered himself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow.
"What was he like? "
"Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered
with dust, white as a spectre, tall as a spectre ! »
The picture produced an immense sensation in the little
crowd; but all eyes, without comparing notes with other eyes,
looked at Monsieur the Marquis. Perhaps to observe whether he
had any spectre on his conscience.
"Truly, you did well," said the Marquis, felicitously sensible
that such vermin were not to ruffle him, "to see a thief accom-
panying my carriage, and not open that great mouth of yours.
Bah! Put him aside, Monsieur Gabelle! "
Monsieur Gabelle was the Postmaster and some other taxing
functionary, united; he had come out with great obsequiousness
to assist at this examination, and had held the examined by the
drapery of his arm in an official manner.
"Bah! Go aside! " said Monsieur Gabelle.
"Lay hands on this stranger if he seeks to lodge in your
village to-night, and be sure that his business is honest, Gabelle. "
« Monseigneur, I am flattered to devote myself to your
orders. "
"Did he run away, fellow ? -where is that Accursed? »
The accursed was already under the carriage with some half-
dozen particular friends, pointing out the chain with his blue cap.
Some half-dozen other particular friends promptly haled him out,
and presented him breathless to Monsieur the Marquis.
"Did the man run away, Dolt, when we stopped for the
drag? "
་
Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hill-side, head
first, as a person plunges into the river. "
"See to it, Gabelle. Go on! "
The half-dozen who were peering at the chain were still
among the wheels, like sheep; the wheels turned so suddenly
that they were lucky to save their skins and bones; they had
very little else to save, or they might not have been so fortunate.
## p. 4676 (#470) ###########################################
4676
CHARLES DICKENS
The burst with which the carriage started out of the village
and up the rise beyond was soon checked by the steepness of the
hill. Gradually it subsided to a foot pace, swinging and lum-
bering upward among the many sweet scents of a summer night.
The postilions, with a thousand gossamer gnats circling about
them in lieu of the Furies, quietly mended the points to the
lashes of their whips; the valet walked by the horses; the courier
was audible, trotting on ahead into the dim distance.
At the steepest point of the hill there was a little burial-
ground, with a Cross and a new large figure of our Saviour on
it; it was a poor figure in wood, done by some inexperienced
rustic carver, but he had studied the figure from the life-his
own life, maybe-for it was dreadfully spare and thin.
To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had long
been growing worse and was not at its worst, a woman was
kneeling. She turned her head as the carriage came up to her,
rose quickly, and presented herself at the carriage door.
"It is you, Monseigneur! Monseigneur, a petition. "
With an exclamation of impatience, but with his unchangeable
face, Monseigneur looked out.
"How, then! What is it? Always petitions! "
"Monseigneur. For the love of the great God! My husband,
the forester. "
"What of your husband, the forester? Always the same with
you people. He cannot pay something? "
"He has paid all, Monseigneur. He is dead. "
"Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to you? "
"Alas, no, Monseigneur! But he lies yonder, under a little
heap of poor grass. "
"Well? "
"Monseigneur, there are so many little heaps of poor grass! '
"Again, well? »
She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner
was one of passionate grief; by turns she clasped her veinous
and knotted hands together with wild energy, and laid one of
them on the carriage door-tenderly, caressingly, as if it had
been a human breast, and could be expected to feel the ap
pealing touch.
"Monseigneur, hear me! Monseigneur, hear my petition! My
husband died of want; so many die of want; so many more will
die of want. "
"Again, well? Can I feed them? "
## p. 4677 (#471) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4677
"Monseigneur, the good God knows; but I don't ask it. My
petition is, that a morsel of stone or wood, with my husband's
name, may be placed over him to show where he lies. Other-
wise the place will be quickly forgotten; it will never be found
when I am dead of the same malady; I shall be laid under
some other heap of poor grass. Monseigneur, they are so many,
they increase so fast, there is so much want. Monseigneur!
Monseigneur! "
The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage had
broken into a brisk trot, the postilions had quickened the pace;
she was left far behind, and Monseigneur, again escorted by the
Furies, was rapidly diminishing the league or two of distance
that remained between him and his château.
The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him,
and rose, as the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and
toil-worn group at the fountain not far away; to whom the
mender of roads, with the aid of the blue cap without which he
was nothing, still enlarged upon his man like a spectre as long
as they could bear it. By degrees, as they could bear no more,
they dropped off one by one, and lights twinkled in little case-
ments; which lights, as the casements darkened, and more stars
came out, seemed to have shot up into the sky instead of having
been extinguished.
The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of many over-
hanging trees, was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time; and
the shadow was exchanged for the light of a flambeau, as his
carriage stopped, and the great door of his château was opened
to him.
"Monsieur Charles, whom I expect; is he arrived from Eng-
land? »
"Monseigneur, not yet. "
THE GORGON'S HEAD
It was a heavy mass of building, that château of Monsieur the
Marquis, with a large stone court-yard before it, and two stone
sweeps of staircase meeting in a stone terrace before the prin-
cipal door. A stony business altogether, with heavy stone balus-
trades, and stone urns, and stone flowers, and stone faces of men,
and stone heads of lions, in all directions. As if the Gorgon's
head had surveyed it when it was finished two centuries ago.
## p. 4678 (#472) ###########################################
4678
CHARLES DICKENS
Up the broad flight of shallow steps, Monsieur the Marquis,
flambeau-preceded, went from his carriage, sufficiently disturbing
the darkness to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the roof
of the great pile of stable-building away among the trees. All
else was so quiet that the flambeau carried up the steps, and the
other flambeau held at the great door, burnt as if they were in a
close room of state, instead of being in the open night air.
Other sound than the owl's voice there was none, save the falling
of a fountain into its stone basin; for it was one of those dark
nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then
heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again.
The great door clanged behind him, and Monsieur the Mar-
quis crossed a hall grim with certain old boar-spears, swords, and
knives of the chase; grimmer with certain heavy riding-rods and
riding-whips, of which many a peasant, gone to his benefactor
Death, had felt the weight when his lord was angry.
Avoiding the larger rooms, which were dark and made fast
for the night, Monsieur the Marquis, with his flambeau-bearer
going on before, went up the staircase to a door in a corridor.
This thrown open admitted him to his own private apartment
of three rooms; his bedchamber and two others. High vaulted
rooms with cool uncarpeted floors, great dogs upon the hearths
for the burning of wood in winter-time, and all luxuries befitting
the state of a marquis in a luxurious age and country. The
fashion of the last Louis but one, of the line that was never to
break the fourteenth Louis-was conspicuous in their rich
furniture; but it was diversified by many objects that were illus-
trations of old pages in the history of France.
