Section 35

The crowd cried with enthusiasm, "No!" and the President shook his bell to quiet them. Which it did not do, for they still cried "No!" until they were happy to stop of their own will.
The President asked for the name of that countryman. The prisoner said that the countryman was his first witness. He also talked with confidence about the countryman's letter, which had been taken from him at the border of the city, but which he was confident would be in with the other papers that were in front of the President.
The Doctor had made sure that it would be there — had promised that it would be there — and at this time it was taken up and read. Countryman Gabelle was called to speak for it and he did. Countryman Gabelle said, being very careful not to say anything that would make them angry, that with all of the work that the court had to do to stop the many enemies of the government, he had been forgotten in the Abbey Prison until three days ago, when he had been called before the court and had been given freedom after the jury agreed that he had good answers for the things said
against him. He had been able to do this because he had been able to call back countryman Evremonde, called Darnay.
Next Doctor Manette was questioned. Because he was such a well-liked celebrity, and because his answers were so clear, his words had a good effect on the court. The jury and the crowd became as one, as the Doctor showed that the prisoner had been his first friend after being freed from so many years in prison himself, that the prisoner had stayed in England, always faithful and loving to his daughter and himself as they were in hiding, that, far from being a friend of the rich class there, he had almost lost his life as an enemy of England and a friend of the United States. When he asked for Mr. Lorry, an Englishman who was there in the court, who had also been a witness in the court case in London, and could back up the truth in the Doctor's account of what happened, the jury said they had heard enough, and they were ready with their votes if the President was happy to receive them.
The jury voted out loud, one by one, and at each vote, the crowd clapped, and shouted happily. All of the voices were for the prisoner, and the President said that he was free.
That started one of those strange ways that a crowd could give in to their easily changing emotions, or maybe just showed how generous and loving they could be, or maybe just made themselves feel better about being so cruel at other times. No one could say now which of these reasons was behind what happened next, but it may be that all three were there, with the middle one (their better feelings of love) most moving them at that time. As soon as the President said he was free to go, tears ran the way blood ran after so many other cases. So many people in the crowd, of both sexes, tried to hug him after his long and difficult time in prison, that he was in danger of collapsing. It was not made easier knowing that the same people, carried by another emotion, would have run at him with the same enthusiasm for tearing him to pieces and throwing the pieces in the street.
When the guards took him outside to make way for others, that gave him some rest from the crowd. Five people were to be questioned together next, as enemies of the government because of something they did not do or say to help the government. So enthusiastic was the court to make up for not having killed him, that these five people were judged and brought to where he was before he had left, marked for death before that time the next day.
One reason the case was finished so quickly for the five was that there had been no crowd to watch them. When Charles Darnay and Doctor Manette walked out through the gate, there was a great crowd on the street, in which there seemed to be every face that he had seen in the court... apart from two, for which Charles Darnay looked without finding them. As he came out, the people pushed toward him again, crying, hugging, and shouting, first in three separate steps, and then doing all three at the same time, until it seemed like even the river beside them was going crazy like the people on the side of it.
They put him in a big chair that they had taken from the court or from one of the rooms beside it. Over the chair they threw a red flag, and they put a spear with a red hat on top of it on the back of the chair. In this vehicle for the winner, not even the Doctor could stop the people from carrying Charles Darnay home on their shoulders, with a confused ocean of red hats moving around him, and such wild faces looking up
at him from that ocean at times that more than once his confused mind thought he was in a cart on his way to the guillotine.
The trip was like a wild dream, with people hugging anyone they met on the way, and pointing him out. The new colour worn by the people made the snowy streets red as they moved through them, just as they had once coloured the ground under the snow with a deeper red. They carried him all the way to the yard of the house where he lived. Lucie's father had gone on before them to prepare her, and when her husband was standing back on the ground, she fainted into his arms.
As he held her to his heart and turned her beautiful head so it was between his face and the noisy crowd, and so his tears and her lips could come together without them seeing, a few of the people started dancing. Then all the others joined in, and the yard became too crowded for the dance of the freedom fighters. They took a young woman from the crowd and put her on the empty chair as their female god of freedom, and then, pouring out of the yard and into the streets and along the side of the river, and over the bridge, the dance itself was all they could think about as they left.
