Third Summar:
Dr. Manette, Lucie, Mr. Lorry, the solicitor for the defense, and Mr. Stryver
all congratulate Darnay on his escape from death. Dr. Manette's face
is clouded over by the negative emotions caused by being cross-examined
about being imprisoned. The Manettes depart in a hackney-coach, and a
slightly drunk Mr. Carton asks to be allowed to speak to Mr. Darnay.
They dine in a tavern, and Mr. Carton proposes a toast to Miss Manette.
After Darnay leaves, Mr. Carton looks at himself in a mirror and
reflects that he does not like Darnay because he too much resembles what
Carton himself could have been, had Carton not been so dissolute. He
hates Darnay for inspiring Miss Manette to look at him with such
compassion.
Chapter 5: The Jackal
Mr. Stryver is prone to alcoholism, and
he is a drinking companion of Mr. Carton's--they had been fellow
students in Paris. Mr. Stryver, despite all of his capacity to push
himself ahead, became a much more successful lawyer when Mr. Carton
began working on and helping summarize his documents for him. Thus
Carton became Stryver's jackal. When Stryver talks about how pretty Miss
Manette is, Carton denies it, claiming she is nothing but a blond
"doll." Carton leaves Stryver's house and returns to his own, crying
himself to sleep. He is haunted by the honorable glories that once were
available to him but are now out of his reach.
Chapter 6: Hundreds of People
Four
months after the trial, Mr. Lorry dines with the Manettes. The
Manettes live in Soho, a charming part of London not yet fully
urbanized. Dr. Manette has revived his medical practice out of the
house and lives comfortably. He converses with Miss Pross,
who is upset because, as she terms it, hundreds of people come looking
for Miss Manette (whom she calls "my Ladybird") although Miss Pross
thinks they do not deserve her. Mr. Lorry recognizes Miss Pross's
devotion and values her more highly than wealthier women who have
balances at Tellson's. He questions Miss Pross about whether Dr.
Manette knows the identity of the person who caused him to be jailed for
so long; she thinks he does. When Lucie and her father arrive, Miss
Pross fusses over the girl, arranging her bonnet and smoothing her hair.
Miss Pross had scoured the neighborhood for French expatriates to
teach her cooking tricks, and she is now considered a sorceress in the
kitchen. After dinner, Mr. Darnay comes to call. Dr. Manette is in
good humor until he gets flustered when Darnay tells a story about the
Tower of London, in which many prisoners' initials were carved. The
only ones that couldn't be matched by a former prisoner were D.I.G.,
which the guards figured was an imperative to dig (they dug, but found
only remains of a possible letter).
Mr. Carton joins the party as
it moves inside out of a rainstorm. Lucy tells of her fancy that the
footsteps that echo outside her house are the footsteps of people to
come in and out of her life. Mr. Carton observes that this vision
represents a great number of people who really will be in her life.
Chapter 7: Monseigneur in Town
Monseigneur
is a powerful lord of France who holds receptions every two weeks in
his hotel in Paris. It takes four men to muster the ceremony necessary
to serve him his morning chocolate. His idea of general public business
is to let things go their own way, and his idea of specific public
business is for things to go whatever way is most profitable for him.
Monseigneur found that these principles, in addition to the reduction of
his finances, made it advantageous for him to ally himself with a
Farmer-General by marrying his sister to one. Everyone in his court is
unreal because none knows how to do a lick of work that is useful to
anyone else. The Marquis de Evremonde, also known as Monseigneur,
condemns him as he leaves, and then rides away in his own carriage.
Monseigneur's carriage, driving recklessly fast, runs down and kills a child. The Marquis gives Gaspard,
the child's father, a gold coin, and gives Defarge another gold coin
for making the philosophical observation that the child is better off
dead. As the Marquis is driving away, Defarge throws the coin back at
the carriage. Upper-class people continue to drive through Saint
Antoine as the poor and hungry look on.
Chapter 8: Monseigneur in the Country
The
Marquis continues driving in his carriage through another poor village,
this one made destitute by over-taxation. He stops and demands to
speak with one of the villagers, asking him why he stared so intently as
the Marquis drove up the hill. The man replies that there was a man
under the carriage hanging from the shoe. He describes the man as white
as a miller and tall as a ghost. The villager claims that when the
carriage stopped, the man underneath dived headfirst over the hillside.
The Marquis loses patience with the story and asks Monsieur Gabelle,
the Postmaster, to put the villagers out of his sight. The Marquis sets
off again but is waylaid by a woman with a petition. Her husband has
died and she wishes for a piece of wood or stone to mark his grave; too
many have died and become heaps of unmarked earth. He pushes away from
her without replying and continues the journey to his chateau. When he
arrives he asks if Monsieur Charles has yet arrived from England.
Chapter 9: The Gorgon's Head
The
chateau is all stone, as if a Gorgon's head had looked at it.
Monseigneur sits down to dinner after complaining that his nephew has
not yet arrived. When Charles Darnay does arrive, Monseigneur observes
that he has taken a long time coming from London. Darnay accuses
Monseigneur of an effort to have him imprisoned in France with a letter
de cachet. Monseigneur does not deny this, but he complains about the
inaccessibility of such measures and the privileges that the aristocracy
has lost. He considers repression to be the only effective and lasting
policy; Darnay replies that their family has done wrong and will pay
the consequences. Darnay renounces his property and France.
Monseigneur mocks him for having not been more successful in England,
then mentions the doctor and his daughter but ominously refuses to say
more.
Owls howl through the night, and when the sun rises its
slanting angle makes the chateau fountain seem full of blood. The
villagers wake up first to start their toil, and the occupants of the
chateau awake later, but when they do arise, they engage in frenzied
activity. Monseigneur was murdered during the night. There is a knife
through his heart, containing a piece of paper on which it is written:
"Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques."
