THE EVIL POOR.
[CHAPTER I.]
MARIUS LOOKING FOR A GIRL'S BONNET MEETS A MAN'S CAP.
Summer passed away, then autumn and winter arrived. Neither M. Leblanc nor the young lady had set foot again in the Luxembourg, while Marius had but one thought, that of seeing again this sweet and adorable face. He sought it ever, he sought it everywhere, but found nothing. He was no longer Marius the enthusiastic dreamer, the resolute, ardent, and firm man, the bold challenger of destiny, the brain that built up future upon future, the young mind encumbered with plans, projects, pride, ideas, and resolves,—he was a lost dog. He fell into a dark sorrow, and it was all over with him; work was repulsive, walking fatigued him, and solitude wearied him. Mighty nature, once so full of forms, brightness, voices, counsel, perspectives, horizons, and instruction, was now a vacuum before him; and he felt as if everything had disappeared. He still thought, for he could not do otherwise, but no longer took pleasure in his thoughts. To all that they incessantly proposed to him in whispers, he answered in the shadow, "What use is it?" He made himself a hundred reproaches. "Why did I follow her? I was so happy merely in seeing her! She looked at me, and was not that immense? She looked as if she loved me, and was not that everything? I wanted to have what? There is nothing beyond that, and I was absurd. It is my fault," etc. etc. Courfeyrac, to whom he confided nothing, as was his nature, but who guessed pretty nearly all, for that was his nature too, had begun by congratulating him on being in love, and made sundry bad jokes about it. Then, on seeing Marius in this melancholy state, he ended by saying to him, "I see that you have simply been a fool; come to the Chaumière."
Once, putting confidence in a splendid September sun, Marius allowed himself to be taken to the ball of Sceaux by Courfeyrac, Bossuet, and Grantaire, hoping—what a dream!—that he might find her there. Of course he did not see the lady whom he sought; "and yet this is the place where all the lost women can be found," Grantaire growled aside. Marius left his friends at the ball, and returned afoot, alone, tired, feverish, with eyes troubled and sad, in the night, stunned with noise and dust by the many vehicles full of singing beings who were returning from the holiday, and who passed him. He was discouraged, and in order to relieve his aching head, inhaled the sharp smell of the walnut-trees on the road-side. He began living again more than ever in solitude, crushed, giving way to his internal agony, walking up and down like a wolf caught in a trap, everywhere seeking the absent one, and brutalized by love.
Another time he had a meeting which produced a strange effect upon him. In the little streets adjoining the Boulevard des Invalides he passed a man dressed like a workman, and wearing a deep-peaked cap, under which white locks peered out. Marius was struck by the beauty of this white hair, and looked at the man, who was walking slowly, and as if absorbed in painful meditation. Strange to say, he fancied that he could recognize M. Leblanc,—it was the same hair, the same profile, as far as the peak allowed him to see, and the same gait, though somewhat more melancholy. But why this work-man's clothing? What was the meaning of this disguise? Marius was greatly surprised, and when he came to himself again his first impulse was to follow this man, for he might, perhaps, hold the clew which he had so long been seeking. At any rate, he must have a close look at the man, and clear up the enigma; but he hit on this idea too late, for the man was no longer there. He had turned into some side street, and Marius was unable to find him again. This meeting troubled him for some days, and then faded away. "After all," he said to himself, "it is probably only a resemblance."
[CHAPTER II.]
MARIUS FINDS SOMETHING.
Marius still lived at the Gorbeau house, but he paid no attention to his fellow-lodgers. At this, period, in truth, there were no other tenants in the house but himself and those Jondrettes whose rent he had once paid, without ever having spoken to father, mother, or daughters. The other lodgers had removed, were dead, or turned out for not paying their rent. On one day of this winter the sun had shown itself a little during the afternoon, but it was Feb. 2, that old Candlemas day, whose treacherous sun, the precursor of a six weeks' frost, inspired Matthew Laensberg with these two lines, which have justly become classical,—
"Qu'il luise oil qu'il luiserne
L'ours rentre en sa caverne."
Marius had just left his cavern, for night was falling. It was the hour to go and dine, for he had been obliged to revert to that practice, such is the infirmity of ideal passions. He had just crossed the threshold of his door, which Mame Bougon was sweeping at this very moment, while uttering the memorable soliloquy,—
"What is there cheap at present? Everything is dear. There is only trouble which is cheap, and it may be had for nothing."
Marius slowly walked along the boulevard, in the direction of the Rue St. Jacques. He walked thoughtfully with hanging head. All at once he felt himself elbowed in the fog. He turned and saw two girls in rags, one tall and thin, the other not quite so tall, who passed hurriedly, panting, frightened, and as if running away; they were coming toward him, and ran against him as they passed. Marius noticed in the twilight their livid faces, uncovered heads, dishevelled hair, their ragged petticoats, and bare feet. While running they talked together, and the elder said,—
"The slops came, and nearly caught me."
And the other answered, "I saw them, and so I bolted, bolted, bolted."
Marius understood, from this sinister slang, that the police had nearly caught the two girls, and that they had managed to escape. They buried themselves beneath the trees behind him, and for a few minutes produced a sort of vague whiteness in the obscurity. Marius had stopped for a moment, and was just going on, when he noticed a small gray packet lying at his feet. He stooped down and picked it up; it was a sort of envelope, apparently containing papers.
"Why," he said, "these poor girls must have let it fall."
He turned back and called to them, but could not find them. He thought they must be some distance off, so he thrust the parcel into his pocket and went to dinner. On his way he saw in a lane turning out of the Rue Mouffetard, a child's coffin, covered with a black pall, laid on three chairs, and illumined by a candle. The two girls in the twilight reverted to his thoughts.
"Poor mothers!" he thought, "there is something even more sad than to see one's children die,—it is to see them live badly."
Then these shadows, which varied his melancholy, left his thoughts, and he fell back into his usual reflections. He began thinking of his six months of love and happiness in the open air and broad daylight under the glorious Luxembourg trees.
"How sad my life has become!" he said to himself; "girls constantly appear to me, but formerly they were angels, and now they are ghouls."
[CHAPTER III.]
FOUR LETTERS.
At night, as he undressed to go to bed, his hand felt in his coat pocket the parcel which he had picked up in the boulevard and forgotten. He thought that it would be as well to open it, as the packet might contain the girls' address, if it belonged to them, or in any case the necessary information to restore it to the person to whom it belonged. He opened the envelope, which was not sealed, and contained four letters, also unsealed. The addresses were on all four, and they exhaled a frightful perfume of tobacco. The first letter was addressed,—"To Madame, Madame la Marquise de Grucheray, on the Square opposite the Chamber of Deputies." Marius said to himself that he would probably find the information he wanted, and as the letter was not sealed he could read it without impropriety. It was drawn up as follows:—
"MADAME LA MARQUISE,—The virtue of clemency and piety is that which unites sosiety most closely. Move your Christian feelings, and dain a glance of compasion at this unfortunate Spaniard, and victim to his loyalty and atachment to the sacred cause of legitimacy, who shed his blood, devoted the whole of his fortune to defend this cause, and is now in the greatest missery. He does not doubt that you, honnored lady, will grant some asistence to preserve an existence entirely painful for a soldier of honor and edducation, who is covered with wounds, and he reckons before hand on the humanity which annimates you, and the interest which your ladyship takes in so unhapy a nacion. Their prayer will not be in vain, and His gratitude will retain her charming memory.
"With the most respectful feelings, I have the honor to be, madame,
"DON ALVARES,
Spanish captain of cavvalry, a Royalist refugee in France, who is travelling for his country, and who wants the means to continue his jurney."
No address was attached to the signature, but Marius hoped to find it in the second letter, of which the superscription was,—"To Madame, Madame la Comtesse de Montvernet, Rue Cassette, No. 9. This is what Marius read:—
"MADAME LA COMTESSE,—It is a unhapy mother of a familly of six children, of which the yungest is only eight months old; I ill since my last confinement, deserted by my husband, and hawing no ressourse in the world, living in the most frightful indijance.
"Trusting in your ladyship, she has the honor to be, madame, with profound respect,
"FEMME BALIZARD."
Marius passed to the third letter, which was, like the preceding, a petition, and he read in it:—
"MONSIEUR PABOURGEOT, Elector, wholesale dealer in caps, Rue St. Denis, at the corner of the Rue Aux-Fers:
"I venture to adress this letter to you, to ask you to grant me the pretious favor of your sympathies, and to interest you in a litterary man, who has just sent a drama to the Théâtre Français. The subject is historical, and the scene takes place in Auvergne in the time of the Empire; the style, I believe, is natural, laconic, and may posess some merit. There are couplets for singing at four places. The comic, the serious, and the unexpected elements are blended in it with a variety of characters, and a tinge of romance is lightly spread through the whole plot, which moves misteriously, and the finale takes place amid several brilliant tableaux. My principal desire is to satisfy the desire which progressively animates sosiety, that is to say, fashion, that capritious and vague whirligig which changes with nearly every wind.
"In spite of these quallities, I have reason to fear that jealousy and the selfishness of privileged authors may obtain my exclusion from the stage, for I am not unaware of the vexation which is caused to new-comers.
"Monsieur Pabourgeot, your just reputation as the enlightened protector of litterary men, emboldens me to send to you my daughter, who will explain to you our indijant situation, wanting for bread and fire in this winter season. To tell you that I wish you to accept the homage which I desire to make to you of my drama, and all those that may succeed it, is to prove to you how much I desire the honor of sheltering myself under your ægis, and adorning my writings with your name. If you dain to honor me with the most modest offering, I will at once set to work writing a coppy of verses, by which to pay you my debt of grattitude. These verses, which I will try to render as perfect as possible, will be sent to you before they are insirted in the beginning of the drama, and produced on the stage.
"My most respectful homage to Monsieur and Madame Pabourgeot,
GENFLOT, man of letters.
"P.S. If it was only forty sous. I appologize for sending my daughter, and not paying my respects personaly, but sad reasons of dress do not allow me, alas! to go out."
Marius then opened the last letter, which was addressed "To the Benevolent gentleman of the church of St. Jacques du Haut-pas," and it contained the following few lines:—
"BENEVOLENT MAN,—If you will dain to accompany my daughter you will witness a misserable calamity, and I will show you my certificates.
"At the sight of these dokuments your generous soul will be moved by a feeling of sensitive benevolence, for true philosophers always experience lively emotions.
"Allow, compasionate man, that a man must experience the most cruel want, and that it is very painful to obtain any relief, by having it attested by the authorities, as if a man were not at liberty to suffer and die of inanicion, while waiting till our missery is releaved. Fate is too cruel to some and too lavish or protecting for others. I await your presence or your offering, if you dain to make one, and I beg you to believe in the grateful feelings with which I have the honor of being, really magnamious sir,
"Your very humble, and most obedient servant, "P. FABANTOU, dramatic artist."
After reading these four letters Marius did not find himself much more advanced than before. In the first place not one of the writers gave his address; and next they appeared to come from four different individuals,—"Don Alvarez, Madame Balizard, the poet Genflot, and the dramatic artist Fabantou;" but these letters offered this peculiarity, that they were all in the same handwriting. What could be concluded from this, save that they came from the same person? Moreover—and this rendered the conjecture even more probable—the paper, which was coarse and yellow, was the same for all four, the tobacco smell was the same, and though an attempt had evidently been made to vary the handwriting, the same orthographical mistakes were reproduced with the most profound tranquillity, and Genflot, the man of letters, was no more exempt from them than the Spanish captain. To strive and divine this mystery was time thrown away, and if he had not picked it up it would have looked like a mystification; Marius was too sad to take kindly even a jest of accident, and lend himself to a game which the street pavement appeared desirous to play with him. He felt as if he were playing at blind-man's-buff among these four letters and they were mocking him. Nothing, besides, indicated that these letters belonged to the girls whom Marius had met in the boulevard. After all they were papers evidently of no value. Marius returned them to the envelope, threw the lot into a corner, and went to bed.
At about seven in the morning he had got up and breakfasted, and was trying to set to work, when there came a gentle tap at the door. As he possessed nothing he never took out his key, except very rarely when he had a pressing job to finish. As a rule, even when out, he left the key in the lock. "You will be robbed," said Mame Bougon. "Of what?" Marius asked. It is a fact, however, that one day a pair of old boots were stolen, to the great triumph of Mame Bougon. There was a second knock, quite as gentle as the first.
"Come in," said Marius.
The door opened.
"What is the matter, Mame Bougon?" Marius continued, without taking his eyes off the books and manuscripts on his table.
A voice which was not Mame Bougon's replied,—"I beg your pardon, sir."
It was a hollow, cracked, choking voice,—the voice of an old man, rendered hoarse by dram-drinking and exposure to the cold. Marius turned sharply and noticed a girl.
[CHAPTER IV.]
A ROSE IN WRETCHEDNESS.
A very young girl was standing in the half-open door. The sky-light, through which light entered, was exactly opposite the door, and threw upon this face a sallow gleam. She was a pale, wretched, fleshless creature, and had only a chemise and a petticoat upon her shivering and frozen nudity. For waist-belt she had a piece of string, for head-dress another; pointed shoulders emerged from her chemise; she was of a yellow lymphatic pallor, cadaverous collar-bones, hands red, mouth half open and degraded, with few teeth, the eye was sunken and hollow, and she had the outline of an abortive girl and the look of a corrupted old woman, or fifty years blended with fifteen. She was one of those beings who are at once weak and horrible, and who make those shudder whom they do not cause to weep.
Marius had risen, and was gazing with a species of stupor at this being, who almost resembled the shadows that traverse dreams. What was most crushing of all was, that this girl had not come into the world to be ugly, and in her childhood she must even have been pretty. The grace of youth was still struggling with the hideous and premature senility of debauchery and poverty. A remnant of beauty was expiring on this countenance of sixteen, like the pallid sun which dies out under the frightful clouds on the dawn of a winter's day. This face was not absolutely strange to Marius, and he fancied that he had already seen it somewhere.
"What do you want, miss?" he asked.
The girl replied, with her drunken galley-slave's voice,—
"It is a letter for you, Monsieur Marius."
She addressed him by name, and hence he could not doubt but that she had business with him; but who was this girl, and how did she know his name? Without waiting for any authority, she walked in, walked in boldly, looking around her with a sort of assurance that contracted the heart, at the whole room and the unmade bed. Her feet were bare, and large holes in her petticoat displayed her long legs and thin knees. She was shivering, and held in her hand a letter, which she offered to Marius. On opening the letter, he noticed that the large, clumsy wafer was still damp, which proved that the missive had not come a long distance, and he read:—
"MY AMIABLE NEIGHBOR AND YOUNG SIR,—I have herd of your kindness to me, and that you paid my half-year's rent six months ago. I bless you for it, young sir. My eldest daughter will tell you that we have been without a morsel of bread for two days,—four persons, and my wife ill. If I am not deseived in my opinion, I dare to hope that your generous heart will be affected by this statement, and will subject you to the desire to be propicious to me, by daining to lavish on me a trifling charity,
"I am, with the distinguished consideration which is due to the benefactors of humanity,
"JONDRETTE.
"P.S. My daughter will wait for your orders, my dear Monsieur Marius."
This letter, in the midst of the obscure adventure which had been troubling Marius since the previous evening, was like a candle in a cellar; all was suddenly lit up. This letter came from where the other letters came. It was the same handwriting, the same style, the same orthography, the same paper, and the same tobacco smell. They were five letters, five stories, five names, five signatures, and only one writer. The Spanish captain Don Alvarez, the unhappy mother Balizard, the dramatic author Genflot, and the old comedian Fabantou, were all four Jondrette, if, indeed, Jondrette's name were really Jondrette.
During the lengthened period that Marius had lived in this house, he had, as we stated, but rare occasions to see, or even catch a glimpse of, his very low neighbors; His mind was elsewhere, and where the mind is there is the eye. He must have passed the Jondrettes more than once in the passage and on the stairs, but they were to him merely shadows. He had paid so little attention to them, that on the previous evening he had run against the Jondrette girls on the boulevard without recognizing them, for it was evidently they, and it was with great difficulty that the girl, who had just entered the room, aroused in him, through disgust and pity, a vague fancy that he had met her somewhere before.
Now he saw everything clearly. He comprehended that his neighbor Jondrette had hit upon the trade in his distress of working upon the charity of benevolent persons, that he procured addresses and wrote under supposititious names, to people whom he supposed to be rich and charitable, letters which his children delivered at their risk and peril, for this father had attained such a stage that he hazarded his daughters; he was gambling with destiny and staked them. Marius comprehended that, in all probability, judging from their flight of the previous evening, their panting, their terror, and the slang words he overheard, these unfortunates carried on some other dark trades, and the result of all this was, in the heart of human society such as it is constituted, two wretched beings, who were neither children, nor girls, nor women, but a species of impure and innocent monsters, which were the produce of wretchedness; melancholy beings without age, name, or sex, to whom neither good nor evil is any longer possible, and who, on emerging from childhood, have nothing left in the world, not liberty, nor virtue, nor responsibility; souls that expanded yesterday and are faded to-day, like the flowers which have fallen in the street and are plashed by the mud while waiting till a wheel crushes them.
While Marius was bending on the young girl an astonished and painful glance, she was walking about the garret with the boldness of a spectre, and without troubling herself in the slightest about her state of nudity. At some moments her unfastened and torn chemise fell almost to her waist. She moved the chairs about, disturbed the toilette articles on the chest of drawers, felt Marius's clothes, and rummaged in every corner.
"Why," she said, "you have a looking-glass!"
And she hummed, as if she had been alone, bits of vaudeville songs and wild choruses, which her guttural and hoarse voice rendered mournful. But beneath this boldness there was something constrained, alarmed, and humiliated, for effrontery is a disgrace. Nothing could well be more sad than to see her fluttering about the room with the movement of a broken-winged bird startled by a dog. It was palpable that with other conditions of education and destiny, the gay and free demeanor of this girl might have been something gentle and charming. Among animals, the creature born to be a dove is never changed into an osprey; that is only possible with men. Marius was thinking, and left her alone, and she walked up to the table.
"Ah!" she said, "books."
A gleam darted from her glassy eye: she continued, and her accent expressed the attitude of being able to boast of something to which no human creature is insensible,—
"I know how to read."