After shaking the Doctor's hand as he stood proud and happy before him; after shaking Mr. Lorry's hand, who came in breathing heavily after fighting through the dancers as they left the yard; after kissing little Lucie, who was lifted up to put her arms around his neck; and after hugging the ever faithful Miss Pross who lifted Lucie; he took his wife in his arms and carried her into the house.
"Lucie! My wife! I'm safe!"
"Oh Charles, my love, let me thank God for this on my knees as I have prayed to him."
They all humbly bowed their heads and hearts. When she was again in his arms, he said to her:
"And now speak to your father, my love. No other man in all of France could have done for me what he has done."
She put her head on her father's chest as she had put his poor head on her own breast long long ago. He was happy in the return he had made to her. He had been paid for what he went through in prison; he was proud of his strength. "You must not be weak, my love," he said to her. "Don't shake so. I have saved him."
7. A Knock at the Door
"I HAVE SAVED HIM." It was not another one of Charles Darnay's dreams in which he often came home; he was really there. And yet his wife was shaking, and a soft but heavy fear was on her.
All the air around them was so thick and dark, the people so wild and full of hate, the innocent so often put to death just for what others believed about them, or because of a black and evil hate, that it was impossible to forget that many as innocent as her husband and loved as much by others as he was by her, had ended up in the place that he had been saved from. Her heart could not feel light even now when it should feel that way. The shadows were starting to fall on that winter afternoon, and even now the awful carts were rolling through the streets. Her mind followed them, looking for
him in the people being carried away; and then she hugged closer to the real man and shook some more.
Her father, trying to encourage her, showed a loving strength that was wonderful to see. No room above the wine shop, no shoemaking, no One Hundred and Five North Tower now! He had finished the job that he had given himself to do. His promise had been kept. He had saved Charles. Let them all lean on him.
They used very little money on things for their house, not only because it was the safest way of life if they did not want to anger the people, but because they were not rich. All the while that Charles had been in prison he had been forced to pay heavily for the bad food he received, and for his guard, and to help some of the poorer prisoners around him. Partly because of this, and partly because they could not trust anyone, they had no servant of their own. The countryman and countrywoman who worked at the gate for the government would help them at times; and Jerry (whom Mr. Lorry had fully given over to help them) had become their servant, even sleeping there at night.
It was the rule of the new government, the one country for free, equal brothers, or death, that on the door or the door post of every house, the names of all the people living there should be written in letters of a special size, and at a special height from the ground. Because of this, Mr. Jerry Cruncher's name had been added to the bottom of the list. As the afternoon shadows grew longer, Mr. Cruncher himself came to watch a painter whom Doctor Manette had paid to add to the list the name of Charles Evremonde, called Darnay.
In the fear that made those times so dark, all the little ways of the past had been changed. In the Doctor's little family, as in very many others, they would buy the things they needed each evening, in small measures, from a few different shops. The general feeling was that if they were not seen to be spending a lot of money, people would not talk so much or feel jealous of them.
For a few months now, it had been the job of Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher to buy the things they needed. Miss Pross would carry the money, and Mr. Cruncher the basket. Each afternoon, about the time when the town lanterns were lighted, they would leave the house to buy and bring home all the things that were needed. Miss Pross had known a French family in England for many years, so she should have known the language well by then, if she had wanted to learn it; but she had not wanted to learn it. She knew no more of that "foolishness" (as she called it) than Mr. Cruncher did. So when buying things she would tell the shop owner only the name of the thing she wanted, without any other words to help him. If it turned out that she was using the wrong word, she would look around for the thing that she wanted, pick it up, and hold it until the sale was finished. She always got a good price by holding up one less finger than the person selling it was holding up.
"Now, Mr. Cruncher," said Miss Pross, whose eyes were red from so many happy tears, "if you are ready, I am."
Jerry said with a rough voice that he was ready. He had rubbed all the rust off his fingers long ago, but nothing would make his messy hair lay flat.