A supper-table was laid for two, in the third of the rooms; a
round room, in one of the château's four extinguisher-topped
towers. A small lofty room, with its window wide open, and the
wooden jalousie-blinds closed, so that the dark night only showed
in slight horizontal lines of black, alternating with their broad
lines of stone-color.
―――――
"My nephew," said the Marquis, glancing at the supper prepa-
ration; "they said he was not arrived. "
Nor was he; but he had been expected with Monseigneur.
"Ah! It is not probable he will arrive to-night; nevertheless,
leave the table as it is. I shall be ready in a quarter of an hour. ”
In a quarter of an hour Monseigneur was ready, and sat down
alone to his sumptuous and choice supper. His chair was
## p. 4679 (#473) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4679
opposite to the window, and he had taken his soup and was rais-
ing his glass of Bordeaux to his lips, when he put it down.
"What is that?
" he calmly asked, looking with attention at
the horizontal lines of black and stone-color.
"Monseigneur? That? "
"Outside the blinds. Open the blinds. "
It was done.
"Well? »
«< 'Monseigneur, it is nothing. The trees and the night are all
that are here. "
The servant who spoke had thrown the blinds wide, had
looked out into the vacant darkness, and stood, with that blank
behind him, looking round for instructions.
«< Good," said the imperturbable master. "Close them again. "
That was done too, and the Marquis went on with his supper.
He was half-way through it, when he again stopped with his
glass in his hand, hearing the sound of wheels. It came on
briskly, and came up to the front of the château.
"Ask who is arrived. "
It was the nephew of Monseigneur. He had been some few
leagues behind Monseigneur, early in the afternoon. He had
diminished the distance rapidly, but not so rapidly as to come up
with Monseigneur on the road. He had heard of Monseigneur,
at the posting-houses, as being before him.
In a
He was to be told (said Monseigneur) that supper awaited him
then and there, and that he was prayed to come to it.
little while he came. He had been known in England as Charles
Darnay.
Monseigneur received him in a courtly manner, but they did
not shake hands.
"You left Paris yesterday, sir? " he said to Monseigneur, as
he took his seat at table.
"Yesterday. And you? "
"I come direct. "
"From London ? »
"Yes. "
"You have been a long time coming," said the Marquis, with
a smile.
"On the contrary; I come direct. "
"Pardon me! I mean, not a long time on the journey; a long
time intending the journey. "
## p. 4680 (#474) ###########################################
4680
CHARLES DICKENS
"I have been detained by "the nephew stopped a moment
in his answer "various business. "
――――
"Without doubt," said the polished uncle.
So long as a servant was present, no other words passed
between them. When coffee had been served and they were
alone together, the nephew, looking at the uncle and meeting
the eyes of the face that was like a fine mask, opened a conver-
sation.
"I have come back, sir, as you anticipate, pursuing the object
that took me away. It carried me into great and unexpected
peril; but it is a sacred object, and if it had carried me to death
I hope it would have sustained me. "
"Not to death," said the uncle; "it is not necessary to say,
to death. "
"I doubt, sir," returned the nephew, "whether, if it had car-
ried me to the utmost brink of death, you would have cared to
stop me there. »
The deepened marks in the nose, and the lengthening of
the fine straight lines in the cruel face, looked ominous as to
that; the uncle made a graceful gesture of protest, which was so
clearly a slight form of good breeding that it was not reassuring.
"Indeed, sir," pursued the nephew, "for anything I know,
you may have expressly worked to give a more suspicious ap-
pearance to the suspicious circumstances that surrounded me. "
"No, no, no," said the uncle pleasantly.
«< But, however that may be," resumed the nephew, glancing
at him with deep distrust, "I know that your diplomacy would
stop me by any means, and would know no scruple as to
means. "
"My friend, I told you so," said the uncle, with a fine pulsa-
tion in the two marks. "Do me the favor to recall that I told
you so, long ago. "
"I recall it. "
"Thank you," said the Marquis very sweetly indeed.
His tone lingered in the air, almost like the tone of a musical
instrument.
-
"In effect, sir," pursued the nephew, "I believe it to be at
once your bad fortune, and my good fortune, that has kept me
out of a prison in France here. "
"I do not quite understand," returned the uncle, sipping his
coffee. "Dare I ask you to explain? »
## p. 4681 (#475) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4681
"I believe that if you were not in disgrace with the court,
and had not been overshadowed by that cloud for years past, a
lettre de cachet would have sent me to some fortress indefinitely. "
"It is possible," said the uncle, with great calmness. "For
the honor of the family, I could even resolve to incommode you
to that extent. Pray excuse me! "
"I perceive that, happily for me, the Reception of the day
before yesterday was, as usual, a cold one," observed the
nephew.
"I would not say happily, my friend," returned the uncle,
with refined politeness; "I would not be sure of that. A good
opportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advantages of
solitude, might influence your destiny to far greater advantage
than you influence it for yourself. But it is useless to discuss
the question. I am, as you say, at a disadvantage. These little
instruments of correction, these gentle aids to the power and
honor of families, these slight favors that might so incommode
you, are only to be obtained now by interest and importunity.
They are sought by so many, and they are granted (compara-
tively) to so few! It used not to be so, but France in all such
things is changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held
the right of life and death over the surrounding vulgar. From
this room, many such dogs have been taken out to be hanged;
in the next room (my bedroom), one fellow, to our knowledge,
was poniarded on the spot for professing some insolent delicacy
respecting his daughter- his daughter! We have lost many
privileges; a new philosophy has become the mode; and the as-
sertion of our station, in these days, might (I do not go so far
as to say would, but might) cause us real inconvenience.
very bad, very bad! "
All
The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff and shook
his head; as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be,
of a country still containing himself, that great means of regen-
eration.
"We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and
in the modern time also," said the nephew, gloomily, "that I
believe our name to be more detested than any name in France. "
"Let us hope so," said the uncle. "Detestation of the high
is the involuntary homage of the low. "
"There is not," pursued the nephew, in his former tone, "a
face I can look at, in all this country round about us, which
## p. 4682 (#476) ###########################################
4682
CHARLES DICKENS
looks at me with any deference on it but the dark deference of
fear and slavery. "
"A compliment," said the Marquis, "to the grandeur of the
family, merited by the manner in which the family has sustained
its grandeur. Hah! " And he took another gentle little pinch of
snuff, and lightly crossed his legs.
But when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, cov-
ered his eyes thoughtfully and dejectedly with his hand, the fine
mask looked at him sideways with a stronger concentration of
keenness, closeness, and dislike than was comportable with its
wearer's assumption of indifference.
"Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark defer-
ence of fear and slavery, my friend," observed the Marquis,
"will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof,"
looking up to it, "shuts out the sky.
>>
That might not be so long as the Marquis supposed.
If a
picture of the château as it was to be a very few years hence,
and of fifty like it as they too were to be a very few years
hence, could have been shown to him that night, he might have
been at a loss to claim his own from the ghastly, fire-charred,
plunder-wrecked ruins. As for the roof he vaunted, he might
have found that shutting out the sky in a new way-to wit, for-
ever, from the eyes of the bodies into which its lead was fired,
out of the barrels of a hundred thousand muskets.
"Meanwhile," said the Marquis, "I will preserve the honor
and repose of the family, if you will not. But you must be
fatigued. Shall we terminate our conference for the night? »
"A moment more. "
"An hour if you please. "
<< » said the nephew,
Sir,"
་ we have done wrong, and are reap-
ing the fruits of wrong. "
"We have done wrong? " repeated the Marquis, with an
inquiring smile, and delicately pointing, first to his nephew, then
to himself.
"Our family; our honorable family, whose honor is of so
much account to both of us, in such different ways. Even in my
father's time we did a world of wrong, injuring every human
creature who came between us and our pleasure, whatever it
Why need I speak of my father's time, when it is equally
yours? Can I separate my father's twin brother, joint inheritor,
and next successor, from himself? "
was.
## p. 4683 (#477) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4683
"Death has done that! " said the Marquis.
"And has left me," answered the nephew, "bound to a sys-
tem that is frightful to me, responsible for it but powerless in it;
seeking to execute the last request of my dear mother's lips, and
obey the last look of my dear mother's eyes, which implored me
to have mercy and to redress; and tortured by seeking assistance
and power in vain. "
«< Seeking them from me, my nephew," said the Marquis, touch-
ing him on the breast with his forefinger,—they were now stand-
ing by the hearth,-"you will forever seek them in vain, be
assured. "
Every fine straight line in the clear whiteness of his face was
cruelly, craftily, and closely compressed, while he stood looking
quietly at his nephew, with his snuff-box in his hand. Once again.
he touched him on the breast, as though his finger were the fine
point of a small sword, with which in delicate finesse he ran
him through the body, and said, "My friend, I will die perpetu-
ating the system under which I have lived. "
When he had said it, he took a culminating pinch of snuff,
and put his box in his pocket.
"Better to be a rational creature," he added then, after ring-
ing a small bell on the table, "and accept your natural destiny.
But you are lost, Monsieur Charles, I see. ”
"This property and France are lost to me," said the nephew,
sadly; "I renounce them. "
«<
"Are they both yours to renounce?
France may be, but is
the property? It is scarcely worth mentioning; but is it, yet? "
"I had no intention, in the words I used, to claim it yet. If
it passed to me from you to-morrow
>>
"Which I have the vanity to hope is not probable. "
>>>
-
or twenty years hence-
"You do me too much honor," said the Marquis; "still, I
prefer that supposition. ”
"I would abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. It
is little to relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery and
ruin! "
"Hah! " said the Marquis, glancing round the luxurious room.
"To the eye it is fair enough here; but seen in its integrity,
under the sky and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of
waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression,
hunger, nakedness, and suffering. "
## p. 4684 (#478) ###########################################
4684
CHARLES DICKENS
"Hah! " said the Marquis again, in a well-satisfied manner.
"If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands
better qualified to free it slowly (if such a thing is possible)
from the weight that drags it down, so that the miserable people
who cannot leave it, and who have been long wrung to the
last point of endurance, may in another generation suffer less; but
it is not for me. There is a curse on it, and on all this land. "
"And you? " said the uncle. "Forgive my curiosity; do you,
under your new philosophy, graciously intend to live? "
"I must do, to live, what others of my countrymen, even
with nobility at their backs, may have to do some day—work. "
"In England, for example? "
« Yes. The family honor, sir, is safe for me in this country.
The family name can suffer from me in no other, for I bear it
in no other. "
The ringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bedchamber
to be lighted. It now shone brightly through the door of com-
munication. The Marquis looked that way, and listened for the
retreating step of his valet.
"England is very attractive to you, seeing how indifferently
you have prospered there," he observed then, turning his calm
face to his nephew with a smile.
"I have already said that for my prospering there, I am
sensible I may be indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it is my
Refuge. "
"They say, those boastful English, that it is the Refuge of
many. You know a compatriot who has found a Refuge there?
A Doctor? "
"Yes. "
"With a daughter? "
"Yes. "
"Yes," said the Marquis. "You are fatigued. Good-night! "
As he bent his head in his most courtly manner, there was a
secrecy in his smiling face, and he conveyed an air of mystery
to those words, which struck the eyes and ears of his nephew
forcibly. At the same time, the thin straight lines of the set-
ting of the eyes, and the thin straight lips, and the markings in
the nose, curved with a sarcasm that looked handsomely diabolic.
"Yes," repeated the Marquis. "A Doctor with a daughter.
Yes. So commences the new philosophy! You are fatigued.
Good-night! "
## p. 4685 (#479) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4685
It would have been of as much avail to interrogate any stone
fence outside the château as to interrogate that face of his.
The nephew looked at him in vain, in passing on to the door.
"Good-night! " said the uncle. "I look to the pleasure of
seeing you again in the morning. Good repose! Light Monsieur
my nephew to his chamber, there! And burn Monsieur my
nephew in his bed, if you will," he added to himself, before he
rang his little bell again, and summoned his valet to his own
bedroom.
The valet come and gone, Monsieur the Marquis walked to
and fro in his loose chamber-robe, to prepare himself gently for
sleep, that hot still night. Rustling about the room, his softly-
slippered feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like a
refined tiger;-looked like some enchanted marquis of the im-
penitently wicked sort, in story, whose periodical change into
tiger form was either just going off or just coming on.
He moved from end to end of his voluptuous bedroom, look-
ing again at the scraps of the day's journey that came unbidden
into his mind; the slow toil up the hill at sunset, the setting
sun, the descent, the mill, the prison on the crag, the little vil-
lage in the hollow, the peasants at the fountain, and the mender
of roads with his blue cap pointing out the chain under the
carriage. That fountain suggested the Paris fountain, the little
bundle lying on the step, the women bending over it, and the
tall man with his arms up, crying, "Dead! "
"I am cool now," said Monsieur the Marquis, "and may go
to bed. "
So, leaving only one light burning on the large hearth, he let
his thin gauze curtains fall around him, and heard the night
break its silence with a long sigh as he composed himself to
sleep.
