Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

There was a longer pause than usual, before the shoemaker

replied: “I forget what it was you asked me. What did you say?”

“I said, couldn’t you describe the kind of shoe, for monsieur’s

information?”

“It is a lady’s shoe. It is a young lady’s walking-shoe. It is in the

present mode. I never saw the mode. I have had a pattern in my

hand.” He glanced at the shoe with some little passing touch of

pride.

“And the maker’s name?” said Defarge.

Now that he had no work to hold, he laid the knuckles of the

right hand in the hollow of the left, and then the knuckles of the

left hand in the hollow of the right, and then passed a hand across

his bearded chin, and so on in regular changes, without a

moment’s intermission. The task of recalling him from the vacancy

into which he always sank when he had spoken, was like recalling

some very weak person from a swoon, or endeavouring, in the

hope of some disclosure, to stay the spirit of a fast-dying man.

“Did you ask me for my name?”

“Assuredly I did.”

“One Hundred and Five, North Tower.”

“Is that all?”

“One Hundred and Five, North Tower.”

With a weary sound that was not a sigh, nor a groan, he bent to

work again, until the silence was again broken.

“You are not a shoemaker by trade?” said Mr. Lorry, looking

steadfastly at him.

His haggard eyes turned to Defarge, as if he would have

transferred the question to him: but as no help came from that

quarter, they turned back on the questioner when they had sought

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

the ground.

“I am not a shoemaker by trade? No, I was not a shoemaker by

trade. II learnt it here. I taught myself. I asked leave to” He

lapsed away, even for minutes, ringing those measured changes on

his hands the whole time. His eyes came slowly back, at last, to the

face from which they had wandered; when they rested on it, he

started, and resumed, in the manner of a sleeper that moment

awake, reverting to a subject of last night.

“I asked leave to teach myself, and I got it with much difficulty

after a long while, and I have made shoes ever since.”

As he held out his hand for the shoe that had been taken from

him, Mr. Lorry said, still looking steadfastly in his face:

“Monsieur Manette, do you remember nothing of me?”

The shoe dropped to the ground, and he sat looking fixedly at

the questioner.

“Monsieur Manette”; Mr. Lorry laid his hand upon Defarge’s

arm; “do you remember nothing of this man? Look at him. Look at

me. Is there no old banker, no old business, no old servant, no old

time, rising in your mind, Monsieur Manette?”