Book II, Chapter Sixteen – Still Knitting

Madame Defarge is quizzing her husband about the news that there’s a new English spy around.  His name is Barsad. Hey – we know that name! Madame Defarge says that he’ll need to be registered in her knitting. Defarge describes the guy’s physical appearance. Nodding, Madame Defarge takes it all down. 

The next morning, Madame Defarge sits at her seat. She’s knitting. Of course. Beside her knitting lies a rose. A man walks into the shop. Madame Defarge picks up the rose and slides it into her cap. As if someone’s issued a secret sign, the shop falls silent. People slink out the back exits as the new customer comes up to the counter. A secret sign? Really? 

Madame Defarge makes conversation with the newcomer. As she talks to him, she knits him in the registry. Defarge walks in. The man hails him cheerfully as "Jacques." Defarge looks confused. His name is Ernest, not Jacques.  tries to draw both the Defarges into conversation about the woes of the people, but they say that they spend all their time running the wine shop. 

The spy mentions Doctor Manette. Defarge immediately jumps a little bit. Madame Defarge quickly says that they never see nor hear from the doctor. Smiling, the spy says he knows. In fact, the doctor is in England. Interestingly, his daughter is about to marry a man whose original name is…well, not Darnay. In fact, he’s taken his mother’s name. In French, it would be D’Aulnais. Defarge gasps. His wife knits ferociously.

The spy leaves. Silence descends on the house. Defarge hesitates, then asks Madame Defarge if it wouldn’t be a horrible thing that the son-in-law of Doctor Manette were registered alongside the spy.  Apparently, she doesn’t think that that would be a bad thing, at all. Saddened, Defarge leaves. As he goes upstairs, he thinks about what a "frightfully" grand woman his wife is.

Volume II, Chapter Fifteen – Knitting

We’re back in the wine shop for this chapter. Defarge introduces the mender of roads from the country. Defarge calls the man "Jacques." All the Jacques follow the mender of roads into the garret where Doctor Manette stayed when he was in Paris.

The mender of roads tells the men that, a year ago, he was working on the road when he saw the Marquis’ carriage pass by.  There was that a man was hanging off of the bottom of the carriage. Later, the Marquis asked the mender of roads what the man looked like. The mender recounts that he answered truthfully, saying that the man was tall as a ghost. The Jacques group scoffs at the honestly of the mender of roads.  They would have lied to the Marquis.

Later the next day, the mender of roads was working on roads again. While he was working, he saw the same stowaway. This time, however, the tall man was a prisoner. Six guards hauled him down the road in chains. Describing the way that the soldiers tortured the prisoner, the mender of roads finally says that the prisoner was sent to the jail.  After a few days, the prisoner was dragged into the village. The guards hanged him. The gallows was erected over the town well. Because official orders insisted that the body remain where it was hung, the town well is now polluted.

Defarge pauses for a second, then asks the Jacques group what they think. They agree that the perpetrators of this crime should be "registered" in their records as people who should be destroyed. Jacques Two pauses to ask if anyone will ever be able to steal the group’s register. Defarge scoffs. Madame Defarge keeps the register in her knitting. No one could decipher it, even if they knew what it was supposed to be. 

Defarge announces that the mender of roads plans to stay in Paris for a few days. Apparently he wants to see the King and Queen. The next day, the mender of roads and the Defarges head over to the royal procession. The mender cheers wildly as the King and Queen pass. Defarge mutters in Madame Defarge’s ear that this man is exactly the sort of peasant they need around. He’ll convince the King and Queen that their reign will last forever. That way, they’ll be all the more surprised when revolution comes.

Volume II, Chapter Fourteen – The Honest Tradesman

The chapter starts with Jerry and his son sitting outside of Tellson’s Bank. All of a sudden, a small crowd of people pass by the bank. The crowd is a funeral procession. 

As it turns out, there’s only one person who’s officially mourning the dead body.  All of the rest of the crowd is just there to cheer that person on. C’mon, there weren’t movies back then. What else are you supposed to do on a long, boring afternoon? As the crowd gets closer, the Crunchers realize that they aren’t cheering, they’re booing the dead guy. The dead guy was a spy and nobody likes spies. In fact, they hate spies so much that they turn into a mob. The plan is to overturn the funeral carriage and dump the body in the river.

Luckily, this plan doesn’t work so well. Instead, the mob decides to become part of the funeral procession. They all load into the carriage (which begins to smell strongly of alcohol) and head off towards the graveyard together. Oh, and did I mention that the dead guy (or the dead spy)  was named Roger Cly? Hmm…don’t we know him from somewhere?  

Arriving just in time for tea, the Crunchers meet up with Mrs. Cruncher on the road. Jerry immediately tells his wife that if his business ventures as an "honest tradesman" go wrong tonight, he’ll know it was because she was "flopping" against him. Jerry announces that he’s going out tonight. He’s going fishing. Jerry (the younger) immediately points out that his father’s fishing rod is pretty rusty, which is strange, considering all the times that it’s supposedly used. His father doesn’t answer.

Late that night, Young Jerry waits until his father leaves the house. He slips out and follows his father down the road. Mr. Cruncher meets with two other men; they head down towards…the graveyard.  Watching through a crack in the wall, Young Jerry sees the three men begin to "fish." Funnily enough, though, they’re not using fishing rods. In fact, they’re using spades. And they’re digging up the grave.

Astonished, Jerry jumps up and runs down the road. He doesn’t stop until he reaches his home. In the morning, Young Jerry awakens to the sound of his father beating his mother’s head against the table. Lovely. Just lovely. Apparently, something went wrong the night before. Mr. Cruncher, of course, blames his wife for the failure. 

As Jerry Cruncher and Young Jerry walk to Tellson’s, Young Jerry asks his father what a "Resurrection-Man" is. Jerry  replies that a resurrection man is a tradesman. Young Jerry declares that he’d like to be a tradesman when he grows up. Relieved, Mr. Cruncher says that with hard work and a bit of luck, Young Jerry might just turn out to be a decent adult, after all.

Volume II, Chapter Thirteen – The Fellow of No Delicacy

Sydney Carton’s not exactly a man with a lot of charm. Any charm he does have, however, he never displays when he goes to visit the Manettes. Today he visits Lucie to talk to her alone. 

When she sees him, she immediately notices that he’s even less well than he usually is. She asks Sydney what the matter is. He responds that his life is miserable and hopeless. She asks why he can’t change. Sydney doesn’t answer directly. Instead, he begins one of the strangest love scenes in all of Dickens’s novels. We’re not even really sure that it’s a love scene.

Sydney knows that Lucie couldn’t love a man like him.  She might feel badly for Carton and even care about him, but he’s right – and they both know it. True to her good-natured self, Lucie asks if there’s anything that she can do to help him without promising to love him. Carton says that if anyone could have reformed him, she could have. 

Distraught, Lucie asks again if there’s no way that she could be a force for good in his life.  He begs her to keep this conversation confidential; it’s the last time he’ll ever confide in anyone, and he’d like to remember that it ended well.

Seeing that Lucie seems upset, he entreats her not to be troubled by his sorrows. More than anything, he wants her to be happy. In fact, he’s so committed to her happiness that he begs her to remember (once she gets married) that he would give his own life to keep those that she loves safe.

Book II, Chapter Twelve – The Fellow of Delicacy

Mr. Stryver’s decided to bestow his offer on Lucie. On his way to Soho, he happens to walk by Tellson’s. Since he knows that Mr. Lorry is a good friend of the Manettes, he drops by to share the good news. Mr. Lorry doesn’t really like the fact that Mr. Stryver is too loud and too brazen to fit in well at Tellson’s. Mr. Lorry tries to get Stryver to tone it down a bit, but Stryver doesn’t seem to get the message. Unaware of how arrogant he sounds, Stryver tells Mr. Lorry that he plans to marry Lucie. 

Mr. Lorry’s upset. He knows exactly what the Manettes think of Stryver. Unsurprisingly, they don’t think too much of him. He gently tries to break this to Stryver. After a bit of heated conversation, Mr. Lorry manages to get Stryver to agree to postpone proposing to Lucie right away. He tries to warn Stryver that Lucie might not think that Stryver is the amazing man that Stryver thinks he is.

Mr. Lorry offers to head over to the Manette house to test the waters for Stryver. He’s pretty sure that he knows what the answer will be, but he wants to save Stryver (and Lucie) from the embarrassment of a proposal. Stryver agrees to wait for a day until Mr. Lorry returns.

Book II, Chapter Eleven – A Companion Picture

It’s late at night. Sydney Carton is working. Stryver is drinking. Stryver, it seems, has decided to marry. Yes. Stryver means to marry Lucie. Apparently, Stryver’s willing to overlook her poverty.

While Stryver tells Carton about his plans, he also tries to dispense some free advice on how he thinks Carton should lead his own life. Perhaps Sydney could find someone like…like Lucie to marry. Luckily, Sydney chooses to ignore him.

Volume II, Chapter Ten – Two Promises

Back in England, Charles Darnay is making a decent living as a French tutor.  He’s also madly in love with Lucie. That’s what’s top on his mind as he heads over to Soho to the Manette’s house. The doctor’s life has continued to improve;h e hasn’t relapsed into depression or memory loss in a long time.

Charles arrives to declare his love for Lucie…to Dr. Manette.  Explaining that he understands how important Lucie is in Doctor Manette’s life, Charles says that he’ll never do anything that would jeopardize their relationship. In fact, if he married Lucie, he’d want to move in with them. That way, their house would be disrupted as little as possible.

Doctor Manette asks if Charles wants him to say anything to Lucie about this conversation. Charles immediately refuses. He knows how much Doctor Manette’s opinion matters to Lucie.  If he told her to think about Charles, she’d marry him – without thinking about whether or not she loved him. Charles doesn’t want this. 

What he does ask, however, is that Doctor Manette will agree to tell Lucie of this conversation if she comes to her father to talk about Charles. In the interests of full disclosure, Charles also wants to tell Doctor Manette about his past…in France. Doctor Manette seems startled. He immediately shuts Charles down. He doesn’t want to know about Charles’ history.

OK, OK: if Lucie and Charles get married, then Charles can tell him about his past. But that’s a big if. A few hours later, Lucie returns and Miss Pross meets her at the door. Pross is frantic. Dr. Manette has been up in his room, pacing the way that he used to. And he’s been working at making shoes again. Lucie runs upstairs to her father.