Volume II, Chapter Nine – The Gorgon’s Head

The chapter begins with a description of the Marquis’ chateau. "Chateau," by the way, is a French word for an estate or manor house of the nobility. This particular chateau seems very stony.  Hmmm…take a look at the chapter’s title.

The servants announce the arrival of his nephew - Charles Darnay. The two greet each other, but they don’t exactly seem happy to be reunited. Charles apologizes for being late. He’s been detained by…business.  Charles says that his task carried him into great danger – even possible death.  The best inference here is that he’s referring to the trial for treason here. Moreover, he suspects that the Marquis was actually trying to support the accusations against him. Charles suspects that the only reason he wasn’t locked up forever in France is that the Marquis has been out of favor with the king for awhile.

Charles declares that he’s renounced his relationship with the family, He begs his uncle to repair some of the damage that the family has done to those around them. (See, Chuck is a good guy.)  Charles also declares that he gives up his rights to the family land. He’s got a life in England now. The Marquis asks if Charles has ever met a former patriot in England – a doctor with a young daughter. Wait a minute…has his uncle been spying on him?   

As the sun rises, terror grips the house. The Marquis has been stabbed in the night! I told you not to get attached to him.

                                     

Book II, Chapter Eight – Monseigneur in the Country

The Marquis’ carriage heads out into the country. As he drives, our narrator gives a description of the land. It’s parched and almost dead. All the crops are slowly dying – like the poor people who farm them. The narrator takes this time to explain why the village looks so crummy, as well. The Marquis has been taxing his villagers so much that they don’t have the money to buy food or care for their children.

In the village, the Marquis pulls aside a man that he passed on the road. Understandably, the guy’s a bit nervous. The Marquis isn’t exactly known for his generosity around here. The Marquis demands to know what the guy was staring at when the carriage passed him. The man says that he was staring at another man who was riding below the carriage as a stowaway. The peasant describes the stowaway as a tall, thin, white-faced man. Gabelle, the town tax collector and postmaster, steps forward to take charge of a hunt for the mysterious man.

As they’ve almost reached the Marquis’ country estate, a woman stops them on the road. She’s poor and desperate. Her husband has just died, their farm yields no money, and now her children are starving. She’d like money to build a small tombstone for her husband. Without a headstone, no one will know where he was buried. Any guesses as to what the Marquis will do? Exactly. He rides away without listening to another word.

His carriage pulls up at a magnificent country mansion (or chateau). As the Marquis gets out, he asks if Monsieur Charles has arrived yet. Hang on a second…don’t we already know a Charles? What’s going on here? Just wait…it’ll be clear in no time at all.

Book II, Chapter Seven – Monseigneur in Town

We’re back in France. Getting whiplash yet? Just wait… Our narrator describes the way that Monseigneur, a member of the French aristocracy, has his servants make hot chocolate for him. Four servants, to be precise. 

Monseigneur remains convinced that the world has been created for his pleasures. Who is this Monseigneur guy, exactly? Well, he’s sort of a conglomerate of all the aristocrats. He’s absolutely detestable…and he’s described in such vague terms that he seems to be standing in for an entire class, not a single person.

In Monseigneur’s house, everyone dresses exquisitely. Tonight Monseigneur heads to the opera. While he’s there, a man appears. No one seems to like the man very much. He’s cold, with a face "like a fine mask." Even Monseigneur seems to want to ignore him.

The man leaves the opera and gets into his carriage, where he orders his driver to speed through the streets. The driver is as ruthless as Monsieur le Marquis (that’s the guy). They fly through Paris. Suddenly, however, they come to a halt. The Marquis’ carriage has run over a small child. The father of the child (Gaspard), wild with grief, charges at the carriage. 

Monsieur le Marquis looks at him in disgust. He can’t figure out what all the trouble is about. He throws the man a coin to pay for his dead child. One of the men in the crowd comforts the grieving father by saying that, had the child lived, it wouldn’t have had a very good life anyway. This "philosopher" is none other than Defarge, the owner of the wine shop.  

As the Marquis’ carriage drives off, he throws Defarge another coin which Defarge throws it back. Furious, the Marquis calls the poor people dogs.

Book II, Chapter Six – Hundreds of People

Doctor Manette and Lucie live in a quiet little corner of Soho. Everything there seems sunny and happy. Happy people, happy places. Happy happy happy. (Almost too happy?) Doctor Manette has started to take in a few patients.  The Manettes don’t have loads of money, but Lucie has managed to make their home very…homey. 

Mr. Lorry steps inside the door and is greeted by a wild-looking red-haired woman - Miss Pross.  Once upon a time she was Lucie’s landlady/governess, but now she lives with the Manettes.  She’s very, very devoted to Lucie. Oh, and she calls Lucie "Ladybird." I wish I could tell you a reason for this, but I really can’t. 

She informs Mr. Lorry that hundreds of people have been beating down her door to get to Lucie.  Hundreds?  Well, Miss Pross might be exaggerating slightly. There have been more visitors to the house than she would like, however: Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton, and Mr. Stryver have all been making regular appearances at the Manette house.

While the two wait for the Manettes to return, Miss Pross tells Mr. Lorry that the doctor has been up at night, pacing back and forth in his room. Only Lucie can calm him down and get him.  Eventually the Manettes return. Later Mr. Darnay stops by. Making conversation, he asks Doctor Manette if he’s seen the Tower of London.  (It was the place that the British held political prisoners. In other words, it was sort of the British equivalent of the Bastille, where Dr. Manette was held.) Darnay says that folks were restoring the Tower and happened to find a hidden letter buried by a former prisoner. For no apparent reason, Dr. Manette seems violently upset by this news.

Even later, Sydney Carton stops by. It begins to rain really heavily, so everyone has to stay at the Manettes for a long time. Watch the end of this chapter for some creepy foreshadowing…and Carton’s socially awkward comments.

