and locking behind them, until they came into a large, low, vaulted

chamber, crowded with prisoners of both sexes. The women were

seated at a long table, reading and writing, knitting, sewing, and

embroidering; the men were for the most part standing behind

their chairs, or lingering up and down the room.

In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful crime

and disgrace, the newcomer recoiled from this company. But the

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

crowning unreality of his long unreal ride, was, their all at once

rising to receive him, with every refinement of manner known to

the time, and with all the engaging graces and courtesies of life.

So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison

manners and gloom, so spectral did they become in the

inappropriate squalor and misery through which they were seen,

that Charles Darnay seemed to stand in company of the dead.

Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, the ghost of stateliness, the ghost

of elegance, the ghost of pride, the ghost of frivolity, the ghost of

wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, all waiting their dismissal

from the desolate shore, all turning on him eyes that were changed

by the death they had died in coming there.

It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side, and

the other gaolers moving about, who would have been well enough

as to appearance in the ordinary exercise of their functions, looked

so extravagantly coarse contrasted with sorrowing mothers and

blooming daughters who were therewith the apparitions of the

coquette, the young beauty, and the mature woman delicately

bredthat the inversion of all experience and likelihood which the

scene of shadows presented, was heightened to its utmost. Surely,

ghosts all. Surely, the long unreal ride some progress of disease

that had brought him to these gloomy shades!

“In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune,” said

a gentleman of courtly appearance and address, coming forward,

“I have the honour of giving you welcome to La Force, and of

condoling with you on the calamity that has brought you among

us. May it soon terminate happily! It would be an impertinence

elsewhere, but it is not so here, to ask your name and condition?”

Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

information, in words as suitable as he could find.

“But I hope,” said the gentleman, following the chief gaoler

with his eyes, who moved across the room, “that you are not in

secret?”

“I do not understand the meaning of the term, but I have heard

them say so.”

“Ah, what a pity! We so much regret it! But take courage;

several members of our society have been in secret, at first, and it

has lasted but a short time.” Then he added, raising his voice, “I

grieve to inform the societyin secret.”

There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay

crossed the room to a grated door where the gaoler awaited him,