Previous - Next

vile indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses. Every little
habitation within the great foul nest of one high building--that is
to say, the room or rooms within every door that opened on the
general staircase--left its own heap of refuse on its own landing,
besides flinging other refuse from its own windows. The uncontrollable
and hopeless mass of decomposition so engendered, would have polluted
the air, even if poverty and deprivation had not loaded it with their
intangible impurities; the two bad sources combined made it almost
insupportable. Through such an atmosphere, by a steep dark shaft of
dirt and poison, the way lay. Yielding to his own disturbance of
mind, and to his young companion's agitation, which became greater
every instant, Mr. Jarvis Lorry twice stopped to rest. Each of these
stoppages was made at a doleful grating, by which any languishing
good airs that were left uncorrupted, seemed to escape, and all
spoilt and sickly vapours seemed to crawl in. Through the rusted
bars, tastes, rather than glimpses, were caught of the jumbled
neighbourhood; and nothing within range, nearer or lower than the
summits of the two great towers of Notre-Dame, had any promise on it
of healthy life or wholesome aspirations.

At last, the top of the staircase was gained, and they stopped for
the third time. There was yet an upper staircase, of a steeper
inclination and of contracted dimensions, to be ascended, before the
garret story was reached. The keeper of the wine-shop, always going
a little in advance, and always going on the side which Mr. Lorry
took, as though he dreaded to be asked any question by the young
lady, turned himself about here, and, carefully feeling in the
pockets of the coat he carried over his shoulder, took out a key.

"The door is locked then, my friend?" said Mr. Lorry, surprised.

"Ay. Yes," was the grim reply of Monsieur Defarge.

"You think it necessary to keep the unfortunate gentleman so retired?"

"I think it necessary to turn the key." Monsieur Defarge whispered it
closer in his ear, and frowned heavily.

"Why?"

"Why! Because he has lived so long, locked up, that he would be
frightened--rave--tear himself to pieces--die--come to I know not what
harm--if his door was left open."

"Is it possible!" exclaimed Mr. Lorry.

"Is it possible!" repeated Defarge, bitterly. "Yes. And a beautiful
world we live in, when it _is_ possible, and when many other such
things are possible, and not only possible, but done--done, see
you!--under that sky there, every day. Long live the Devil. Let us
go on."

This dialogue had been held in so very low a whisper, that not a word
of it had reached the young lady's ears. But, by this time she
trembled under such strong emotion, and her face expressed such deep
anxiety, and, above all, such dread and terror, that Mr. Lorry felt
it incumbent on him to speak a word or two of reassurance.

"Courage, dear miss! Courage! Business! The worst will be over

Previous - Next