When you read this, I ask that you please sit down in a quiet place at a time when you have some long moments to think and contemplate. Do not just read quickly through…you might miss the depth and profound impact of this next piece of work.
I do not know the author, I only know his work. He is a bold and extraordinarily gifted story teller and he clearly gets the full specter of the tragedy that lies all around us and the depth of the catastrophe yet to come. Far too many people do not get it. They are not blind, but they certainly cannot see. Whoever this guy is, I’m sure he’s on a Watch List somewhere. The authorities do have lists, and when the time is right I believe they have plans for everyone on those lists. There is simply too much at stake for the centers of power to allow such thought and expression to roam free across this country. Think that’s a bit extreme? Think I’m exaggerating or am a bit too paranoid? Just Google Chase Burning…or, oh, never mind if I’ve got to convince you that anyone who dares to stand up against the machine is a target, then we’re just wasting time. For now, get to your quiet place of contemplation and read on….
” It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
Those iconic words from Charles Dickens in 1859 opened ” A Tale of Two Cities”. It is there where we meet Madame DeFarge and experience her knitting. Madame DeFarge is the wife of Monsieur DeFarge, the Wine Shop keeper who is also a leader in the underground just prior to the French Revolution. His wife’s knitting keeps the record of the grievances of the common people against their ” betters”. When the terrible retribution comes, it is her knitting which calls forth the guilt.
The event around which the story revolves is the rape of a peasant girl, the killing of her husband and the stabbing death of her vengeful brother by two young brotherly spawn of ” the Nobility”. The event takes place some 20 years before the time of the story. Dr. Manette was called by the noble brothers to tend to the victims two days after the incident. He found the girl dying from the trauma, her mind gone to gibberish and her brother dying in the barn with a vicious festering sword wound in his gut. When Dr. Manette reported what he found to the authorities, the ” Noble” brothers had him beaten and thrown into the Bastille, themselves walking away unscathed. They were much too important to be held accountable for their peccadilloes.
While in the Bastille, before he totally lost his mind, Dr. Manette wrote of his experiences and hid his writings in his cell. After the fall of the Bastille, Monsieur DeFarge recovered the writings and used them to charge Charles Darnay, the exiled son of one of the brothers and husband of Dr. Manette’s daughter Lucie, with the crimes of his father. Darnay had denounced his birthright to his uncle’s face years before and had left France because he saw the horrible inequities of French Society and wanted no part of them. It mattered not. Darnay is held accountable and the story climaxes with the ever approaching day of Darnay’s reckoning with the Guillotine whom the newly freed citizens of France referred to as ” the Barber with the close shave”.