The stone faces on the outer walls stared blindly at the black
night for three heavy hours; for three heavy hours the horses
in the stables rattled at their racks, the dogs barked, and the owl
made a noise with very little resemblance in it to the noise con-
ventionally assigned to the owl by men-poets. But it is the
obstinate custom of such creatures hardly ever to say what is set
down for them.
For three heavy hours the stone faces of the château, lion and
human, stared blindly at the night. Dead darkness lay on all the
landscape, dead darkness added its own hush to the hushing dust
## p. 4686 (#480) ###########################################
4686
CHARLES DICKENS
on all the roads. The burial-place had got to the pass that its
little heaps of poor grass were undistinguishable from one an-
other; the figure on the Cross might have come down, for any-
thing that could be seen of it. In the village, taxers and taxed
were fast asleep. Dreaming perhaps of banquets, as the starved
usually do, and of ease and rest, as the driven slave and the
yoked ox may, its lean inhabitants slept soundly, and were fed
and freed.
The fountain in the village flowed unseen and unheard, and
the fountain at the château dropped unseen and unheard - both
melting away, like the minutes that were falling from the spring
of Time through three dark hours. Then the gray water of
both began to be ghostly in the light, and the eyes of the stone
faces of the château were opened.
Lighter and lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops of
the still trees, and poured its radiance over the hill. In the
glow, the water of the château fountain seemed to turn to blood,
and the stone faces crimsoned. The carol of the birds was loud
and high, and on the weather-beaten sill of the great window of
the bed-chamber of Monsieur the Marquis, one little bird sang its
sweetest song with all its might. At this, the nearest stone face
seemed to stare amazed, and with open mouth and dropped under-
jaw, looked awe-stricken.
Now the sun was full up, and movement began in the village.
Casement windows opened, crazy doors were unbarred, and peo-
ple came forth shivering-chilled, as yet, by the new sweet air.
Then began the rarely lightened toil of the day among the vil-
lage population. Some to the fountain; some to the fields; men
and women here to dig and delve; men and women there to see
to the poor live stock, and lead the bony cows out to such pasture
as could be found by the roadside. In the church and at the
Cross a kneeling figure or two; attendant on the latter prayers,
the led cow, trying for a breakfast among the weeds at its foot.
The château awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke
gradually and surely. First, the lonely boar-spears and knives of
the chase had been reddened as of old; then had gleamed trench-
ant in the morning sunshine; now doors and windows were
thrown open, horses in their stables looked round over their
shoulders at the light and freshness pouring in at doorways, leaves
sparkled and rustled at iron-grated windows, dogs pulled hard at
their chains and reared, impatient to be loosed.
## p. 4687 (#481) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4687
All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life and
the return of morning. Surely not so the ringing of the great
bell of the château, nor the running up and down the stairs, nor
the hurried figures on the terrace, nor the booting and tramping
here and there and everywhere, nor the quick saddling of horses
and riding away?
What winds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of
roads, already at work on the hill-top beyond the village, with
his day's dinner (not much to carry) lying in a bundle that it
was worth no crow's while to peck at, on a heap of stones?
Had the birds, carrying some grains of it to a distance, dropped
one over him as they sow chance seeds?
CHARLES DICKENS
4671
"Killed! " shrieked the man in wild desperation, extending
both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him.
"Dead! "
The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis.
There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him
but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing
or anger.
Neither did the people say anything; after the first
cry they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of
the submissive man who had spoken was flat and tame in its
extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over
them all as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes.
He took out his purse.
"It is extraordinary to me," said he, "that you people cannot.
take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of
you is forever in the way. How do I know what injury you
have done my horses? See!
Give him that. "
He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all
the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it
as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly
cry, "Dead! "
He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for
whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature
fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying and pointing to the
fountain, where some women were stooping over the motionless
bundle and moving gently about it. They were as silent, how-
ever, as the men.
"I know all, I know all," said the last comer. "Be a brave
man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to
die so, than to live. It has died in a moment without pain.
Could it have lived an hour as happily? "
"You are a philosopher, you there," said the Marquis, smil-
ing. "How do they call you? "
"They call me Defarge. "
"Of what trade? "
"Monsieur the Marquis, vendor of wine. "
"Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine," said the
Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, "and spend it as you
will. The horses there; are they right? "
Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time,
Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being
driven away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally
broken some common thing, and had paid for it and could afford
## p. 4672 (#466) ###########################################
4672
CHARLES DICKENS
to pay for it, when his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin
flying into his carriage, and ringing on its floor.
"Hold! " said Monsieur the Marquis. "Hold the horses! Who
threw that? "
He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had
stood, a moment before; but the wretched father was groveling
on his face on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that
stood beside him was the figure of a dark stout woman, knitting.
"You dogs! " said the Marquis, but smoothly and with an
unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose: "I would
ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from
the earth. If I knew which rascal threw at the carriage, and if
that brigand were sufficiently near it, he should be crushed
under the wheels. "
So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their
experience of what such a man could do to them, within the
law and beyond it, that not a voice, or a hand, or even an eye
was raised. Among the men, not one. But the woman who
stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in the
face. It was not for his dignity to notice it; his contemptuous
eyes passed over her and over all the other rats; and he leaned
back in his seat again and gave the word, "Go on! "
He was driven on, and other carriages came whirling by in
quick succession; the Minister, the State-Projector, the Farmer-
General, the Doctor, the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the Grand
Opera, the Comedy, the whole Fancy Ball in a bright continuous
flow, came whirling by. The rats had crept out of their holes
to look on, and they remained looking on for hours; soldiers and
police often passing between them and the spectacle, and mak-
ing a barrier behind which they slunk, and through which they
peeped. The father had long ago taken up his bundle and hid-
den himself away with it, when the women who had tended the
bundle while it lay on the base of the fountain sat there watch-
ing the running of the water and the rolling of the Fancy
Ball when the one woman who had stood conspicuous, knitting,
still knitted on with the steadfastness of Fate. The water of
the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening,
so much life in the city ran into death according to rule, time
and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together
in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at sup-
per, all things ran their course.
## p. 4673 (#467) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4673
A BEAUTIFUL landscape, with the corn bright in it but not
abundant. Patches of poor rye where corn should have been,
patches of poor peas and beans, patches of most coarse vegeta-
ble substitutes for wheat. On inanimate nature, as on the men
and women who cultivated it, a prevalent tendency towards an
appearance of vegetating unwillingly-a dejected disposition to
give up and wither away.
