I have a essay and im having a difficulty in find syntax in the passage below.

In the evening, at which season of all others Saint Antoine turned himself inside out, and sat on door-steps and window-ledges and came to the corners of vile streets and courts, for a breath of air, Madame Defarge with her work in her hand was accustomed to pass from place to place and from group to group: a Missonary-there were many like her-such as the world will do well never to breed again. All the woman knitted worthless things; but, the mechanical work was a mechanical substitute for eating and drinking; the hands moved for the jaws and digestive apparatus: if the bony fingers had been still, the stomachs would have been more famine-pinched. But, as the fingers went, the eyes went, and the thoughts. And as Madame Defarge moved on from group to group, all three went quicker and fiercer among every little knot of women that she had spoken with, and left behind. Her husband smoked at his door, looking after her with admiration. "A great woman," said he, "a strong woman, a grand woman, a frightfully grand woman!" Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of church bells and the distant beating of the military drums of the Royal Guard, as the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness encompassed them. Another darkness was closing in as surely when the church bells, then ringing pleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should be melted into thundering cannon; when the military drums should be beating to drown a wretched voice, that night all potent as the voice of Power and Plenty, Freedom and Life. So much was closing in about the women who sat knitting, knitting, that say their very selves were closing in around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads.