Jacques Defarge

“ Pierre nodded without speaking, knowing he was being instructed to punish a possible, but improbable, offender.
"Now, we are four intelligent men, I trust," said Monsieur Delacroix, pretending not to notice the glow of pleasure which suffused Jacques' features at being included in their number. "We are the Delacroix's, which is sufficient. And as leaders we must, from time to time, grant certain concessions to the inferior mentalities of the unfortunate who dwell in ignorance ”

“ "Not at all, but I hope to know it better. I am so profoundly interested in its miserable inhabitants."
"Hah!" muttered Defarge.
"The pleasure of conversing with you, Monsieur Defarge, recalls to me," pursued the spy, "that I have the honour of cherishing some interesting associations with your name." ”

“ it cannot deceive them too much."
Madame Defarge looked superciliously at the client, and nodded in confirmation.
"As to you," said she, "you would shout and shed tears for anything, if it made a show and a noise. Say! Would you not?"
"Truly, madame, I think so. For the moment."
"If you were shown a great heap of dolls, and were set upon them to pluck them to pieces and despoil them for your own advantage, you would pick out the richest and gayest. Say! Would you not?"
"Truly yes, madame."
"Yes. ”

“ It was in vain for Madame Defarge to struggle and to strike; Miss Pross, with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, clasped her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle that they had. ”

“ "It will do her no good to keep herself concealed from me at this moment," said Madame Defarge. "Good patriots will know what that means. Let me see her. Go tell her that I wish to see her. Do you hear?" ”

“ There happened to be no customer in the shop but Jacques Three, of the restless fingers and the croaking voice. This man, whom he had seen upon the Jury, stood drinking at the little counter, in conversation with the Defarges, man and wife. The Vengeance assisted in the conversation, like a regular member of the establishment. ”

“ Thus engaged, with her right elbow supported by her left hand, Madame Defarge said nothing when her lord came in, but coughed just one grain of cough. This, in combination with the lifting of her darkly defined eyebrows over her toothpick by the breadth of a line, suggested to her husband that he would do well to look round the shop among the customers, for any new customer who had dropped in while he stepped over the way.
The wine-shop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, until they rested upon an elderly gentleman and a young lady, who were seated in a corner. ”

“ He winced and bit his lip, watching Desboro and Jacqueline below. And, after a moment:
"Shall we walk?" she suggested, smilingly.
He fell into step beside her. Half way down the block she glanced back. Desboro was already crossing the square; the limousine had disappeared.
"I wonder sometimes," she remarked, "what has become of all those amusing people we once knew so well—Marianne Valdez, Jessie Dain, Reggie Ledyard, Van Alstyne. Do you ever see them any more?" ”

“ Desboro, seated on the pool table, told her she could do whatever she desired, including arson, as long as she didn't disturb the Aqueduct Police.
Katharine Frere said to Jacqueline: "Everything you do is so original. Can't you invent something new for us to do?" ”

“ They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic.
One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe—a woman—had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given any utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been these:
"I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. ”

“ Through the throbbing silence Desboro seemed to see Clydesdale, bulky, partly sober, with his eternal grin and permanently-flushed skin, rambling about among his porcelains and enamels and jades and ivories, like a drugged elephant in a bric-a-brac shop. And yet, there had always been a certain kindly harmlessness and good nature about him that had always appealed to men. ”

“ Lefarge put it away carefully in his notebook.
“Now let us see Madame’s room.”
They examined the bedroom, looking particularly for old letters, but without success. Next they interviewed the other servants, also fruitlessly.
“All we want now,” said Lefarge to the old butler, “is a list of the guests at that dinner, or at least some of them.”
“I can tell you, I think, all of them, monsieur,” returned François, and Lefarge noted the names in his book.
“What time is M. Boirac likely to return?” asked Burnley, when they had finished. ”

“ He drew the fur robe closer around her, and leaned back in his corner, deeply worried, impatient, but helpless in the face of her evident weariness and reticence, which he could not seem to penetrate or comprehend. Only that something ominous had happened—that something was dreadfully wrong—he now thoroughly understood.
In the purposeless career of a man of his sort, there is much that it is well to forget. And in Desboro's brief career there were many things that he would not care to have such a girl as Jacqueline hear about—so much, alas! ”

“ Delacroix's color deepens into an almost musical intensity occasionally in Decamps, whose oriental landscapes and figures, far less important intellectually, far less magistrales in conception, have at times, one may say perhaps without being too fanciful, a truly symphonic quality that renders them unique. "The Suicide" is like a chord on a violin. ”

“ Besides, if he be so proud a Person, as De Cros is pleased to call him; certainly, while he remembers his own Quality, and the great Employments he has passed through with so much Honour to himself, and such important Services for his Prince and Country, such thoughts will never allow him to enter the Lists with one, who to say no more, has owned himself in his Letter to be Un Moin Defroquè, which none who understand the least of the French Tongue, need be told, is the lowest and most profligate Character that can be given a Man. ”

“ So he descended to the library, where he found her playing with his assortment of animals, a cat tucked under either arm and a yellow pup on her knees.
"They all came to say good-morning," she explained, "and how could I think of my clothing? Would you ask Farris to fetch a whisk-broom?"
Desboro rang: "A whisk-broom for—for Mrs. Desboro," he said.
Mrs. Desboro!
She had looked up startled; it was the first time she had heard it from his lips, and even the reiteration of her maid had not accustomed her to hear herself so named. ”

“ Madame Defarge immediately called to her husband that she would get them, and went, knitting, out of the lamplight, through the courtyard. ”

“ Desboro's guests were determined to turn the house out of the windows; its stodgy respectability incited them; every smug, smooth portrait goaded them to unusual effort, and they racked their brains to invent novelties. ”