She quickly seized the book lying on the table, and read rather fluently,—
"General Bauduin received orders to carry with the five battalions of his brigade the Château of Hougomont, which is in the centre of the plain of Waterloo—"
She broke off.
"Ah, Waterloo, I know all about that. It was a battle in which my father was engaged, for he served in the army. We are thorough Bonapartists, we are. Waterloo was fought against the English."
She laid down the book, took up a pen, and exclaimed, "And I can write, too."
She dipped the pen in the ink, and turned to Marius, saying,—
"Would you like a proof? Stay, I will write a line to show you."
And ere he had time to answer she wrote on a sheet of white paper in the middle of the table, "Here are the slops." Then throwing down the pen, she added,—
"There are no errors in spelling, as you can see, for my sister and I were well educated. We have not always been what we are now, we were not made—"
Here she stopped, fixed her glassy eye on Marius, and burst into a laugh, as she said, with an intonation which contained every possible agony, blended with every possible cynicism,—
"Bah!"
And then she began humming these words, to a lively air,—
"J'ai faim, mon père,
Pas de fricot.
J'ai froid, ma mère,
Pas de tricot.
Grelotte,
Lolotte!
Sanglote,
Jacquot!"
She had scarce completed this verse, ere she exclaimed,—
"Do you ever go to the play, Monsieur Marius? I do so. I have a brother who is a friend of the actors, and gives me tickets every now and then. I don't care for the gallery much, though, for you are so squeezed up; at times too there are noisy people there, and others who smell bad."
Then she stared at Marius, gave him a strange look, and said to him,—
"Do you know, M. Marius, that you are a very good-looking fellow!"
And at the same moment the same thought occurred to both, which made her smile and him blush. She walked up to him, and laid a hand upon his shoulder,—"You don't pay any attention to me, but I know you, M. Marius. I meet you here on the staircase, and then I see you go into the house of the one called Father Mabœuf, who lives over at Austerlitz, sometimes when I go that way. Your curly hair becomes you very well."
Her voice tried to be very soft, and only succeeded in being very low; a part of her words was lost in the passage from the larynx to the lips, as on a piano-forte some keys of which are broken. Marius had gently recoiled.
"I have a packet," he said, with his cold gravity, "which, I believe, belongs to you. Allow me to deliver it to you."
And he handed her the envelope which contained the four letters; she clapped her hands and said,—
"We looked for it everywhere."
Then she quickly seized the parcel and undid the envelope, while saying,—
"Lord of Lords! how my sister and I did look for it! And so you found it,—on the boulevard, did you not? It must have been there. You see, it was dropped while we were running, and it was my brat of a sister who was such an ass. When we got home we could not find it, and as we did not wish to be beaten,—which is unnecessary, which is entirely unnecessary, which is absolutely unnecessary,—we said at home that we had delivered the letters, and that the answer was Nix! And here are the poor letters! Well, and how did you know that they were mine? Ob, yes, by the writing. So, then, it was you that we ran against last night? We could not see anything, and I said to my sister, 'Is it a gentleman?' and she answered, 'Yes, I think it is a gentleman.'"
While saying this she had unfolded the petition addressed "To the Benevolent gentleman of the church of St. Jacques du Haut-pas."
"Hilloh!" she said, "this is the one for the old swell who goes to Mass. Why, 't is just the hour, and I will carry it to him. He will perhaps give us something for breakfast."
Then she burst into a laugh, and added,—
"Do you know what it will be if we breakfast to-day? We shall have our breakfast of the day before yesterday, our dinner of the day before yesterday, our breakfast of yesterday, our dinner of yesterday, all at once this morning. Well, hang it all! if you are not satisfied, rot, dogs!"
This reminded Marius of what the hapless girl had come to get from him; he fumbled in his waistcoat, but found nothing. The girl went on, and seemed speaking as if no longer conscious of the presence of Marius.
"Sometimes I go out at night. Sometimes I do not come home. Before we came here last winter we lived under the arches of the bridges, and kept close together not to be frozen. My little sister cried. How sad the water is! When I thought of drowning myself, I said, 'No, it is too cold,' I go about all alone when I like, and sleep at times in ditches. Do you know, at night, when I walk along the boulevard, I see trees like forks, I see black houses as tall as the towers of Notre Dame, I fancy that the white walls are the river, and I say to myself, 'Why, there is water!' The stars are like illumination lamps, and you might say that they smoke, and the wind puts them out I feel stunned, as if my hair was lashing my ears; however the night may be, I hear barrel-organs and spinning machinery, but what do I know? I fancy that stones are being thrown at me, and I run away unconsciously, for all turns round me. When you have not eaten it is funny."
And she gazed at him with haggard eyes.
After feeling in the depths of all his pockets, Marius succeeded in getting together five francs sixteen sous; it was at this moment all that he possessed in the world. "Here is my to-days dinner," he thought, "and to-morrow will take care of itself." He kept the sixteen sous, and gave the girl the five-franc piece, which she eagerly clutched.
"Good!" she said, "there is sunshine."
And, as if the sunshine had the property of melting in her brain avalanches of slang, she went on,—
"Five francs! a shiner! a monarch! in this crib! that's stunning! Well, you 're a nice kid, and I do the humble to you. Two days' drink and a bully feed,—a feast; we 're well fixed. Hurrah, pals!"
She pulled her chemise up over her shoulders, gave Marius a deep courtesy and a familiar wave of the hand, and walked toward the door, saying,—
"Good day, sir; but no matter, I'll go and find my old swell."
As she passed she noticed on the drawers an old crust of dry bread mouldering in the dust; she caught it up, and bit into it savagely, grumbling,—
"It is good, it is hard; it breaks my teeth!"
Then she left the room.
[CHAPTER V.]
A PROVIDENTIAL PEEP-HOLE.
Marius had lived for the past five years in poverty, want, and even distress, but he now saw that he had never known what real misery was, and he had just witnessed it; it was the phantom which bad just passed before him. For, in truth, he who has only seen man's misery has seen nothing, he must see woman's misery; while he who has seen woman's misery has seen nothing, for he must see the misery of the child. When man has reached the last extremity he has also reached the limit of his resources; and then, woe to the defenceless beings that surround him! Work, wages, bread, fire, courage, and food will all fail him at once; the light of day seems extinguished outside, the moral light is extinguished within him. In these shadows man comes across the weakness of the wife and the child, and violently bends them to ignominy.
In such a case every horror is possible, and despair is surrounded by thin partitions which all open upon vice and crime. Health, youth, honor, the sacred and retiring delicacy of the still innocent flesh, the heart-virginity and modesty, that epidermis of the soul, are foully clutched by this groping hand, which seeks resources, finds opprobrium, and puts up with it.
Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, men, women, and girls, adhere and are aggregated almost like a mineral formation in this misty promiscuity of sexes, relations, ages, infamies, and innocencies. Leaning against each other, they crouch in a species of den of destiny, and look at each other lamentably. Oh, the unfortunates! how pale they are! how cold they are! It seems as if they belong to a planet much farther from the sun than our own.
This girl was to Marius a sort of emissary from the darkness, and she revealed to him a hideous side of night. Marius almost reproached himself for the preoccupations of reverie and passion which, up to this day, had prevented him from taking a glance at his neighbors. To have paid their rent was a mechanical impulse, which any one might have had; but he, Marius, ought to have done better. What, only a wall separated himself from these abandoned creatures, who lived groping in night, beyond the pale of other living beings! He elbowed them, he was to some extent the last link of the human race which they could touch; he heard them living, or rather dying, by his side, and he paid no attention to them! Every moment of the day he heard them, through the wall, coming, going, and talking—and he did not listen! and in their words were groans, and he did not hear them! His thoughts were elsewhere,—engaged with dreams, impossible sun-beams, loves in the air, and follies; and yet, human creatures, his brethren in Christ, his brethren in the people, were slowly dying by his side, dying unnecessarily! He even formed part of their misfortune, and he aggravated it. For, if they had had another neighbor, a neighbor more attentive, less chimerical, an ordinary and charitable man, their indigence would evidently have been noticed, their signals of distress perceived, and they might perhaps have been picked up and saved long before. They doubtless seemed very depraved, very corrupt, very vile, and indeed very odious; but persons who fall without being degraded are rare; besides, there is a stage where the unfortunate and the infamous are mingled and confounded in one word,—a fatal word, "Les Misérables," and with whom lies the fault? And then, again, should not the charity be the greater the deeper the fall is?
While reading himself this lecture,—for there were occasions on which Marius was his own pedagogue, and reproached himself more than he deserved,—he looked at the wall which separated him from the Jondrettes, as if his pitying glance could pass through the partition and warm the unhappy beings. The wall was a thin coating of plaster supported by laths and beams, and which, as we have stated, allowed the murmurs of words and voices to be distinctly heard. A man must be a dreamer like Marius not to have noticed the fact before. No paper was hung on either side of the wall, and its clumsy construction was plainly visible. Almost unconsciously Marius examined this partition; for at times reverie examines, scrutinizes, and observes much as thought does. All at once he rose, for he had just noticed near the ceiling a triangular hole produced by the gap between three laths. The plaster which once covered this hole had fallen off, and by getting on his chest of drawers he could see through this aperture into the room of the Jondrettes. Commiseration has, and should have, its curiosity, and it is permissible to regard misfortune traitorously when we wish to relieve it. "Let me see," thought Marius, "what these people are like, and what state they are in." He clambered on the drawers, put his eye to the hole, and looked.
[CHAPTER VI.]
THE WILD-BEAST MAN IN HIS LAIR.
Cities, like forests, have their dens, in which everything that is most wicked and formidable conceals itself. The only difference is, that what hides itself thus in cities is ferocious, unclean, and little, that is to say, ugly; what conceals itself in the forests is ferocious, savage, and grand, that is to say, beautiful. Den for den, those of the beasts are preferable to those of men; and caverns are better than hiding-places. What Marius saw was a low den. Marius was poor, and his room was indigent; but in the same way as his poverty was noble his room was clean. The garret into which he was now looking was abject, dirty, fetid, infectious, dark, and sordid. The furniture only consisted of a straw-bottomed chair, a rickety table, some old broken glass, and in the corners two indescribable beds. The only light came through a sky-light with four panes of glass and festooned with spider-webs. Through this came just sufficient light for the face of a man to seem the face of a spectre. The walls had a leprous look, and were covered with gashes and scars, like a face disfigured by some horrible disease, and a dim moisture oozed from them. Obscene designs, clumsily drawn in charcoal, could be distinguished on them.
The room which Marius occupied had a broken-brick flooring, but in this one people walked on the old plaster of the hovel, grown black under the feet. Upon this uneven flooring, in which the dust was, so to speak, incrusted, and which bad but one virginity, that of the broom, were capriciously grouped constellations of old shoes, boots, and frightful rags; this room, however, had a chimney, and for this reason was let at forty francs a year. There was something of everything in this fire-place,—a chafing-dish, a pot, some broken planks, rags hanging from nails, a bird-cage, ashes, and even a little fire, for two logs were smoking there sadly. A thing which augmented the horror of this garret was the fact of its being large; it had angles, nooks, black holes under the roof, bays, and promontories. Hence came frightful inscrutable corners, in which it seemed as if spiders large as a fist, woodlice as large as a foot, and possibly some human monsters, must lurk.
One of the beds was near the door, the other near the window, but the ends of both ran down to the mantel-piece, and faced Marius. In a corner near the hole through which Marius was peeping, a colored engraving in a black wood frame, under which was written in large letters, THE DREAM, hung against the wall. It represented a sleeping woman and a sleeping child, the child lying on the woman's knees, an eagle in the clouds with a crown in its beak, and the woman removing the crown from the child's head, without awaking it, however; in the background Napoleon, surrounded by a glory, was leaning against a dark blue column with a yellow capital, that bore the following inscription:—
MARINGO
AUSTERLITS
IENA
WAGRAMME
ELOT
Below this frame a sort of wooden panel, longer than it was wide, was placed on the ground and leaning against the wall. It looked like a picture turned from the spectator, or some sign-board detached from a wall and forgotten there while waiting to be hung again. At the table, on which Marius noticed pen, ink, and paper, a man was seated of about sixty years of age, short, thin, livid, haggard, with a sharp, cruel, and listless look,—a hideous scamp. If Lavater had examined this face he would have found in it the vulture blended with the attorney's clerk; the bird of prey and the man of trickery rendering each other more ugly and more perfect,—the man of trickery rendering the bird of prey ignoble, and the bird of prey rendering the man of trickery horrible. This man had a long gray beard, and wore a woman's chemise, which allowed his hairy chest, and naked arms bristling with gray hairs, to be seen. Under this chemise might be noticed muddy trousers, and boots out of which his toes stuck. He had a pipe in his mouth, and Was smoking; there was no bread in the garret, but there was still tobacco. He was writing, probably some letter like those which Marius had read. On one corner of the table could be seen an old broken-backed volume, the form of which, the old 12mo of circulating libraries, indicated a romance; on the cover figured the following title, printed in large capitals,—GOD, THE KING, HONOR, AND THE LADIES. BY DUCRAY DUMINIL, 1814. While writing, the man was talking aloud, and Marius heard his words:—
"Only to think that there is no equality, even when a man is dead! Just look at Père Lachaise! The great ones, those who are rich, are up above, in the Acacia Avenue which is paved, and reach it in a coach. The little folk, the poor people, the wretched,—they are put down at the bottom where there is mud up to your knees, in holes and damp, and they are placed there that they may rot all the sooner. You can't go to see them without sinking into the ground."
Here he stopped, smote the table with his fist, and added, while be gnashed his teeth,—
"Oh! I could eat the world!"
A stout woman, who might be forty or one hundred, was crouched up near the chimney-piece on her naked heels. She too was only dressed in a chemise and a cotton petticoat, pieced with patches of old cloth, and an apron of coarse canvas concealed one half of the petticoat. Though this woman was sitting all of a heap, you could see that she was very tall, and a species of giantess by her husband's side. She had frightful hair, of a reddish auburn, beginning to turn gray, which she thrust back every now and then with the enormous strong hands with flat nails. By her side, on the ground, was lying an open volume, of the same form as the other, probably part of the same romance. On one of the beds Marius caught a glimpse of a long, ghastly young girl, sitting up almost naked, and with hanging feet, who did not seem to hear, see, or live; she was, doubtless, the younger sister of the one who had come to him. She appeared to be eleven or twelve years of age, but on examining her attentively it could be seen that she was at least fourteen; it was the girl who said on the boulevard the previous night, "I bolted, bolted, bolted." She was of that sickly class who keep down for a long time and then shoot up quickly and suddenly. It is indigence which produces these human plants, and these creatures have neither infancy nor adolescence. At fifteen they seem twelve, and at sixteen they appear twenty: to-day it is a little girl, to-morrow a woman; we might almost say that they stride through life in order to reach the end more rapidly; at this moment, however, she had the look of a child.
In this lodging there was not the slightest sign of work; not a loom, a spinning-wheel, or a single tool, but in one corner were some iron implements of dubious appearance. It was that dull indolence which follows despair and precedes death. Marius gazed for some time at this mournful interior, which was more terrifying than the interior of a tomb, for the human soul could be seen stirring in it and life palpitating. The garret, the cellar, the hole in which some indigent people crawl in the lowest part of the social edifice, is not exactly the sepulchre, but it is the antechamber to it; but like those rich men who display their greatest magnificence at the entrance to their palace, it seems that death, which is close at hand, places all its greatest wretchedness in this vestibule. The man was silent, the woman did not speak, and the girl did not seem to breathe; the pen could be heard moving across the paper. The man growled, without ceasing to write, "Scoundrels, scoundrels, all are scoundrels!"
The variation upon Solomon's exclamation drew a sigh from the wife.
"Calm yourself, my love," she said, "do not hurt yourself, darling. You are too good to write to all those people, dear husband."
In misery bodies draw more closely together, as in cold weather, but hearts are estranged. This woman, to all appearance, must have loved this man with the amount of love within her, but probably this had been extinguished in the daily and mutual reproaches of the frightful distress that pressed upon the whole family, and she now had only the ashes of affection for her husband within her. Still, caressing appellations, as frequently happens, had survived: she called him darling, pet, husband, with her lips, but her heart was silent. The man continued to write.
[CHAPTER VII.]
STRATEGY AND TACTICS.
Marius, with an aching heart, was just going to descend from the species of observatory which he had improvised, when a noise attracted his attention and made him remain at his post. The door of the garret was suddenly opened, and the elder daughter appeared on the threshold. She had on her feet clumsy men's shoes covered with mud, which had even plashed her red ankles, and she was covered with an old ragged cloak, which Marius had not noticed an hour previously, and which she had probably left at his door in order to inspire greater sympathy, and put on again when she went out. She came in, shut the door after her, stopped to catch breath, for she was panting, and then cried, with an expression of triumph and joy,—
"He is coming!"
The father turned his eyes to her, the mother turned her head, and the little girl did not move.
"Who?" the father asked.
"The gentleman."
"The philanthropist?"
"Yes."
"From the church of St. Jacques?"
"Yes. He is following me."
"Are you sure?"
"He is coming in a hackney coach, I tell you."
"A hackney coach! Why, it is Rothschild!"
The father rose.
"Why are you sure? If he is coming in a coach, how is it that you got here before him? Did you give him the address, and are you certain you told him the last door on the right in the passage? I only hope he will not make a mistake. Did you find him at church? Did he read my letter, and what did he say to you?"
"Ta, ta, ta," said the girl, "how you gallop, my good man! I went into the church, he was at his usual place; I made a courtesy and handed him the letter; he read it, and said to me, 'Where do you live, my child?' I said, I will show you the way, sir;' he said, 'No, give me your address, for my daughter has some purchases to make. I will take a hackney coach, and be at your abode as soon as you.' I gave him the address, and when I mentioned the house he seemed surprised, and hesitated for a moment, but then said, 'No matter, I will go.' When Mass was over I saw him leave the church and get into a coach with his daughter. And I carefully told him the last door on the right at the end of the passage."
"And what tells you that he will come?"
"I have just seen the coach turn into the Rue du Petit Banquier, and that is why I ran."
"How do you know it is the same coach?"
"Because I noticed the number, of course."
"What was it?"
"Four hundred and forty."
"Good I you are a clever girl."
The girl looked boldly at her father, and said, as she pointed to the shoes on her feet,—
"It is possible that I am a clever girl; but I say that I will not put on those shoes again; in the first place, on account of my health, and secondly, for the sake of decency. I know nothing more annoying than shoes which are too big for you, and go ghi, ghi, ghi, along the road. I would sooner be barefooted."
