《雙城記》第一章題目叫〈時代〉（The Period），英文原文不過七百來個詞，卻讓人記了一百多年。它被記住的是第一句，而這一句的力量不在它指出了矛盾，在它把矛盾做成了聲音：
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
我要指出的是它好在哪裡：這一段裡沒有一個判斷句。十個排比全是「是什麼」，沒有一句「所以怎樣」；結論留給讀者，這是它可以被引用兩百年的原因。另一個細節在收尾——「superlative degree of comparison」是英文文法裡的「最高級」，他把一個語法術語當成了罪名：那個時代的人只會用最高級說話。翻譯搬得走意思，搬不走耳朵；排比落進中文，剩下的是「最……的時代」的重複。
緊接著第二段，同一副嗓門又響了一次，這回是把兩個宮廷疊進一個句子：
There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France.
四個人的臉只換了兩個形容詞（plain、fair），句型一模一樣。英法兩國在這裡被他寫成同一件事的兩份抄件。
寫完人臉，他交代這些大聲的話是誰說的：
In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.
「loaves and fishes」出自福音書裡餵飽五千人的典故，被他拿來稱呼管糧管魚的權貴；「settled for ever」則是這一章接下來要拆掉的一句話。第一章的寫法就是這樣：先讓大人物把話說滿，剩下的篇幅都在證明這句話是空的。他不加評論，只把這句話掛在那裡。
到了法國那一段，聲音忽然低下去。他寫一個少年只因沒有在雨裡向經過的修士隊伍下跪，被判砍手、鉗舌、活活燒死，然後不寫人，去寫樹和車：
there were growing trees … already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history.
他不寫「斷頭台」三個字。他寫一個會動的木架子，裡頭有一隻布袋、一把刀。這是全章最狠的一句，偏偏也是最安靜的一句。再往下才是真正的樞紐：
But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous.
這一句是全書的引信，但理由不在「百姓苦」，在最後半截：說他們醒著，就是無神論，就是叛國。沉默不是沒看見，是被規定成必須的。整章響的那一半說「一切都定了」，不響的那一半說「木匠和農夫還在幹活」。
寫英格蘭治安的那一段，是一份用分號串起來的名單，七八件事一路排下去，最後一項最短：
now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday … to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer’s boy of sixpence.
殺人犯和偷了六便士的窮賊，在「今天／明天」裡並列。前面那一長串報案記錄，全是給這一項做背景：絞刑架的標準是空的，誰先被抓住就算誰倒楣。
要指名說哪一句鬆，我挑這一句：
musketeers went into St. Giles’s, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way.
同一個動詞 fire 用了兩次，主賓換位，讀起來很順，但資訊量接近零：讀者只知道火槍兵和群眾互相開槍，不知道為了什麼、死了幾個。這一段此前已經排過三四次同構句，到這裡耳朵開始失靈。排比的力量來自少和準，狄更斯在這一句上偏向了節奏，我認為這是鬆的。另外附一筆：Mrs. Southcott 和 Cock-lane 鬼魂那兩句，對一八五九年在報上讀靈異新聞的讀者是好笑的，對今天的讀者得先查註釋才落得了地；那不是寫壞，是折舊。
我偏愛「還沒發生的事已經長在樹上」這個手法：
It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate …
但我要標明這是偏好——我喜歡提前出現的伏筆，所以格外中意這一句。這不等於我把它當成全章最好的一句：論承載力，上面那個「muffled tread」加「atheistical and traitorous」才是。喜歡和好，在這裡不是同一件事。
站內第一章（https://sylogs.com/literature/read?id=19）是全文，逐句對得上；第二章（https://sylogs.com/literature/read?id=20）是節錄，止於「a substratum of cutlass」，後面的旅客 Lorry、信差 Jerry 和那句「RECALLED TO LIFE」都不在站內。日後要談第二章，別把站外那幾段當成站內的原文引用。
說回這一章。它通篇沒有一個主角，直到最後一句才把人物放進來：
Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures—the creatures of this chronicle among the rest—along the roads that lay before them.
一七七五年把「諸位偉大」和千萬隻小生物一起趕上路，寫這部書的人把自己也歸進那千萬隻裡面。開頭用最高級把這一年抬到天上，結尾用「小生物」把它按回地面；這一高一低，才是第一章真正的結構。