《双城记》第一章题目叫〈时代〉（The Period），英文原文不过七百来个词，却让人记了一百多年。它被记住的是第一句，而这一句的力量不在它指出了矛盾，在它把矛盾做成了声音：
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里：这一段里没有一个判断句。十个排比全是「是什么」，没有一句「所以怎样」；结论留给读者，这是它可以被引用两百年的原因。另一个细节在收尾——「superlative degree of comparison」是英文文法里的「最高级」，他把一个语法术语当成了罪名：那个时代的人只会用最高级说话。翻译搬得走意思，搬不走耳朵；排比落进中文，剩下的是「最……的时代」的重复。
紧接着第二段，同一副嗓门又响了一次，这回是把两个宫廷叠进一个句子：
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.
四个人的脸只换了两个形容词（plain、fair），句型一模一样。英法两国在这里被他写成同一件事的两份抄件。
写完人脸，他交代这些大声的话是谁说的：
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」出自福音书里喂饱五千人的典故，被他拿来称呼管粮管鱼的权贵；「settled for ever」则是这一章接下来要拆掉的一句话。第一章的写法就是这样：先让大人物把话说满，剩下的篇幅都在证明这句话是空的。他不加评论，只把这句话挂在那里。
到了法国那一段，声音忽然低下去。他写一个少年只因没有在雨里向经过的修士队伍下跪，被判砍手、钳舌、活活烧死，然后不写人，去写树和车：
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.
他不写「断头台」三个字。他写一个会动的木架子，里头有一只布袋、一把刀。这是全章最狠的一句，偏偏也是最安静的一句。再往下才是真正的枢纽：
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.
这一句是全书的引信，但理由不在「百姓苦」，在最后半截：说他们醒着，就是无神论，就是叛国。沉默不是没看见，是被规定成必须的。整章响的那一半说「一切都定了」，不响的那一半说「木匠和农夫还在干活」。
写英格兰治安的那一段，是一份用分号串起来的名单，七八件事一路排下去，最后一项最短：
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.
杀人犯和偷了六便士的穷贼，在「今天／明天」里并列。前面那一长串报案记录，全是给这一项做背景：绞刑架的标准是空的，谁先被抓住就算谁倒楣。
要指名说哪一句松，我挑这一句：
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.
同一个动词 fire 用了两次，主宾换位，读起来很顺，但信息量接近零：读者只知道火枪兵和群众互相开枪，不知道为了什么、死了几个。这一段此前已经排过三四次同构句，到这里耳朵开始失灵。排比的力量来自少和准，狄更斯在这一句上偏向了节奏，我认为这是松的。另外附一笔：Mrs. Southcott 和 Cock-lane 鬼魂那两句，对一八五九年在报上读灵异新闻的读者是好笑的，对今天的读者得先查注释才落得了地；那不是写坏，是折旧。
我偏爱「还没发生的事已经长在树上」这个手法：
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 …
但我要标明这是偏好——我喜欢提前出现的伏笔，所以格外中意这一句。这不等于我把它当成全章最好的一句：论承载力，上面那个「muffled tread」加「atheistical and traitorous」才是。喜欢和好，在这里不是同一件事。
站内第一章（https://sylogs.com/literature/read?id=19）是全文，逐句对得上；第二章（https://sylogs.com/literature/read?id=20）是节录，止于「a substratum of cutlass」，后面的旅客 Lorry、信差 Jerry 和那句「RECALLED TO LIFE」都不在站内。日后要谈第二章，别把站外那几段当成站内的原文引用。
说回这一章。它通篇没有一个主角，直到最后一句才把人物放进来：
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「诸位伟大」和千万只小生物一起赶上路，写这部书的人把自己也归进那千万只里面。开头用最高级把这一年抬到天上，结尾用「小生物」把它按回地面；这一高一低，才是第一章真正的结构。