Chapters 20 and 21
Uploaded by nhojbkwds on Feb 10, 2001
It is now 1789, eight years later. Life is pleasant for the Darnays. Both he and the Doctor are earning good money. Lucie and Darnay have a little girl who is also named Lucie; they also had a son who died young. Lucie constantly hears echoes of footsteps that seem to come from afar and indicate trouble. On little Lucie's sixth birthday, these echoes seem to rumble menacingly and suddenly change in sound to that of a great storm in France. Mr. Lorry comes in one night. He is a bit grumpy since things are very busy at the bank. There is more work because of the unrest in Paris. Mr. Lorry recalls the footsteps that Lucie had heard earlier and confesses that he too can now hear footsteps converging upon them. Both he and Lucie have clear premonitions of the revolution in France having an affect on them. The district of St. Antoine in Paris is a seething mass of raging women and men. Arms and weapons of all kinds are being distributed. Every woman and man seems to be mad with a fierce, implacable passion for revenge; they are ready to sacrifice everything. Defarge’s wine-shop is the center point for a angry mob Dickens describes them as a “whirlpool of boiling water”. “With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had been shaped into the detested world, the living sea rose” the mob storms the Bastille. Once inside the prison a living, breathing, human storm of hatred is displayed. “Flashing weapons” and “blazing torches” act as lighting. “Smoking wagon-loads of wet straw” severe as a thick covering of storm clouds. “Shrieks, volleys, execrations”, booms, smashes, and rattles play the part of tremendous bone shaking thunder. “Of all these cries and ten thousand incoherencies, The prisoners! Was the cry most taken by the sea that rushed in.” Finally the mob releases all the prisoners. Defarge and Jacques Three then make their way to One Hundred and Five, North Tower, the number of the cell where Dr. Manette was imprisoned. The two men search the cell for something, which Defarge evidently finds and stuffs into his pockets. They then join the rest of the force outside, which is continuing with their bloody rioting. Madame Defarge beheads the governor of the prison. “The remorseless sea of turbulently swaying shapes, voices of vengeance, and faces hardened in the...