Monsieur the Marquis in his traveling carriage (which might
have been lighter), conducted by four post-horses and two pos-
tilions, fagged up a steep hill. A blush on the countenance of
Monsieur the Marquis was no impeachment of his high breeding;
it was not from within; it was occasioned by an external circum-
stance beyond his control-the setting sun.
The sunset struck so brilliantly into the traveling carriage
when it gained the hill-top, that its occupant was steeped in
crimson. "It will die out," said Monsieur the Marquis, glancing
at his hands, "directly. "
In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment.
When the heavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel, and the
carriage slid down hill, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of
dust, the red glow departed quickly; the sun and the Marquis
going down together, there was no glow left when the drag was
taken off.
But there remained a broken country, bold and open, a little
village at the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and rise beyond
it, a church tower, a windmill, a forest for the chase, and a crag
with a fortress on it, used as a prison. Round upon all these
darkening objects as the night drew on, the Marquis looked, with
the air of one who was coming near home.
The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery,
poor tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relays of post-
horses, poor fountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its
poor people too. All its people were poor, and many of them
were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions and the like
for supper, while many were at the fountain, washing leaves,
and grasses, and any such small yieldings of the earth that could
be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them poor were not
wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax
for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and
to be paid there, according to solemn inscription in the little
village, until the wonder was that there was any village left
unswallowed.
VIII-293
## p. 4674 (#468) ###########################################
4674
CHARLES DICKENS
Few children were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the men
and women, their choice on earth was stated in the prospect—
Life on the lowest terms that could sustain it, down in the little
village under the mill; or captivity and Death in the dominant
prison on the crag.
Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of his
postilions' whips, which twined snake-like about their heads in the
evening air, as if he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur
the Marquis drew up in his traveling carriage at the posting.
house gate. It was hard by the fountain, and the peasants
suspended their operations to look at him. He looked at them,
and saw in them, without knowing it, the slow sure filing down
of misery-worn face and figure, that was to make the meagreness
of Frenchmen an English superstition which should survive the
truth through the best part of a hundred years.
Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive faces
that drooped before him, as the like of himself had drooped
before Monseigneur of the Court-only the difference was, that
these faces drooped merely to suffer and not to propitiate — when
a grizzled mender of the roads joined the group.
"Bring me hither that fellow! " said the Marquis to the courier.
The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellows
closed round to look and listen, in the manner of the people at
the Paris fountain.
"I passed you on the road? »
"Monseigneur, it is true. I had the honor of being passed
on the road. "
"Coming up the hill, and at the top of the hill, both? ”
"Monseigneur, it is true. "
"What did you look at so fixedly? "
«< Monseigneur, I looked at the man. "
He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed
under the carriage. All his fellows stooped to look under the
carriage.
"What man, pig? And why look there? »
"Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the chain of the shoe-
the drag. "
"Who? " demanded the traveler.
"Monseigneur, the man. "
"May the Devil carry away these idiots! How do you call
the man? You know all the men of this part of the count ry.
Who was he? "
## p. 4675 (#469) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4675
"Your clemency, Monseigneur! He was not of this part of
the country. Of all the days of my life, I never saw him. "
"Swinging by the chain? To be suffocated? »
"With your gracious permission, that was the wonder of it,
Monseigneur. His head hanging over-like this! "
He turned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned back,
with his face thrown up to the sky, and his head hanging down;
then recovered himself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow.
"What was he like? "
"Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered
with dust, white as a spectre, tall as a spectre ! »
The picture produced an immense sensation in the little
crowd; but all eyes, without comparing notes with other eyes,
looked at Monsieur the Marquis. Perhaps to observe whether he
had any spectre on his conscience.
"Truly, you did well," said the Marquis, felicitously sensible
that such vermin were not to ruffle him, "to see a thief accom-
panying my carriage, and not open that great mouth of yours.
Bah! Put him aside, Monsieur Gabelle! "
Monsieur Gabelle was the Postmaster and some other taxing
functionary, united; he had come out with great obsequiousness
to assist at this examination, and had held the examined by the
drapery of his arm in an official manner.
"Bah! Go aside! " said Monsieur Gabelle.
"Lay hands on this stranger if he seeks to lodge in your
village to-night, and be sure that his business is honest, Gabelle. "
« Monseigneur, I am flattered to devote myself to your
orders. "
"Did he run away, fellow ? -where is that Accursed? »
The accursed was already under the carriage with some half-
dozen particular friends, pointing out the chain with his blue cap.
Some half-dozen other particular friends promptly haled him out,
and presented him breathless to Monsieur the Marquis.
"Did the man run away, Dolt, when we stopped for the
drag? "
་
Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hill-side, head
first, as a person plunges into the river. "
"See to it, Gabelle. Go on! "
The half-dozen who were peering at the chain were still
among the wheels, like sheep; the wheels turned so suddenly
that they were lucky to save their skins and bones; they had
very little else to save, or they might not have been so fortunate.
## p. 4676 (#470) ###########################################
4676
CHARLES DICKENS
The burst with which the carriage started out of the village
and up the rise beyond was soon checked by the steepness of the
hill. Gradually it subsided to a foot pace, swinging and lum-
bering upward among the many sweet scents of a summer night.
The postilions, with a thousand gossamer gnats circling about
them in lieu of the Furies, quietly mended the points to the
lashes of their whips; the valet walked by the horses; the courier
was audible, trotting on ahead into the dim distance.
At the steepest point of the hill there was a little burial-
ground, with a Cross and a new large figure of our Saviour on
it; it was a poor figure in wood, done by some inexperienced
rustic carver, but he had studied the figure from the life-his
own life, maybe-for it was dreadfully spare and thin.
To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had long
been growing worse and was not at its worst, a woman was
kneeling. She turned her head as the carriage came up to her,
rose quickly, and presented herself at the carriage door.
"It is you, Monseigneur! Monseigneur, a petition. "
With an exclamation of impatience, but with his unchangeable
face, Monseigneur looked out.
"How, then! What is it? Always petitions! "
"Monseigneur. For the love of the great God! My husband,
the forester. "
"What of your husband, the forester? Always the same with
you people. He cannot pay something? "
"He has paid all, Monseigneur. He is dead. "
"Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to you? "
"Alas, no, Monseigneur! But he lies yonder, under a little
heap of poor grass. "
"Well? "
"Monseigneur, there are so many little heaps of poor grass! '
"Again, well? »
She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner
was one of passionate grief; by turns she clasped her veinous
and knotted hands together with wild energy, and laid one of
them on the carriage door-tenderly, caressingly, as if it had
been a human breast, and could be expected to feel the ap
pealing touch.