"You are right," the father replied, in a gentle voice, which contrasted with the girl's rudeness; "but the poor are not admitted into churches unless they wear shoes; God's presence must not be entered barefoot," he added bitterly. Then he returned to the object that occupied him.
"And so you are sure that he will come?"
"He is at my heels," she replied.
The man drew himself up, and there was a species of illumination on his face.
"Wife," he cried, "you hear! Here is the philanthropist; put out the fire."
The stupefied mother did not stir, but the father, with the agility of a mountebank, seized the cracked pot, which stood on the chimney-piece, and threw water on the logs. Then he said to his elder daughter,—
"Pull the straw out of the chair."
As his daughter did not understand him, he seized the chair and kicked the seat out; his leg passed through it, and while drawing it out, he asked the girl,—
"Is it cold?"
"Very cold; it is snowing."
The father turned to the younger girl, who was on the bed near the window, and shouted in a thundering voice,—
"Come off the bed directly, idler; you never will do anything: break a pane of glass!"
The little girl jumped off the bed, shivering.
"Break a pane!" he continued.
The girl was quite stunned, and did not move.
"Do you hear me?" the father repeated; "I tell you to break a pane."
The child, with a sort of terrified obedience, stood on tip-toe and broke a pane with her fist; the glass fell with a great crash.
"All right!" said the father.
He was serious and active, and his eye rapidly surveyed every corner of the garret; he was like a general who makes his final preparations at the moment when an action is about to begin. The mother, who had not yet said a word, rose and asked in a slow, dull voice, the words seeming to issue as if frozen,—
"Darling, what do you intend to do?"
"Go to bed!" the man replied.
The tone admitted of no deliberation, the mother obeyed, and threw herself heavily on one of the beds. A sobbing was now audible in a corner.
"What is that?" the father cried.
The younger girl, without leaving the gloom in which she was crouching, showed her bleeding hand. In breaking the glass she had cut herself; she had crawled close to her mother's bed, and was now crying silently. It was the mother's turn to draw herself up and cry:—
"You see what nonsensical acts you commit! She has cut herself in breaking the window."
"All the better," said the man; "I expected it."
"How all the better?" the woman continued.
"Silence!" the father replied. "I suppress the liberty of the press."
Then, tearing the chemise which he wore, he made a bandage, with which he quickly wrapped up the girl's bleeding hand; this done, his eye settled on the torn shirt with satisfaction.
"And the shirt too!" he said; "all this looks well."
An icy blast blew through the pane and entered the room. The external fog penetrated it, and dilated like a white wadding pulled open by invisible fingers. The snow could be seen falling through the broken pane, and the cold promised by the Candlemas sun had really arrived. The father took a look around him, as if to make sure that he had forgotten nothing, then he fetched an old shovel and strewed the ashes over the wet logs so as to conceal them entirely. Then getting up and leaning against the chimney-piece, he said,—
"Now we can receive the philanthropist."
[CHAPTER VIII.]
A SUNBEAM IN THE GARRET.
The elder girl walked up to her father and laid her hand in his.
"Just feel how cold I am!" she said.
"Stuff!" the father answered; "I am much colder than that."
The mother cried impetuously,—
"You always have everything more than others, even evil."
"Off with you!" said the man.
The mother, looked at by him in a certain way, held her tongue, and there was a momentary silence in the den. The elder girl was carelessly removing the mud from the edge of her cloak, and her younger sister continued to sob. The mother had taken her head between her hands, and covered it with kisses, while whispering,—
"Pray do not go on so, my treasure; it will be nothing, so don't cry, or you will vex your father."
"No," the father cried, "on the contrary, sob away, for that does good."
Then he turned to the elder girl,—
"Why, he is not coming! Suppose he were not to come! I should have broken my pane, put out my fire, unseated my chair, and torn my shirt all for nothing."
"And hurt the little one," the mother murmured.
"Do you know," the father continued, "that it is infernally cold in this devil's own garret? Suppose the man did not come! But no, he is keeping us waiting, and says to himself, 'Well, they will wait my pleasure, they are sent into the world for that!' Oh, how I hate the rich, and with what joy, jubilation, enthusiasm, and satisfaction would I strangle them all! All the rich, I say,—those pretended charitable men who play the devout, attend Mass, keep in with the priests and believe themselves above us, and who come to humiliate us and bring us clothes! How they talk! They bring us old rubbish not worth four sous, and bread; but it is not that I want, you pack of scoundrels, but money. Ah, money! Never! because they say that we would go and drink, and that we are drunkards and idlers. And they—what are they, pray, and what have they been in their time? Thieves, for they could not have grown rich without that. Oh, society ought to be taken by the four corners of a table-cloth and the whole lot thrown into the air! All would be broken, very possibly, but at any rate no one would have anything, and that would be so much gained! But what is your humbug of a benevolent gentleman about? Will he come? Perhaps the ass has forgotten the address. I will bet that the old brute—"
At this moment there was a gentle tap at the door; the man rushed forward and opened it, while exclaiming with deep bows and smiles of adoration,—
"Come in, sir; deign to enter, my respected benefactor, as well as your charming daughter."
A man of middle age and a young lady stood in the doorway; Marius had not left his post, and what he felt at this moment is beyond the human tongue.
It was SHE; and any one who has loved knows the radiant meaning conveyed in the three letters that form the word SHE. It was certainly she, though Marius could hardly distinguish her through the luminous vapor which had suddenly spread over his eyes. It was the gentle creature he had lost, the star which had gleamed on him for six months; it was the forehead, the mouth,—the lovely mouth which had produced night by departing. The eclipse was over, and she now reappeared,—reappeared in this darkness, in this attic, in this filthy den, in this horror. Marius trembled. What! it was she! The palpitation of his heart affected his sight, and he felt ready to burst into tears. What! he saw her again after seeking her so long! It seemed to him as if he had lost his soul and had just found it again. She was still the same, though perhaps a little paler; her delicate face was framed in a violet velvet bonnet, and her waist was hidden by a black satin pelisse; a glimpse of her little foot in a silk boot could be caught under her long dress. She was accompanied by M. Leblanc, and she walked into the room and placed a rather large parcel on the table. The elder girl had withdrawn behind the door, and looked with a jealous eye at the velvet bonnet, the satin pelisse, and the charming, happy face.
[CHAPTER IX.]
JONDRETTE ALMOST CRIES.
The garret was so dark that persons who came into it felt much as if they were going into a cellar. The two new-comers, therefore, advanced with some degree of hesitation, scarce distinguishing the vague forms around them, while they were perfectly seen and examined by the eyes of the denizens in the attic, who were accustomed to this gloom. M. Leblanc walked up to Father Jondrette, with his sad and gentle smile, and said,—
"You will find in this parcel, sir, new apparel, woollen stockings, and blankets."
"Our angelic benefactor overwhelms us," Jondrette said, bowing to the ground; then, bending down to the ear of his elder daughter, he added in a hurried whisper, while the two visitors were examining this lamentable interior,—
"Did I not say so,—clothes, but no money? They are all alike. By the way, how was the letter to the old ass signed?"
"Fabantou."
"The actor,—all right."
It was lucky that Jondrette asked this, for at the same moment M. Leblanc turned to him, and said with the air of a person who is trying to remember the name,—
"I see that you are much to be pitied, Monsieur—"
"Fabantou," Jondrette quickly added.
"Monsieur Fabantou; yes, that is it, I remember."
"An actor, sir, who has been successful in his time."
Here Jondrette evidently believed the moment arrived to trap his philanthropist, and he shouted in a voice which had some of the bombast of the country showman, and the humility of the professional beggar, —"A pupil of Talma, sir! I am a pupil of Talma! Fortune smiled upon me formerly, but now, alas! the turn of misfortune has arrived. You see, my benefactor, we have no bread, no fire. My poor children have no fire. My sole chair without a seat! a pane of glass broken, in such weather as this! my wife in bed, ill!"
"Poor woman!" said M. Leblanc.
"My child hurt," Jondrette added.
The child, distracted by the arrival of the strangers, was staring at the "young lady," and ceased sobbing.
"Cry, I tell you; roar!" Jondrette whispered to her. At the same time he squeezed her bad hand. All this was done with the talent of a conjurer. The little one uttered piercing cries, and the adorable girl whom Marius called in his heart "his Ursule," eagerly went up to her.
"Poor dear child!" she said.
"You see, respected young lady," Jondrette continued, "her hand is bleeding. It is the result of an accident which happened to her while working at a factory to earn six sous a day. It is possible that her arm will have to be cut off."
"Really?" the old gentleman said in alarm.
The little girl, taking this remark seriously, began sobbing again her loudest.
"Alas, yes, my benefactor!" the father answered.
For some minutes past Jondrette had been looking at the "philanthropist" in a peculiar way, and while speaking seemed to be scrutinizing him attentively, as if trying to collect his remembrances. All at once, profiting by a moment during which the new-comers were questioning the little girl about her injured hand, he passed close to his wife, who was tying in her bed with a surprised and stupid air, and said to her in a hurried whisper,—
"Look at that man!"
Then he turned to M. Leblanc, and continued his lamentations.
"Look, sir! my sole clothing consists of a chemise of my wife's, all torn, in the heart of winter. I cannot go out for want of a coat, and if I had the smallest bit of a coat I would go and call on Mademoiselle Mars, who knows me, and is much attached to me. Does she still live in the Rue de la Tour des Dames? Do you know, sir, that we played together in the provinces, and that I shared her laurels? Célimène would come to my help, sir, and Elmire give alms to Belisarius. But no, nothing, and not a halfpenny piece in the house! my wife ill,—not a son! my daughter dangerously injured,—not a son! My wife suffers from shortness of breath; it comes from her age, and then the nervous system is mixed up in it. She requires assistance, and so does my daughter. But the physician and the apothecary, how are they to be paid if I have not a farthing? I would kneel down before a penny, sir. You see to what the arts are reduced! And do you know, my charming young lady, and you my generous protector, who exhale virtue and goodness, and who perfume the church where my poor child sees you daily when she goes to say her prayers,—for I am bringing up my daughters religiously, sir, and did not wish them to turn to the stage. Ah, the jades, let me see them trip! I do not jest, sir; I give them lectures on honor, morality, and virtue. Just ask them,—they must go straight,—for they have a father. They are not wretched girls who begin by having no family, and finish by marrying the public. Such a girl is Miss Nobody, and becomes Madame i All-the-World. There must be nothing of that sort in the Fabantou family! I intend to educate them virtuously, and they must be respectable, and honest, and believe in God,—confound it! Well, sir, worthy sir, do you know what will happen to-morrow? To-morrow is the fatal 4th of February, the last respite my landlord has granted me, and if I do not pay my rent by to-night, my eldest daughter, myself, my wife with her fever, my child with her wound, will be all four of us turned out of here into the street, shelterless in the rain and snow. That is the state of the case, sir! I owe four quarters,—a year's rent,—that is to say, sixty francs."
Jondrette lied, for four quarters would only have been forty francs, and he could not owe four, as it was not six months since Marius had paid two for him. M. Leblanc took a five-franc piece from his pocket and threw it on the table. Jondrette had time to growl in his grown-up daughter's ear,—
"The scamp! what does he expect me to do with his five francs? They will not pay for the chair and pane of glass! There's the result of making an outlay!"
In the mean while M. Leblanc had taken off a heavy brown coat, which he wore over his blue one, and thrown it on the back of a chair.
"Monsieur Fabantou," he said, "I have only these five francs about me, but I will take my daughter home and return to-night. Is it not to-night that you have to pay?"
Jondrette's face was lit up with a strange expression, and he hurriedly answered,—
"Yes, respected sir, I must be with my landlord by eight o'clock."
"I will be here by six, and bring you the sixty francs."
"My benefactor!" Jondrette exclaimed wildly; and he added in a whisper,—
"Look at him carefully, wife."
M. Leblanc had given his arm to the lovely young lady, and was turning to the door.
"Till this evening, my friends," he said.
"At six o'clock?" Jondrette asked.
"At six o'clock precisely."
At this moment the overcoat left on the back of the chair caught the eye of the elder girl.
"Sir," she said, "you are forgetting your greatcoat."
Jondrette gave his daughter a crushing glance, accompanied by a formidable shrug of the shoulders, but M. Leblanc turned and replied smilingly,—
"I do not forget it, I leave it."
"Oh, my protector," said Jondrette, "my august benefactor, I am melting into tears! Permit me to conduct you to your coach."
"If you go out," M. Leblanc remarked, "put on that overcoat, for it is really very cold."
Jondrette did not let this be said twice, but eagerly put on the brown coat. Then they all three went out, Jondrette preceding the two strangers.
[CHAPTER X.]
THE TARIFF OF CAB-FARES.
Marius had lost nothing of all this scene, and yet in reality he had seen nothing. His eyes remained fixed on the maiden, his heart had, so to speak, seized and entirely enfolded her from her first step into the garret. During the whole time she had been there he had lived that life of ecstasy which suspends material perceptions and concentrates the whole mind upon one point. He contemplated not the girl, but the radiance which was dressed in a satin pelisse and a velvet bonnet. Had the planet Sirius entered the room he would not have been more dazzled. While she was opening the parcel, and unfolding the clothes and blankets, questioning the sick mother kindly, and the little wounded girl tenderly, he watched her every movement, and tried to hear her words. Though he knew her eyes, her forehead, her beauty, her waist, and her walk, he did not know the sound of her voice. He fancied that he had caught a few words once at the Luxembourg, but he was not absolutely sure. He would have given ten years of his life to hear her, and to carry off in his soul a little of this music; but all was lost in the lamentable braying of Jondrette's trumpet. This mingled a real anger with Marius's ravishment, and he devoured her with his eyes, for he could not imagine that it was really this divine creature whom he perceived among these unclean beings in this monstrous den; he fancied that he saw a humming-bird among frogs.
When she left the room he had but one thought,—to follow her, to attach himself to her trail, not to leave her till he knew where she lived, or at least not to lose her again after having so miraculously found her. He leaped off the drawers, and seized his hat, but just as he laid his hand on the latch and was going out a reflection arrested him; the passage was long, the staircase steep, Jondrette chattering, and M. Leblanc had doubtless not yet got into his coach again. If, turning in the passage or on the stairs, he were to perceive him, Marius, in this house, he would assuredly be alarmed, and find means to escape him again, and so all would be over for the second time. What was to be done,—wait awhile? But during this delay the vehicle might start off. Marius was perplexed, but at length risked it, and left the room. There was no one in the passage, and he ran to the stairs, and as there was no one upon them he hurried down and reached the boulevard just in time to see a hackney coach turning the corner of the Rue du Petit Banquier, on its road to Paris.
Marius rushed in that direction, and on reaching the corner of the boulevard saw the hackney coach again rapidly rolling along the Rue Mouffetard; it was already some distance off, and he had no means of overtaking it. Running after it was an impossibility; and besides, a man running at full speed after the vehicle would be seen from it, and the father would recognize him. At this moment, by an extraordinary and marvellous accident, Marius perceived a cab passing along the boulevard, empty. There was only one thing to be done,—get into this cab and follow the hackney coach; that was sure, efficacious, and without danger. Marius made the driver a sign to stop, and shouted to him, "By the hour!" Marius had no cravat on, he wore his old working coat, from which buttons were missing, and one of the plaits of his shirt was torn. The driver stopped, winked, and held out to Marius his left hand as he gently rubbed his forefinger with his thumb.
"What do you mean?" Marius asked.
"Payment in advance," said the coachman.
Marius remembered that he had only sixteen sous in his pocket.
"How much is it?"
"Forty sous."
"I will pay on returning."
The driver, in reply, whistled the air of La Palisse, and lashed his horse. Marius watched the cab go off with a haggard look; for the want of twenty-four sous he lost his joy, his happiness, his love! He fell back into night! He had seen, and was becoming blind again. He thought bitterly, and, we must add, with deep regret, of the five francs which he had given that very morning to the wretched girl. If he still had them, he would be saved, would emerge from limbo and darkness, and be drawn from isolation, spleen, and widowhood; he would have reattached the black thread of his destiny to the beauteous golden thread which had just floated before his eyes only to be broken again! He returned to his garret in despair. He might have said to himself that M. Leblanc had promised to return that evening, and that then he must contrive to follow him better; but in his contemplation he had scarce heard him.
Just as he was going up the stairs he noticed on the other side of the wall, and against the deserted wall of the Rue de la Barrière des Gobelins, Jondrette, wrapped up in the "philanthropist's" overcoat, and conversing with one of those ill-looking men who are usually called prowlers at the barrière; men with equivocal faces and suspicious soliloquies, who look as if they entertain evil thoughts, and most usually sleep by day, which leads to the supposition that they work at night. These two men, standing to talk in the snow, which was falling heavily, formed a group which a policeman would certainly have observed, but which Marius scarce noticed. Still, though his preoccupation was so painful, he could not help saying to himself that the man to whom Jondrette was talking was like a certain Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, whom Courfeyrac had once pointed out to him, and who was regarded in the quarter as a very dangerous night-bird. This Panchaud afterwards figured in several criminal trials, and eventually became a celebrated villain, though at this time he was only a famous villain. At the present day he is in a traditionary state among the bandits and burglars. He was the model toward the end of the last reign, and people used to talk about him in the Lion's den at La Force, at nightfall, at the hour when groups assemble and converse in whispers. In this prison, and at the exact spot where the sewer, which served as the way of escape for the thirty prisoners in 1843, opened, this name, PANCHAUD, might be seen daringly cut in the wall over the sewer, in one of his attempted escapes. In 1832 the police already had their eye on him, but he had not yet fairly made a start.
[CHAPTER XI.]
WRETCHEDNESS OFFERS HELP TO SORROW.
Marius ascended the stairs slowly, and at the moment when he was going to enter his cell he perceived behind him, in the passage, the elder of Jondrette's girls following him. This girl was odious in his sight, for it was she who had his five francs; but it was too late to ask them back from her, for both the hackney coach and the cab were now far away. Besides, she would not return them to him. As for questioning her about the abode of the persons who had been here just now, that was useless, and it was plain that she did not know, for the letter signed Fabantou was addressed "To the benevolent gentleman of the church of St. Jacques du Haut-pas." Marius went into his room and threw the door to after him, but it did not close; he turned and saw a hand in the aperture.
