《A Tale of Two Cities》　Book3　CHAPTER
X The Substance of the Shadow
　　　　by Charles Dickens

`I, ALEXANDRE MANETTE,
unfortunate physician, native of Beauvais, and afterwards resident in Paris, write this
melancholy paper in my doleful cell in the Bastille, during the last month of the year
1767. I write it at stolen intervals, under every difficulty. I design to secrete it in
the wall of the chimney, where I have slowly and laboriously made a place of

concealment for it. Some pitying hand may find it there, when I and my sorrows are dust.

`These words are formed by the rusty iron point with which I write with difficulty in
scrapings of soot and charcoal from the chimney, mixed with blood, in the last month of
the tenth year of my captivity. Hope has quite departed from my breast. I know from
terrible warnings I have noted in myself that my reason will not long remain unimpaired,
but I solemnly declare that I am at this time in the possession of my right mind--that my
memory is exact and circumstantial--and that I write the truth as I shall answer for these
my last recorded words, whether they be ever read by men or not, at the Eternal
Judgment-seat.



`One cloudy moonlight night, in the third week of December (I think the twenty-second of
the month) in the year 1757, I was walking on a retired part of the quay by the Seine for
the refreshment of the frosty air, at an hour's distance from my place of residence in the
Street of the School of Medicine, when a carriage came along behind me, driven very fast.
As I stood aside to let that carriage pass, apprehensive that it might otherwise run me
down, a head was put out at the window, and a voice called to the driver to stop.



`The carriage stopped as soon as the driver could rein in his horses, and the same voice
called to me by my name. I answered. The carriage was then so far in advance of me that
two gentlemen had time to open the door and alight before I came up with it. I observed
that they were both wrapped in cloaks and appeared to conceal themselves. As they stood
carriage door, I also observed that they both looked of about my own age, or rather
younger, and that they were greatly alike, in stature, manner, voice, and (as far as I
could see) face too.



`"You are Doctor Manette?" said one.



`"I am."



`"Doctor Manette, formerly of Beauvais," said the other; "the young
physician, originally an expert surgeon, who within the last year or two has made a rising
reputation in Paris?"



`"Gentlemen," I returned, "I am that Doctor Manette of whom you speak so
graciously."



`"we have been to your residence," said the first, "and not being so
fortunate as to find you there, and being informed that you were probably walking in this
direction, we followed, in the hope of overtaking you. Will you please to enter the
carriage?"



`The manner of both was imperious, and they both moved, as these words were spoken, so as
to place me between themselves and the carriage door. They were armed. I was not.



`"Gentlemen," said I, "pardon me; but I usually inquire who does me the
honour to seek my assistance, and what is the nature of the case to which I am
summoned."



`The reply to this was made by him who had spoken second. "Doctor, your clients are
people of condition. As to the nature of the case, our confidence in your skill assures us
that you will ascertain it for yourself better than we can describe it. Enough.

Will you please to enter the carriage?"



`I could do nothing but comply, and I entered it in silence. They both entered after
me--the last springing in, after putting up the steps. The carriage turned about, and
drove on as its former speed.



`I repeat this conversation exactly as it occurred. I have no doubt that it is, work for
word, the same. I describe everything exactly as it took place, constraining my mind not
to wander from the task. Where I make the broken marks that follow here, I leave off for
the time, and put my paper in its hiding-place. * * * *



`The carriage left the streets behind, passed the North Barrier, and emerged upon the
country road. At two-thirds of a league from the Barrier--I did not estimate the distance
at that time, but afterwards when I traversed it--it struck out of the main avenue, and
presently stopped at a solitary house. We all three alighted, and walked, by a damp soft
footpath in a garden where a neglected fountain had overflowed, to the door of the house.
It was not opened immediately, in answer to the ringing of the bell, and one of my two
conductors struck the man who opened it, with his heavy riding-glove, across the face.



`There was nothing in this action to attract my particular attention, for I had seen
common people struck more commonly than dogs. But, the other of the two, being angry
like-wise, struck the man in like manner with his arm; the look and bearing of the
brothers were then so exactly alike, that I then first perceived them to be twin brothers.



`From the time of our alighting at the outer gate (which we found locked, and which one of
the brothers had opened to admit us, and had re-locked), I had heard cries proceeding from
an upper chamber. I was conducted to this chamber straight, the cries growing louder as we
ascended the stairs, and I found a patient in a high fever of the brain, lying on a bed.



`The patient was a woman of great beauty, and young; assuredly not much past twenty. Her
hair was torn and ragged, and her arms were bound to her sides with sashes and
handkerchiefs. I noticed that these bonds were all portions of a gentleman's dress. On one
of them, which was a fringed Scarf for a dress of ceremony, I saw the armorial bearings of
a Noble, and the letter E.



`I saw this, within the first minute of my contemplation of the patient; for, in her
restless strivings she had turned over on her face on the edge of the bed, had drawn the
end of the scarf into her mouth, and was in danger of suffocation. My first act was to put
out my hand to relieve her breathing; and in moving the scarf aside, the embroidery in the
corner caught my sight.



`I turned her gently over, placed my hands upon her breast to calm her and keep her down,
and looked into her face. Her eyes were dilated and wild, and she constantly uttered
piercing shrieks, and repeated the words, "My husband, my father, and my
brother!" and then counted up to twelve, and said, "Hush!" For an instant,
and no more, she would pause to listen, and then the piercing shrieks would begin again,
and she would repeat the cry, "My husband, my father, and my brother!" and would
count up to twelve, and say "Hush!" There was no variation in the order, or the
manner. There was no cessation, but the regular moment's pause, in the utterance of these
sounds.



`"How long," I asked, "has this lasted?"



`To distinguish the brothers, I will call them the elder and the younger; by the elder, I
mean him who exercised the most authority. It was the elder who replied, "Since about
this hour last night."



`"She has a Husband, a father, and a brother?"



`"A brother."



`"I do not address her brother?"



`He answered with great contempt, "No."



`"She has some recent association with the number twelve?"



`The younger brother impatiently" title="ad.不耐烦地，急躁地">impatiently rejoined, "With twelve o'clock?"



`"See, gentlemen," said I, still keeping my hands upon her breast, "how
useless I am, as you have brought me! If I had known what I was coming to see, I could
have come provided. As it is, time must be lost. There are no medicines to be obtained in
this lonely place."



`The elder brother looked to the younger, who said haughtily, "There is a case of
medicines here;" and brought it from a closet, and put it on the table. * * *



`I opened some of the bottles, smelt them, and put the stoppers to my lips. If I had
wanted to use anything save narcotic medicines that were poisons in themselves, I would
not have administered any of those.



`"Do you doubt them?" asked the younger brother.



`"You see, monsieur, I am going to use them," I replied, and said no more.



`I made the patient swallow, with great difficulty, and after many efforts, the dose that
I desired to give. As I intended to repeat it after a while, and as it was necessary to
watch its influence, I then sat down by the side of the bed. There was a timid and
suppressed woman in attendance (wife of the man down-stairs), who had retreated into a
corner. The house was damp and decayed, indifferently furnished--evidently, recently
occupied and temporarily used. Some thick old hangings had been nailed up before the
windows, to deaden the sound of the shrieks. They continued to be uttered in their regular
succession, with the cry, "My husband, my father, and my brother!" the counting
up to twelve, and "Hush!" The frenzy was so violent, that I had not unfastened
the bandages restraining the arms, but, I had looked to them, to see that they were not
painful. The only spark of

encouragement in the case, was, that my hand upon the sufferer's breast had this much
soothing influence, that for minutes at a time it tranquillised the figure. It had no
effect upon the cries: no pendulum could be more regular.



`For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), I had sat by the side of the bed
for half an hour, with the two brothers looking on, before the elder said:



`"There is another patient."



`I was startled and asked, "Is it a pressing case?"



`"You had better see," he carelessly answered; and took up a light. * * *



`The other patient lay in a back room across a second staircase, which was a species of
loft over a stable. There was a low plastered ceiling to a part of it; the rest was open,
to the ridge of the tiled roof, and there were beams across. Hay and straw were stored in
that portion of the place, fagots for firing, and a heap of apples in sand. I had to pass
through that part, to get at the other. My memory is circumstantial and unshaken. I try it
with these details, and I see them all, in this my cell in the Bastille, near the close of
the tenth year of my captivity, as I saw them all that night.



`On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under his head, lay a handsome
peasant-boy-a boy of not more than seventeen at the most. He lay on his back, with his
teeth set, his right hand clenched on his breast, and his glaring eyes looking straight
upward. I could not see where his wound was, as I kneeled on one knee over him; but, I
could see that he was dying of a wound from a sharp point.



`"I am a doctor, my poor fellow," said I. "Let me examine it."



`"I do not want it examined," he answered; "let it be."



`It was under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move his hand away. The wound was a
sword-thrust, received from twenty to twenty-four hours before, but no skill could have
saved him if it had been looked to without delay. He was then dying fast. As I turned my
eyes to the elder brother, I saw him looking down at this handsome boy whose life was
ebbing out, as if he were a wounded bird, or hare, or rabbit; not at all as if he were a
fellow-creature.



`"How has this been done, monsieur?" said I.



