Chapter 36 Chapter 4 Calm in the Storm

Dr. Manette did not return until the morning of the fourth day after his departure.He had succeeded in keeping many things of that terrible time a secret from Lucy, long before she heard that eleven hundred unarmed men, women and children had been killed by the crowd.Four days and four nights were clouded by this terror.The air around her was also filled with the bloody smell of the victims.She only heard that the prison had been stormed, that all the political prisoners were in danger, and that some had been taken out by the mob and killed. The doctor demanded strict secrecy from Mr. Lorry (for reasons which he did not need to enter into), and told him that the crowd had led him past a massacre to La Force Prison.He sees a self-appointed court in prison.The prisoners were brought up one by one, and the court quickly ordered the collective execution or release.A few cases were also sent back to cells.Brought before the court by his guides, he declared his name and occupation, and said that he had been secretly imprisoned without trial in the Bastille for eighteen years.One man in the bench arose to testify to the truth of what he had said, and that man was Defarge.

He looked at the roster on the table and was sure that his son-in-law was still on the list of surviving prisoners, so he pleaded with the judges—some of them were asleep, some were awake, some were covered in blood, some were Some are clean, some are sober, some are drunk - save his life and set him free.As the conspicuous victim of a system that had been overthrown, they welcomed him with generosity and frenzy, and agreed to bring Charles Darnay immediately before this lawless court.When Darnay was almost released, the tide in his favor seemed to be blocked by some unexplained (the doctor did not understand), and a small secret meeting was held and a few words were exchanged.Then the man in the chairman's seat informed Dr. Manette that the prisoner was still to be detained, but for the doctor's sake, in a safe custody and inviolable.Immediately after an order was given, the prisoner was taken away again and put in prison.The doctor then urged his permission to stay, in order to secure that his son-in-law would not be handed over to the mob through malice or accident. (The clamor of the mob outside the gates for murder had repeatedly drowned out the speeches of the trial.) He was granted permission, and remained in the bloody hall until the danger had passed.

He decided not to say a word about what he saw there, including hasty meals and sleep.He was amazed by the insane cruelty when the prisoners were hacked into pieces, but he was also amazed by the insane joy when the prisoners were rescued.He tells of a prisoner who was freed and came out into the street, but was accidentally wounded by a savage and shot with a spear.The doctor was begged to bind the man's wounds, and the doctor went out by the same gate, only to find the wounded lying on the arms of a group of Samaritans sitting on the heap of the bodies of those they had killed .In this nightmare, the group of people helped the doctor with grotesque and inconsistent attitudes, took care of the wounded with the most kind and gentle care, made a stretcher for the wounded, and carefully lifted him away from the scene, and then He grabbed his weapon again and threw himself into a massacre.The massacre was terrible. The doctor covered his eyes with his hands, but he still passed out halfway.

Mr. Lorry listened to the confidential conversation, and looked into the face of his friend, now sixty-two years of age, with apprehension that this terrible experience might trigger the dangerous disease of the past.However, he has never seen his old friend like this, with such a character.For the first time the doctor felt that the suffering he had experienced turned out to be a kind of strength and authority.For the first time he felt that he had been tempered into steel in that raging fire and could now break down the prison door of his son-in-law and free him. "Everything in the past leads to a good end, my friend, and it is not all waste and destruction. When my beloved daughter helped me restore health, I will now help her restore the dearest one with her. Part. I'm going to do it with Heaven's help!" Such was the situation with Dr. Manette at this time.Jarvis Lowry saw his burning eyes, his determined countenance, his composed expression and manner.What had seemed to him forever the doctor's past life had been a clock that had stood still for years, but now he was sure he was ticking away again with the dormant energy of abandonment.

Even if the doctor had to overcome much greater difficulties at that time than now, the difficulties would give way under his unremitting efforts.While he persisted in his post as a physician, his task was to treat people of all levels: the free and the unfree, the rich and the poor, the bad and the good.He used his influence wisely, and soon became prison doctor of three prisons, including La Force.He could now comfort Lucy that her husband was no longer in solitary confinement, but with other prisoners; he saw him every week, and brought her sweet news straight from his lips; Her husband himself gave her a letter in his own hand (though never handed over by a doctor), but forbade her to write to him, because of all the fanciful suspicions about prisons, the most fanciful suspicion pointed to having relatives and friends abroad. Or fugitives who have long-term ties overseas.

No doubt this new life of the doctor was restless, but shrewd Mr. Lorry saw that he was sustained by a new sense of pride.It was a natural and noble pride, not tainted with inappropriateness.But he observed him as if he were observing a curiosity.The doctor knew that until then, in the minds of his daughters and friends, his past prison life had been associated with his misery, hardship, and weakness.It was different now, knowing that the trials of the past had given him the strength that his daughter and friends were banking on for Charles' eventual safe release.He was delighted by the change.He led the way, making the two of them depend on him as the weak depend on the strong.His old relationship with Lucy was now turned upside down.What reversed that relationship was a feeling of gratitude, of love, that he felt personally.She had done so much for him, and now he could do something for her, and he was proud of it, for no other reason. "It seems strange, but it is natural and normal," thought Mr. Lorry, kindly and shrewdly. "Go ahead, my dear friend, and go on, you are the right man."

In spite of the Doctor's unrelenting efforts to have Charles Darnay released, or at least brought to trial, the currents of society were too swift and violent for him to resist.A new period began, kings were tried, sentenced to death, and beheaded, and the Republic of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death" proclaimed "Death to Victory" to the armed attacking world.Day and night black flags fly from the huge tower of Notre-Dame de Paris.An army of three hundred thousand men rises suddenly from all parts of France at the call against the tyrants of the world, as if the fields were strewn with dragon's teeth and filled with fruit: from the hills and from the plains; from the rocks and from the gravel and alluvial soils; under the clear skies in the south, and under the cumulus sky in the north; from the hills, and from the forests; from the vineyards, and from the olive fields; Along the fruit-bearing banks of the wide rivers, and along the sandy beaches of the coast, the fruit of the dragon's tooth was everywhere.What personal misery can stand against the rolling torrents of the First Year of Liberty--a flood that rises from below instead of falling from heaven, whose windows are shut instead of wide open!

There is no rest, no mercy, no peace, no slack rest, no counting of time.Although day and night always follow the regular cycle that existed in the first day and night of creation, other calculations no longer exist.A nation is in a frenzy like a patient with a high fever, and the time is unpredictable.At one moment the executioner lifted the king's head for the people to see, breaking the unnatural silence of the city; at another moment, almost as if in an instant, the head of his good-looking wife was brought out.Eight months of miserable widowhood and misery in prison had made her gray hair.

According to the strange law of paradoxes prevailing in such cases, time is long, though it flies with fury.The revolutionary tribunals in the capital, the 40,000 to 50,000 revolutionary committees across the country, and the Suspect Law, which deprives liberty or all safety of life and hands good and innocent people into the hands of evil criminals, are full of innocent people who have nowhere to appeal. Prisons of the blood of the dead, these new things soon established a fixed order and character, and within a few weeks seemed to have become a long-standing rut.The best among them is a more and more familiar grim figure that seems to emerge from the foundations of the world in full view. ——That sharp lady, named Guillotine.

It is the subject of witticism: "The best medicine for headaches"; Guaranteed to shave”; “Whoever wants to kiss Miss Broken, glance at the small window, and a sneeze will fall into her pocket.” It is a symbol of human revival, replacing the status of the cross.Its cast is worn on a chest thrown away from the cross.Wherever the cross is denied, it is worshiped and believed. It has shaved off too many heads, and the land it pollutes and itself is red and stinky.It can be disassembled like a disassembled toy for young fiends to play with, and reassembled when the situation calls for it.It silences the eloquent, stumbles the mighty, and casts aside beauty and goodness.Twenty-two famous friends, twenty-one alive and one dead, it beheaded them all in one morning, in twenty-one minutes. The name of the strongman in the "Bible Old Testament" fell on the head of the official who used that thing, but the official with this weapon is stronger than his namesake, and his eyes are more blind, and it is dismantled every day to the temple of God.

The Doctor walks with his head held high among such horrors and horrors.He firmly believed in his own strength, carefully determined his goal, and never doubted that he could finally save Lucy's husband.However, the powerful and deep trend of the times rushed by, violently sweeping away time.Although the doctor remained firm and self-confident, Charles had spent a year and three months in prison.In December of that year, the revolution grew more and more ferocious and insane.The rivers of the South were piled with bodies that had been violently drowned at night;The doctor still walked with his head held high in terror.No one in Paris was more famous than he was at that time, and no one was in a more peculiar situation.In hospital and prison he was taciturn, gentle, indispensable; he used his medical skills to serve murderers and victims alike, but he was an outsider.When he was saving lives, the appearance and story of the Bastille prisoner kept him away from everyone.He was never suspected, never questioned, as if he had indeed died some eighteen years ago and had only just come back to life, or was simply a ghost walking among the living.