"Who's that?" he asked.
It was the girl.
"Oh it's you!" Marius continued almost harshly,—"always you! What do you want of me?"
She seemed thoughtful, and made no answer, and she no longer had her boldness of the morning; she did not come in, but stood in the dark passage, where Marius perceived her through the half-open door.
"Well, answer!" said Marius; "what do you want of me?"
She raised her dull eye, in which a sort of lustre seemed to be vaguely illumined, and said,—
"Monsieur Marius, you look sad; what is the matter with you?"
"Nothing."
"Yes, there is!"
"Leave me alone!"
Marius pushed the door again, but she still held it.
"Stay," she said; "you are wrong. Though you are not rich, you were kind this morning, and be so again now. You gave me food, and now tell me what is the matter with you. It is easy to see that you are in sorrow, and I do not wish you to be so. What can I do to prevent it, and can I be of any service to you? Employ me; I do not ask for your secrets, and you need not tell them to me, but I may be of use to you. Surely I can help you, as I help my father. When there are any letters to deliver, or any address to be found by following people, or asking from door to door, I am employed. Well, you can tell me what is the matter with you, and I will go and speak to persons. Now and then it is sufficient for some one to speak to persons in order to find out things, and all is arranged. Employ me."
An idea crossed Marius's mind, for no branch is despised when we feel ourselves falling. He walked up to the girl.
"Listen to me," he said; "you brought an old gentleman and his daughter here."
"Yes."
"Do you know their address?"
"No."
"Find it for me."
The girl's eye, which was dull, had become joyous, but now it became gloomy.
"Is that what you want?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Do you know them?"
"No."
"That is to say," she added quickly, "you don't know her, but you would like to know her."
This "them," which became "her," had something most significant and bitter about it.
"Well, can you do it?" Marius said.
"You shall have the beautiful young lady's address."
In these words there was again a meaning which annoyed Marius, so he went on,—
"Well, no matter! the father and daughter's address,—their address, I say."
She looked at him fixedly.
"What will you give me for it?"
"Whatever you like."
"Whatever I like? You shall have the address."
She hung her head, and then closed the door with a hurried gesture; Marius was alone again. He fell into a chair, with his head and elbows on his bed, sunk in thoughts which he could not grasp, and suffering from a dizziness. All that had happened since the morning,—the apparition of the angel, her disappearance, and what this creature had just said to him, a gleam of hope floating in an immense despair, —this is what confusedly filled his brain. All at once he was violently dragged out of his reverie, for he heard Jondrette's loud, hard voice uttering words full of the strangest interest for him.
"I tell you that I am sure, and that I recognized him."
Of whom was Jondrette talking, and whom had he recognized? M. Leblanc, the father of "his Ursule." What! did Jondrette know him? Was Marius going to obtain, in this sudden and unexpected fashion, all the information without which his life was obscure for himself? Was he at last going to know who she was whom he loved, and who her father was? Was the thick cloud that covered them on the point of clearing off? Would the veil be rent asunder? Oh, heavens! He bounded rather than ascended upon the chest of drawers and resumed his place at the aperture in the partition: once more he saw the interior of Jondrette's den.
[CHAPTER XII.]
THE USE OF M. LEBLANC'S FIVE-FRANC PIECE.
There was no change in the appearance of the family, save that mother and daughters had put on stockings and flannel waistcoats taken out of the parcel, and two new blankets were thrown on the beds. The man had evidently just returned, for he was out of breath; his daughters were seated near the chimney-piece on the ground, the elder tying up the younger's hand. The mother was crouching on the bed near the fire-place, with an astonished face, while Jondrette was walking up and down the room with long strides and extraordinary eyes. The woman, who seemed frightened and struck with stupor before him, ventured to say,—
"What, really, are you sure?"
"Sure! it is eight years ago, but I can recognize him! I recognized him at once. What I did it not strike you?"
"No."
"And yet I said to you, 'Pay attention!' Why, it is his figure, his face, very little older,—for there are some people who never age, though I do not know how they manage it,—and the sound of his voice. He is better dressed, that's all! Ah! you mysterious old villain, I hold you!"
He stopped and said to his daughters,—
"Be off, you two!—It is funny that it did not strike you."
They rose to obey, and the mother stammered,—
"With her bad hand?"
"The air will do it good," said Jondrette. "Off with you!"
It was evident that this man was one of those who are not answered. The girls went out, but just as they passed the door the father clutched the elder by the arm, and said, with a peculiar accent,—
"You will be here at five o'clock precisely, both of you, for I shall want you."
Marius redoubled his attention. When left alone with his wife, Jondrette began walking up and down room again, and took two or three turns in silence. Then he spent several minutes thrusting the tail of the chemise which he wore into his trousers. All at once he turned to his wife, folded his arms, and exclaimed,—
"And shall I tell you something? The young lady—"
"Well, what?" the wife retorted.
Marius could not doubt, they were really talking about her. He listened with ardent anxiety, and all his life was in his ears. But Jondrette had stooped down, and was whispering to his wife. Then he rose, and ended aloud,—
"It is she."
"That one?" the wife asked.
"That one!" said the husband.
No expression could render all there was in the mother's that one; it was surprise, rage, hatred, and passion mingled and combined in a monstrous intonation. A few words, doubtless a name which her husband whispered in her ear, were sufficient to arouse this fat, crushed woman, and to make her more than repulsive and frightful.
"It is not possible," she exclaimed; "when I think that my daughters go about barefooted, and have not a gown to put on! What! a satin pelisse, a velvet bonnet, clothes worth more than two hundred francs, so that you might take her for a lady! No, you are mistaken; and then, the other was hideous, while this one is not ugly, indeed, rather good-looking. Oh, it cannot be!"
"And I tell you that it is; you will see."
At this absolute assertion the woman raised her large red and white face and looked at the ceiling with a hideous expression. At this moment she appeared to Marius even more formidable than her husband, for she was a sow with the glance of a tigress.
"What!" she continued, "that horrible young lady who looked at my daughters with an air of pity is that vagabond! Oh! I should like to jump on her stomach with wooden shoes."
She leaped off the bed, and stood for a moment unkempt, with swollen nostrils, parted lips, and clenched fists; then she fell back again on the bed. The husband walked up and down and paid no attention to his wife. After a short silence he went up to her and stood in front of her with folded arms, as he had done a few moments previously.
"And shall I tell you something else?"
"What?" she asked.
He replied in a low, guttural voice, "That my fortune is made."
The wife looked at him in the way which means, "Can the man who is talking to me have suddenly gone mad?" He continued,—
"Thunder! I have been a long time a parishioner of the parish of die-of-hunger-if-you-are-cold, and die-of-cold-if-you-have-bread! I have had enough of that misery! I am not jesting, for I no longer consider this comical. I have had enough jokes, good God! and want no more farces, by the Eternal Father! I wish to eat when I am hungry, and drink when I am thirsty: to gorge, sleep, and do nothing. I want to have my turn now, and mean to be a bit of a millionnaire before I rot!" He walked up and down the room and added, "like the rest!"
"What do you mean?" his wife asked.
He shook his head, winked, and raised his voice like a street quack who is going to furnish a proof.
"What I mean? Listen!"
"Not so loud," said his wife, "if it is business which ought not to be overheard."
"Nonsense! by whom,—by the neighbor? I saw him go out just now. Besides, what does that long-legged ass listen to? And then, I tell you I saw him go out." Still, by a species of instinct Jondrette lowered his voice, though not so low that his remarks escaped Marius. A favorable circumstance was that the fallen snow deadened the sound of the vehicles on the boulevard. This is what Marius heard:—
"Listen carefully. The Crœsus is trapped, or as good as trapped. It is done, arranged, and I have seen the people. He will come at six this evening to bring the sixty francs, the vagabond! Did you notice how I blabbed to him about my sixty francs, my landlord, my February 4th? Why, it is not a quarter-day, the ass. Well, he will come at six o'clock, and at that hour the neighbor has gone to dinner, and Mother Bourgon is washing up dishes in town, so there will be no one in the house. The neighbor never comes in before eleven o'clock. The little ones will be on the watch, you will help us, and he will make a sacrifice."
"And suppose he does not?" the wife asked.
Jondrette made a sinister gesture, and said, "We will do it for him."
And he burst into a laugh: it was the first time that Marius saw him laugh, and this laugh was cold and gentle, and produced a shudder. Jondrette opened a cupboard near the fire-place, and took out an old cap, which he put on his head, after brushing it with his cuff.
"Now," he said, "I am going out, for I have some more people to see, good men. I shall be away as short a time as possible, for it is a famous affair; and do you keep house."
And he stood thoughtfully with his hands in his trousers' pockets and suddenly exclaimed,—
"Do you know that it is very lucky he did not recognize me, for if he had done so he would not have returned, and would have slipped from us. It was my beard that saved us,—my romantic beard, my pretty little beard."
And he laughed again. He went to the window; the snow was still falling, and striping the gray sky.
"What filthy weather!" he said.
Then he buttoned up his great-coat.
"The skin is too big, but no matter," he added. "It was devilish lucky that the old villain left it for me, for had he not I could not have gone out, and the whole affair would have been spoiled. On what slight accidents things depend!"
And pulling his cap over his eyes, he went out, but had only gone a short distance when the door opened again, and his sharp, intelligent face reappeared in the aperture.
"I forgot," he said; "you will get a chafing-dish of charcoal ready."
And he threw into his wife's apron the five-franc piece which the "philanthropist" left him.
"How many bushels of charcoal?" the wife asked.
"Two, at least."
"That will cost thirty sous, and with the rest I will buy some grub."
"Hang it, no!"
"Why?"
"Don't spend the five balls."
"Why not?"
"Because I have something to buy too."
"What?"
"Something."
"How much do you want?"
"Where is the nearest ironmonger's?"
"In the Rue Mouffetard."
"Ah, yes, at the corner of a street. I remember the shop."
"But tell me how much you want for what you have to buy."
"From fifty sous to three francs."
"There won't be much left for dinner."
"Don't bother about eating to-day; there is something better to do."
"That's enough, my jewel."
Jondrette closed the door again, and then Marius heard his steps as he went along the passage and down the stairs. It struck one at this moment from St. Médard's.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT.
Marius, dreamer though he was, possessed, as we have said, a firm and energetic nature. His habits of solitary contemplation, by developing compassion and sympathy within him, had perhaps diminished the power of being irritated, but left intact the power of becoming indignant: he had the benevolence of a brahmin and the sternness of a judge, and while he pitied a toad he crushed a viper. At present he had a nest of vipers before him, and he said, "I must set my foot upon these villains." Not one of the enigmas which he hoped to see cleared up was solved; on the contrary, they had become more dense, and he had learned no more about the pretty girl of the Luxembourg and the man whom he called M. Leblanc, save that Jondrette knew them. Through the dark words which had been uttered he only saw one thing distinctly, that a snare was preparing,—an obscure but terrible snare; that they both ran an imminent danger, she probably, and the father certainly; and that he must save them, and foil the hideous combinations of the Jondrettes by destroying their spider's web.
He watched the woman for a moment; she had taken an old sheet-iron furnace from the corner, and was rummaging among the scraps of old iron. He got off the chest of drawers as gently as he could, and careful not to make any noise. In his terror at what was preparing, and the horror with which the Jondrettes filled him, he felt a species of joy at the idea that it might perhaps be in his power to render such a service to her whom he loved. But what was he to do? Should he warn the menaced persons? Where was he to find them? for he did not know their address. They had reappeared to him momentarily, and then plunged again into the immense profundities of Paris. Should he wait for M. Leblanc at the gate at the moment when he arrived that evening and warn him of the snare? But Jondrette and his comrades would see him on the watch. The place was deserted, they would be stronger than he, they would find means to get him out of the way, and the man whom Marius wished to save would be lost. It had just struck one, and as the snare was laid for six o'clock, Marius had five hours before him. There was only one thing to be done; he put on his best coat, tied a handkerchief round his neck, took his hat, and went out, making no more noise than if he were walking barefoot on moss; besides, the woman was still rummaging the old iron.
Once outside the house, he turned into the Rue du Petit Banquier. About the middle of the street he found himself near a very low wall, which it was possible to bestride in some places, and which surrounded unoccupied ground. He was walking slowly, deep in thought as he was, and the snow deadened his footsteps, when all at once he heard voices talking close to him. He turned his head, but the street was deserted; it was open day, and yet he distinctly heard the voices. He thought of looking over the wall, and really saw two men seated in the snow, and conversing in a low voice. They were strangers to him: one was a bearded man in a blouse, and the other a hairy man in rags. The bearded man wore a Greek cap, while the other was bareheaded, and had snow in his hair. By thrusting out his head over them Marius could hear the hairy man say to the other, with a nudge,—
"With Patron Minette it cannot fail."
"Do you think so?" asked the bearded man; and the hairy man added,—
"It will be five hundred balls for each, and the worst that can happen is five years, six years, or ten at the most."
The other replied with some hesitation, and shuddering under his Greek cap,—
"That is a reality; and people must not go to meet things of that sort."
"I tell you that the affair cannot fail," the hairy man continued. "Father What's-his-name's trap will be all ready."
Then they began talking of a melodrama which they had seen on the previous evening at the Gaité.
Marius walked on; but it seemed to him that the obscure remarks of these men, so strangely concealed behind this wall, and crouching in the snow, must have some connection with Jondrette's abominable scheme; that must be the affair. He went toward the Faubourg St. Marceau, and asked at the first shop he came to where he could find a police commissary. He was told at No. 14, Rue de Pontoise, and he proceeded there. As he passed a baker's he bought a two-sous roll and ate it, as he foresaw that he should not dine. On the way he rendered justice to Providence. He thought that if he had not given the five francs in the morning to the girl, he should have followed M. Leblanc's hackney coach and consequently known nothing. There would, in that case, have been no obstacle to Jondrettes ambuscade, and M. Leblanc would have been lost, and doubtless his daughter with him.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
A POLICE-AGENT GIVES A LAWYER TWO "KNOCK-ME-DOWNS."
On reaching No. 14, Rue de Pontoise, he went up to the first floor and asked for the commissary.
"He is not in at present," said a clerk, "but there is an inspector to represent him. Will you speak to him? Is your business pressing?"
"Yes," said Marius.
The clerk led him to the commissary's office. A very tall man was leaning here against the fender of a stove, and holding up with both hands the skirts of a mighty coat with three capes. He had a square face, thin and firm lips, thick grayish whiskers, and a look of turning your pockets inside out. Of this look you might have said, not that it penetrated, but that it searched. This man did not appear much less ferocious or formidable than Jondrette; for sometimes it is just as dangerous to meet the dog as the wolf.
"What do you want?" he asked Marius, without adding, "sir."
"The police commissary."
"He is absent, but I represent him."
"It is a very secret affair."
"Then speak."
"And very urgent."
"In that case speak quick."
This man, who was calm and quick, was at once terrifying and reassuring. He inspired both fear and confidence. Marius told him of his adventure; that a person whom he only knew by sight was to be drawn that very evening into a trap; that he, Marius Pontmercy, lawyer, residing in the next room to the den, had heard the whole plot through the partition; that the scoundrel's name who invented the snare was Jondrette; that he would have accomplices, probably prowlers at the barrières, among others one Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille; that Jondrette's daughters would be on the watch; that there were no means of warning the threatened man, as not even his name was known; and that, lastly, all this would come off at six in the evening, at the most deserted spot on the Boulevard de l'Hôpital, in the house No. 50-52.
At this number the Inspector raised his head, and said coldly,—
"It must be in the room at the end of the passage."
"Exactly," Marius replied; and added, "do you know the house?"
The Inspector remained silent for a moment, and then answered, while warming his boot-heel at the door of the stove,—
"Apparently so."
He went on between his teeth, talking less to Marius than his cravat.
"Patron Minette must be mixed up in this."
This remark struck Marius.
"Patron Minette!" he said; "yes, I heard that name mentioned."
And he told the Inspector of the dialogue between the hairy man and the bearded man in the snow behind the wall in the Rue du Petit Banquier. The Inspector growled,—
"The hairy man must be Burgon, and the bearded man, Demi-liard, alias Deux Milliards."
He was again looking down and meditating. "As for Father What's-his-name, I guess who he is. There, I have burnt my great-coat; they always make too large a fire in these cursed stoves. No. 50-52, formerly the property of one Gorbeau."
Then he looked at Marius.
"You only saw the hairy man and the bearded man?"
"And Panchaud."
"You did not see a small dandy prowling about there?"
"No."
"Nor a heavy lump of a fellow resembling the elephant in the Jardin-des Plantes?"
"No."
"Nor a scamp who looks like an old red-tail?"
"No."
"As for the fourth, no one sees him, not even his adjutants, assistants, and those he employs. It is not surprising, therefore, that you did not perceive him."
"No. Who are all these men?" Marius asked.
The Inspector continued: "Besides, it is not their hour." He fell into silence, and presently added,—"50-52. I know the shanty. It is impossible for us to hide ourselves in the interior without the actors perceiving us, and then they would escape by putting off the farce. They are so modest, and frightened at an audience. That won't do, for I want to hear them sing and make them dance."
This soliloquy ended, he turned to Marius, and asked, as he looked at him searchingly,—
"Would you be afraid?"
"Of what?" Marius asked.
"Of these men."
"No more than I am of you," Marius answered roughly, for he was beginning to notice that this policeman had not yet said, "sir."
The Inspector looked at Marius more intently still, and continued, with a sort of sententious solemnity,—
"You speak like a brave man and like an honest man. Courage does not fear crime, nor honesty the authorities."
Marius interrupted him,—
"That is all very well, but what do you intend doing?"
The Inspector restricted himself to saying,—
"The lodgers in that house have latch-keys to let themselves in at night. You have one?"
"Yes," said Marius.
"Have you it about you?"
"Yes."
"Give it to me," the Inspector said.
Marius took the key out of his waistcoat pocket, handed it to the Inspector, and added,—
"If you take my advice you will bring a strong force."
The Inspector gave Marius such a glance as Voltaire would have given a Provincial Academician who proposed a rhyme to him; then he thrust both hands into his immense coat-pockets and produced two small steel pistols, of the sort called "knock-me-downs." He handed them to Marius, saying sharply and quickly,—
"Take these. Go home. Conceal yourself in your room, and let them suppose you out. They are loaded, both with two bullets. You will watch, as you tell me there is a hole in the wall. People will arrive; let them go on a little. When you fancy the matter ripe, and you think it time to stop it, you will fire a pistol, but not too soon. The rest concerns me. A shot in the air, in the ceiling, I don't care where,—but, mind, not too soon. Wait till the commencement of the execution. You are a lawyer, and know what that means."