Book II, Chapter Five – The Jackal

Folks drank a lot in those days.  Consider yourself warned. Mr. Stryver drinks a lot. So does Carton. Here’s the difference, though: when Stryver gets drunk, he becomes worthless. Come to think of it, Stryver’s often worthless. Sydney, on the other hand, can down a few and still be on top of his game.

For reasons that no one can figure out, Sydney and Stryver are thick as thieves. OK, they’re not exactly friends: Sydney can’t stand the fact that Stryver’s a big jerk. Nonetheless, he spends most of his nights solving Stryver’s cases for him. There’s a good reason why Stryver calls Carton "Memory": he’s the brains behind all of Stryver’s operations.

Dickens starts to have some fun with the relationship between Carton and Stryver. Stryver’s sort of like a lion…he’s top of the food chain. King of the hill. And if Stryver’s a lion, then Carton is…a jackal. Lions are hunters. Jackals are scavengers, scooping up the leftovers after animals like lions bring home the prey. Hmm…does something seem off here? For one thing, Stryver’s the guy that’s getting spoon-fed legal insight from Carton. The metaphor doesn’t quite fit. Could Dickens be using a little bit of irony?

Stryver gets pretty happy on his punch and, after awhile, he begins to reminisce about the past. They’ve been together since school. Back in the old days, Carton used to write Stryver’s term papers. Now he’s writing Stryver’s legal briefs. Some things never change. 

As Stryver pours himself another drink, he wants Carton to drink to the "pretty witness" who came to court today. Carton mutters some unpleasant things about Lucie. OK, they’re not that bad. But he does call her a "golden doll." Stryver’s taken aback. He was sure he caught Carton staring at Lucie for most of the day. 

Falling back into a drunken stupor, Stryver heads to bed. Left to himself, Carton ponders why his life is so unhappy. He imagines love and happiness for a brief moment, but then his depression sets back in.

Book II, Chapter Four – Congratulatory

Mr. Stryver, Darnay’s lawyer, seems to be taking most of the credit for the legal maneuver that saved Darnay’s life. He seems to be forgetting Carton’s role in the affair – which our narrator wouldn’t want us to do. Pointing out the similarity between Carton and Darnay was Carton’s own idea. He was the brains behind the operation.

Carton wants to get out of the general area of the court. He asks Darnay to come out to dinner with him. Aww…a blossoming friendship? Well, not exactly. Carton’s already seen how Darnay looks at Lucie. After sharing a drink or two together, Carton’s pretty sure he doesn’t like Darnay. Darnay sure doesn’t like Carton. Before they part, Darnay wants to know why Carton seems so angry and depressed. Muttering that he’s a "disappointed drudge," Carton says that he’s been worth nothing all this life. 

As Darnay leaves, Carton engages in a little bit of self-questioning. Why hasn’t he been able to change his own circumstances in life? Why isn’t he ever able to change his ways or become a better human being? Tough questions. And Carton’s got no answers.

Book II, Chapter Three – A Disappointment

Mr. Attorney-General, the head of the state’s case against Charles Darnay, is in the middle of his argument. We know that he’s in the middle of the argument because every sentence in his argument begins with "that." In other words, we’re not exactly hearing him speak. We’re overhearing him speak. It’s a neat little trick on Dickens’s part: he doesn’t want us to agree with Mr. Attorney General, so he uses third-person narration instead of representing his speech.

But back to the speech: Mr. Attorney-General thinks that the prisoner (that’s Charles) has been engaging in a very long and treasonous correspondence with the French. The French? Ack! The French were involved in the American Revolution. Anybody that carried information from Britain to France probably had their hands in the American Revolution, as well. That’s what the Attorney-General thinks, at least. 

After Mr. Attorney-General finishes, his partner, Mr. Solicitor-General, gets up to examine the state’s first witness. John Barsad, a "gentleman," swears that he’s not a spy. He also swears that Charles Darnay hired him as an odd-jobs man once. Barsad testifies that Darnay carried lists between France and England. Of course, he doesn’t really specify what those lists contained – but then, when you’re trying a traitor, you don’t really need that many details, do you?

The state calls Mr. Jarvis Lorry to the stand.  Lorry testifies that he traveled to France by boat five years ago. He did see two other people on the boat, but he can’t say that he can identify Charles as one of the two men. The court calls Miss Manette to the stand. Let’s pause while the entire court checks her out. Sigh…she’s so, so pretty. Apparently, Charles is checking her out, too. She exchanges sympathetic looks with him. When Lucie begins to testify, it’s obvious that she doesn’t want to say anything that could incriminate Charles.

Lucie says that Darnay helped her father when Doctor Manette fell ill on the boat. Against her will, she also testifies that Darnay exchanged some papers with Frenchmen who were aboard the boat. Apparently, Darnay also made some jokes about George Washington while he and Lucie were chatting. Next, it’s Doctor Manette’s turn on the stand. He says he can’t remember anything from that time.

Another witness gets called to the stand to affirm that Darnay stayed at a hotel near the coast on the night that he traveled to England. While the prisoner’s lawyer is cross-examining the witness, his assistant, who seems to have been staring at the ceiling the entire trial, passes the lawyer a note.  The lawyer then asks the witness if he’s ever seen anyone who could be confused with Darnay. Pointing with a dramatic flourish to the other end of the room, the lawyer says, "Not even that man?" Gasp! Mr. Carton (the man in the corner staring at the ceiling) looks exactly like Mr. Darnay.

A coincidence, you say? Well, yes. But this is a novel. Anything can happen, folks. Just ride with it. By this point, the case is pretty much over. Carton’s appearance has introduced too much doubt into the trial. Darnay is acquitted!