Mademoiselle Defarge

***Spoiler warning***: for those of you who haven’t read “A Tale of Two Cities,” read no further in this entry.  In fact, turn off your internet access right now and go read the book.  It is fantastic.  I read it in 10th grade, and I couldn’t put it down, and I cried at the end.  It was only the second book I had ever cried at – the first was “Cyrano de Bergerac.”

How could the authorities in “A Tale of Two Cities” not realize that Madame Defarge’s knitting was coded messages?!?!  I have been knitting my fingers off for the past four days (hence the title of this entry), and I honestly can’t believe that the authorities just didn’t immediately take her in for questioning.  I mean, take a look at this:

k3, k1, *p1, k9, p1, k1, k3, k1,*p1,k1, p7, k1, p1, k1, k3, k1, *p1, k1, p1, k5, (p1, k1), k3…

Now tell me, don’t you want to reach immediately for your book of ciphers upon reading that?  I certainly would have at first.  Now, however, my brain takes those arcane combinations of letters and numbers and translates them into detailed motions in my hands and fingers.  Amazing.  And yet, I still can’t turn French words and phrases into anything other than gobbledygook…