Marius took the pistols and placed them in a side pocket of his coat.
"They bulge that way, and attract attention," said the Inspector; "put them in your trousers' pockets."
Marius did so.
"And now," the Inspector continued, "there is not a moment for any one to lose. What o'clock is it? Half-past two. You said seven?"
"Six o'clock," Marius corrected.
"I have time," the Inspector added; "but only just time. Do not forget anything I have said to you. A pistol-shot."
"All right." Marius replied.
And as he pat his hand on the latch to leave the room the Inspector shouted to him,—
"By the way, if you should want me between this and then, come or send here. Ask for Inspector Javert."
[CHAPTER XV.]
JONDRETTE MAKES HIS PURCHASE.
At about three o'clock Courfeyrac happened to pass along the Rue Mouffetard, accompanied by Bossuet. The snow was thicker than ever, and filled the air, and Bossuet had just said to Courfeyrac,—
"To see all these flakes of snow fall, we might, say that the sky is suffering from a plague of white butterflies."
All at once Bossuet noticed Marius coming up the street toward the barrière with a peculiar look.
"Hilloh!" said Bossuet, "there's Marius."
"I saw him," said Courfeyrac; "but we won't speak to him."
"Why not?"
"He is busy."
"At what?"
"Do you not see that he looks as if he were following some one?"
"That is true," said Bossuet.
"Only see what eyes he makes!" Courfeyrac added.
"But whom the deuce is he following?"
"Some Mimi-Goton with flowers in her cap. He is in love."
"But," Bossuet observed, "I do not see any Mimi or any Goton, or any cap trimmed with flowers, in the street. There is not a single woman."
Courfeyrac looked, and exclaimed, "He is following a man."
A man wearing a cap, and whose gray beard could be distinguished, although his back was turned, was walking about twenty yards ahead of Marius. This man was dressed in a perfectly new great-coat, which was too large for him, and a frightful pair of ragged trousers all black with mud. Bossuet burst into a laugh.
"Who can the man be?"
"That?" Courfeyrac replied; "oh, he is a poet. Poets are fond of wearing the trousers of rabbit-skin pedlers and the coats of the Peers of France."
"Let us see where Marius is going," said Bossuet, "and where this man is going. Suppose we follow them, eh?"
"Bossuet!" Courfeyrac exclaimed, "Eagle of Meaux, you are a prodigious brute to think of following a man who is following a man."
They turned back. Marius had really seen Jondrette in the Rue Mouffetard, and was following him. Jondrette was walking along, not at all suspecting that an eye was already fixed upon him. He left the Rue Mouffetard, and Marius saw him enter one of the most hideous lodging-houses in the Rue Gracieuse, where he remained for about a quarter of an hour, and then returned to the Rue Mouffetard. He stopped at an ironmonger's shop, which was at that period at the corner of the Rue Pierre-Lombard; and a few minutes after Marius saw him come out of the shop, holding a large cold-chisel set in a wooden handle, which he hid under his great coat. He then turned to his left and hurried toward the Rue du Petit Banquier. Day was dying; the snow, which had ceased for a moment, had begun again, and Marius concealed himself at the corner of the Rue du Petit Banquier, which was deserted as usual, and did not follow Jondrette. It was lucky that he acted thus, for Jondrette, on reaching the spot where Marius had listened to the conversation of the hairy man and the bearded man, looked round, made sure that he was not followed, clambered over the wall, and disappeared. The unused ground which this wall enclosed communicated with the back yard of a livery-stable-keeper of bad repute, who had been a bankrupt, and still had a few vehicles standing under sheds.
Marius thought it would be as well to take advantage of Jondrette's absence and return home. Besides, time was slipping away, and every evening Mame Bougon, when she went to wash up dishes in town, was accustomed to close the gate, and, as Marius had given his latch-key to the Inspector, it was important that he should be in time. Night had nearly set in along the whole horizon, and in the whole immensity there was only one point still illumined by the sun, and that was the moon, which was rising red behind the low dome of the Salpêtrière. Marius hurried to No. 50-52, and the gate was still open when he arrived. He went up the stairs on tip-toe, and glided along the passage-wall to his room. This passage, it will be remembered, was bordered on either side by rooms which were now to let, and Mame Bougon, as a general rule, left the doors open. While passing one of these doors, Marius fancied that he could see in the uninhabited room four men's heads vaguely lit up by a remnant of daylight which fell through a window. Marius did not attempt to see, as he did not wish to be seen himself; and he managed to re-enter his room noiselessly and unseen. It was high time, for a moment after he heard Mame Bougon going out, and the house-gate shutting.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
A SONG TO AN ENGLISH AIR POPULAR IN 1832.
Marius sat down on his bed: it might be about half-past five, and only half an hour separated him from what was about to happen. He heard his arteries beat as you hear the ticking of a clock in the darkness, and he thought of the double march which was taking place at this moment in the shadows,—crime advancing on one side, and justice coming up on the other. He was not frightened, but he could not think without a certain tremor of the things that were going to happen, like all those who are suddenly assailed by a surprising adventure. This whole day produced on him the effect of a dream, and in order not to believe himself the prey of a nightmare he was obliged to feel in his pockets the cold barrels of the pistols. It no longer snowed; the moon, now very bright, dissipated the mist, and its rays, mingled with the white reflection from the fallen snow, imparted a twilight appearance to the room. There was a light in Jondrette's room, and Marius could see the hole in the partition glowing with a ruddy brilliancy that appeared to him the color of blood. It was evident that this light could not be produced by a candle. There was no movement in the den, no one stirred there, no one spoke, there was not a breath; the silence was chilling and profound, and had it not been for the light, Marius might have fancied himself close to a grave. He gently took off his boots and thrust them under the bed. Several minutes elapsed, and then Marius heard the house-gate creaking on its hinges, a heavy quick step ran up the stairs and along the passage, the hasp of the door was noisily raised; it was Jondrette returned home. All at once several voices were raised, and it was plain that the whole family were at home. They were merely silent in the master's absence, like the whelps in the absence of the wolves.
"It is I," he said.
"Good evening, pappy," the girls yelped.
"Well?" the wife asked.
"All is well," Jondrette answered, "but I am cold as a starved dog. That's right, I am glad to see that you are dressed, for it inspires confidence."
"All ready to go out."
"You will not forget anything that I told you? You will do it all right."
"Of course."
"Because—" Jondrette began, but did not complete the sentence.
Marius heard him lay something heavy on the table, probably the chisel which he had bought.
"Well," Jondrette continued, "have you been eating here?"
"Yes," said the mother; "I bought three large potatoes and some salt. I took advantage of the fire to roast them."
"Good!" Jondrette remarked; "to-morrow you will dine with me: we will have a duck and trimmings, and you will feed like Charles the Tenth."
Then he added, lowering his voice,—
"The mousetrap is open, and the cats are here."
He again lowered his voice and said,—
"Put this in the fire."
Marius heard a clicking of coals stirred with pincers or some iron tool, and Jondrette ask,—
"Have you tallowed the hinges of the door, so that they may make no noise?"
"Yes," the mother answered.
"What o'clock is it?"
"Close on six. It has struck the half-hour at St. Médard."
"Hang it!" said Jondrette, "the girls must go on the watch. Come here and listen to me."
There was a whispering, and then Jondrette's voice was again uplifted.
"Has Mame Bougon gone?"
"Yes," the mother answered.
"Are you sure there is nobody in the neighbor's room?"
"He has not come in all day, and you know that this is his dinner hour."
"Are you sure?"
"Quite."
"No matter," Jondrette added; "there is no harm in going to see whether he is in. Daughter, take the candle and go."
Marius fell on his hands and knees and silently crawled under the bed; he had scarce done so ere he saw light through the cracks of his door.
"Papa," a voice exclaimed, "he is out."
He recognized the elder girl's voice.
"Have you been in his room?" the lather asked.
"No," the girl replied; "but as his key is in his door he has gone out"
The father shouted,—
"Go in, all the same."
The door opened, and Marius saw the girl come in, candle in hand. She was the same as in the morning, save that she was even more fearful in this light. She walked straight up to the bed, and Marius suffered a moment of intense anxiety; but there was a looking-glass hanging from a nail by the bedside, and it was to that she proceeded. She stood on tip-toe and looked at herself; a noise of iron being moved could be heard in the other room. She smoothed her hair with her hand, and smiled in the glass while singing, in her cracked and sepulchral voice,—
"Nos amours out duré toute une semaine,
Mais que du bonheur les instants sont courts,
S'adorer huit jours c'était bien la peine!
Le temps des amours devrait durer toujours!
Devrait durer toujours! devrait durer toujours."
Still Marius trembled, for he thought that she could not help hearing his breathing. She walked to the window and looked out, while saying aloud with the half-crazy look she had,—
"How ugly Paris is when it has put on a white sheet!"
She returned to the glass, and began taking a fresh look at herself, first full face and then three-quarters.
"Well," asked the father, "what are you doing there?"
"I am looking under the bed and the furniture," she said, as she continued to smooth her hair; "but there is nobody."
"You she-devil!" the father yelled. "Come here directly, and lose no time."
"Coming, coming," she said; "there's no time to do anything here."
Then she hummed,—
"Vous me quittez pour aller à la gloire,
Mon triste cœur suivra partout vos pas."
She took a parting glance at the glass and went off, closing the door after her. A moment later Marius heard the sound of the girls' naked feet pattering along the passage, and Jondrette's voice shouting to them,—
"Pay attention! One at the barrière, and the other at the corner of the Rue du Petit Banquier. Do not for a minute lose sight of the door of the house, and if you see anything come back at once—at once; you have a key to let yourselves in."
The elder daughter grumbled,—
"To stand sentry barefooted in the snow, what a treat!"
"To-morrow you shall have beetle-colored silk boots," the father said.
They went down the stain, and a few seconds later the sound of the gate closing below announced that they had reached the street. The only persons in the house now were Marius, the Jondrettes, and probably, too, the mysterious beings of whom Marius had caught a glimpse in the gloom behind the door of the unoccupied room.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
THE USE OF MARIUS'S FIVE-FRANC PIECE.
Marius judged that the moment had arrived for him to return to his observatory. In a second, and with the agility of his age, he was at the hole in the partition, and peeped through. The interior of Jondrette's lodging offered a strange appearance, and Marius was able to account for the peculiar light he had noticed. A candle was burning in a verdigrised candlestick, but it was not this which really illumined the room; the whole den was lit up with the ruddy glow of a brazier standing in the fire-place, and filled with incandescent charcoal; it was the heating-dish which the wife had prepared in the morning. The charcoal was glowing and the heating-dish red; a bluish flame played round it, and rendered it easy to recognize the shape of the chisel purchased by Jondrette, which was heating in the charcoal. In a corner, near the door, could be seen two heaps,—one apparently of old iron, the other of ropes, arranged for some anticipated purpose. All this, to a person who did not know what was going to occur, would have made his mind vacillate between a very simple and a very sinister idea. The room, thus lit up, resembled a forge more than a mouth of hell; but Jondrette, in this light, was more like a demon than a blacksmith.
The heat of the coal-fire was so great that the candle on the table was melted and guttering on the side turned toward it. An old copper dark-lantern, worthy of a Diogenes who had turned Cartouche, was standing on the mantel-piece. The heating-dish, which stood in the fire-place close to the decaying logs, sent its smoke up the chimney, and thus produced no smell. The moon, which found its way through the skylight, poured its whiteness on the purple and flashing garret, and to the poetic mind of Marius, who was a dreamer even in the moment of action, it was like a thought of heaven mingled with the shapeless dreams of earth. A breath of air, that penetrated through the broken pane, also helped to dissipate the smell of charcoal and conceal the heating-dish. Jondrette's den, if our readers remember what we have said about the house, was admirably selected to serve as the scene of a violent and dark deed, and as a covert for crime. It was the farthest room in the most isolated house on the most deserted Parisian boulevard; and if ambushes did not exist they would have been invented there. The whole length of a house and a number of uninhabited rooms separated this lair from the boulevard, and the only window in it looked out on fields enclosed by walls and fences. Jondrette had lit his pipe, was seated on the bottomless chair and smoking, and his wife was speaking to him in a low voice.
If Marius had been Courfeyrac, that is to say, one of those men who laugh at every opportunity, he would have burst into a roar when his eye fell on Mother Jondrette. She had on a bonnet with black feathers, like the hats worn by the heralds at the coronation of Charles X., an immense tartan shawl over her cotton skirt, and the man's shoes which her daughter had disdained in the morning. It was this attire which drew from Jondrette the exclamation, "That's right; I am glad to see that you are dressed, for it inspires confidence." As for Jondrette, he had not taken off the new coat which M. Leblanc had given him, and his dress continued to offer that contrast between trousers and coat which constituted in Courfeyrac's sight the ideal of the poet. All at once Jondrette raised his voice:—
"By the way, in such weather as this he will come in a hackney coach. Light your lamp and go down, and keep behind the front gate; when you hear the vehicle stop you will open the gate at once, light him upstairs and along the passage, and when he has come in here you will go down as quickly as you can, pay the coachman, and discharge him."
"Where is the money to come from?" the woman asked.
Jondrette felt in his pocket, and gave her five francs.
"What is this?" she exclaimed.
"The monarch which our neighbor gave us this morning," responded Jondrette with dignity, and added, "we shall want two chairs, though."
"What for?"
"Why, to sit down!"
Marius shuddered on hearing the woman make the quiet answer,—
"Well, I will go and fetch our neighbor's."
And with a rapid movement she opened the door and stepped into the passage. Marius had not really the time to get off the drawers and hide under his bed.
"Take the candle!" Jondrette shouted.
"No," she said, "it would bother me, for I have two chairs to carry. Besides, the moon is shining."
Marius heard the heavy hand of Mother Jondrette fumbling for his key in the darkness. The door opened, and he remained nailed to his post by alarm and stupor. The woman came in; the sky-light sent a moonbeam between two large patches of shade, and one of these patches entirely covered the wall against which Marius was standing, so that he disappeared. Mother Jondrette did not see Marius, took the two chairs,—the only two that Marius possessed,—and went off, noisily slamming the door after her. She re-entered the den.
"Here are the two chairs."
"And here is the lantern," the husband said; "make haste down."
She hastily obeyed, and Jondrette remained alone.
He placed the chairs on either side of the table, turned the chisel in the heating-dish, placed in front of the fire-place an old screen, which concealed the charcoal-pan, and then went to the corner where the heap of rope lay, and stooped down as if examining something. Marius then perceived that what he had taken for a shapeless heap was a rope-ladder, very well made with wooden rungs, and two hooks to hang it by. This ladder and a few large tools, perfect crowbars, which were mingled with the heap of old iron in the corner, had not been there in the morning, and had evidently been brought in the afternoon, during the absence of Marius.
"They are edge-tool makers' implements", Marius thought.
Had he been a little better acquainted with the trade he would have recognized, in what he took for tool-makers' gear, certain instruments that could force or pick a lock, and others that could cut or pierce,—the two families of sinister tools which burglars call "cadets" and "fauchants." The fire-place, the table, and the two chairs were exactly opposite Marius, and as the charcoal-pan was concealed, the room was only illumined by the candle, and the smallest article on the table or the chimney-piece cast a long shadow; a cracked water-jug hid half a wall. There was in this room a hideous and menacing calm, and an expectation of something awful could be felt. Jondrette had let his pipe go out,—a sign of deep thought,—and had just sat down again. The candle caused the stern and fierce angles of his face to stand out; he was frowning, and suddenly thrust out his right hand now and then, as if answering the final counsels of a dark internal soliloquy. In one of the obscure replies he made to himself he opened the table-drawer, took out a long carving-knife hidden in it, and felt its edge on his thumb-nail. This done, he put the knife in the drawer, which he closed again. Marius, on his side, drew the pistol from his pocket and cocked it, which produced a sharp, clicking sound. Jondrette started, and half rose from his chair.
"Who's that?" he shouted.
Marius held his breath. Jondrette listened for a moment, and then said laughingly,—
"What an ass I am! It is the partition creaking."
Marius kept the pistol in his hand.
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
THE TWO CHAIRS FACE TO FACE.
At this moment the distant and melancholy vibration of a bell shook the windows; six o'clock was striking at St. Médard. Jondrette marked each stroke by a shake of the head, and when he had counted the last he snuffed the candle with his fingers. Then he began walking up and down the room, listened at the door, began walking again, and then listened once more. "If he comes!" he growled, and then returned to his chair. He was hardly seated ere the door opened. Mother Jondrette had opened it, and remained in the passage making a horrible grimace, which one of the holes in the dark lantern lit up from below.
"Step in, sir," she said.
"Enter, my benefactor!" Jondrette repeated as he hurriedly rose.
M. Leblanc appeared with that air of serenity which rendered him singularly venerable. He laid four louis on the table.
"Monsieur Fabantou, here is the money for your rent, and something more to put you a little straight. After that we will see."
"May Heaven repay you, my generous: benefactor!" said Jondrette, and then rapidly approached his wife.
"Dismiss the coach."
She slipped away, while her husband made an infinitude of bows, and offered a chair to M. Leblanc. A moment after she returned, and whispered in his ear, "All right!"
The snow, which had not ceased to fall since morning, was now so thick that neither the arrival nor the departure of the coach had been heard. M. Leblanc had seated himself, and Jondrette now took possession of the chair opposite to him. And now the reader, in order to form an idea of the scene which is about to be acted, will kindly imagine the freezing night, the solitudes of the Salpêtrière covered with snow and white in the moonlight, like an immense winding-sheet, and the light of the lamps throwing a red glow here and there over these tragic boulevards and the long rows of black elms: not a passer-by for a quarter of a league round, and the Maison Gorbeau at its highest point of silence, horror, and night. In this house, amid this solitude and darkness, is Jondrette's spacious garret lit by a candle, and in this den two men are sitting at a table,—M. Leblanc calm, Jondrette smiling and terrible. Mother Jondrette, the she-wolf, is in a corner, and behind the partition, Marius, invisible, but not losing a word or a movement, with his eye on the watch, and pistols in hand. Marius, however, only felt an emotion of horror, but no fear: he clutched the butt of the pistol, and said to himself, feeling reassured, "I can stop the scoundrel whenever I like." He felt that the police were somewhere in ambush, waiting for the appointed signal, and all ready to aid. In addition, he hoped that from this violent encounter between Jondrette and M. Leblanc some light would be thrown on all that he had an interest in knowing.
[CHAPTER XIX.]
TREATING OF DARK DEPTHS.
M. Leblanc was scarce seated ere he turned his eyes to the beds, which were empty.
"How is the poor little wounded girl?" he asked.
"Very bad," Jondrette replied with a heart-broken and grateful smile. "Very bad, my good sir. Her elder sister has taken her to La Bourbe to have her hand dressed. But you will see them, as they will return almost immediately."
"Madame Fabantou seems to me better?" M. Leblanc continued, taking a glance at the strange garb of Mother Jondrette, who, standing between him and the door, as if already guarding the outlet, was looking at him in a menacing and almost combative posture.
"She is dying," Jondrette said. "But what would you have, sir? That woman has so much courage. She is not a woman, but an ox."
Mother Jondrette, affected by the compliment, protested with the affectation of a flattered monster,—
"You are always too kind to me, Monsieur Jondrette."
"Jondrette?" said M. Leblanc; "why, I thought your name was Fabantou."
"Fabantou alias Jondrette," the husband quickly replied,—"a professional name."
And throwing at his wife a shrug of the shoulders which M. Leblanc did not see, he continued with an emphatic and caressing inflection of voice,—
"Ah! that poor dear and I have ever lived happily together, for what would be left us if we had not that, we are so wretched, respectable sir? I have arms, but no labor; a heart, but no work. I do not know how the Government manage it, but, on my word of honor, sir, I am no Jacobin, I wish them no harm; but if I were the ministers, on my most sacred word, things would go differently. For instance, I wished my daughters to learn the trade of making paper boxes. You will say to me, 'What! a trade?' Yes, a trade, a simple trade, a bread-winner. What a fall, my benefactor! What degradation, after persons have been in such circumstances as we were! But, alas! nothing is left us from our prosperous days. Nothing but one article,—a picture, to which I cling, but which I am ready to part with, as we must live."
While Jondrette was saying this with a sort of apparent disorder, which did not in any way alter the thoughtful and sagacious expression of his face, Marius raised his eyes and saw some one at the back of the room whom he had not seen before. A man had just entered, but so softly that the hinges had not been heard to creak. This man had on a violet knitted jacket, old, worn, stained, and full of holes, wide cotton-velvet trousers, thick socks on his feet, and no shirt; his neck was bare, his arms were naked and tattooed, and his face was daubed with black. He seated himself silently, and with folded arms, on the nearest bed, and as he was behind Mother Jondrette, he could be but dimly distinguished. That sort of magnetic instinct which warns the eye caused M. Leblanc to turn almost at the same moment as Marius. He could not suppress a start of surprise, which Jondrette noticed.
"Ah, I see," Jondrette exclaimed, as he buttoned his coat complacently, "you are looking at your surtout? It fits me, really fits me capitally."
"Who is that man?" M. Leblanc asked.
"That?" said Jondrette; "oh, a neighbor; pay no attention to him."
The neighbor looked singular, but chemical factories abound in the Faubourg St. Marceau, and a workman may easily have a black face. M. Leblanc's whole person displayed a confident and intrepid candor as he continued,—
"I beg your pardon, but what were you saying, M. Fabantou?"
"I was saying, Monsieur, and dear protector," Jondrette replied, as he placed his elbows on the table and gazed at M. Leblanc with fixed and tender eyes, very like those of a boa-constrictor,—"I was saying that I had a picture to sell."
There was a slight noise at the door; a second man came in and seated himself on the bed behind Mother Jondrette. Like the first, he had bare arms and a mask, either of ink or soot. Though this man literally glided into the room, he could not prevent M. Leblanc noticing him.
"Take no heed," said Jondrette; "they are men living in the house. I was saying that I had a valuable picture left; look here, sir."
He rose, walked to the wall, against which the panel to which we have already referred was leaning, and turned it round, while still letting it rest on the wall. It was something, in fact, that resembled a picture, and which the candle almost illumined. Marius could distinguish nothing, as Jondrette was standing between him and the picture; but he fancied he could catch a glimpse of a coarse daub, and a sort of principal character standing out of the canvas with the bold crudity of a showman's pictures and screen paintings.
"What is that?" M. Leblanc asked.
Jondrette exclaimed,—
"A masterpiece, a most valuable picture, my benefactor! I am as much attached to it as I am to my daughters, for it recalls dear memories. But, as I told you,—and I will not go back from my word,—I am willing to dispose of it, as we are in such poverty."
Either by accident, or some vague feeling of anxiety, M. Leblanc's eye, while examining the picture, returned to the end of the room. There were now four men there, three seated on the bed and one leaning against the door-post, but all four bare-armed, motionless, and with blackened faces. One of those on the bed was leaning against the wall with closed eyes and apparently asleep; this one was old, and the white hair on the blackened face was horrible. The other two were young,—one was hairy, the other bearded. Not a single one had shoes, and those who did not wear socks were barefooted. Jondrette remarked that M. Leblanc's eyes rested on these men.
"They are friends, neighbors," he said; "their faces are black because they work about the coal. They are chimney-menders. Do not trouble yourself about them, sir, but buy my picture. Have pity on my misery. I will not ask much for it; what value do you set upon it?"
"Well," M. Leblanc said, looking Jondrette full in the face, like a man setting himself on guard, "it is some pot-house sign, and worth about three francs."
Jondrette replied gently,—
"Have you your pocket-book about you? I shall be satisfied with a thousand crowns."
M. Leblanc rose, set his back against the wall, and took a hurried glance round the room. He had Jondrette on his left by the window, and on his right the woman and the four men by the door. The four men did not stir, and did not even appear to see him. Jondrette had begun talking again with a plaintive accent, and with such a wandering eye that M. Leblanc might fairly believe that he simply had before him a man driven mad by misery.
"If you do not buy my picture, dear benefactor," Jondrette said, "I have no resource remaining, and nothing is left me but to throw myself into the river. When I think that I wished my two daughters to learn how to make paper boxes for new-year's gifts—Well, for that you require a table with a backboard to prevent the glasses falling on the ground, a stove made expressly, a pot with three compartments for the three different degrees of strength which the glue must have, according as it is used for wood, paper, and cloth; a board to cut pasteboard on, a hammer, a pair of pincers, and the deuce knows what, and all that to gain four sous a day! And you must work fourteen hours; and each box passes thirteen times through the hands of the work-girl; and moistening the paper, and not spoiling anything; and keeping the glue hot—the devil! I tell you, four sous a day! How do you expect them to live?"
While speaking, Jondrette did not look at M. Leblanc, who was watching him. M. Leblanc's eye was fixed on Jondrette, and Jondrette's on the door, while Marius's gasping attention went from one to the other. M. Leblanc seemed to be asking himself. Is he a lunatic? And Jondrette repeated twice or thrice with all sorts of varied inflections in the suppliant style, "All that is left me is to throw myself into the river! The other day I went for that purpose down three steps by the side of the bridge of Austerlitz." All at once his eyes glistened with a hideous radiance, the little man drew himself up and became frightful, he walked a step toward M. Leblanc, and shouted in a thundering voice,—
"All this is not the question! Do you recognize me?"
[CHAPTER XX.]
THE TRAP.
The attic door was torn open, and three men in blue cloth blouses and wearing masks of black paper came in. The first was thin, and carried an iron—shod cudgel; the second, who was a species of Colossus, held a butcher's pole-axe by the middle of the handle, with the hatchet down; while the third, a broad-shouldered fellow, not so thin as the first but not stout as the second, was armed with an enormous key stolen from some prison-gate. It seemed as if Jondrette had been awaiting the arrival of these men, and a hurried conversation took place between him and the man with the cudgel.
"Is all ready?" asked Jondrette.
"Yes," the thin man replied.
"Where is Montparnasse?"
"That jeune premier has stopped to talk to your eldest daughter."
"Is there a coach down there?"
"Yes."
"With two good horses?"
"Excellent."
"Is it waiting where I ordered?"
"Yes."
"All right," said Jondrette.
M. Leblanc was very pale. He looked all round the room like a man who understands into what a snare he has fallen, and his head, turned toward all the heads that surrounded him, moved on his neck with an attentive and surprised slowness, but there was nothing in his appearance that resembled fear. He had formed an improvised bulwark of the table, and this man, who a moment before merely looked like an old man, had suddenly become an athlete, and laid his robust fist on the back of his chair with a formidable and surprising gesture. This old man, so firm and brave in the presence of such a danger, seemed to possess one of those natures which are courageous in the same way as they are good,—easily and simply. The father of a woman we love is never a stranger to us, and Marius felt proud of this unknown man.
Three of the men whom Jondrette called chimney-menders had taken from the mass of iron, one a large pair of shears, another a crowbar for moving weights, and the third a hammer, and posted themselves in front of the door without saying a word. The old man remained on the bed, merely opening his eyes, and Mother Jondrette was sitting by his side. Marius thought that the moment for interference was at hand, and raised his right hand to the ceiling in the direction of the passage, ready to fire his pistol. Jondrette, after finishing his colloquy with the three men, turned again to M. Leblanc, and repeated the question with that low, restrained, and terrible laugh of his,—
"Do you not recognize me?"
M. Leblanc looked him in the face and answered, "No!"
Jondrette then went up to the table; he bent over the candle with folded arms, and placed his angular and ferocious face as close as he could to M. Leblanc's placid face, and in this posture of a wild beast which is going to bite he exclaimed,—
"My name is not Fabantou or Jondrette, but my name is Thénardier, the landlord of the inn at Montfermeil! Do you hear me,—Thénardier? Now do you recognize me?"
An almost imperceptible flush shot athwart M. Leblanc's forehead, and he answered, with his ordinary placidity, and without the slightest tremor in his voice,—
"No more than before."
Marius did not hear this answer, and any one who had seen him at this moment in the darkness would have found him haggard, stunned, and crushed. At the moment when Jondrette said, "My name is Thénardier," Marius trembled in all his limbs, and he leaned against the wall, as if he felt a cold sword-blade thrust through his heart. Then his right hand, raised in readiness to fire, slowly dropped, and at the moment when Jondrette repeated, "Do you hear me,—Thénardier?" Marius's relaxing fingers almost let the pistol fall. Jondrette, by revealing who he was, did not affect M. Leblanc, but he stunned Marius, for he knew this name of Thénardier, which was apparently unknown to M. Leblanc. Only remember what that name was for him! He had carried it in his heart, recorded in his father's will! He bore it in the deepest shrine of his memory in the sacred recommendation,—"A man of the name of Thénardier saved my life; if my son meet this man he will do all he can for him." This name, it will be remembered, was one of the pieties of his soul, and he blended it with his father's name in his worship. What! this man was Thénardier, the landlord of Montfermeil, whom he had so long and so vainly sought! He found him now, and in what a state! His father's savior was a bandit! This man, to whom Marius burned to devote himself, was a monster! The liberator of Colonel Pontmercy was on the point of committing a crime whose outline Marius could not yet see very distinctly, but which resembled an assassination! And on whom? Great Heaven, what a fatality; what a bitter mockery of fate! His father commanded him from his tomb to do all in his power for Thénardier. During four years Marius had had no other idea but to pay this debt of his father's; and at the very moment when he was about to deliver over to justice a brigand in the act of crime, destiny cried to him, "It is Thénardier!" and he was at length about to requite this man for saving his father's life amid a hailstorm of grape-shot on the heroic field of Waterloo, by sending him to the scaffold! He had vowed that if ever he found this Thénardier he would throw himself at his feet; and he had found him, but for the purpose of handing him over to the executioner! His father said to him, "Help Thénardier," and he was about to answer that adored and sacred voice by crushing Thénardier; to show his father in his grave the spectacle of the man who had dragged him from death at the peril of his own life being executed on the Place St. Jacques by the agency of his son, that Marius to whom he bequeathed this name! And then what a derision it was to have so long carried in his heart the last wishes of his father in order to perform exactly the contrary! But, on the other hand, how could he witness a murder and not prevent it? What! should he condemn the victim and spare the assassin? Could he be bound by any ties of gratitude to such a villain? All the ideas which Marius had entertained for four years were, as it were, run through the body by this unexpected stroke. He trembled; all depended on him; and he held in his hands the unconscious beings who were moving before his eyes. If he fired the pistol, M. Leblanc was saved and Thénardier lost; if he did not fire, M. Leblanc was sacrificed and Thénardier might, perhaps, escape. Must he hunt down the one, or let the other fall? There was remorse on either side. What should he do? Which should he choose,—be a defaulter to the most imperious recollections, to so many profound pledges taken to himself, to the most sacred duty, to the most venerated commands, disobey his father's will, or let a crime be accomplished? On one side he fancied he could hear "his Ursule" imploring him for her father, on the other the Colonel recommending Thénardier to him. He felt as if he were going mad. His knees gave way under him, and he had not even time to deliberate, as the scene he had before him was being performed with such furious precipitation. It was a tornado of which he had fancied himself the master, but which was carrying him away: he was on the verge of fainting.
In the mean while Thénardier (we will not call him otherwise in future) was walking up and down before the table with a sort of wild and frenzied triumph. He seized the candlestick and placed it on the chimney-piece with such a violent blow that the candle nearly went out, and the tallow spattered the wall. Then he turned round furiously to M. Leblanc and spat forth these words:—
"Done brown! grilled, fricasseed! spatch-cocked!"
And he began walking again with a tremendous explosion.
"Ah! I have found you again, my excellent philanthropist, my millionnaire with the threadbare coat, the giver of dolls, the old niggard! Ah, you do not recognize me! I suppose it was n't you who came to my inn at Montfermeil just eight years ago, on the Christmas night of 1823! It was n't you who carried off Fantine's child, the Lark! It was n't you who wore a yellow watchman's coat, and had a parcel of clothes in your hand, just as you had this morning! Tell me, wife! It is his mania, it appears, to carry to houses bundles of woollen stockings,—the old charitable humbug! Are you a cap-maker, my Lord Millionnaire? You give your profits to the poor—what a holy man! what a mountebank! Ah, you do not recognize me! Well, I recognize you, and did so directly you thrust your muzzle in here. Ah, you will be taught that it is not a rosy game to go like that to people's houses, under the excuse that they are inns, with such a wretched coat and poverty-stricken look that they feel inclined to give you a son, and then, to play the generous, rob them of their bread-winner and threaten them in the woods! I'll teach you that you won't get off by bringing people when they are ruined a coat that is too large, and two paltry hospital blankets, you old scamp, you child-stealer!"
He stopped, and for a moment seemed to be speaking to himself. It appeared as if his fury fell into some hole, like the Rhone: then, as if finishing aloud the things he had just been saying to himself, he struck the table with his fist, and cried,—
"With his simple look!"
Then he apostrophized M. Leblanc.
"By heaven! you made a fool of me formerly, and are the cause of all my misfortunes. You got for fifteen hundred francs a girl who certainly belonged to rich parents, who had already brought me in a deal of money, and from whom I should have got an annuity! That girl would have made up to me all I lost in that wretched pot-house, where I threw away like an ass all my blessed savings! Oh, I wish that what was drunk at my house were poison to those who drank it! However, no matter! Tell me, I suppose you thought me a precious fool when you went off with the Lark! You had your cudgel in the forest, and were the stronger. To-day I shall have my revenge, for I hold all the trumps; you are done, my good fellow! Oh, how I laugh when I think that he fell into the trap! I told him that I was an actor, that my name was Fabantou, that I had played comedy with Mamselle Mars, with Mamselle Muche, and that my landlord insisted on being paid the next day; and he did not even remember that January 8 and not February 4 is quarter-day,—the absurd idiot! And he has brought me these four paltry philippes, the ass! He had not the pluck to go as far as five hundred francs. And how he swallowed my platitudes! It amused me, and I said to myself, 'There's an ass for you! Well, I have got you; this morning I licked your paws, and to-night I shall gnaw your heart!'"
Thénardier stopped, out of breath. His little narrow chest panted like a forge-bellows; his eye was full of the ignoble happiness of a weak, cruel, and cowardly creature who is at length able to trample on the man he feared, and insult him whom he flattered; it is the joy of a dwarf putting his heel on the head of Goliath, the joy of a jackal beginning to rend a sick bull so near death as to be unable to defend itself, but with enough vitality to still suffer. M. Leblanc did not interrupt him, but said, when he ceased speaking,—
"I do not know what you mean, and you are mistaken. I am a very poor man, and anything but a millionnaire. I do not know you, and you take me for somebody else."
"Ah!" Thénardier said hoarsely, "a fine dodge! So you adhere to that joke, eh, old fellow? Ah, you do not remember, you do not see who I am!"
"Pardon me, sir," M. Leblanc replied, with a polite accent, which had something strange and grand about it at such a moment, "I see that you are a bandit."
We may remind those who have not noticed the fact, that odious beings possess a susceptibility, and that monsters are ticklish. At the word "bandit," Mother Thénardier leaped from the bed, and her husband clutched a chair as if about to break it in his hand. "Don't stir, you!" he shouted to his wife, and then turning to M. Leblanc, said,—
"Bandit! yes, I know that you rich swells call us so. It is true that I have been bankrupt. I am in hiding, I have no bread, I have not a farthing, and I am a bandit! For three days I have eaten nothing, and I am a bandit! Ah, you fellows warm your toes, your wear pumps made by Sakoski, you have wadded coats like archbishops, you live on the first floors of houses where a porter is kept, you eat truffles, asparagus at forty francs the bundle in January, and green peas. You stuff yourselves, and when you want to know whether it is cold you look in the newspaper to see what Chevalier's thermometer marks; but we are the thermometers. We have no call to go and look at the corner of the Jour d'Horloge how many degrees of cold there are, for we feel the blood stopped in our veins, and the ice reach our hearts, and we say, 'There is no God!' and you come into our caverns,—yes, our caverns,—to call us bandits! But we will eat you, we will devour you, poor little chap! Monsieur le Millionnaire, learn this: I was an established man, I held a license, I was an elector, and am still a citizen, while you, perhaps, are not one!"
Here Thénardier advanced a step toward the men near the door, and added with a quiver,—
"When I think that he dares to come and address me like a cobbler!"
