a tale of two cities
The beginning of a tale of two cities is a famous saying: "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."
This passage has been widely read and has long transcended national boundaries. However, what kind of scene is the coexistence of good and bad? I can understand that "ignorance, doubts, darkness, despair and nothing..." if Dickens feels that "that era and this era are so similar", then I feel more sympathetic to the tragic end.
When you open the news every day, from the report to the reader's reaction, anger and sadness permeate the news - most of them are angry. People express their feelings in violent language, as if they have no hope for the possibility of communication. The deceived think that heaven belongs to the powerful. Who knows, it is also dark. Too much news makes me choke.
After reading the novel, I found another sentence at the end, which is much less famous than that: "what I have done now is far better than what I have done; the rest I will get is far sweeter than what I know."—— What kind of confidence is needed to say that "what I have done is better than what I have done", and what kind of hope is needed to face an unknown rest?
Dickens describes that on the eve of the French Revolution, both Britain and France were shrouded in the mist at dusk. In Britain, when people leave the city, they must send their furniture to the warehouse of the furniture store; During the day, he was an ordinary businessman who did business, and at night he became a robber who robbed the road; The murderer who committed the most heinous crime and the thief who stole sixpence were also sentenced to death.
France is even more terrifying. The rulers and the church are extremely corrupt. Hatred between people is like poison gas filling every corner of society. Terror is brewing rapidly. In Hugo's pen, all this is the darkness before dawn - for the sake of the dawn, the blood and tears at night can be ignored. There are always too many people who are enemies, but friends. Friends are just empty seats. You can't say who can sit on them in the next moment. You are not sure about yourself.
Under this kind of pressure, many writers can not escape the temptation of writing revolution, because injustice is so obvious that those with power and those without power have no way out. This is the same as our news today. In fact, as a Chinese, I have read many stories of revenge, but I am not familiar with how to laugh away the gratitude and hatred.
Revenge of blood or extinction of enmity, this is exactly the story that Dickens will tell, his tale of two cities. At first, I thought that the two cities only referred to Paris and London, but soon, some small people appeared on the stage, insignificant but specific. They tore off the label of the two cities, making the boundary between Paris and London blurred.
In Paris, we met some people who were shabbily dressed and looked like idlers. They were all called "Jacques". They gathered in a small hotel in groups and did not know what was brewing. The hotel owner is busy on Defa day, but not for business. Mrs. Defarge does her knitting without lifting her eyes. However, she knows everything about the secret and some bloody things. Her face is like a rock, and even men feel cold when they see her.
In this city, on the one hand, there are nobles who live extravagantly on the bones of the poor. Their carriages pass through the streets and crash into the dead, leaving a few money behind to go away; On the one hand, the destitute people in the dark future; Then there are these "Jacques". They sneak into the houses of the adults at night and kill one. Mrs. Defarge scratched out a person's name from the woven "record" in her hand. I don't know which is easier or more difficult to cross out a person's name or life.
The revolutionaries described by Dickens are not abstract. Most of them are the perpetrators transformed from the sufferers. At first, they may be out of fear or hatred, but later they all abandon their family names for the sake of "justice" and put on the coat of "Jacques", the executioner. For Dickens, no matter what the reason for the revolution, the essence of the revolution is the same, that is, taking people's lives, the cause is blood, the result is blood, and one of the two cities stands up from the blood. So where is the other city?
These are the sources of courage that people on the boat use to resist the wind and waves. They don't want to die. If they can, they wish they could spend the journey together in peace. However, if they really want to die, they are not afraid, because they believe that pain and death are not all. There is a really beautiful country waiting at the end of the world. That is the eternal hometown. They do not need to rob and sweep anyone away from their front to get there. As long as they love each other, they can say by faith:
"What I have done now is far better than what I have done; the rest I will get is far sweeter than what I know."
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