“ And he settled himself to listen, with occasional furtive, sidelong glances at his beloved porcelains.
Desboro said: "Clydesdale, you and I have known each other for a number of years. We haven't seen much of each other, except at the club, or meeting casually here and there. It merely happened so; if accident had thrown us together, the chances are that we would have liked each other—perhaps sought each other's company now and then—as much as men do in this haphazard town, anyway. Don't you think so?" ”

“ Desboro selling antiquities to the dangerous monomaniacs who haunt such shops as mine! Dear, they'd either drive you crazy or have you arrested for fraud inside of ten minutes. No; you will make a perfectly good husband, Jim, but you were never created to decorate an antique shop."
He tried to smile, but only flushed rather painfully. A sudden and wholly inexplicable sense of inferiority possessed him.
"You know," he said, "I'm not going to stand around idle while you run a prosperous business concern. And anyway, I can't see it, Jacqueline. ”

“ Some fifty yards or more beyond the factory, on the opposite side of the street, there stood a café. Entering in a leisurely way, Lefarge seated himself at a small marble-topped table in the window, from where he had a good view of the office door and yard gate of the works. Ordering another bock, he drew a newspaper from his pocket and, leaning back in his chair, began to read. He held it carefully at such a level that he could keep an eye over it on the works entrance, while at any moment raising it by a slight and natural movement would screen him from observation from without. ”

“ There's Desboro!"
[Pg 240]
"You don't really mean it, do you, Miss Nevers?" asked Captain Herrendene.
"Yes, I do," said Jacqueline. "I always was a gambler by nature."
The tint of excitement was bright on her cheeks; she shot a daring glance at Ledyard, looked at Van Alstyne and laughed, but her back remained turned toward Desboro.
He said: "If the papers ever get wind of this they'll print it as a serious item."
"I am perfectly serious," she said, looking coolly at him over her shoulder. "If there is a man here clever enough to find me, I'll marry him in a minute. ”

“ Delacroix has said that art is exaggeration in the right place. France's exaggeration lies in the wealth of ideas with which he endows his characters, a wealth which the books can hardly contain (vide Thaïs and Balthasar) , and for which place must be made in whole additional volumes, such as Les Opinions de M. Jérôme Coignard, Le Jardin d'Épicure, and a part of Pierre Nozière. He has more ideas than feelings. He has ideas upon every subject, criticises everything—not only human prejudices and institutions, but nature herself. ”

“ Both had blushed before Farris, both had thrilled as the words had fallen from Desboro's [Pg 392] unaccustomed lips; but both attempted to appear perfectly tranquil and undisturbed by what had shocked them as no bomb explosion possibly could. And the old man came back with the whisk-broom, and Desboro dusted the cat fur and puppy hairs from Jacqueline's brand-new gown.
They were going to town by train, not having time to spare.
"It will be full of commuters," he said, teasingly. "You don't know what a godsend a bride is to commuters. I pity you." ”

“ Desboro smiled: "The man who is preëminent in his profession," he said quietly, "never makes a mystery of it. He may be too tired to talk about it, too saturated with it, after the day's work, to discuss it; but never fool enough to pretend that there is anything occult in it or in the success he has made of it. Only incompetency is self-conscious and secretive; only the ass strikes attitudes."
Jacqueline looked at him with pride unutterable. ”

“ Desboro!"
"Mademoiselle?"
"That silly parody on a noble verse is not humorous."
"Truth seldom is. The men who wore those suits of mail were everything that nobody now admires—brutal, selfish, ruthless——"
[Pg 66]
"Mr. Desboro!"
"Mademoiselle?"
"Are there not a number of such gentlemen still existing on earth?"
"New York's full of them," he admitted cheerfully, "but they conceal what they really are on account of the police."
"Is that all that five hundred years has taught men—concealment?" ”

“ The plan of robbing and murdering a rich man in such a manner that the world would fancy that the rich man was the assassin, not the victim.
“He made a bust of Lefarge, from the bust he made Lefarge’s face. Lefarge wore a beard and glasses. The making of the exterior of the mask was a bagatelle; the real difficulty was the interior, which had to be a perfect adaptation to his own features, but he did it.
“Whilst this was going on, he made a most profound study of Lefarge himself: his walk, his manner, his voice, his handwriting. ”

“ If I owe such a debt of gratitude for the things of this life, its comforts and conveniences, how incalculably great must it be for his mercy to my immortal soul, shedding the blood of his only begotten Son for my redemption. ”

“ Desboro is a man. It was none of my business to interfere. So I let him have what was coming to him—and you, too." He shrugged and waved his hand. "Your husband came down later; we talked jades and porcelains and prices until I nearly yawned my head off. And when it was time to go, I slipped the letter back on the table. After all, you and Desboro had had your fling; why shouldn't hubby have an inning?" ”

“ Clydesdale, too, had risen"
Desboro stood staring down at the magic picture. Mrs. Clydesdale, too, had risen. Below them the beauty of Farrar's matchless voice possessed the vast obscurity, searching the darkness like a ray of crystal light. One by one the stone crypts opened, disclosing their tinted waterfalls of jewels.
"I've got to go," he whispered. "Your people will be arriving."
They moved silently to the door.
"Jim?"
"Yes."
"There is no other woman; is there?" ”

“ But in this case it would probably be the quickest way to a result.’
‘To me it would seem,’ said Lefarge, ‘that even if there was a band of persons anxious to hush this murder up, there would also be enough outside that band to answer every one of the advertisements.’
‘That is rather my view,’ agreed the Chief. ‘Take the servants, for example. A woman wearing such clothes is certain to have lived in a house with several servants. Some one of them is bound to read the advertisement and recognise the description. ”