ENG 4U
October 17, 2012
A
Tale of Two Cities
Book 2, Chapter 15: “Knitting”
78. Defarge learns that Marquis’s
killer had been arrested and hung by the gallows in the town: “On the top of
the gallows is fixed the knife, blade upwards, with its point in the air. He is
hanged there forty feet high—and is left hanging, poisoning the water” (165).
The mender of the road reports the fate of the Marquis’s killer to Defarge.
79. After hearing the fate of the
Marquis’s killer, Defarge and his compatriots sentenced all of Marquis’s family
to be put to death: “The chateau and all the race,” returned Defarge [to one of
the revolutionaries concerning the Marquis’s family condition]. “Extermination”
(166).
80. The sentencing of the Marquis
family by Mousier Defarge and his compatriots was recorded secretly in Madame
Defarge’s knitting. “Knitted, in her own stitches and her own symbols, it will
always be as plain to her as the sun. Confide in Madame Defarge. It would be
easier for the weakest poltroon that lives, to erase himself from existence,
than to erase one letter of his name or crimes from the knitted register of
Madame Defarge” (166).
81. Defarge compliments his guest
for cheering the king and queen because he believes their efforts to destroy
aristocracy will be much easier if the noble’s continue to think that the
common people still hold loyalty to them.
Who was speaking and said "Confide in Madame Defarge. It would be easier for the weakest poltroon that lives, to erase himself from existence, than to erase one letter of his name or crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge." ?
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