"Monseigneur, hear me! Monseigneur, hear my petition! My
husband died of want; so many die of want; so many more will
die of want. "
"Again, well? Can I feed them? "
## p. 4677 (#471) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4677
"Monseigneur, the good God knows; but I don't ask it. My
petition is, that a morsel of stone or wood, with my husband's
name, may be placed over him to show where he lies. Other-
wise the place will be quickly forgotten; it will never be found
when I am dead of the same malady; I shall be laid under
some other heap of poor grass. Monseigneur, they are so many,
they increase so fast, there is so much want. Monseigneur!
Monseigneur! "
The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage had
broken into a brisk trot, the postilions had quickened the pace;
she was left far behind, and Monseigneur, again escorted by the
Furies, was rapidly diminishing the league or two of distance
that remained between him and his château.
The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him,
and rose, as the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and
toil-worn group at the fountain not far away; to whom the
mender of roads, with the aid of the blue cap without which he
was nothing, still enlarged upon his man like a spectre as long
as they could bear it. By degrees, as they could bear no more,
they dropped off one by one, and lights twinkled in little case-
ments; which lights, as the casements darkened, and more stars
came out, seemed to have shot up into the sky instead of having
been extinguished.
The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of many over-
hanging trees, was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time; and
the shadow was exchanged for the light of a flambeau, as his
carriage stopped, and the great door of his château was opened
to him.
"Monsieur Charles, whom I expect; is he arrived from Eng-
land? »
"Monseigneur, not yet. "
THE GORGON'S HEAD
It was a heavy mass of building, that château of Monsieur the
Marquis, with a large stone court-yard before it, and two stone
sweeps of staircase meeting in a stone terrace before the prin-
cipal door. A stony business altogether, with heavy stone balus-
trades, and stone urns, and stone flowers, and stone faces of men,
and stone heads of lions, in all directions. As if the Gorgon's
head had surveyed it when it was finished two centuries ago.
## p. 4678 (#472) ###########################################
4678
CHARLES DICKENS
Up the broad flight of shallow steps, Monsieur the Marquis,
flambeau-preceded, went from his carriage, sufficiently disturbing
the darkness to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the roof
of the great pile of stable-building away among the trees. All
else was so quiet that the flambeau carried up the steps, and the
other flambeau held at the great door, burnt as if they were in a
close room of state, instead of being in the open night air.
Other sound than the owl's voice there was none, save the falling
of a fountain into its stone basin; for it was one of those dark
nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then
heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again.
The great door clanged behind him, and Monsieur the Mar-
quis crossed a hall grim with certain old boar-spears, swords, and
knives of the chase; grimmer with certain heavy riding-rods and
riding-whips, of which many a peasant, gone to his benefactor
Death, had felt the weight when his lord was angry.
Avoiding the larger rooms, which were dark and made fast
for the night, Monsieur the Marquis, with his flambeau-bearer
going on before, went up the staircase to a door in a corridor.
This thrown open admitted him to his own private apartment
of three rooms; his bedchamber and two others. High vaulted
rooms with cool uncarpeted floors, great dogs upon the hearths
for the burning of wood in winter-time, and all luxuries befitting
the state of a marquis in a luxurious age and country. The
fashion of the last Louis but one, of the line that was never to
break the fourteenth Louis-was conspicuous in their rich
furniture; but it was diversified by many objects that were illus-
trations of old pages in the history of France.
A supper-table was laid for two, in the third of the rooms; a
round room, in one of the château's four extinguisher-topped
towers. A small lofty room, with its window wide open, and the
wooden jalousie-blinds closed, so that the dark night only showed
in slight horizontal lines of black, alternating with their broad
lines of stone-color.
―――――
"My nephew," said the Marquis, glancing at the supper prepa-
ration; "they said he was not arrived. "
Nor was he; but he had been expected with Monseigneur.
"Ah! It is not probable he will arrive to-night; nevertheless,
leave the table as it is. I shall be ready in a quarter of an hour. ”
In a quarter of an hour Monseigneur was ready, and sat down
alone to his sumptuous and choice supper. His chair was
## p. 4679 (#473) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4679
opposite to the window, and he had taken his soup and was rais-
ing his glass of Bordeaux to his lips, when he put it down.
"What is that?
" he calmly asked, looking with attention at
the horizontal lines of black and stone-color.
"Monseigneur? That? "
"Outside the blinds. Open the blinds. "
It was done.
"Well? »
«< 'Monseigneur, it is nothing. The trees and the night are all
that are here. "
The servant who spoke had thrown the blinds wide, had
looked out into the vacant darkness, and stood, with that blank
behind him, looking round for instructions.
«< Good," said the imperturbable master. "Close them again. "
That was done too, and the Marquis went on with his supper.
He was half-way through it, when he again stopped with his
glass in his hand, hearing the sound of wheels. It came on
briskly, and came up to the front of the château.
"Ask who is arrived. "
It was the nephew of Monseigneur. He had been some few
leagues behind Monseigneur, early in the afternoon. He had
diminished the distance rapidly, but not so rapidly as to come up
with Monseigneur on the road. He had heard of Monseigneur,
at the posting-houses, as being before him.
In a
He was to be told (said Monseigneur) that supper awaited him
then and there, and that he was prayed to come to it.
little while he came. He had been known in England as Charles
Darnay.
Monseigneur received him in a courtly manner, but they did
not shake hands.
"You left Paris yesterday, sir? " he said to Monseigneur, as
he took his seat at table.
"Yesterday. And you? "
"I come direct. "
"From London ? »
"Yes. "
"You have been a long time coming," said the Marquis, with
a smile.
"On the contrary; I come direct. "
"Pardon me! I mean, not a long time on the journey; a long
time intending the journey. "
## p. 4680 (#474) ###########################################
4680
CHARLES DICKENS
"I have been detained by "the nephew stopped a moment
in his answer "various business. "
――――
"Without doubt," said the polished uncle.
So long as a servant was present, no other words passed
between them. When coffee had been served and they were
alone together, the nephew, looking at the uncle and meeting
the eyes of the face that was like a fine mask, opened a conver-
sation.
"I have come back, sir, as you anticipate, pursuing the object
that took me away. It carried me into great and unexpected
peril; but it is a sacred object, and if it had carried me to death
I hope it would have sustained me. "
"Not to death," said the uncle; "it is not necessary to say,
to death. "
"I doubt, sir," returned the nephew, "whether, if it had car-
ried me to the utmost brink of death, you would have cared to
stop me there. »
The deepened marks in the nose, and the lengthening of
the fine straight lines in the cruel face, looked ominous as to
that; the uncle made a graceful gesture of protest, which was so
clearly a slight form of good breeding that it was not reassuring.
"Indeed, sir," pursued the nephew, "for anything I know,
you may have expressly worked to give a more suspicious ap-
pearance to the suspicious circumstances that surrounded me. "
"No, no, no," said the uncle pleasantly.
«< But, however that may be," resumed the nephew, glancing
at him with deep distrust, "I know that your diplomacy would
stop me by any means, and would know no scruple as to
means. "
"My friend, I told you so," said the uncle, with a fine pulsa-
tion in the two marks. "Do me the favor to recall that I told
you so, long ago. "
"I recall it. "
"Thank you," said the Marquis very sweetly indeed.
His tone lingered in the air, almost like the tone of a musical
instrument.
-
"In effect, sir," pursued the nephew, "I believe it to be at
once your bad fortune, and my good fortune, that has kept me
out of a prison in France here. "
"I do not quite understand," returned the uncle, sipping his
coffee. "Dare I ask you to explain? »
## p. 4681 (#475) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4681
"I believe that if you were not in disgrace with the court,
and had not been overshadowed by that cloud for years past, a
lettre de cachet would have sent me to some fortress indefinitely. "
"It is possible," said the uncle, with great calmness. "For
the honor of the family, I could even resolve to incommode you
to that extent. Pray excuse me! "
"I perceive that, happily for me, the Reception of the day
before yesterday was, as usual, a cold one," observed the
nephew.
"I would not say happily, my friend," returned the uncle,
with refined politeness; "I would not be sure of that. A good
opportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advantages of
solitude, might influence your destiny to far greater advantage
than you influence it for yourself. But it is useless to discuss
the question. I am, as you say, at a disadvantage. These little
instruments of correction, these gentle aids to the power and
honor of families, these slight favors that might so incommode
you, are only to be obtained now by interest and importunity.
They are sought by so many, and they are granted (compara-
tively) to so few! It used not to be so, but France in all such
things is changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held
the right of life and death over the surrounding vulgar. From
this room, many such dogs have been taken out to be hanged;
in the next room (my bedroom), one fellow, to our knowledge,
was poniarded on the spot for professing some insolent delicacy
respecting his daughter- his daughter! We have lost many
privileges; a new philosophy has become the mode; and the as-
sertion of our station, in these days, might (I do not go so far
as to say would, but might) cause us real inconvenience.
very bad, very bad! "
All
The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff and shook
his head; as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be,
of a country still containing himself, that great means of regen-
eration.
"We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and
in the modern time also," said the nephew, gloomily, "that I
believe our name to be more detested than any name in France. "
"Let us hope so," said the uncle. "Detestation of the high
is the involuntary homage of the low. "
"There is not," pursued the nephew, in his former tone, "a
face I can look at, in all this country round about us, which
## p. 4682 (#476) ###########################################
4682
CHARLES DICKENS
looks at me with any deference on it but the dark deference of
fear and slavery. "
"A compliment," said the Marquis, "to the grandeur of the
family, merited by the manner in which the family has sustained
its grandeur. Hah! " And he took another gentle little pinch of
snuff, and lightly crossed his legs.
But when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, cov-
ered his eyes thoughtfully and dejectedly with his hand, the fine
mask looked at him sideways with a stronger concentration of
keenness, closeness, and dislike than was comportable with its
wearer's assumption of indifference.
"Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark defer-
ence of fear and slavery, my friend," observed the Marquis,
"will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof,"
looking up to it, "shuts out the sky.
>>
That might not be so long as the Marquis supposed.
If a
picture of the château as it was to be a very few years hence,
and of fifty like it as they too were to be a very few years
hence, could have been shown to him that night, he might have
been at a loss to claim his own from the ghastly, fire-charred,
plunder-wrecked ruins. As for the roof he vaunted, he might
have found that shutting out the sky in a new way-to wit, for-
ever, from the eyes of the bodies into which its lead was fired,
out of the barrels of a hundred thousand muskets.
"Meanwhile," said the Marquis, "I will preserve the honor
and repose of the family, if you will not. But you must be
fatigued. Shall we terminate our conference for the night? »
"A moment more. "
"An hour if you please. "
<< » said the nephew,
Sir,"
་ we have done wrong, and are reap-
ing the fruits of wrong. "
"We have done wrong? " repeated the Marquis, with an
inquiring smile, and delicately pointing, first to his nephew, then
to himself.
"Our family; our honorable family, whose honor is of so
much account to both of us, in such different ways. Even in my
father's time we did a world of wrong, injuring every human
creature who came between us and our pleasure, whatever it
Why need I speak of my father's time, when it is equally
yours? Can I separate my father's twin brother, joint inheritor,
and next successor, from himself? "
was.
## p. 4683 (#477) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4683
"Death has done that! " said the Marquis.
"And has left me," answered the nephew, "bound to a sys-
tem that is frightful to me, responsible for it but powerless in it;
seeking to execute the last request of my dear mother's lips, and
obey the last look of my dear mother's eyes, which implored me
to have mercy and to redress; and tortured by seeking assistance
and power in vain. "
«< Seeking them from me, my nephew," said the Marquis, touch-
ing him on the breast with his forefinger,—they were now stand-
ing by the hearth,-"you will forever seek them in vain, be
assured. "
Every fine straight line in the clear whiteness of his face was
cruelly, craftily, and closely compressed, while he stood looking
quietly at his nephew, with his snuff-box in his hand. Once again.
he touched him on the breast, as though his finger were the fine
point of a small sword, with which in delicate finesse he ran
him through the body, and said, "My friend, I will die perpetu-
ating the system under which I have lived. "
When he had said it, he took a culminating pinch of snuff,
and put his box in his pocket.
"Better to be a rational creature," he added then, after ring-
ing a small bell on the table, "and accept your natural destiny.
But you are lost, Monsieur Charles, I see. ”
"This property and France are lost to me," said the nephew,
sadly; "I renounce them. "
«<
"Are they both yours to renounce?
France may be, but is
the property? It is scarcely worth mentioning; but is it, yet? "
"I had no intention, in the words I used, to claim it yet. If
it passed to me from you to-morrow
>>
"Which I have the vanity to hope is not probable. "
>>>
-
or twenty years hence-
"You do me too much honor," said the Marquis; "still, I
prefer that supposition. ”
"I would abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. It
is little to relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery and
ruin! "
"Hah! " said the Marquis, glancing round the luxurious room.
