Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

The latent uneasiness in Darnay’s mind was roused to vigorous

life by this letter. The peril of an old servant and a good one,

whose only crime was fidelity to himself and his family, stared him

so reproachfully in the face, that, as he walked to and fro in the

Temple considering what to do, he almost hid his face from the

passers-by.

He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which had

culminated the bad deeds and bad reputation of the old family

house, in his resentful suspicions of his uncle, and in the aversion

with which his conscience regarded the crumbling fabric that he

was supposed to uphold, he had acted imperfectly. He knew very

well, that in his love for Lucie, his renunciation of his social place,

though by no means new to his own mind, had been hurried and

incomplete. He knew that he ought to have systematically worked

it out and supervised it, and that he had meant to do it, and that it

had never been done.

The happiness of his own chosen English home, the necessity of

being always actively employed, the swift changes and troubles of

the time which had followed on one another so fast, that the events

of this week annihilated the immature plans of last week, and the

events of the week following made all new again; he knew very

well, that to the force of these circumstances he had yielded:not

without disquiet, but still without continuous and accumulating

resistance. That he had watched the times for a time of action, and

that they had shifted and struggled until the time had gone by, and

the nobility were trooping from France by every highway and

byway, and their property was in course of confiscation and

destruction, and their very names were blotting out, was as well

known to himself as it could be to any new authority in France

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

that might impeach him for it.

But, he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man; he

was so far from having harshly exacted payment of his dues, that

he had relinquished them of his own will, thrown himself on a

world with no favour in it, won his own private place there, and

earned his own bread. Monsieur Gabelle had held the

impoverished and involved estate on written instructions, to spare

the people, to give them what little there was to givesuch fuel as

the heavy creditors would let them have in the winter, and such

produce as could be saved from the same grip in the summer

and no doubt he had put the fact in plea and proof, for his own

safety, so that it could not but appear now.

This favoured the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had

begun to make, that he would go to Paris.

Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams

had driven him within the influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it

was drawing him to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose

before his mind drifted him on, faster and faster, more and more

steadily, to the terrible attraction. His latent uneasiness had been,