1.

The Shoemaker
Learning Outcomes
read the text and understand the setting, the background and the context
understand the formation of compound words
learn the use of tenses
understand the difference between pronunciation of words that function as verbs as
well as nouns
learn to write a formal letter

Digital Desk Warm-up

Imagine meeting a close family member after a long

time. What would you do? How would you feel?
What would you do if he/she does not recognise you?

Before the French Revolution, France was

experiencing a serious economic failure; there was a
dearth of food. The common man struggled because
poor harvests and improper transportation systems
made food very expensive. The upper class did
not have to worry as they had a stable living. The
rich stayed wealthy but a majority of the French
population was starving.
Although the French Revolution took place later, the
common man had started becoming desperate and
restless and the suffering and anger eventually led the French peasantry to revolt.
Cross-curricular Connection

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 Read a story about an imprisoned shoemaker.

Good day!’ said Monsieur Defarge, looking down at the white head that bent low
over the shoemaking.
It was raised for a moment, and a very faint voice responded to the greeting, as if it
were at a distance,
‘Good day!’
‘You are still hard at work, I see?’
After a long silence, the head was lifted for another moment, and the voice replied,
‘Yes, I am working.’ The faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful. It was not
the faintness of physical weakness, though confinement and hard fare no doubt had
their part in it. It was the faintness of solitude and disuse.
‘I want,’ said Defarge, who had not removed his gaze from the shoemaker, ‘to let in
a little more light here. You can bear a little more?’
The half-opened door was opened a little further. A broad ray of light fell into the
garret, and showed the workman with an unfurnished shoe upon his lap, pausing
in his labour. His few common tools and various scraps of leather were at his feet
and on his bench. He had a white beard, raggedly cut, but not very long, a hollow
face, and exceedingly bright eyes. His yellow rags of shirt lay open at the throat,
and showed his body to be withered and worn. He, and his old canvas frock, loose
stockings and all his poor tatters of clothes, had, in a long seclusion from direct light
and air, faded down to such a dull uniformity of parchment-yellow, that it would
have been hard to say which was which.
The shoemaker never looked at the figure before him, without first looking down
on this side of himself, then on that, as if he had lost the habit of associating place
with sound; he never spoke, without first wandering in this manner, and forgetting
to speak.

Monsieur: a title or form of address used withered: wrinkled

to address a French-speaking man canvas frock: clothing of coarse material
confinement: the state of being forced to tatters: a torn piece of clothing
stay in a closed space or prison seclusion: being private and away from
garret: top floor or attic room people
raggedly: worn out
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 Mr Lorry came silently forward, leaving Lucie, the shoemaker’s daughter, by the
door. When he had stood, for a minute or two, by the side of Defarge, the shoemaker
looked up. He showed no surprise at seeing another figure.
‘You have a visitor, you see,’ said Monsieur Defarge.
‘What did you say?’
‘Here is a visitor.’
The shoemaker looked up as before, but without removing a hand from his work.
‘Come!’ said Defarge. ‘Here is monsieur, who knows a well-made shoe when he sees
one. Show him that shoe you are working on. Take it, monsieur.’
Mr Lorry took it in his hand.
‘Tell monsieur what kind of shoe it is and the maker’s name.’
There was a longer pause than usual, before the shoemaker replied,
‘I forgot what it was you asked
me. What did you say?’
‘I said, couldn’t you describe
the kind of shoe, for monsieur’s
information?’
‘It is a lady’s shoe. It is a young
lady’s walking shoe. It is in the
present mode. I never saw the
mode. I have had a pattern in my
hand.’ He glanced at the shoe
with some little passing touch of
pride.
‘And the maker’s name?’ said
Defarge.
Now that he had no work to
hold, he laid the knuckles of
the right hand in the hollow of
the left, and then the knuckles
of the left hand in the hollow
of the right, and then passed a

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 hand across his bearded chin, and so on in regular changes, without a moment’s
intermission. The task of recalling him from the vagrancy into which he always sank
when he had spoken, was like recalling some very weak person from a swoon, or
endeavouring, in the hope of some disclosure, to stay the spirit of a fast-dying man.
‘Did you ask me for my name?’
‘Assuredly I did.’
‘One Hundred and Five, North Tower.’
‘Is that all?’
‘One Hundred and Five, North Tower.’
With a weary sound that was not a sigh, nor a groan, he bent to work again, until
the silence was again broken.
His haggard eyes turned to Defarge as if he would have transferred the question
to him, but as no help came from that quarter, they turned back on the questioner
when they had sought the ground.
‘I am not a shoemaker by trade? No, I was not a shoemaker by trade. I…I learnt it
here. I taught myself. I asked leave to—‘
He lapsed away again for minutes. His eyes came back slowly, at last, to the face
from which they had wandered; when they rested on it, he started, and resumed, in
the manner of a sleeper that moment awake, reverting to a subject of last night.
‘I asked leave to teach myself, and I got it with much difficulty after a long while,
and I have made shoes ever since.’
As he held out his hand for the shoe that had been taken from him, Mr Lorry said,
still looking steadfastly in his face, ‘Monsieur Manette, do you remember nothing
of me?’
The shoe dropped to the ground, and he sat looking fixedly at the questioner.
‘Monsieur Manette,’ Mr Lorry laid his hand upon Defarge’s arm, ‘do you remember
nothing of this man? Look at him. Look at me. Is there no old banker, no old
business, no old servant, no old time, rising in your mind, Monsieur Manette?’

vagrancy: homelessness lapsed: no longer valid

swoon: faint reverting: going back
haggard: exhausted and unwell, especially
from fatigue, worry, or suffering
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 As the shoemaker sat looking fixedly, by turns, at Mr Lorry and at Defarge, some
long obliterated marks of an actively intent intelligence in the middle of the
forehead, gradually forced themselves through the black mist that had fallen on
him. They were overclouded again, they were fainter, they were gone, but they
had been there. And so exactly was the expression repeated on the fair young face
of her who had crept along the wall to a point where she could see him, and where
she now stood looking at him, with hands which at first had been only raised in
frightened compassion, if not even to keep him off and shut out the sight of him,
but which were now extending towards him, trembling with eagerness to hold his
face, and love it back to life and hope—so exactly was the expression repeated on
her face.
Darkness had fallen on him in its place. He looked at the two, less and less
attentively, and his eyes in gloomy abstraction sought the ground and looked about
him in the old way. Finally, with a deep long sigh, he resumed his work.
‘Have you recognised him, monsieur?’ asked Defarge in a whisper.
‘Yes, for a moment. At first, I thought its quite hopeless, but I have unquestionably
seen, for a single moment, the face that I once knew so well.
Hush! Let us draw further back. Hush!’
She had moved from the wall of the garret, very near to the bench on which he sat.
There was something awful in his unconsciousness of the figure that could have put
out its hand and touched him as he stooped over his labour.
It happened, at length, that he had the occasion to change the instrument in his
hand, for his shoemaker’s knife. It lay on that side of him, which was not the side on
which she stood. He had taken it up, and was stooping to work again, when his eyes
caught the skirt of her dress. He raised them, and saw her face. The two spectators
started forward, but she stayed them with a motion of her hand. She had no fear of
his striking at her with the knife, though they had.
He stared at her with a fearful look, and after a while his lips began to form some
words, though no sound proceeded from them. By degrees, in the pauses of his
quick and laboured breathing, he was heard to say,
‘What is this?’

obliterated: destroyed abstraction: state of being lost in thought

overclouded: dark or gloomy
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 With tears streaming down her face, she put her two hands to her lips, and kissed
them to him.
‘You are not the gaoler’s daughter?’
She sighed ‘No.’
‘Who are you?’
Not yet trusting the tones of her voice,
she sat down on the bench beside him.
He recoiled, but she laid her hand upon
his arm. A strange thrill struck him when
she did so, and visibly passed over his
frame. He laid the knife down softly, as
he sat staring at her. Advancing his hand
little by little, he took it up and looked at
it.
In the midst of the action he went astray, and, with another deep sigh, fell to work at
his shoemaking.
Abridged extract from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

About the Author

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was born in England. His father was imprisoned when
Charles was twelve, and he had to work at that tender age. He experienced the pain
of poverty and this helped him become the voice of the poor and working
class. Some of his popular books are David Copperfield, Oliver Twist,
A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities.

Comprehension
A. Answer these questions.
1. What was the shoemaker doing when Defarge entered the room?
2. How did the shoemaker react to more light in the room? Why do you think
he reacted the way he did?
gaoler: chief jailer recoiled: moved body quickly away from
somebody/something

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 3. When asked for his name he says, ‘One Hundred and Five, North Tower’.
What do you gather from this reply?
4. What do you think was the reason for the old man to lapse into forgetfulness
so often?
5. Who was the young lady? How did the shoemaker react when he saw her?
B. Answer these questions with reference to the context.
1. ‘Monsieur Manette, do you remember nothing of me?’
a. Who is the speaker?
b. Who is Monsieur Manette?
c. Why does Manette drop the shoe?
2. ‘Yes, for a moment. At first I thought its quite hopeless, but I have unquestionably
seen, for a single moment, the face that I once knew so well. Hush! Let us draw
further back. Hush!’
a. Who says these words?
b. Why does he think it was hopeless?
c. Whose face does he recognise?
C. Think and answer.
1. There is an element of surprise for the shoemaker at the end. How does the
narrator build this surprise? Is it sudden? Explain in detail.
2. What can you say about the character of Manette and his daughter?
3. Manette’s time in prison robbed him not just of time but also of his ability
to re-enter the world. Discuss in class, the various rehabilitation methods to
bring people, who have served in prison, into the mainstream.

