"'I knew that this prisoner, of whom I speak, had been confined in a cell known as One Hundred and Five, North Tower. I knew it from himself. He knew himself by no other name than One Hundred and Five, North Tower, when he made shoes under my care. As I serve my gun that day, I resolve, when the place shall fall, to examine that cell. It falls. I mount to the cell, with a fellow-citizen who is one of the Jury, directed by a gaoler. I examine it, very closely. In a hole in the chimney, where a stone has been worked out and replaced, I find a written paper. This is that written paper […] I confide this paper, in the writing of Doctor Manette to the hands of the President.'

"'Let it be read.'

"In a dead silence and stillness—the prisoner under trial looking lovingly at his wife, his wife only looking from him to look with solicitude at her father, Doctor Manette keeping his eyes fixed on the reader, Madame Defarge never taking hers from the prisoner, Defarge never taking his from his feasting wife, and all the other eyes there intent upon the Doctor, who saw none of them—the paper was read, as follows." (Chapter IX, Volume III)

By this point in the third volume of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, the two plotlines have come together, and the little family from England have found themselves inexplicably involved with the French Revolution. This is the final trial scene. Everyone's waiting to hear about the fate of Charles Evrémonde.

A Still Life of Suspense 

Thematically and stylistically we've got a lot of suspense in the air. The crowd sits in "dead silence and stillness," and there's this paper front and center that we can't yet read. Then there's all the staring. Everyone's looking expectantly at someone: Charles at Lucie Manette, Lucie at Charles and her father, Madame Defarge at Charles, Defarge at his wife, Dr. Manette at the reader, and everyone else at the Doctor.

It's like a dramatic still from a movie, everyone frozen in place waiting for the big reveal. And after we've waded through all these lengthy explanations of how Defarge found the paper, and about who's looking at whom—well, we find that our curiosity is going to have to wait.

We modern readers only have to scan down until the next chapter, but the original readers of the novel had to wait at least a week for the next installment. Talk about a cliffhanger.

Guilty or Innocent? Find Out Next Week

Lucie's husband, Evrémonde, is condemned as a traitor to France, basically just because he's an aristocrat. The charges are brought by the Defarges, which is no big surprise, since the Defarges hate everyone with any aristocratic blood. Mysteriously, the charges are also brought by Evrémonde's own father-in-law.

At this point, Dr. Manette is just as surprised as everyone else. What did he write when he was a prisoner in the Bastille? Defarge has the paper from the day the Bastille fell, and now everyone is waiting anxiously to hear him read it—oh, wait. Tune in next week, folks, to find out what happens next.