"To the eye it is fair enough here; but seen in its integrity,
under the sky and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of
waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression,
hunger, nakedness, and suffering. "
## p. 4684 (#478) ###########################################
4684
CHARLES DICKENS
"Hah! " said the Marquis again, in a well-satisfied manner.
"If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands
better qualified to free it slowly (if such a thing is possible)
from the weight that drags it down, so that the miserable people
who cannot leave it, and who have been long wrung to the
last point of endurance, may in another generation suffer less; but
it is not for me. There is a curse on it, and on all this land. "
"And you? " said the uncle. "Forgive my curiosity; do you,
under your new philosophy, graciously intend to live? "
"I must do, to live, what others of my countrymen, even
with nobility at their backs, may have to do some day—work. "
"In England, for example? "
« Yes. The family honor, sir, is safe for me in this country.
The family name can suffer from me in no other, for I bear it
in no other. "
The ringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bedchamber
to be lighted. It now shone brightly through the door of com-
munication. The Marquis looked that way, and listened for the
retreating step of his valet.
"England is very attractive to you, seeing how indifferently
you have prospered there," he observed then, turning his calm
face to his nephew with a smile.
"I have already said that for my prospering there, I am
sensible I may be indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it is my
Refuge. "
"They say, those boastful English, that it is the Refuge of
many. You know a compatriot who has found a Refuge there?
A Doctor? "
"Yes. "
"With a daughter? "
"Yes. "
"Yes," said the Marquis. "You are fatigued. Good-night! "
As he bent his head in his most courtly manner, there was a
secrecy in his smiling face, and he conveyed an air of mystery
to those words, which struck the eyes and ears of his nephew
forcibly. At the same time, the thin straight lines of the set-
ting of the eyes, and the thin straight lips, and the markings in
the nose, curved with a sarcasm that looked handsomely diabolic.
"Yes," repeated the Marquis. "A Doctor with a daughter.
Yes. So commences the new philosophy! You are fatigued.
Good-night! "
## p. 4685 (#479) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4685
It would have been of as much avail to interrogate any stone
fence outside the château as to interrogate that face of his.
The nephew looked at him in vain, in passing on to the door.
"Good-night! " said the uncle. "I look to the pleasure of
seeing you again in the morning. Good repose! Light Monsieur
my nephew to his chamber, there! And burn Monsieur my
nephew in his bed, if you will," he added to himself, before he
rang his little bell again, and summoned his valet to his own
bedroom.
The valet come and gone, Monsieur the Marquis walked to
and fro in his loose chamber-robe, to prepare himself gently for
sleep, that hot still night. Rustling about the room, his softly-
slippered feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like a
refined tiger;-looked like some enchanted marquis of the im-
penitently wicked sort, in story, whose periodical change into
tiger form was either just going off or just coming on.
He moved from end to end of his voluptuous bedroom, look-
ing again at the scraps of the day's journey that came unbidden
into his mind; the slow toil up the hill at sunset, the setting
sun, the descent, the mill, the prison on the crag, the little vil-
lage in the hollow, the peasants at the fountain, and the mender
of roads with his blue cap pointing out the chain under the
carriage. That fountain suggested the Paris fountain, the little
bundle lying on the step, the women bending over it, and the
tall man with his arms up, crying, "Dead! "
"I am cool now," said Monsieur the Marquis, "and may go
to bed. "
So, leaving only one light burning on the large hearth, he let
his thin gauze curtains fall around him, and heard the night
break its silence with a long sigh as he composed himself to
sleep.
The stone faces on the outer walls stared blindly at the black
night for three heavy hours; for three heavy hours the horses
in the stables rattled at their racks, the dogs barked, and the owl
made a noise with very little resemblance in it to the noise con-
ventionally assigned to the owl by men-poets. But it is the
obstinate custom of such creatures hardly ever to say what is set
down for them.
For three heavy hours the stone faces of the château, lion and
human, stared blindly at the night. Dead darkness lay on all the
landscape, dead darkness added its own hush to the hushing dust
## p. 4686 (#480) ###########################################
4686
CHARLES DICKENS
on all the roads. The burial-place had got to the pass that its
little heaps of poor grass were undistinguishable from one an-
other; the figure on the Cross might have come down, for any-
thing that could be seen of it. In the village, taxers and taxed
were fast asleep. Dreaming perhaps of banquets, as the starved
usually do, and of ease and rest, as the driven slave and the
yoked ox may, its lean inhabitants slept soundly, and were fed
and freed.
The fountain in the village flowed unseen and unheard, and
the fountain at the château dropped unseen and unheard - both
melting away, like the minutes that were falling from the spring
of Time through three dark hours. Then the gray water of
both began to be ghostly in the light, and the eyes of the stone
faces of the château were opened.
Lighter and lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops of
the still trees, and poured its radiance over the hill. In the
glow, the water of the château fountain seemed to turn to blood,
and the stone faces crimsoned. The carol of the birds was loud
and high, and on the weather-beaten sill of the great window of
the bed-chamber of Monsieur the Marquis, one little bird sang its
sweetest song with all its might. At this, the nearest stone face
seemed to stare amazed, and with open mouth and dropped under-
jaw, looked awe-stricken.
Now the sun was full up, and movement began in the village.
Casement windows opened, crazy doors were unbarred, and peo-
ple came forth shivering-chilled, as yet, by the new sweet air.
Then began the rarely lightened toil of the day among the vil-
lage population. Some to the fountain; some to the fields; men
and women here to dig and delve; men and women there to see
to the poor live stock, and lead the bony cows out to such pasture
as could be found by the roadside. In the church and at the
Cross a kneeling figure or two; attendant on the latter prayers,
the led cow, trying for a breakfast among the weeds at its foot.
The château awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke
gradually and surely. First, the lonely boar-spears and knives of
the chase had been reddened as of old; then had gleamed trench-
ant in the morning sunshine; now doors and windows were
thrown open, horses in their stables looked round over their
shoulders at the light and freshness pouring in at doorways, leaves
sparkled and rustled at iron-grated windows, dogs pulled hard at
their chains and reared, impatient to be loosed.
## p. 4687 (#481) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4687
All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life and
the return of morning. Surely not so the ringing of the great
bell of the château, nor the running up and down the stairs, nor
the hurried figures on the terrace, nor the booting and tramping
here and there and everywhere, nor the quick saddling of horses
and riding away?
What winds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of
roads, already at work on the hill-top beyond the village, with
his day's dinner (not much to carry) lying in a bundle that it
was worth no crow's while to peck at, on a heap of stones?
Had the birds, carrying some grains of it to a distance, dropped
one over him as they sow chance seeds?