Then he turned upon M. Leblanc with a fresh outburst of frenzy,—
"And know this, too, my worthy philanthropist, I am not a doubtful man, or one whose name is unknown, and carries off children from houses! I am an ex-French soldier, and ought to have the cross! I was at Waterloo, and in the battle I saved the life of a General called the Comte de—I don't know what. He told me his name, but his dog of a voice was so feeble that I did not understand it. I only understood Merci. I should have liked his name better than his thanks. It would have helped me find him, by all that's great and glorious! The picture you see here, and which was painted by David at Bruqueselles, do you know whom it represents? It represents me, for David wished to immortalize the exploit. I have the General on my back, and I am carrying him through the grape-shot. That is the story! The General never did anything for me, and he is no better than the rest; but, for all that, I saved his life at the peril of my own, and I have my pockets filled with certificates of the fact. I am a soldier of Waterloo! And now that I have had the goodness to tell you all this, let us come to a finish; I want money, I want a deal of money, an enormous amount of money, or I shall exterminate you, by the thunder of heaven!"
Marius had gained a little mastery over his agony, and was listening. The last possibility of doubt had vanished, and it was really the Thénardier of the will. Marius shuddered at the charge of ingratitude cast at his father, and which he was on the point of justifying so fatally, and his perplexities were redoubled. Besides, there was in Thénardier's every word, in his accent and gestures, in his glance, which caused flames to issue from every word, in this explosion of an evil nature displaying everything, in this admixture of boasting and abjectness, pride and meanness, rage and folly, in this chaos of real griefs and false sentiments, in this impudence of a wicked man enjoying the pleasure of violence, in this daring nudity of an ugly soul, and in this conflagration of every suffering combined with every hatred, something which was hideous as evil and poignant as truth.
The masterpiece, the picture by David, which he offered M. Leblanc, was, as the reader will have perceived, nought else than his public-house sign, painted by himself, and the sole relic he had preserved from his shipwreck at Montfermeil. As he had stepped aside Marius was now enabled to look at this thing, and in the daub he really recognized a battle, a background of smoke, and one man carrying another. It was the group of Thénardier and Pontmercy,—the savior sergeant and the saved colonel. Marius felt as if intoxicated, for this picture represented to some extent his loving father; it was no longer an inn sign-board but a resurrection; a tomb opened, a phantom rose. Marius heard his heart ringing at his temples; he had the guns of Waterloo in his ears; his bleeding father vaguely painted on this ill-omened board startled him, and he fancied that the shapeless figure was gazing fixedly at him. When Thénardier regained breath he fastened his bloodshot eyes on M. Leblanc, and said to him in a low, sharp voice,—
"What have you to say before we put the screw on you?"
M. Leblanc was silent. In the midst of this silence a hoarse voice uttered this grim sarcasm in the passage,—
"If there's any wood to be chopped, I'm your man."
It was the fellow with the pole-axe amusing himself. At the same time an immense, hairy, earth-colored face appeared in the door with a frightful grin, which displayed not teeth but tusks. It was the face of the man with the pole-axe.
"Why have you taken off your mask?" Thénardier asked him furiously.
"To laugh," the man answered.
For some minutes past M. Leblanc seemed to be watching and following every movement of Thénardier, who, blinded and dazzled by his own rage, was walking up and down the room, in the confidence of knowing the door guarded, of holding an unarmed man, and of being nine against one, even supposing that his wife only counted for one man. In his speech to the man with the pole-axe he turned his back to M. Leblanc; the latter seizing the moment, upset the chair with his foot, the table with his fist, and with one bound, ere Thénardier was able to turn, he was at the window. To open it and bestride the sill took only a second, and he was half out, when six powerful hands seized him and energetically dragged him back into the room. The three "chimney-sweeps" had rushed upon him, and at the same time Mother Thénardier seized him by the hair. At the noise which ensued the other bandits ran in from the passage, and the old man on the bed, who seemed the worse for liquor, came up tottering with a road-mender's hammer in his hand. One of the sweeps, whose blackened face the candle lit up, and in whom Marius recognized, in spite of the blackening, Panchaud alias Printanier alias Bigrenaille, raised above M. Leblanc's head a species of life-preserver, made of two lumps of lead at the ends of an iron bar. Marius could not resist this sight. "My father," he thought, "forgive me!" and his finger sought the trigger. He was on the point of firing, when Thénardier cried,—
"Do not hurt him!"
This desperate attempt of the victim, far from exasperating Thénardier, had calmed him. There were two men in him,—the ferocious man and the skilful man. Up to this moment, in the exuberance of triumph, and while standing before his motionless victim, the ferocious man had prevailed; but when the victim made an effort and appeared inclined to struggle, the skilful man reappeared and took the mastery.
"Do him no harm!" he repeated; and his first service was, though he little suspected it, that he stopped the discharge of the pistol and paralyzed Marius, to whom the affair did not appear so urgent, and who in the presence of this new phase saw no harm in waiting a little longer. Who knew whether some accident might not occur which would deliver him from the frightful alternative of letting Ursule's father perish, or destroying the Colonels savior? A herculean struggle had commenced. With one blow of his fist in the chest M. Leblanc sent the old man rolling in the middle of the room, and then with two back-handers knocked down two other assailants, and held one under each of his knees. The villains groaned under this pressure as under a granite mill-stone; but the four others had seized the formidable old man by the arms and neck, and were holding him down upon the two "chimney-menders." Thus, master of two, and mastered by the others, crushing those beneath him, and crushed by those above him, M. Leblanc disappeared beneath this horrible group of bandits, like a boar attacked by a howling pack of dogs. They succeeded in throwing him on to the bed nearest the window, and held him down. Mother Thénardier did not once let go his hair.
"Don't you interfere," Thénardier said to her; "you will tear your shawl."
The woman obeyed, as the she-wolf obeys the wolf, with a snarl.
"You fellows," Thénardier continued, "can search him."
M. Leblanc appeared to have given up all thought of resistance, and they searched him. He had nothing about him but a leathern purse containing six francs and his handkerchief. Thénardier put the latter in his own pocket.
"What! no pocket-book?" he asked.
"No, and no watch," one of the "chimney-menders" replied.
"No matter," the masked man who held the large key muttered in the voice of a ventriloquist, "he is a tough old bird."
Thénardier went to the corner near the door, and took up some ropes, which he threw to them.
"Fasten him to the foot of the bed," he said; and noticing the old man whom M. Leblanc had knocked down still motionless on the floor, he asked,—
"Is Boulatruelle dead?"
"No," Bigrenaille answered, "he's drunk."
"Sweep him into a corner," Thénardier said.
Two of the "chimney-menders" thrust the drunkard with their feet to the side of the old iron.
"Babet, why did you bring so many?" Thénardier said in a whisper to the man with the cudgel; "it was unnecessary."
"They all wanted to be in it," the man answered, "for the season is bad, and there's nothing doing."
The bed upon which M. Leblanc had been thrown was a sort of hospital bed, on four clumsy wooden legs. M. Leblanc made no resistance. The bandits tied him firmly in an upright posture to the end of the bed, farthest from the window and nearest the chimney-piece. When the last knot was tied, Thénardier took a chair and sat down almost facing the prisoner. He was no longer the same man; in a few minutes his countenance had passed from frenzied violence to tranquil and cunning gentleness. Marius had a difficulty in recognizing in this polite smile of an official the almost bestial mouth which had been foaming a moment previously; he regarded this fantastic and alarming metamorphosis with stupor, and he felt as a man would feel who saw a tiger changed into an attorney.
"Sir," said Thénardier, and made a sign to the bandits who still held M. Leblanc to fall back;—"leave me to talk with the gentleman," he said. All withdrew to the door, and he resumed,—
"You did wrong to try and jump out of the window, for you might have broken a leg. Now, with your permission, we will talk quietly; and, in the first place, I will communicate to you a thing I have noticed,—that you have not yet uttered the slightest cry."
Thénardier was right; the fact was so, although it had escaped Marius in his trouble. M. Leblanc had merely said a few words without raising his voice, and even in his struggle near the window with the six bandits he had preserved the profoundest and most singular silence. Thénardier went on,—
"Good heavens! you might have cried 'Thieves!' a little while, and I should not have thought it improper. Such a thing as 'Murder!' is shouted on such occasions; I should not have taken it in ill part. It is very simple that a man should make a bit of a row when he finds himself with persons who do not inspire him with sufficient confidence. If you had done so we should not have interfered with you or thought of gagging you, and I will tell you the reason why. This room is very deaf; it has only that in its favor, but it has that. It is a cellar; you might explode a bombshell here and it would not produce the effect of a drunkard's snore at the nearest post Here cannon would go Boum! and thunder Pouf! It is a convenient lodging. But still, you did not cry out; all the better, and I compliment you on it, and will tell you what conclusion I draw from the fact. My dear sir, when a man cries for help, who come? The police; and after the police? Justice. Well, you did not cry out, and so you are no more desirous than we are for the arrival of the police. The fact is—and I have suspected it for some time—that you have some interest in hiding something; for our part, we have the same interest, and so we may be able to come to an understanding."
While saying this, Thénardier was trying to drive the sharp points that issued from his eyes into his prisoner's conscience. Besides, his language, marked with a sort of moderate and cunning insolence, was reserved and almost chosen, and in this villain who was just before only a bandit could now be seen "the man who had studied for the priesthood." The silence which the prisoner had maintained, this precaution which went so far as the very forgetfulness of care for his life, this resistance so opposed to the first movement of nature, which is to utter a cry, troubled and painfully amazed Marius, so soon as his attention was drawn to it. Thénardier's well-founded remark but rendered denser the mysterious gloom behind which was concealed the grave and peculiar face to which Courfeyrac had thrown the sobriquet of M. Leblanc. But whoever this man might be, though bound with cords, surrounded by bandits, and half buried, so to speak, in a grave where the earth fell upon him at every step,—whether in the presence of Thénardier furious or of Thénardier gentle,—he remained impassive, and Marius could not refrain from admiring this face so superbly melancholy at such a moment. His was evidently a soul inaccessible to terror, and ignorant of what it is to be alarmed. He was one of those men who master the amazement produced by desperate situations. However extreme the crisis might be, however inevitable the catastrophe, he had none of the agony of the drowning man, who opens horrible eyes under water. Thénardier rose without any affectation, removed the screen from before the fire-place, and thus unmasked the heating-pan full of burning charcoal, in which the prisoner could perfectly see the chisel at a white heat, and studded here and there with small red stars. Then he came back and sat down near M. Leblanc.
"I will continue," he said; "we can come to an understanding, so let us settle this amicably. I did wrong to let my temper carry me away just now; I do not know where my senses were; I went much too far and uttered absurdities. For instance, because you are a millionnaire, I told you that I insisted on money, a great deal of money, an immense sum of money, and that was not reasonable. Good heavens! you may be rich, but you have burdens, for who is there that has not? I do not wish to ruin you, for, after all, I am not an insatiable fellow. I am not one of those men who, because they have advantage of position, employ it to be ridiculous. Come, I will make a sacrifice on my side, and be satisfied with two hundred thousand francs."
M. Leblanc did not utter a syllable, and so Thénardier continued,—
"You see that I put plenty of water in my wine. I do not know the amount of your fortune, but I am aware that you do not care for money, and a benevolent man like you can easily give two hundred thousand francs to an unfortunate parent. Of course, you are reasonable too; you cannot have supposed that I would take all that trouble this morning, and organize this affair to-night,—which is a well-done job, in the opinion of these gentlemen,—merely to ask you for enough money to go and drink fifteen sous wine and eat veal at Desnoyer's. But two hundred thousand francs, that's worth the trouble; once that trifle has come out of your pocket I will guarantee that you have nothing more to apprehend. You will say, 'But I have not two hundred thousand francs about me.' Oh, I am not unreasonable, and I do not insist on that. I only ask one thing of you: be good enough to write what I shall dictate."
Here Thénardier stopped, but added, laying a stress on the words and casting a smile at the heating-dish,—
"I warn you that I shall not accept the excuse that you cannot write."
A Grand Inquisitor might have envied that smile. Thénardier pushed the table close up to M. Leblanc, and took pen, ink, and paper out of the drawer, which he left half open, and in which the long knife-blade flashed. He laid the sheet of paper before M. Leblanc.
"Write!" he said.
The prisoner at last spoke.
"How can you expect me to write? My arms are tied."
"That is true; I beg your pardon," said Thénardier, "you are quite right;" and turning to Bigrenaille, he added, "Unfasten the gentleman's right arm."
Panchaud alias Printanier alias Bigrenaille obeyed Thénardier's orders, and when the prisoner's hand was free, Thénardier dipped the pen in the ink and handed it to him.
"Make up your mind, sir, that you are in our absolute power; no human interference can liberate you, and we should really be sorry to be forced to proceed to disagreeable extremities. I know neither your name nor your address, but I warn you that you will remain tied up here until the person commissioned to deliver the letter you are going to write has returned. Now be good enough to write."
"What?" the prisoner asked.
Thénardier began dictating: "My daughter."
The prisoner started, and raised his eyes to Thénardier,—
"Make it, 'My dear daughter,'" said Thénardier.
M. Leblanc obeyed.
Thénardier continued,—
"Come to me at once, for I want you particularly. The person who delivers this letter to you has instructions to bring you to me. I am waiting. Come in perfect confidence."
M. Leblanc wrote this down.
Thénardier resumed,—"By the way, efface that 'Come in perfect confidence,' for it might lead to a supposition that the affair is not perfectly simple, and create distrust."
M. Leblanc erased the words.
"Now," Thénardier added, "sign it. What is your name?"
The prisoner laid down the pen, and asked,—
"For whom is this letter?"
"You know very well," Thénardier answered; "for the little one; I just told you so."
It was evident that Thénardier avoided mentioning the name of the girl in question: he called her "the Lark," he called her "the little one," but he did not pronounce her name. It was the precaution of a clever man who keeps his secret from his accomplices, and mentioning the name would have told them the whole affair, and taught them more than there was any occasion for them to know. So he repeated,—
"Sign it. What is your name?"
"Urbain Fabre," said the prisoner.
Thénardier, with the movement of a cat, thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out the handkerchief found on M. Leblanc. He sought for the mark, and held it to the candle.
"'U. F.,' all right, Urbain Fabre. Well, sign it 'U. F.'"
The prisoner did so.
"As two hands are needed to fold a letter, give it to me and I will do it."
This done, Thénardier added,—
"Write the address, 'Mademoiselle Fabre,' at your house. I know that you live somewhere near here in the neighborhood of St. Jacques du Haut-pas, as you attend Mass there every day, but I do not know in what street. I see that you understand your situation, and as you have not told a falsehood about your name, you will not do so about your address. Write it yourself."
The prisoner remained pensive for a moment, and then took up the pen and wrote,—
"Mademoiselle Fabre, at M. Urbain Fabre's, No. 17, Rue St. Dominique d'Enfer."
Thénardier seized the letter with a sort of feverish convulsion.
"Wife!" he shouted, and the woman came up. "Here is the letter, and you know what you have to do. There is a hackney coach down below, so be off at once, and return ditto." Then he turned to the man with the pole-axe, and said, "As you have taken off your muffler, you can accompany her. Get up behind the coach. You know where you left it?"
"Yes," said the man; and depositing the axe in a corner, he followed the woman. As they were going away Thénardier thrust his head out of the door and shouted down the passage,—
"Mind and do not lose the letter! Remember you have two hundred thousand francs about you."
The woman's hoarse voice replied,—
"Don't be frightened, I have put it in my stomach."
A minute had not elapsed when the crack of a whip could be heard rapidly retiring.
"All right," Thénardier growled, "they are going at a good pace; with a gallop like that she will be back in three quarters of an hour."
He drew up a chair to the fire-side, and sat down with folded arms, and holding his muddy boots to the heating-pan.
"My feet are cold," he said.
Only five bandits remained in the den with Thénardier and the prisoner. These men, through the masks or soot that covered their faces and rendered them, with a choice of horror, charcoal-burners, negroes, or demons, had a heavy, dull look, and it was plain that they performed a crime like a job, tranquilly, without passion or pity, and with a sort of ennui. They were heaped up in a corner like brutes, and were silent. Thénardier was warming his feet. The prisoner had fallen back into his taciturnity; a sinister calmness had succeeded the formidable noise which had filled the garret a few moments previously. The candle, on which a large mushroom had formed, scarce lit up the immense room; the heating-dish had grown black, and all these monstrous heads cast misshapen shadows upon the walls and the ceiling. No other sound was audible save the regular breathing of the old drunkard, who was asleep. Marius was waiting in a state of anxiety which everything tended to augment. The enigma was more impenetrable than ever; who was this "little one," whom Thénardier had also called "the Lark,"—was she "his Ursule"? The prisoner had not seemed affected by this name of the Lark, and had answered with the most natural air in the world, "I do not know what you mean." On the other hand, the two letters "U. F." were explained; they were Urbain Fabre, and Ursule's name was no longer Ursule. This is what Marius saw most clearly. A sort of frightful fascination kept him nailed to the spot, whence he surveyed and commanded the whole scene. He stood there almost incapable of reflection and movement, as if annihilated by the frightful things which he saw close to him; and he waited, hoping for some incident, no matter its nature, unable to collect his thoughts, and not knowing what to do.
"In any case," he said, "if she is the Lark, I shall see her, for Mother Thénardier will bring her here. In that case I will give my life and blood, should it be necessary, to save her, and nothing shall stop me."
Nearly half an hour passed in this way; Thénardier seemed absorbed in dark thoughts, and the prisoner did not stir. Still Marius fancied that he could hear at intervals a low, dull sound in the direction of the prisoner. All at once Thénardier addressed his victim.
"By the way, M. Fabre," he said, "I may as well tell you something at once."
As these few words seemed the commencement of an explanation, Marius listened carefully. Thénardier continued,—
"My wife will be back soon, so do not be impatient. I believe that the Lark is really your daughter, and think it very simple that you should keep her; but listen to me for a moment. My wife will go to her with your letter, and I told Madame Thénardier to dress herself in the way you saw, that your young lady might make no difficulty about following her. They will both get into the hackney coach with my comrade behind; near a certain barrier there is a trap drawn by two excellent horses; your young lady will be driven up to it in the hackney coach, and get into the trap with my pal, while my wife returns here to report progress. As for your young lady, no harm will be done her; she will be taken to a place where she will be all safe, and so soon as you have handed me the trifle of two hundred thousand francs she will be restored to you. If you have me arrested, my pal will settle the Lark, that's all."
