Plot Summary
Book 2, Chapter 16 of A Tale of Two Cities by , titled "Still Knitting," opens with the Defarges returning to Paris from the countryside, where the murdered Marquis St. Evrémonde lies in his grave and a "speck in a blue cap" trudges through the darkness along the road. The village near the chateau is haunted by the memory of violence: the stone faces on the building seem to have changed expression, and the peasants whisper that the carvings took on a look of cruel vengeance after the Marquis was killed.
Arriving at the city gates, Defarge speaks with a police contact who is secretly part of the Jacquerie network. He learns that a new government spy named John Barsad has been assigned to their neighborhood. Madame Defarge coolly records Barsad's name and physical description, planning to knit them into her coded register the next day.
Back at the wine-shop, the couple have a tense conversation about the pace of revolution. Defarge confesses weariness and doubt, worrying that the uprising may not come in their lifetime. Madame Defarge rebukes him with fierce conviction, comparing the revolution to lightning and earthquakes—forces that take a long time to prepare but are devastating once unleashed. She insists that even if they never see the triumph, their efforts will not have been in vain. Her knot-tying becomes a violent metaphor: each knot throttles an imagined enemy.
The next day, Barsad enters the wine-shop in disguise. Madame Defarge immediately recognizes him from his description, places a rose in her headdress as a secret signal, and the other customers silently slip away. Through a conversation of careful verbal fencing, Barsad tries to extract information about revolutionary sympathies, mentioning Gaspard's execution and feigning compassion. Madame Defarge deflects every probe with cool indifference, while Defarge answers with calculated brevity after receiving a subtle elbow signal from his wife.
Barsad then reveals that Lucie Manette is engaged to marry Charles Darnay—the nephew of the murdered Marquis. This visibly unsettles Defarge, who later expresses hope that Darnay will stay out of France for Lucie's sake. Madame Defarge, however, shows no such mercy: Darnay's name is already inscribed in her register beside Barsad's, and she declares that his destiny will lead him where it must. The chapter closes with an ominous vision of the knitting women of Saint Antoine, unknowingly preparing for the day they will sit around the guillotine, "knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads."