A/N: Yes, so. A fanfiction on the great book I read and which I fell in love with. But The Three Musketeers is still way better.
Summary: The silent house is deafening without those light, insignificant things that Madame Defarge has taken away with her, whether to heaven or hell, Defarge prefers not to guess.
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The twenty-first of the month.
A date permanently carved into Charles Defarge's year. Etched in stone, scratched on a heart, that was the one date that even his forgetful mind did not let slip.
The day his wife died.
Every month, without fail, he goes to the little-known graveyard they used for dead patriots of the French, who had died as martyrs. And his wife, Defarge knows, most certainly did die for her country.
He knew she was strong, he knew she possessed the mental strength that he himself lacked. He knew what the events of her past had shaped her to be. He also knew that she often came across as unfeeling.
Nearby, he hears the shrieks of The Vengeance somewhere behind him, stiffens and hurriedly nips into an alley between a bar and a hovel. It was his bad luck she had to show up the same time he did.
Ever since her death, The Vengeance had stepped in as leader, taking in his wife's place in just about everything except his heart.
He would not lie to himself; he knew perfectly well that his wife had detested things like romance and fashions, topics that a time ago were the only things a woman was supposed to fill her head with. Consequently, things like celebrating anniversaries were things not dreamt of at the Defarge wine-shop.
He won't say he loves her, but he also know that he feels something for her, something not easily expressed, something that is not camaraderie but not love, not dislike but not hate. His best guess is saying that, after twenty-six years of living with her, he got used to her presence.
He still hasn't gotten over it - her absence, that is. He is far too used to constantly hearing the clicks of his wife's needles as they swiftly intertwined threads as he comes back home to his shop after having finished restocking his supply of champagne, which seems to be the popular demand nowadays. The silent house is deafening without those light, insignificant things that Madame Defarge has taken away with her, whether to heaven or hell, Defarge prefers not to guess.
He is used to having her close by, ready to dispute theories or reinforce them with her own logic. France is more peaceful now than it has been, as the chop-chop-chop of La Guillotine is more lively than ever, and helps direct the public's overzealous frustrations somewhere that won't end up going to the Bastille.
Sometimes, there is irrational anger.
He feels the rage build up in him, at his own motherland, brief spells that he is always ashamed of afterwards. Why, he thinks, why did she die? Did she really give her life for a nation whose people only took pleasure in watching innocent men and women's heads chopped off?
But of course, only too soon he remembers that France's laws do not allow for his thinking in that direction, and he tries to drown his miseries in a glass of beaujolais.
No, he slowly considers, what he had with his wife was not love. Or friendship, or dislike, or hate, or any emotion that conjugal existence was rumoured to bring about into the hearts of men.
It was, perhaps, dependence?
Or maybe, just the desire for companionship?
Or was it something else entirely?
As these thoughful spells spread across his mind, he will frown, put his feet up on a table nearby just because he can, because there's no one to berate him for it, and call for something stronger in his glass.
His eyes fall on the knotted handkerchief lying on the counter, a remainder of his wife he doesn't want to see but doesn't want to remove either. Something in his chest pulls.
He frowns, cancels his last command, and gets up to fetch some crude wine himself.
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A/N: Well? Did you like it? Tell me! Me wants suggestions! And how's my english?