The prisoner did not utter a word, and after a pause Thénardier continued,—
"It is simple enough, as you see, and there will be no harm, unless you like to make harm. I have told you all about it, and warned you, that you might know."
He stopped, but the prisoner did not interrupt the silence, and Thénardier added,—
"So soon as my wife has returned and said to me, 'The Lark is under way,' we will release you, and you can sleep at home if you like. You see that we have no ill intentions."
Frightful images passed across the mind of Marius. What! they were not going to bring the girl here! One of the monsters was going to carry her off in the darkness!—where? Oh, if it were she! and it was plain that it was she. Marius felt the beating of his heart stop; what should he do? Fire the pistol and deliver all these villains into the hands of justice? But the hideous man with the pole-axe could not be the less out of reach with the girl, and Marius thought of Thénardier's words, whose sanguinary meaning he could read,—"If you have me arrested, my pal will settle the Lark;" now he felt himself checked, not only by the Colonel's will, but by his love and the peril of her whom he loved. The frightful situation, which had already lasted above an hour, changed its aspect at every moment, and Marius had the strength to review in turn all the most frightful conjectures, while seeking a hope and finding none. The tumult of his thoughts contrasted with the lugubrious silence of the den. In the midst of this silence the sound of the staircase door being opened and shut became audible. The prisoner gave a start in his bonds.
"Here's my wife," said Thénardier.
He had scarce finished speaking when Mother Thénardier rushed into the room, red, out of breath, and with flashing eyes, and shouted as she struck her thighs with her two big hands,—
"A false address!"
The brigand who had accompanied her appeared behind, and took up his pole-axe again.
"A false address?" Thénardier repeated, and she went on,—
"No Monsieur Urbain Fabre known at No. 17, Rue St. Dominique. They never heard of him."
She stopped to snort, and then continued,—
"Monsieur Thénardier, that old cove has made a fool of you; for you are too good-hearted, I keep on telling you. I would have cut his throat to begin with! and if he had sulked I would have boiled him alive! that would have made him speak and tell us where his daughter is, and where he keeps his money. That is how I should have managed the affair. People are right when they say that men are more stupid than women. Nobody at No. 17, it is a large gateway. No Monsieur Fabre at No. 17, and we went at a gallop, with a fee for the driver and all! I spoke to the porter and his wife, who is a fine, tall woman, and they did not know anybody of the name."
Marius breathed again, for She, Ursule, or the Lark—he no longer knew her name—was saved. While the exasperated woman was vociferating, Thénardier sat down at the table; he remained for some minutes without saying a word, balancing his right leg and looking at the heating-dish with an air of savage reverie. At last he said to the prisoner slowly, and with a peculiarly ferocious accent,—
"A false address? Why, what did you expect?"
"To gain time!" the prisoner thundered.
And at the same moment he shook off his bonds, which were cut through: the prisoner was only fastened to the bed by one leg. Ere the seven men had time to look about them and rush forward, he had stretched out his hand toward the fire-place, and the Thénardiers and the brigands, driven back by surprise to the end of the room, saw him almost free, and in a formidable attitude, waving round his head the red-hot chisel, from which a sinister glare shot.
In the judicial inquiry that followed this affair it was stated that a large sou, cut and worked in a peculiar manner, was found in the garret when the police made their descent upon it. It was one of those marvels of industry which the patience of the bagne engenders in the darkness and for the darkness,—marvels which are nought but instruments of escape. These hideous and yet delicate products of a prodigious art are in the jewelry trade what slang metaphors are in poetry; for there are Benvenuto Cellinis at the bagne, in the same way as there are Villons in language. The wretch who aspires to deliverance, finds means, without tools, or, at the most, with an old knife, to saw a son in two, hollow out the two parts without injuring the dies, and form a thread in the edge of the son, so that the son may be reproduced. It screws and unscrews at pleasure, and is a box; and in this box a watch-spring saw is concealed, which, if well managed, will cut through fetters and iron bars. It is believed that the unhappy convict possesses only a son; but, not at all,—he possesses liberty. It was a son of this nature which was found by the police under the bed near the window, and a small saw of blue steel, which could be easily concealed in the sou, was also discovered. It is probable that at the moment when the bandits searched the prisoner he had the double sou about him, and hid it in his palm; and his right hand being at liberty afterwards, he unscrewed it, and employed the saw to cut the ropes. This would explain the slight noise and the almost imperceptible movements which Marius had noticed. As, however, he was unable to stoop down for fear of betraying himself, he had not cut the cord on his left leg. The bandits gradually recovered from their surprise.
"Be easy," said Bigrenaille to Thénardier, "he is still held by one leg, and will not fly away. I put the pack-thread round that paw."
Here the prisoner raised his voice,—
"You are villains, but my life is not worth so much trouble to defend. As for imagining that you could make me speak, make me write what I do not wish to write, or make me say what I do not intend to say—"
He pulled up the sleeve of his left arm and added,—
"Look here!"
At the same time he stretched out his arm and placed on the naked flesh the red-hot chisel, which he held in his right hand by the wooden handle. Then could be heard the frizzling of the burnt flesh, and the smell peculiar to torture-rooms spread through the garret. Marius tottered in horror, and the brigands themselves shuddered; but the face of the strange old man was scarce contracted, and while the red-hot steel was burying itself in the smoking wound, he—impassive and almost august—fixed on Thénardier his beautiful glance, in which there was no hatred, and in which suffering disappeared in a serene majesty. For in great and lofty natures the revolt of the flesh and of the senses when suffering from physical pain makes the soul appear on the brow, in the same way as the mutiny of troops compels the captain to show himself.
"Villains," he said, "be no more frightened of me than I am of you."
And tearing the chisel out of the wound, he hurled it through the window, winch had been left open. The horrible red-hot tool whirled through the night, and fell some distance off in the snow, which hissed at the contact. The prisoner continued,—
"Do to me what you like."
He was defenceless.
"Seize him," said Thénardier.
Two of the brigands laid their hands on his shoulders, and the masked man with the ventriloquist voice stood in front of him, ready to dash out his brains with a blow of the key at the slightest movement on his part. At the same time Marius heard below him, but so close that he could not see the speakers, the following remarks exchanged in a low voice,—
"There is only one thing to be done."
"Cut his throat!"
"Exactly."
It was the husband and wife holding council, and then Thénardier walked slowly to the table, opened the drawer, and took out the knife. Marius clutched the handle of the pistol in a state of extraordinary perplexity. For above an hour he had heard two voices in his conscience, one telling him to respect his father's will, while the other cried to him to succor the prisoner. These two voices continued their struggle uninterruptedly, and caused him an agony. He had vaguely hoped up to this moment to find some mode of reconciling these two duties, but nothing possible had occurred to him. Still the peril pressed; the last moment of delay was passed, for Thénardier, knife in hand, was reflecting a few paces from the prisoner. Marius looked wildly around him, which is the last mechanical resource of despair. All at once he started; at his feet on his table a bright moonbeam lit up and seemed to point out to him a sheet of paper. On this sheet he read this line, written in large letters that very morning by the elder of Thénardier's daughters,—"Here are the Slops." An idea, a flash, crossed Marius's mind; this was the solution of the frightful problem that tortured him, sparing the assassin and saving the victim. He knelt down on the chest-of-drawers, stretched forth his arm, seized the paper, softly detached a lump of plaster from the partition, wrapped it up in the paper, and threw it through the hole into the middle of the den. It was high time, for Thénardier had overcome his last fears, or his last scruples, and was going toward the prisoner.
"There's something falling," his wife cried.
"What is it?" her husband asked.
The woman had bounded forward, and picked up the lump of plaster wrapped in paper, which she handed to her husband.
"How did it get here?" Thénardier asked.
"Why, hang it!" his wife asked, "how do you expect that it did? Through the window, of course."
"I saw it pass," said Bigrenaille.
Thénardier rapidly unfolded the paper, and held it close to the candle.
"Éponine's handwriting—The devil!"
He made a signal to his wife, who hurried up to him, and showed her the line written on the paper, then added in a hollow voice,—
"Quick, the ladder! we must leave the bacon in the trap, and bolt."
"Without cutting the man's throat?" the Megæra asked.
"We haven't the time."
"Which way?" Bigrenaille remarked.
"By the window," Thénardier replied; "as Ponine threw the stone through the window, that's a proof that the house is not beset on that side."
The mask with the ventriloquist voice laid his key on the ground, raised his arms in the air, and opened and shut his hands thrice rapidly, without saying a word. This was like the signal for clearing for action aboard ship; the brigands who held the prisoner let him go, and in a twinkling the rope-ladder was dropped out of window and securely fastened to the sill by the two iron hooks. The prisoner paid no attention to what was going on around him; he seemed to be thinking or praying. So soon as the ladder was fixed, Thénardier cried,—
"The lady first."
And he dashed at the window; but as he was stepping out, Bigrenaille roughly seized him by the collar.
"No, no, my old joker, after us!" he said.
"After us!" the bandits yelled.
"You are children," said Thénardier; "we are losing time, and the police are at our heels."
"Very well, then," said one of the bandits, "let us draw lots as to who shall go first."
Thénardier exclaimed,—
"Are you mad? are you drunk? Why, what a set of humbugs; lose time, I suppose, draw lots, eh,—with a wet finger, a short straw, write our names and put them in a cap—"
"Would you like my hat?" a voice said at the door.
All turned; it was Javert, who held his hat in his hand and offered it smilingly.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
ALWAYS BEGIN BY ARRESTING THE VICTIMS.
Javert posted his men at nightfall, and ambushed himself behind the trees of the Rue de la Barrière des Gobelins, which joins No. 50-52 on the other side of the boulevard. He had begun by opening his "pocket," in order to thrust into it the two girls ordered to watch the approaches to the den, but he had only "nailed" Azelma. As for Éponine, she was not at her post; she had disappeared, and he had not been able to seize her. Then Javert took up his post, and listened for the appointed signal. The departure and return of the hackney coach greatly perplexed him; at length he grew impatient, and feeling sure that there "was a nest there," and of being in "luck's way," and having recognized several of the bandits who went in, he resolved to enter without waiting for the pistol-shot. It will be remembered that he had Marius's latch-key.
He arrived just in time.
The startled bandits dashed at the weapons, which they had thrown into corners at the moment of their attempted escape; and in less than a second these seven men, formidable to look at, were grouped in a posture of defence,—one with his pole-axe, another with his key, a third with his life-preserver, the others with crowbar, shears, and hammer, and Thénardier with his knife in his fist. The woman picked up an enormous paving-stone which lay in the angle of the room and served her daughter as a footstool. Javert restored his hat to his head, and walked into the room with folded arms, his cane hanging from his wrist, and his sword in his scabbard.
"Halt!" he shouted; "you will not leave by the window but by the door, which is not so unhealthy. You are seven and we are fifteen, so do not let us quarrel like water-carriers, but behave like gentlemen."
Bigrenaille drew a pistol from under his blouse, and placed it in Thénardier's hand, as he whispered,—
"It is Javert, and I dare not fire at that man. Dare you?"
"I should think so," Thénardier answered.
"Well, fire!"
Thénardier took the pistol and aimed at Javert; the Inspector, who was only three paces from him, looked at him fixedly, and contented himself with saying,—
"Don't fire, for the pistol won't go off."
Thénardier pulled the trigger; there was a flash in the pan.
"Did I not tell you so?" Javert remarked.
Bigrenaille threw his life-preserver at Javert's feet. "You are the Emperor of the devils, and I surrender."
"And you?" Javert asked the other bandits.
They answered, "We too."
Javert remarked calmly,—
"That is all right; I begged you to behave like gentlemen."
"I only ask one thing," Bigrenaille remarked,—"that my tobacco may n't be stopped while I'm in solitary confinement."
"Granted," said Javert.
Then he turned and shouted, "You can come in now!"
A squad of police, sword in hand, and agents armed with bludgeons and sticks, rushed in at Javert's summons, and bound the robbers. This crowd of men, scarce illumined by the candle, filled the den with shadows.
"Handcuff them all!" Javert cried.
"Just come this way!" a voice shouted, which was not that of a man, but of which no one could have said, "It is a woman's voice." Mother Thénardier had intrenched herself in one of the angles of the window, and it was she from whom this roar had come. The police and the agents fell back; she had thrown off her shawl and kept her bonnet on: her husband, crouching behind her, almost disappeared under the fallen shawl, and she covered him with her body, while raising the paving-stone above her head with both hands, like a giantess about to heave a rock.
"Heads below!" she screeched.
All fell back upon the passage, and there was a large open space in the centre of the garret. The hag took a glance at the bandits, who had suffered themselves to be bound, and muttered, in a hoarse and guttural voice,—"The cowards!"
Javert smiled, and walked into the open space which the woman guarded with her eyes.
"Don't come nearer," she shrieked, "or I'll smash you. Be off!"
"What a grenadier!" said Javert; "the mother! You have a beard like a man, but I have claws like a woman."
And he continued to advance. Mother Thénardier, with flying hair and terrible looks, straddled her legs, bent back, and wildly hurled the paving-stone at Javert. He stooped, the stone passed over him, struck the wall, from which it dislodged a mass of plaster, and then ricochetted from angle to angle till it fell exhausted at Javert's feet. At the same moment Javert reached the Thénardiers; one of his large hands settled on the wife's shoulder, the other on the husband's head.
"Handcuffs here!" he shouted.
The policemen flocked in, and in a few seconds Javert's orders were carried out. The woman, quite crushed, looked at her own and her husband's manacled hands, fell on the ground, and bursting into tears, cried,—
"My daughters!"
"Oh, they are all right!" said Javert.
By this time the police had noticed the drunken man sleeping behind the door, and shook him; he woke up and stammered,—
"Is it all over, Jondrette?"
"Yes," Javert answered.
The six bound bandits were standing together, with their spectral faces, three daubed with black, and three masked.
"Keep on your masks," said Javert
And, passing them in review, like a Frederick II. at a Potsdam parade, he said to the three "sweeps,"—
"Good-day, Bigrenaille." "Good-day, Brujon." "Good-day, Deux Milliards."
Then turning to the three masks he said to the man with the pole-axe, "Good-day, Gueulemer," and to the man with the cudgel, "Good-day, Babet," and to the ventriloquist, "Here's luck, Claquesous!"
At this moment he noticed the prisoner, who had not said a word since the arrival of the police, and held his head down.
"Untie the gentleman," said Javert, "and let no one leave the room."
After saying this he sat down in a lordly way at the table, on which the candle and the inkstand were still standing, took a stamped paper from his pocket, and began writing his report. When he had written a few lines, which are always the same formula, he raised his eyes.
"Bring the gentleman here whom these gentlemen had tied up."
The agents look around.
"Well," Javert asked, "where is he?"
The prisoner of the bandits, M. Leblanc, M. Urbain Fabre, the father of Ursule or the Lark, had disappeared. The door was guarded, but the window was not. So soon as he found himself released, and while Javert was writing, he took advantage of the trouble, the tumult, the crowd, the darkness, and the moment when attention was not fixed upon him, to rush to the window. An agent ran up and looked out; he could see nobody, but the rope-ladder was still trembling.
"The devil!" said Javert between his teeth; "he must have been the best of the lot."
[CHAPTER XXII.]
THE LITTLE CHILD WHO CRIED IN VOLUME SECOND.
On the day after that in which these events occurred in the house on the Boulevard de l'Hôpital, a lad, who apparently came from the bridge of Austerlitz, was trudging along the right-hand walk in the direction of the Barrière de Fontainebleau, at about nightfall. This boy was pale, thin, dressed in rags, wearing canvas trousers in the month of February, and singing at the top of his lungs. At the corner of the Rue du Petit Banquier an old woman was stooping down and fumbling in a pile of rubbish by the lamplight; the lad ran against her as he passed, and fell back, with the exclamation,—
"My eye! why, I took that for an enormous, an enormous dog!"
He uttered the word enormous the second time with a sonorous twang which might be expressed by capitals,—"an enormous, an ENORMOUS dog." The old woman drew herself up furiously.
"You young devil!" she growled, "if I had not been stooping, I know where my foot would have been now."
The lad was already some distance off.
"Kisss! kisss!" he said; "after all, I may not have been mistaken."
The old woman, choked with indignation, drew herself up to her full height, and the street lantern fully lit up her livid face, which was hollowed by angles and wrinkles, and crow's-feet connecting the corners of the mouth. The body was lost in the darkness, and her head alone could be seen; she looked like a mask of Decrepitude lit up by a flash darting through the night. The lad looked at her.
"Madame," he said, "yours is not the style of beauty which would suit me."
He went his way, and began singing again,—
"Le Roi Coup de sabot
S'en allait à la chasse,
À la chasse aux corbeaux."
At the end of these three lines he broke off. He had reached No. 50-52, and finding the gate closed, he began giving it re-echoing and heroic kicks, which indicated rather the shoes of the man which he wore than the feet of the boy which he had. By this time the same old woman whom he had met at the corner of the Rue du Petit Banquier ran up after him, uttering shouts, and making the most extraordinary gestures.
"What's the matter? what's the matter? O Lord to God! the gate is being broken down, and the house broken into!"
The kicks continued, and the old woman puffed.
"Is that the way houses are treated at present?"
All at once she stopped, for she had recognized the gamin.
"Why, it is that Satan!"
"Hilloh! it's the old woman," said the boy. "Good evening, my dear Burgonmuche, I have come to see my ancestors."
The old woman answered with a composite grimace, an admirable improvisation of hatred deriving advantage from decrepitude and ugliness, which was unfortunately lost in the darkness,—"There's nobody here, scamp!"
"Nonsense," the boy said. "Where's father?"
"At La Force."
"Hilloh! and mother?"
"At St. Lazare."
"Very fine! and my sisters?"
"At the Madelonnettes."
The lad scratched the back of his ear, looked at Mame Bougon, and said, "Ah!"
Then he turned on his heels, and a moment later the old woman, who was standing in the gateway, heard him singing in his clear young voice, as he went off under the elms which were quivering in the winter breeze,—
"Le Roi Coupdesabot
S'en allait à la chasse,
À la chasse aux corbeaux.
Monté sur des échasses,
Quand on passait dessous,
On lui payait deux sous."