Book 2, Chapter 10: “Two Promises” Title meaning: Charles Darnay and Dr. Manette each make a promise to the other. Darney promises not to take Lucie away from her father, and Manette promises to give Lucie to Darney if she should ever ask her father to marry him.

Plot Summary: A year later, Charles Darnay is back in England, happily working as a tutor of French. He has been in love with Lucie since he met her, and he finally asks her father for permission to make his feelings known to her. Despite Dr. Manette's hesitations, Darnay convinces him that his intentions are honorable and sincere. He does not wish to come between Lucie and her father; he wishes, if possible, to bind them closer. There is always a touch of reserve in Dr. Manette's reception of Darnay, and this struggle is evident in his expression of dread, and although he gives his blessing to Darnay, something is not quite right. Darnay tells the doctor that he is using an assumed name and tries to tell him why he is in England and what his real name is, but the doctor stops him. He says that if Charles does marry Lucie, he should tell him these secrets on the marriage morning. When Lucie returns to the house that night, she hears Manette working on his shoemaking again for the first time since Paris and is very distressed. She knocks on his door and he stops.

Literary Devices: Anaphora: The phrase “I know” is repeated by Darnay, with parallelism: “‘I know,’ said Darnay, respectfully, ‘how can I fail to know, Doctor Manette, I who have seen you together from day to day, that between you and Miss Manette there is an affection so unusual, so touching, so belonging to the circumstances in which it has been nurtured, that it can have few parallels, even in the tenderness between a father and child. I know, Doctor Manette—how can I fail to know—that, mingled with the affection and duty of a daughter who has become a woman, there is, in her heart, towards you, all the love and reliance of infancy itself. I know that, as in her childhood she had no parent, so she is now devoted to you with all the constancy and fervour of her present years and character...’” (134). Allusion: The narrator makes a reference to the Garden of Eden: “Now, from the days when it was always summer in Eden, to these days when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the world of a man has invariably gone one way—Charles Darnay’s way—the way of the love of a woman” (131). Motif of lightness and darkness: After Darney leaves, Manette has a spell of his old illnesses, and begins making shoes. Dickens mentions that it has grown dark, which is a more-than- coincidental link to Manette’s mental state: “It was dark when Charles Darnay left him, and it was an hour later and darker when Lucie came home...” (138).

“He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. He had never heard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound of her compassionate voice; he had never seen a face so tenderly beautiful, as hers when it was confronted with his own on the edge of the grave that had been dug for him” (131). Essential Quote Hear this chapter read aloud.