He had put up a hand between his eyes and
the light, and the very bones of it seemed transparent. So he sat, with a
steadfastly vacant gaze, pausing in his work. He never looked at the figure
before him, without first looking down on this side of himself, then on that,
as if he had lost the habit of associating place with sound; he never spoke,
without first pandering in this manner, and forgetting to speak.
`Are you going to finish that pair of shoes
to-day?' asked Defarge, motioning to Mr. Lorry to come forward.
`What did you say?'
`Do you mean to finish that pair of shoes
to-day?' `I can't say that I mean to. I suppose so. I don't know.'
`And the maker's name?' said Defarge.
Now that he had no work to hold, he laid
the knuckles of the right hand in the hollow of the left, and then the knuckles
of the left hand in the hollow of the right, and then passed a hand across his
bearded chin, and so on in regular changes, without a moment's intermission.
The task of recalling him from the vacancy into which he always sank when he
had spoken, was like recalling some very weak person from a swoon, or
endeavouring, in the hope of some disclosure, to stay the spirit of a
fast-dying man.
As the captive of many years sat looking
fixedly, by turns, at Mr. Lorry and at Defarge, some long obliterated marks of
an actively intent intelligence in the middle of the fore-head, gradually forced
themselves through the black mist that had fallen on him. They were overclouded
again, they were fainter, they were gone; but they had been there. And so
exactly was the expression repeated on the fair young face of her who had crept
along the wall to a point where she could see him, and where she now stood
looking at him, with hands which at first had been only raised in frightened
compassion, if not even to keep him off and shut out the sight of him, but
which were now extending towards him, trembling with eagerness to lay the
spectral face upon her warm young breast, and love it back to life and hope--so
exactly was the expression repeated (though in stronger characters) on her fair
young face, that it looked as though it had passed like a moving light, from
him to her.
Darkness had fallen on him in its place. He
looked at the two, less and less attentively, and his eyes in gloomy
abstraction sought the ground and looked about him in the old way. Finally,
with a deep long sigh, he took the shoe up, and resumed his work.
`Have you recognised him, monsieur?' asked
Defarge in a whisper.
`Yes; for a moment. At first I thought it
quite hope-less, but I have unquestionably seen, for a single moment, the face
that I once knew so well. Hush! Let us draw further back. Hush!'
She had moved from the wall of the garret,
very near to the bench on which he sat. There was something awful in his
unconsciousness of the figure that could have put out its hand and touched him
as lie stooped over his labour.
Not a word was spoken, not a sound was
made. She stood, like a spirit, beside him, and he bent over his work.
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