Word Wonder
Read these sentences.
The children are sitting in the living room.
The bookstore remains closed on Mondays.
The words highlighted in the above sentences are formed by the combination of two
unique words.
When two or more words are put together to form a new word with a new
meaning, the new word formed is called a compound word.
It can function as different parts of speech, which can dictate what form the
compound takes on. Some of them are single words and some are two words joined
by a hyphen.
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 Look at the table given below.

noun + verb book + mark bookmark

noun + gerund time + consuming time-consuming
gerund + noun learning + material learning material
noun + noun crime + novel crime novel
noun + adjective picture + perfect picture perfect
preposition + noun by + line byline
Compound words have three categories.
1. Closed compound words: They are formed when two unique words are joined
together. They don’t have a space between them.
For example,
firework skateboard firefly
2. Open compound words: They have a space between the words, but when they
are read together a new meaning is formed.
For example,
ice cream real estate canvas frock
3. Hyphenated compound words: They are connected by a hyphen. To avoid
confusion, modifying compounds are often hyphenated, especially when they
precede a noun.
For example,
long-term solution well-respected teacher protein-rich diet
Remember, we never hyphenate compounds that are
Hyphenated compound
formed with ‘-ly’ adverbs, even when they precede words are most
the nouns they modify. commonly used when
For example, the words being joined
together are combined to
a fully developed plan heavily fortified troops form an adjective.
A. Make two sets of compound words with the
words given below and make sentences with
them in your notebook. Use hyphens where needed.
1. hand 2. back 3. under
4. bus 5. after 6. pop

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 B. Look at the word grid given below. Find all the ten compound words given in
the grid.
K U T Y T H G I N T R O G R P
C T W L Z B A C K D R O P U X
W N Q P A S S P O R T M S M D
C M A H H Y S F O B S S T Z E
K H E W E C W G C Y E L A O S
R Z N M R B U U D N T Z O M K
S N I G R D F C T Y B Y B G R
N D L I P A C I X C A U E M Q
F L D L O C W I D V C U S N M
B F A A O E M E Y V K F U G C
B U E M Y M P G K B Q B O I U
D G D E B C L M E U L V H C G
G E V K U Q B M N Q L D U I Q
L G R A T T L E S N A K E U N
A C F H Y A L O N G S I D E L

Learn About Language

Fill in the blanks with the correct forms of verbs.
1. When I _____________ (reach) Sunny’s house,
he _____________ (leave) already. Though I
_____________ (reach) there at the appointed
time, yet he _____________ (leave). Thus I
_____________ (come) back disappointed.
2. Yesterday, I _____________ (try) to take notes
while the teacher _____________ (explain) a topic
to the class. Since she _____________ (not speak)
loudly, it _____________ (be) difficult to hear what
she was saying.
3. Riya _____________ (sit) in the train at this time tomorrow. We _____________
(go) to see her off . She _____________ (stay) with us for almost a month. She
_____________ (promise) that she _____________ (visit) us again next year.

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 4. I _____________ (look) forward to going to England next year. I _____________
(plan) to stay there for a few years. I _____________ (come) back and
_____________ (serve) my country.
5. They _____________ (broadcast) the match live when the rain _____________
(stop) the game.

Language Lab
Read these words aloud stressing on the highlighted syllable.

Noun Verb Noun Verb

CONduct conDUCT CONtest conTEST
DEcrease deCREASE IMpact imPACT
REfund reFUND SUBject subJECT
Did you notice the difference between the pronunciation of the words? Even though
they have the same spelling, their pronunciation is different.
When the word is used as a noun, the stress is on the first syllable. However, when
the same word is used as a verb, the stress is on the second syllable.
A. Write five words that function both as nouns and verbs. Get into groups
and make sentences with them and read them out aloud in class. Remember
to stress on the correct syllable. Let the other groups guess if it is a noun or a
verb.

B. Listen to the audio and mark these sentences as true (T) or false (F).
1. The two friends were happy to see each other.

2. The thin friend had his wife and daughter along with him.

3. The fat man’s wife gave music lessons.

4. The fat man has now become the privy councillor.

5. The fat man was disappointed at his friend’s behaviour on

learning about his status.
C. Work in pairs and enact a role-play where the two of you are old friends and
have met after five years.

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 Composition
Letters are an important means of communication, both for official and personal
purposes. We write letters to describe an event, to provide information, to make
a request or turn it down. Through letters, we convey emotions or share ideas or
events. Letters are of two types—formal and informal.
Formal letters are written to institutions or officials.
Formal letters are of eight types.
1. Letter to the editor 2. Letter of complaint
3. Application to the principal 4. Letter of inquiry
5. Letter of acceptance 6. Letter of refusal
7. Letter of request 8. Business letter
A. Imagine there is a marketplace near your school. Many hawkers sit on the
pavement to sell their wares. This causes a lot of problem to the pedestrian
students, who walk to the school. Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper
highlighting the issue and requesting the authorities to prohibit sellers from
selling their wares on the footpath. Imagine and add more details to make the
letter convincing.

B. Write a letter to a famous personality asking him/her to inaugurate the new

school auditorium, giving him/her details of the venue, place and time.

Activity
Manette refers to himself by a number. If people did not have any names and
wore only number plates which gave a clue about their traits, what would your
number plate look like?

Design one for yourself and ask your classmates to guess what your number plate
represents.

Further Reading: After Twenty Years by William Sydney Porter

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