Re-reading A Tale of Two Cities
When his host followed him out on the staircase with a candle, to light him down the stairs, the day was coldly looking in through its grimy windows. When he got out of the house, the air was cold and sad, the dull sky overcast, the river dark and dim, the whole scene like a lifeless desert. And wreaths of dust were spinning round and round before the morning blast, as if the desert-sand had risen far away, and the first spray of it in its advance had begun to overwhelm the city.
Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man stood still on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying in the wilderness before him, a mirage of honourable ambition, self-denial and perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airy galleries from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled in his sight. A moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber in a well of houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglected bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears.
Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.
“the air was cold and sad” ….
“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
gulp!!
He’s such a great character.
Manual trackback, m’dear. Your trackbacks option has been disabled.
heres my post
http://awanderingconfluence.com/blog/_archives/2006/9/7/2305254.html
No trackback??
Let me investigate. I didn’t do it on purpose!!
Oh Sharon, your post got me all goosebumpy.
sniff, sniff. The jackal!!!
Yours got me all goosebumpy too!! I think that was the passage that inspired me into a fangirlish attempt at fanfiction.
Poor Sydney!!
Lucy’s a cold heartless wench…
Oh – he is so completely captivating from the moment he appears in that courtroom, staring at the ceiling. You’re like: who IS this guy?
I love the first scene where he and Darnay go out to dinner – but then later – in this excerpt – the fact that he cried??? He lay in bed and cried?
Fuggedaboutit, I was hooked. It was so mysterious to me – he seemed so “over it”, you know? If “whatever” had been in the slang of the time, he totally would have been a “whatever” type guy – at least on the surface.
But … that section … where you see beneath that surface …
sniff, sniff!!!