After reading · Part I · Chapter 5

Part I · Chapter 5Saint Antoine and the Garret

Reading boundary Start: A large cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. Stop after: a white-haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes.

Summary

A wine cask breaks in Saint Antoine, and impoverished residents eagerly scoop wine from the dirty street. Their brief festivity gives way to the neighborhood’s usual hunger and gloom. A man named Gaspard writes “blood” in wine on a wall; wine-shop keeper Monsieur Defarge covers it with mud and tells him to call wine by its proper name.

Inside, Madame Defarge silently signals her husband while knitting. Three customers address one another and Defarge as “Jacques.” After they leave, Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette identify themselves to Defarge, once Doctor Manette’s servant. He leads them through a filthy building toward a locked garret, explaining that long confinement has made an unlocked door dangerous to Manette. Defarge admits that he lets a chosen few called Jacques look through the wall at the prisoner. He unlocks the room, where the visitors see a white-haired man absorbed in making shoes.

Who’s who

Monsieur Defarge — The resolute wine-shop keeper and former servant of Doctor Manette.
Madame Defarge — His composed, observant wife, usually occupied with her knitting.
Gaspard — A hungry joker who writes a threatening word in spilled wine.
Jarvis Lorry — The banker accompanying Miss Manette through Saint Antoine.
Miss Manette — Doctor Manette’s frightened daughter.
The three Jacques — Selected men whom Defarge permits to observe the prisoner.
Doctor Manette — The white-haired shoemaker secluded in the locked garret.