"There is much that we want to get," said Miss Pross, "and we have little time to get it. On top of it all, we will want some wine. I'm afraid that these awful Red Hats will be drinking nice wine anywhere that it can be found.
"It will be much the same to you, Miss," answered Jerry, "if they are drinking to your health or to the health of the Old One."
"Who's he?" asked Miss Pross.
Mr. Cruncher shyly said that he was talking about the Old Devil.
"Ha!" said Miss Pross. "I don't need to know the language to know what these people are drinking to. They are only interested in darkness, killing, and hurting people."
"Quiet, love! Please, please, be careful!" cried Lucie.
"Yes, yes, yes, I'll be careful," said Miss Pross, "but between ourselves I can say that I hope there'll be no hugs from these tobacco and onion breathers in the streets. Now, Ladybird, do not leave that fire until I come back! Take care of the good husband you have found again, and don't move your beautiful head from his shoulder where it is now, until you see me again! May I ask a question, Doctor Manette, before I go?"
"I think you may have that freedom," the Doctor answered, smiling.
"Oh please don't talk about freedom; we have had more than enough of that already," said Miss Pross.
"Quiet, love! Again?" Lucie said.
"Well, my sweet," said Miss Pross, shaking her head as she said it, "the short and the long of it is that I follow our good King George the Third." Miss Pross bowed at the name. "As such, my rule is, No interest in their political games, and Anger at their cruel tricks. Our hope is in him. God save the king!"
Mr. Cruncher, in a show of faithful love for the king, repeated the words after Miss Pross in his deep rough voice, adding something about someone at church.
"I am glad you have so much of the English man in you, but I wish you did not have such a cold in your voice," said Miss Pross, lovingly. "But the question, Doctor Manette. Is there any hope of us getting out of this place?" It was the good woman's way to make light of something that worried them all, and to come at it from some foolish talk.
"I am afraid that there is no way yet. It would be dangerous for Charles if we tried to leave now."
"Oh well!" said Miss Pross in a relaxed and friendly way, holding back her sadness as she looked at her Ladybird's golden hair in the light of the fire. "Then we just have to be patient and wait; that's all. We must hold up our heads and fight secretly, as my brother Solomon used to say. Now, Mr. Cruncher! You stay there, Ladybird!"
They went out, leaving Lucie, her husband, father, and child by a nice fire. Mr. Lorry would be there soon from the bank. Miss Pross had lighted the lantern, but had put it in a corner so that they could better see the light from the fireplace. Little Lucie sat by her grandfather with her hands joined through his arm. He, in a voice not much above a whisper, started to tell her a story about a great and powerful angel who had opened a prison wall to free a prisoner who had, in the past, helped the angel. All was quiet, and Lucie was more at peace than she had been before.
But then she cried, "What was that?"
"My love!" said her father, stopping his story and putting his hand on her hand. "Control yourself. You are too worried. The least thing... nothing at all... fills you with fear! You, your father's daughter!"
"Father, I thought I heard strange feet on the steps," Lucie said in a shaking voice.
"My love, the steps are as quiet as death."
As she said the word, a knock was heard on the door.
"Oh, father, father. What can this be! Hide Charles. Save him!"
"My child," said the Doctor, getting up and putting his hand on her shoulder, "I have saved him. How afraid you are! Let me go to the door."
He took the lantern in his hand, walked through the two rooms between them and the door, and he opened it. The loud noise of heavy feet moving rudely on the floor, and four rough men in red hats, carrying swords and guns, came into the room.
"The countryman Evremonde, called Darnay," said the first.
"Who wants him?" answered Darnay.
"I want him. We want him. I know you, Evremonde; I saw you before the court today. You are again a prisoner of the government."
The four moved around him, where he stood with his wife and child hanging onto him.
"Tell me, how and why am I a prisoner again?"
"It is enough that you come to the court prison now, and you'll know tomorrow. You are to come before the court tomorrow."
Doctor Manette had been turned to stone by this visit, so that he stood with the lantern in his hand as if he were a statue made to hold it. But after these words, he moved, putting the lantern down, and facing the speaker. He took him roughly by the loose front of his red shirt, and said: