steady eyebrows, and saw nothing.

Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette, emerging from the wineshop

thus, joined Monsieur Defarge in the doorway to which he

had directed his other company just before. It opened from a

stinking little black courtyard, and was the general public

entrance to a great pile of houses, inhabited by a great number of

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

people. In the gloomy tile-paved entry to the gloomy tile-paved

staircase, Monsieur Defarge bent down on one knee to the child of

his old master, and put her hand to his lips. It was a gentle action,

but not at all gently done; a very remarkable transformation had

come over him in a few seconds. He had no good-humour in his

face, nor any openness of aspect left, but had become a secret,

angry, dangerous man.

“It is very high; it is a little difficult. Better to begin slowly.”

Thus, Monsieur Defarge, in a stern voice, to Mr. Lorry, as they

began ascending the stairs.

“Is he alone?” the latter whispered.

“Alone! God help him, who should be with him!” said the other,

in the same low voice.

“Is he always alone, then?”

“Yes.”

“Of his own desire?”

“Of his own necessity. As he was, when I first saw him after

they found me and demanded to know if I would take him, and, at

my peril be discreetas he was then, so he is now.”

“He is greatly changed?”

“Changed!”

The keeper of the wine-shop stopped to strike the wall with his

hand, and mutter a tremendous curse. No direct answer could

have been half so forcible. Mr. Lorry’s spirits grew heavier and

heavier, as he and his two companions ascended higher and

higher.

Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more

crowded parts of Paris, would be bad enough now; but, at that

time, it was vile indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses.

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

Every little habitation within the great foul nest of one high

buildingthat is to say, the room or rooms within every door that

opened on the general staircaseleft 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