“Her husband’s destiny,” said Madame Defarge, with her usual
composure, “will take him where he is to go, and will lead him to
the end that is to end him. That is all I know.”
“But it is very strangenow, at least, is it not very strange”
said Defarge, rather pleading with his wife to induce her to admit
it, “that, after all our sympathy for Monsieur her father, and
herself, her husband’s name should be proscribed under your
hand at this moment, by the side of that infernal dog’s who has
just left us?”
“Stranger things than that will happen when it does come,”
answered madame. “I have them both here, of a certainty; and
they are both here for their merits; that is enough.”
She rolled up her knitting when she had said those words, and
presently took the rose out of the handkerchief that was wound
about her head. Either Saint Antoine had an instinctive sense that
the objectionable decoration was gone, or Saint Antoine was on
the watch for its disappearance; howbeit, the Saint took courage to
lounge in, very shortly afterwards, and the wine-shop recovered its
habitual aspect.
In the evening, at which season of all others Saint Antoine
turned himself inside out, and sat on doorsteps and window-
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
ledges, and came to the corners of vile streets and courts, for a
breath of air, Madame Defarge with her work in her hand was
accustomed to pass from place to place and from group to group: a
Missionarythere were many like hersuch as the world will do
well never to breed again. All the women knitted. They knitted
worthless things, but, the mechanical work was a