tale that is more than a tale.  Dickens,
     no doubt, owed much of his inspiration to Carlyle’s tremendous
     prose epic.  But the genius that depicted a moving and tragic
     story upon the red background of the Terror was Dickens’s own,
     and the “Tale of Two Cities” was final proof that its author
     could handle a great theme in a manner that was worthy of its
     greatness.  The work was one of the novelist’s later
     writings—­it was published in 1859—­and is in many respects
     distinct from all his others.  It stands by itself among
     Dickens’s masterpieces, in sombre and splendid loneliness—­a
     detached glory to its author, and to his country’s literature.

I.—­Recalled to Life

A large cask of wine had been dropped and broken in the street.  All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine.  Some kneeled down, made scoops of their two hands joined, and tried to sip before the wine had all run out between their fingers.  Others dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women’s heads.  A shrill sound of laughter resounded in the street while this wine game lasted.

The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled.  It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes.  One tall joker so besmirched scrawled upon a wall, with his finger dipped in muddy wine lees, “Blood!”

And now that the cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a momentary gleam had driven from his sacred countenance, the darkness of it was heavy—­ cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want were the lords in waiting on the saintly presence.  The children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age, and coming up afresh, was the sign—­Hunger.

The master of the wine-shop outside of which the cask had been broken turned back to his shop when the struggle for the wine was ended.  Monsieur Defarge was a dark, bull-necked man, good-humoured-looking on the whole, but implacable-looking, too.  Three men who had been drinking at the counter paid for their wine, and left.  An elderly gentleman, who had been sitting in a corner with a young lady, advanced, introduced himself as Mr. Jarvis Lorry, of Tellson’s Bank, London, and begged the favour of a word.

The conference was very short, but very decided.  It had not lasted a minute, when Monsieur Defarge nodded and went out, followed by Mr. Lorry and the young lady.

He led them through a stinking little black courtyard, and up a staircase to a dim garret, where a white-haired man sat on a low bench, stooping and very busy, making shoes.

“You are still hard at work, I see,” said Monsieur Defarge.