`"A crazed young common dog! A serf! Forced my brother to draw upon him, and has
fallen by my brother's Sword--like a gentleman."



`There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity, in this answer. The speaker
seemed to acknowledge that it was inconvenient to have that different order of creature
dying there, and that it would' have been better if he had died in the usual obscure
routine of his vermin kind. He was quite incapable of any passionate" title="a.有同情心的 vt.同情">compassionate feeling about the
boy, or about his fate.



`The boy's eyes had slowly moved to him as he had spoken, and they now slowly moved to me.



`"Doctor, they are very proud, these Nobles; but we common dogs are proud too,
sometimes. They plunder us, outrage us, beat us, kill us; but we have a little pride left,
sometimes. She--have you seen her, Doctor?"



`The shrieks and the cries were audible there, though subdued by the distance. He referred
to them, as if she were lying in our presence.



`I said, "I have seen her."



`"She is my sister, Doctor. They have had their shameful rights, these Nobles, in the
modesty and virtue of our sisters, many years, but M have had good girls among us. I know
it, and have heard my father say so. She was a good girl. She was betrothed to a good
young man, too: a tenant of his. We are all tenants of his--that man's who stands there.
The other is his brother, the worst of a bad race."



`It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered bodily force to speak; but, his
spirit spoke with a dreadful emphasis.



`We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as all we common dogs are by those
superior Beings--taxed by him without mercy, obliged to work for him without pay, obliged
to grind our corn at his mill, obliged to feed scores of his tame birds on our wretched
crops, and forbidden for our lives to keep a single tame bird of our own, pillaged and
plundered to that degree that when we chanced to have a bit of meat, we ate it in fear,
with the door barred and the shutters closed, that his people should not see it and take
it from us--I say, we were so robbed, and hunted, and were made so poor, that our father

told us it was a dreadful thing to bring a child into the world, and that what we should
most pray for, was, that our women might be barren and our miserable race die out!"



`I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed, bursting forth like a fire. I had
supposed that it must be latent in the people somewhere; but, I had never seen it break
out, until I saw it in the dying boy.



`"Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married. He was ailing at that time, poor fellow,
and she married her lover, that she might tend and comfort him in our cottage--our
dog-hut, as that man would call it. She had not been married many weeks, when that man's
brother saw her and admired her, and asked that man to lend her to him--for what are
husbands among us! He was willing enough, but my sister was good and virtuous, and hated
his brother with a hatred as strong as mine. What did the two then, to persuade her
husband to use his influence with her, to make her willing?"



`The boy's eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly turned to the looker-on, and I saw
in the Mo faces that all he said was true. The two opposing kinds of pride confronting one
another, I can see, even in this Bastille; the gentleman's all negligent indifference; the
peasant's, all trodden-down sentiment, and passionate revenge.



`"You know, Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these Nobles to harness us common
dogs to carts, and drive us. They so harnessed him and drove him. You know that it is
among their Rights to keep us in their grounds all night, quieting the frogs, in order
that their noble sleep may not be disturbed. They kept him out in the unwholesome mists at
night, and ordered him back into his harness in the day. But he was not persuaded. No!
Taken out of harness one day at noon, to feed--if he could find food--he sobbed twelve
times, once for every stroke of the bell, and died on her bosom."



`Nothing human could have held life in the boy but his determination to tell all his
wrong. He forced back the gathering shadows of death, as he forced his clenched right hand
to remain clenched, and to cover his wound.



`"Then, with that man's permission and even with his aid, his brother took her away;
in spite of what I know she must have told his brother--and what that is, will not be long
unknown to you, Doctor, if it is now--his brother took her away--for his pleasure and
diversion, for a little while. I saw her pass me on the road. When I took the tidings
home, our father's heart burst; he never spoke one of the words that filled it. I took my
young sister (for I have another) to a place beyond the reach of this man, and where, at
least, she will never be his vassal. Then, I tracked the brother here, and last night
climbed in-a common dog, but

sword in hand.--Where is the loft window? It was somewhere here?"



`The room was darkening to his sight; the world was narrowing around him. I glanced about
me, and saw that the hay and straw were trampled over the floor, as if there had been a
struggle.



`"She heard me, and ran in. I told her not to come near us till he was dead. He came
in and first tossed me some pieces of money; then struck at me with a whip. But I, though
a common dog, so struck at him as to make him draw. Let him break into as many pieces as
he will, the sword that he stained with my common blood; he drew to defend himself--thrust
at me with all his skill for his life."



`My glance had fallen, but a few moments before, on the fragments of a broken sword, lying
among the hay. That weapon was a gentleman's. In another place, lay an old sword that
seemed to have been a soldier's.



`"Now, lift me up, Doctor; lift me up. Where is he?"