A Tale of Two Cities

Several years pass, and Lucie measures the changes in her life in the echoing footsteps around her house. She imagines, for instance, she can now hear the footsteps of her young daughter Lucie, as well as “the rustling of an Angel’s wings” (219)—a son that died young. Meanwhile, Lucie is “ever busily winding the golden thread that [binds] them all together, weaving the service of her happy influence through the tissue of all their lives” (218). Her father, for instance, remarks that she has actually become more attentive to him since marrying, and Darnay is amazed by his wife’s ability to be “everything to all of [them]” (221).

Carton pays rare visits to the Darnays, where he quickly becomes a favorite of little Lucie’s. Lorry is still friends with the family as well and visits them one evening when the Darnays’ daughter is roughly six. Having just come from Tellson’s, Lorry complains that many of their French customers are anxious to have their property transferred to England; although he says that this is “unreasonable” (221), he is flustered and remarks that the footsteps that night “are very numerous and very loud” (222).

Meanwhile, in Paris, the footsteps are “headlong, mad, and dangerous” (222).