Paris, France, 1785:
She leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing. Day after day, as the men, mad with blood and greed tore at each other. Wine like blood spilled onto the cobblestones, lapped up by eager mouths. Men, women, children alike, until they were painted red with it. And still she stood, leaning against the door-post. Knitting, knitting. Beyond that doorframe was the establishment her husband owned. And inside, four men, sitting and chatting.
"Hey, Jacques – did you hear about the poor boy that got trampled the other day?" one asked, glaring moodily into his mug.
"I did, Jacques, they say his head was all bashed in and that the Marquis didn't even stop." The other two men muttered some curses and spit their distaste on the ground.
"When is it going to be that batârd's time, Jacques?" the third demanded, his fingers curling into a fist.
"All those aristocrats deserve the guillotine," the fourth agreed. "You should've seen the boy's dad. And the Marquis…he did not even slow down."
"Madame DeFarge!" the first calls. "Come inside." She rises, skirts rustling, eyes impassive, and walks inside, fingers never ceasing their tireless knitting. Her husband walked over to her and kissed her forehead and she his. He smoothed her mussed, raven hair from her face, brushing back the curls that stuck to her cheeks with the day's heat, tucking them carefully back into the red scarf worn over her head. "Show us what you have knitted," he urges and she sprawls her work onto the table and all the men gather to see it. They run their fingers along the woven strands of yarn, murmuring to each other.
"Good work," the second man declares at length. She turns to him and smiles thinly, revealing neat, even-rowed teeth. Her dark eyes capture his and hold them for a long moment before releasing.
"Match it with work worthy of my efforts." Such eloquent words as to touch the hearts of men, igniting them into passion. Eyes ablaze with purpose, he nodded. A hand descended on his shoulder. The third man stared at him evenly and nodded.
"Fetch the boy's father." She took a seat as the men rushed off. Alone, she cleaned and closed up the shop her husband ran. And then, by the light of a single candle, flickering dimly on the table, she returned to her knitting. Sitting facing the door, knitting and seeing nothing.
The next day, the word came out that the Marquis De Lafayette was dead. Hung from his own manor, face frozen like the gargoyles reaching out from his roof. Stabbed in the chest and left hanging in one of the gargoyle's stone grasp. The peasants cheered, shaking their fists above their heads in victory. But not Madame DeFarge. There was no victory for her. No cheering or dancing or bathing in his blood, which pooled beneath him, stories below. She sat on the porch and knitted. In a world of insanity, of crazed bloodlust and unbridled brutality, she alone could sit and rock and knit.
As days ran into weeks and weeks into months and months into years, she was unchanging. The constant calm. No rush. Rocking and knitting. Day in and day out. Fingers, nimble, calloused from the continuous work, face unreadable. The violence only increased until all of Paris was drenched in blood. Now, in the evenings, she would stand before her husband and stare him down.
"This is going too far, Theresa!" he would protest. "So much! This all needs to stop." And she would take her knitting and drape it around his shoulders. She would take his hands and squeeze them and look into his face.
"Be strong." He would yank the scarf away, throwing it back at her, but the blood was already on his hands. Name after name, the endless list she knit. Knitting stitches, knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads. "I still knit! Remember what those animals did to me! To my family! My sister! They must pay for their injustice!"
"Please, no more," he begged. But she had no pity, not for him, or the dead, or even herself. That had been driven out of her heart long ago – if she ever had it in her.
And then the day came where the cry to take the Bastille rose from the heavens. And down was cast the knitting, needles clattering on cold cobblestone. And up was taken pistol. And forward she marched. Fight, Paris! Rise up! Rise and fight for demon or angel – whichever you prefer – but fight! Destroy this tyranny until all that is left is a bloody stain on the street.
That day, Monsieur Jacques DeFarge and his wife Madame Theresa DeFarge fell and joined the sea of blood that had opened up on the streets of Paris. They said she was a dangerous woman, but who could hear such a warning over the clamor of battle?