“It does not take a long time,” said madame. “for an earthquake

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to swallow a town. Eh well! Tell me how long it takes to prepare

the earthquake?”

“A long time, I suppose,” said Defarge.

“But when it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces

everything before it. In the meantime, it is always preparing,

though it is not seen or heard. That is your consolation. Keep it.”

She tied a knot with flashing eyes, as if it throttled a foe.

“I tell thee,” said madame, extending her right hand, for

emphasis, “that although it is a long time on the road, it is on the

road and coming. I tell thee it never retreats, and never stops. I tell

thee it is always advancing. Look around and consider the lives of

all the world that we know, consider the rage and discontent to

which the Jacquerie addresses itself with more and more of

certainty every hour. Can such things last? Bah! I mock you.”

“My brave wife,” returned Defarge, standing before her with

his head a little bent, and his hands clasped at his back, like a

docile and attentive pupil before his catechist, “I do not question

all this. But it has lasted a long time, and it is possibleyou know

well, my wife, it is possiblethat it may not come, during our

lives.”

“Eh well! How then?” demanded madame, tying another knot,

as if there were another enemy strangled.

“Well!” said Defarge, with a half complaining and half

apologetic shrug. “We shall not see the triumph.”

“We shall have helped it,” returned madame, with her extended

hand in strong action. “Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I

believe with all my soul, that we shall see the triumph. But even if

not, even if I knew certainly not, show me the neck of an aristocrat

and tyrant, and still I would” Then madame, with her teeth set,

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tied a very terrible knot indeed.

“Hold!” cried Defarge, reddening a little as if he felt charged

with cowardice; “I too, my dear, will stop at nothing.”

“Yes! But it is your weakness that you sometimes need to see

your victim and your opportunity, to sustain you. Sustain yourself

without that. When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil;

but wait for the time with the tiger and the devil chainednot

shownyet always ready.”

Madame enforced the conclusion of this piece of advice by

striking her little counter with her chain of money as if she

knocked its brains out, and then gathering the heavy handkerchief

under her arm in a serene manner, and observing that it was time

to go to bed.

Next noontide saw the admirable woman in her usual place in

the wine-shop knitting away assiduously. A rose lay beside her,

and if she now and then glanced at the flower, it was with no

infraction of her usual preoccupied air. There were a few

customers, drinking or not drinking, standing or seated, sprinkled