Sayfa 527 / 896

Down, and up, and head foremost on the steps of the building;

now, on his knees; now, on his feet; now, on his back; dragged,

and struck at, and stifled by the bunches of grass and straw that

were thrust into his face by hundreds of hands; torn, bruised,

panting, bleeding, yet always entreating and beseeching for

mercy; now full of vehement agony of action, with a small clear

space about him as the people drew one another back that they

might see; now, a log of dead wood drawn through a forest of

legs; he was hauled to the nearest street corner where one of the

fatal lamps swung, and there Madame Defarge let him go--as a cat

might have done to a mouse--and silently and composedly looked at

him while they made ready, and while he besought her: the women

passionately screeching at him all the time, and the men sternly

calling out to have him killed with grass in his mouth.