第257章（第1页）

the city to the boundless everlasting sea. Before their cells were

quit of them, new occupants were appointed; before their blood

ran into the blood spilled yesterday, the blood that was to mingle

with theirs tomorrow was already set apart.

Two score and twelve were told off. From the farmer-general of

seventy, whose riches could not buy his life, to the seamstress of

twenty, whose poverty and obscurity could not save her. Physical

diseases, engendered in the vices and neglects of men, will seize

on victims of all degrees; and the frightful moral disorder, born of

unspeakable suffering, intolerable oppression, and heartless

indifference, smote equally without distinction.

Charles Darnay, alone in a cell, had sustained himself with no

flattering delusion since he came to it from the Tribunal. In every

line of the narrative he had heard, he had heard his

condemnation. He had fully comprehended that no personal

influence could possibly save him, that he was virtually sentenced

by the millions, and that units could avail him nothing.

Nevertheless, it was not easy, with the face of his beloved wife

fresh before him, to compose his mind to what it must bear. His

hold on life was strong, and it was very, very hard, to loosen; by

gradual efforts and degrees unclosed a little here, it clenched the

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tighter there; and when he brought his strength to bear on that

hand and it yielded, this was closed again. There was a hurry, too,

in all his thoughts, a turbulent and heated working of his heart,

that contended against resignation. If, for a moment, he did feel

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