ARLES DICKENS
A Tale of Two Cities
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
The year is 1775 and in a room above a wine-shop in Paris sits a white-haired man, busy making shoes. For eighteen years he was a prisoner in the Bastille. Now he is a free man, but he does not know his name, or recognize his friends. He knows only that he must go on making shoes.
In a coach driving into Paris sits Lucie, the daughter he has never seen. Lucie takes her father back to London and with her love and care, he forgets the past and learns to live again as a free man.
But in the stormy years of the French Revolution, the past is neither dead, nor forgotten. And soon its dangerous secrets pull Lucie and the people she loves back to Paris … where that terrible machine of death, the Guillotine, waits hungrily for the enemies of France.
1
The road to Paris – 1775
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the season of light, it was the season of darkness. It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of sadness. It was the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five.
In France there was a King and a Queen, and in England there was a King and a Queen. They believed that nothing would ever change. But in France things were bad, and getting worse. The people were poor, hungry and unhappy. The King made paper money and spent it, and the people had nothing to eat. Behind closed doors in the homes of the people, voices spoke in whispers against the King and his noblemen; they were only whispers, but they were the angry whispers of desperate people.
Late one November night, in that same year 1775, a coach going from London to Dover stopped at the top of a long hill. The horses were tired, but as they rested, the driver heard another horse coming fast up the hill behind them. The rider stopped his horse beside the coach and shouted:
‘I want a passenger, Mr Jarvis Lorry, from Tellson’s Bank in London.’
‘I am Mr Jarvis Lorry,’ said one of the passengers, putting his head out of the window. ‘What do you want?’
‘It’s me! Jerry, Jerry Cruncher, from Tellson’s Bank, sir,’ cried the man on the horse.
‘What’s the matter, Jerry?’ called Mr Lorry.
‘A message for you, Mr Lorry. You’ve got to wait at Dover for a young lady.’
‘Very well, Jerry,’ said Mr Lorry. ‘Tell them my answer is – CAME BACK TO LIFE.’
It was a strange message, and a stranger answer. No one in the coach understood what they meant.
The next day Mr Lorry was sitting in his hotel in Dover when a young lady arrived. She was pretty, with golden hair and blue eyes, and Mr Lorry remembered a small child, almost a baby. He had carried her in his arms when he came from Calais to Dover, from France to England, many years ago. Mr Lorry asked the young lady to sit down.
‘Miss Manette,’ he said. ‘I have a strange story to tell you, about one of the customers of Tellson’s Bank. That’s where I work.’
‘Yes, but I don’t quite understand, Mr Lorry,’ said the young lady. ‘I received a message from Tellson’s Bank, asking me to come here to meet you. I understood there was some news about my poor father’s money. He died so long ago – before I was born. What is this story you want to tell me?’
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