One Last Question

“IT cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no trouble there.”

“You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you now? Is the moment come?”

“Yes.”

She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before him — is gone; the knitting-women count Twenty-Two.

“I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”*

The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three.

From ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, by Charles Dickens

From St John’s account of the raising of Lazarus. See John 11.

Précis
Sidney Carton assured the seamstress who rode with him to the guillotine that she would not grieve long years for those she had left behind, as there is no Time in the afterlife. Then their summons to the guillotine came, the seamstress first and Carton second, and they parted with blessings and a kiss.
Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

What is the ‘moment’ for which the seamstress has been preparing herself?

Suggestion

Taking her own turn at the guillotine.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

The seamstress asked Sydney a question. She found his reply comforting. She told him so.

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