A TALE OF TWO CITIES

A STORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

By Charles Dickens

CONTENTS

Book the First—Recalled to Life

• CHAPTER I: The Period
• CHAPTER II: The Mail
• CHAPTER III: The Night Shadows
• CHAPTER IV: The Preparation
• CHAPTER V: The Wine-shop
• CHAPTER VI: The Shoemaker

Book the Second—The Golden Thread

• CHAPTER I: Five Years Later
• CHAPTER II: A Sight
• CHAPTER III: A Disappointment
• CHAPTER IV: Congratulatory
• CHAPTER V: The Jackal
• CHAPTER VI: Hundreds of People
• CHAPTER VII: Monseigneur in Town
• CHAPTER VIII: Monseigneur in the Country
• CHAPTER IX: The Gorgon's Head
• CHAPTER X: Two Promises
• CHAPTER XI: A Companion Picture
• CHAPTER XII: The Fellow of Delicacy
• CHAPTER XIII: The Fellow of No Delicacy
• CHAPTER XIV: The Honest Tradesman
• CHAPTER XV: Knitting
• CHAPTER XVI: Still Knitting
• CHAPTER XVII: One Night
• CHAPTER XVIII: Nine Days
• CHAPTER XIX: An Opinion
• CHAPTER XX: A Plea
• CHAPTER XXI: Echoing Footsteps
• CHAPTER XXII: The Sea Still Rises
• CHAPTER XXIII: Fire Rises
• CHAPTER XXIV: Drawn to the Loadstone Rock

Book the Third—The Track of a Storm

• CHAPTER I: In Secret
• CHAPTER II: The Grindstone
• CHAPTER III: The Shadow
• CHAPTER IV: Calm in Storm
• CHAPTER V: The Wood-sawyer
• CHAPTER VI: Triumph
• CHAPTER VII: A Knock at the Door
• CHAPTER VIII: A Hand at Cards
• CHAPTER IX: The Game Made
• CHAPTER X: The Substance of the Shadow
• CHAPTER XI: Dusk
• CHAPTER XII: Darkness
• CHAPTER XIII: Fifty-two
• CHAPTER XIV: The Knitting Done
• CHAPTER XV: The Footsteps Die Out Forever

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Book the First—Recalled to Life

CHAPTER I: The Period

It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times. People were wise, but people were also foolish. Some believed strongly in things, while others doubted everything. It was a time of light and a time of darkness. There was hope in the air, but also deep sadness. People felt like they had everything ahead of them—or nothing at all. Some thought the world was headed toward something wonderful, while others thought it was headed toward disaster. In short, this time was a lot like our own time. The loudest voices back then insisted that everything happening was either the very best or the very worst—nothing in between.

England had a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face sitting on the throne. France had its own king with a large jaw and a queen with a pretty face. In both countries, the rich and powerful people—the ones who controlled all the wealth and good things in life—were absolutely certain that everything would stay the same forever.

The year was 1775. In England at this time, people believed in signs and visions from the spirit world, just as some people do today. A woman named Mrs. Southcott had just turned twenty-five. A soldier had predicted her birth as a sign that something amazing was coming—he claimed London and Westminster would be swallowed up. Years earlier, people also believed in a ghost from Cock Lane that supposedly knocked out secret messages. That ghost story had been proven false only twelve years before, yet people still believed similar tales. Meanwhile, real news—far more important than any ghost stories—had come to England from representatives of British colonists in America.

France, however, wasn't doing quite as well with matters of belief and spirit as England was. France was sliding downhill smoothly, printing paper money and spending freely. Guided by church leaders, the French government did terrible things in the name of religion. For example, a young man was sentenced to have his hands cut off and his tongue torn out with pincers, then be burned alive—all because he hadn't kneeled in the rain to show respect to a passing group of monks, even though he was standing sixty yards away.

At this very time, trees were probably growing in the forests of France and Norway that would later be cut down to build a terrible device—a wooden frame with a blade and a basket, used for executions during the Revolution that was coming. Similarly, rough farm carts sitting in barns near Paris—carts splattered with mud and pecked at by chickens—were destined to become the death-carts of the Revolution. But these signs of what was coming were silent. No one heard them approaching. In fact, anyone who dared suggest big trouble was coming was called foolish or even called a traitor.

England itself wasn't exactly peaceful and orderly at this time either. Armed robbers broke into homes and robbed travelers on the roads every single night, right in the capital city. Families were warned not to leave town without first moving their furniture somewhere safe. A shopkeeper by day might become a highway robber by night. One such robber, when recognized by a fellow shopkeeper he was robbing, simply shot him and rode away. Another time, seven robbers attacked a mail coach. The guard shot three of them dead before the other four killed him—then calmly robbed the mail coach anyway. Even the Lord Mayor of London, one of the most important men in the city, was robbed by a single highwayman right in front of his own servants. Prisoners fought guards inside London jails, and soldiers fired weapons loaded with shot and bullets to control them. Thieves stole jewelry right off the necks of nobles at royal events. Soldiers searching for smuggled goods in one poor neighborhood exchanged gunfire with an angry crowd. None of this seemed unusual to anyone.

Meanwhile, executioners stayed constantly busy. They hanged rows of criminals for all sorts of crimes. Someone caught stealing on a Tuesday might be hanged by Saturday. People were branded on the hand for small crimes, and banned writings were burned in public. One day an executioner might put to death a horrible murderer; the next day, he might execute someone poor who had stolen just a few coins from a farm worker.

All these events—and a thousand more like them—happened in and around the year 1775. While the world moved forward, unaware of the disaster quietly approaching, the kings and queens of England and France ruled with great confidence, believing their power came from God himself. And so the year 1775 carried these rulers—and countless smaller, ordinary people, including those in this story—forward along the paths already laid out before them.

CHAPTER II: The Mail

It was a Friday night in late November. The road to Dover stretched ahead of the first character in our story. He was traveling along with the Dover mail coach as it slowly climbed Shooter's Hill. He walked alongside the coach through the mud, just like the other passengers—not because anyone wanted to walk in such awful weather, but because the hill was so steep, the harness so heavy, and the mud so thick, that the tired horses had already stopped three separate times. Once, they'd even tried to turn the coach around and head back the way they came!

But the driver, the whip, and the coach guard worked together to convince the horses—through firm reins and commands—that turning back simply wasn't an option. So the horses gave in and kept pulling.

With heads hanging low and tails twitching nervously, the horses trudged through the thick mud, stumbling here and there as if they might fall apart at the joints. Whenever the driver called out "Whoa there!" to pause them, the horse closest to the front would shake his head hard, as if arguing that the coach could never make it up this hill. Each time the horse did this, it startled the nervous passenger walking alongside.

Thick fog filled every low spot in the road, and it had crept up the hill like some restless, wandering spirit that could never find peace. This cold, damp fog rolled forward in waves, almost like ripples on a dirty sea. It was so thick that it blocked out everything except a few yards of road lit by the carriage lamps. Steam rose from the tired horses and mixed into the fog, making it seem like they had created the mist themselves.

Two other passengers were walking up the hill alongside the coach, in addition to the first one. All three men were bundled up to their cheekbones and wore tall waterproof boots. None of them could tell what the other two looked like—they were as hidden from each other's minds as they were from each other's eyes. Back then, travelers were very cautious about trusting strangers quickly, because almost anyone on the road might be a robber, or working secretly with one. In fact, robber gangs often had spies working at inns along the road—so it was smart to stay suspicious.

This is exactly what the guard riding on the back of the Dover mail was thinking that Friday night in November of 1775, as the coach struggled up Shooter's Hill. He stood at his post, stomping his feet to stay warm, one hand resting on a chest of weapons in front of him. Inside were a loaded blunderbuss (a type of powerful old gun) resting on top of six or eight loaded pistols, all stacked above a sword.

As usual, everyone traveling on the Dover mail was suspicious of everyone else. The guard suspected the passengers. The passengers suspected each other and the guard. Everyone suspected everyone. Only the coach driver felt sure about one thing—his horses weren't fit for this journey at all, and he would have sworn to that on a stack of Bibles.

"Whoa!" called the driver. "There we go! One more pull and you'll be at the top—and good riddance, because you've given me nothing but trouble tonight! Joe!"

"Yes?" the guard called back.

"What time do you make it, Joe?"

"Just gone eleven-ten."

"Good grief!" the frustrated driver exclaimed. "And we're still not at the top of Shooter's Hill! Come on now! Move!"

With a sharp crack of the whip, the stubborn horse gave up his protest and lunged forward, and the other three horses followed his lead. Once again, the Dover mail struggled onward, with the three passengers' boots squishing through the mud beside it. They had stopped when the coach stopped, and now they kept pace right alongside it once more. None of the three dared suggest walking ahead into the thick fog and darkness alone.