THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT.
[CHAPTER I.]
FEBRUARY 16, 1833.
The night of February 16 was a blessed night, for it had above its shadow the open sky. It was the wedding-night of Marius and Cosette.
The day had been adorable; it was not the blue festival dreamed of by the grandfather, a fairy scene, with a confusion of cherubim and cupids above the head of the married couple, a marriage worthy of being represented over a door, but it had been sweet and smiling. The fashion of marrying in 1833 was not at all as it is now. France had not yet borrowed from England that supreme delicacy of carrying off a wife, of flying on leaving the church, hiding one's self as if ashamed of one's happiness, and combining the manœuvres of a bankrupt with the ravishment of the Song of Songs. We had not yet understood how chaste, exquisite, and decent it is to jolt one's paradise in a postchaise; to vary the mystery with click-clacks of the whip; to select an inn bed as the nuptial couch, and to leave behind one, at the conventional alcove at so much per night, the most sacred recollection of life, jumbled with the tête-à-têtes of the guard of the diligence and the chamber-maid. In the second half of the nineteenth century, in which we now are, the mayor and his scarf, the priest and his chasuble, the law and God, are no longer sufficient; they must be complemented by the postilion of Lonjumeau; blue jacket with red facings and bell buttons, a leather-bound plate, green leather breeches, oaths to the Norman horses with their knotted tails, imitation gold lace, oil-skin hat, heavy, dusty horses, an enormous whip, and strong boots. France does not carry the elegance to such an extent as to shower on the postchaise, as the English nobility do, old shoes and battered slippers, in memory of Churchill, afterwards Marlborough or Malbrouck, who was assailed on his wedding-day by the anger of an aunt which brought him good luck. Shoes and slippers do not yet form part of our nuptial celebrations; but, patience, with the spread of good taste we shall yet come to it.
In 1833,—it is a century since then,—marriage was not performed at a smart trot; people still supposed at that epoch, whimsically enough, that a marriage is a private and social festival, that a patriarchal banquet does not spoil a domestic solemnity; that gayety, even if it be excessive, so long as it is decent, does no harm to happiness; and finally, that it is venerable and good for the fusion of these two destinies from which a family will issue, to begin in the house, and that the household may have in future the nuptial chamber as a witness; and people were so immodest as to many at home. The wedding took place, then, according to this fashion which is now antiquated, at M. Gillenormand's; and though this affair of marrying is so simple and natural, the publication of the banns, drawing up the deeds, the mayoralty, and the church always cause some complication, and they could not be ready before February 16. Now—we note this detail for the pure satisfaction of being exact—it happened that the 16th was Mardi Gras. There were hesitations and scruples, especially on the part of Aunt Gillenormand.
"A Mardi Gras!" the grandfather exclaimed; "all the better. There is a proverb that,—
'Mariage un Mardi gras
N'aura point d'enfants ingrats.'
All right. Done for the 16th. Do you wish to put it off, Marius?"
"Certainly not," said the amorous youth.
"We'll marry then," said the grandfather.
The marriage, therefore, took place on the 16th, in spite of the public gayety. It rained on that day, but there is always in the sky a little blue patch at the service of happiness, which lovers see, even when the rest of creation are under their umbrellas. On the previous day Jean Valjean had handed to Marius, in the presence of M. Gillenormand, the five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs. As the marriage took place in the ordinary way, the deeds were very simple. Toussaint was henceforth useless to Jean Valjean, so Cosette inherited her, and promoted her to the rank of lady's-maid. As for Jean Valjean, a nice room was furnished expressly for him at M. Gillenormand's, and Cosette had said to him so irresistibly, "Father, I implore you," that she had almost made him promise that he would come and occupy it. A few days before that fixed for the marriage an accident happened to Jean Valjean; he slightly injured the thumb of his right hand. It was not serious, and he had not allowed any one to poultice it, or even see it, not even Cosette. Still, it compelled him to wrap up his hand in a bandage and wear his arm in a sling, and this, of course, prevented him from signing anything. M. Gillenormand, as supervising guardian to Cosette, took his place. We will not take the reader either to the mayoralty or to church. Two lovers are not usually followed so far, and we are wont to turn our back on the drama so soon as it puts a bridegroom's bouquet in its button-hole. We will restrict ourselves to noting an incident which, though unnoticed by the bridal party, marked the drive from the Rue des Filles du Calvaire to St. Paul's Church.
The Rue St. Louis was being repaired at the time, and it was blocked from the Rue du Parc Royal, hence it was impossible for the carriage to go direct to St. Paul's. As they were obliged to change their course, the most simple plan was to turn into the boulevard. One of the guests drew attention to the fact that, as it was Mardi Gras, there would be a block of vehicles. "Why so?" M. Gillenormand asked. "On account of the masks." "Famous," said the grandfather; "we will go that way. These young people are going to marry and see the serious side of life, and seeing the masquerade will be a slight preparation for it." They turned into the boulevard: the first of the wedding carriages contained Cosette and Aunt Gillenormand, M. Gillenormand, and Jean Valjean. Marius, still separated from his bride, according to custom, was in the second. The nuptial procession, on turning out of the Rue des Filles du Calvaire, joined the long file of vehicles making an endless chain from the Madeleine to the Bastille, and from the Bastille to the Madeleine. Masks were abundant on the boulevard: and though it rained every now and then, Paillasse, Pantalon, and Gille were obstinate. In the good humor of that winter of 1833 Paris had disguised itself as Venus. We do not see a Mardi Gras like this now-a-days, for as everything existing is a wide-spread carnival, there is no carnival left. The sidewalks were thronged with pedestrians, and the windows with gazers; and the terraces crowning the peristyles of the theatres were covered with spectators. In addition to the masks, they look at the file—peculiar to Mardi Gras as to Longchamp—of vehicles of every description, citadines, carts, curricles, and cabs, marching in order rigorously riveted to each other by police regulations, and, as it were, running on rails. Any one who happens to be in one of these vehicles is at once spectator and spectacle. Policemen standing by the side of the boulevard kept in place these two interminable files moving in a contrary direction, and watched that nothing should impede the double current of these two streams, one running up, the other down, one towards the Chaussée d'Antin, the other towards the Faubourg St. Antoine. The escutcheoned carriages of the Peers of France and Ambassadors held the crown of the causeway, coming and going freely; and certain magnificent and gorgeous processions, notably the Bœuf Gras, had the same privilege. In this Parisian gayety England clacked his whip, for the post-chaise of Lord Seymour, at which a popular sobriquet was hurled, passed with a great noise.
In the double file, along which Municipal Guards galloped like watch-dogs, honest family arks, crowded with great-aunts and grandmothers, displayed at windows healthy groups of disguised children, Pierrots of seven and Pierrettes of six, ravishing little creatures, feeling that they officially formed part of the public merriment, penetrated with the dignity of their Harlequinade, and displaying the gravity of functionaries. From time to time a block occurred somewhere in the procession of vehicles; one or other of the two side files stopped until the knot was untied, one impeded vehicle sufficing to block the whole line. Then they started again. The wedding carriages were in the file, going towards the Bastille on the right-hand side of the boulevard. Opposite the Rue du Pont-aux-Choux there was a stoppage, and almost at the same moment the file on the other side proceeding towards the Madeleine stopped too. At this point of the procession there was a carriage of masks. These carnages, or, to speak more correctly, these cartloads of masks, are well known to the Parisians; if they failed on Mardi Gras or at mid-Lent, people would say, "There's something behind it. Probably we are going to have a change of Ministry." A heap of Harlequins, Columbines, and Pantaloons jolted above the heads of the passers-by,—all possible grotesques, from the Turk to the savage. Hercules supporting Marquises, fish-fags who would make Rabelais stop his ears, as well as Mænads who would make Aristophanes look down, tow perukes, pink fleshings, three-cornered hats, pantaloons, spectacles, cries given to the pedestrians, hands on hips, bold postures, naked shoulders, masked faces, and unmuzzled immodesty; a chaos of effronteries driven by a coachman in a head-dress of flowers,—such is this institution. Greece felt the want of Thespis' cart, and France needs Vadé's fiacre. All may be parodied, even parody. The Saturnalia, that grimace of antique beauty, by swelling and swelling becomes the Mardi Gras: and the Bacchanal, formerly crowned with vine-leaves, inundated by sunshine, and displaying marble breasts in a divine semi-nudity, is now flabby under the drenched rags of the North, has ended by being called a chie-en-lit.
The tradition of the coaches of masks dates back to the oldest times of the Monarchy. The accounts of Louis XI. allow the Palace steward "twenty sous tournois for three coaches of masquerades." In our time these noisy piles of creatures generally ride in some old coucou the roof of which they encumber, or cover with their tumultuous group a landau the hood of which is thrown back. There are twenty in a carriage intended for six. You see them on the seat, on the front stool, on the springs of the hood, and on the pole, and they even straddle across the lamps. They are standing, lying down, or seated, cross-legged, or with pendent legs. The women occupy the knees of the men, and this wild pyramid is seen for a long distance over the heads of the crowd. These vehicles form mountains of merriment in the midst of the mob, and Collé, Panard, and Piron flow from them enriched with slang, and the fish-fag's catechism is expectorated from above upon the people. This fiacre, which has grown enormous through its burden, has an air of conquest; Hubbub is in front and Hurly-burly behind. People shout in it, sing in it, yell in it, and writhe with happiness in it; gayety roars there, sarcasm flashes, and joviality is displayed like a purple robe; two jades drag in it farce expanded into an apotheosis, and it is the triumphal car of laughter,—a laughter, though, too cynical to be frank, and in truth this laughter is suspicious. It has a mission,—that of verifying the carnival to the Parisians. These fish-fag vehicles, in which some strange darkness is perceptible, cause the philosopher to reflect; there is something of the government in them, and you lay your finger there on a curious affinity between public men and public women. It is certainly a sorry thought, that heaped-up turpitudes give a sum-total of gayety; that a people can be amused by building up ignominy on opprobrium; that spying, acting as a caryatid to prostitution, amuses the mob while affronting it; that the crowd is pleased to see pass on four wheels this monstrous living pile of beings, spangled rags, one half ordure, one half light, who bark and sing; that they should clap their hands at all this shame, and that no festival is possible for the multitude unless the police promenade in its midst these twenty-headed hydras of joy. Most sad this certainly is, but what is to be done? These tumbrels of beribboned and flowered filth are insulted and pardoned by the public laughter, and the laughter of all is the accomplice of the universal degradation. Certain unhealthy festivals disintegrate the people and convert them into populace; but a populace, like tyrants, requires buffoons. The king has Roquelaure, and the people has Paillasse. Paris is the great mad city wherever it is not the great sublime city, and the carnival there is political. Paris, let us confess it, willingly allows infamy to play a farce for its amusement, and only asks of its masters—when it has masters—one thing, "paint the mud for me." Rome was of the same humor; she loved Nero, and Nero was a Titanic débardeur.
Accident willed it, as we have just said, that one of the shapeless groups of masked men and women collected in a vast barouche stopped on the left of the boulevard while the wedding party stopped on the right. The carriage in which the masks were, noticed opposite to it the carriage in which was the bride.
"Hilloh!" said a mask, "a wedding."
"A false wedding," another retorted, "we are the true one."
And, as they were too far off to address the wedding party, and as they also feared the interference of the police, the two masks looked elsewhere. The whole vehicle-load of masquers had plenty of work a moment after, for the mob began hissing it, which is the caress given by the mob to masquerades, and the two masks who had just spoken were obliged to face the crowd with their comrades, and found all the missiles of the market repertory scarce sufficient to reply to the atrocious jaw-lashing from the people. A frightful exchange of metaphors took place between the masks and the crowd. In the mean while two other masks in the same carriage, a Spaniard with an exaggerated nose, an oldish look, and enormous black moustaches, and a thin and very youthful fish-girl, wearing a half-mask, had noticed the wedding also, and while their companions and the spectators were insulting each other, held a conversation in a low voice. Their aside was covered by the tumult and was lost in it. The showers had drenched the open carriage; the February wind is not warm, and so the fish-girl while answering the Spaniard shivered, laughed, and coughed. This was the dialogue, which we translate from the original slang:—
"Look here."
"What is it, pa?"
"Do you see that old man?"
"What old man?"
"There, in the wedding coach, with his arm in a sling."
"Yes. Well?"
"I feel sure that I know him."
"Ah!"
"May my neck be cut, and I never said you, thou, or I, in my life, if I do not know that Parisian."
"To-day Paris is Pantin."
"Can you see the bride by stooping?"
"No."
"And the bridegroom?"
"There is no bridegroom in that coach."
"Nonsense."
"Unless it be the other old man."
"Come, try and get a look at the bride by stooping."
"I can't."
"No matter, that old fellow who has something the matter with his paw, I feel certain I know him."
"And what good will it do you, your knowing him?"
"I don't know. Sometimes!"
"I don't care a curse for old fellows."
"I know him."
"Know him as much as you like."
"How the deuce is he at the wedding?"
"Why, we are there too."
"Where does the wedding come from?"
"How do I know?"
"Listen."
"Well, what is it?"
"You must do something."
"What is it?"
"Get out of our trap and follow that wedding."
"What to do?"
"To know where it goes and what it is. Make haste and get down; run, my daughter, for you are young."
"I can't leave the carriage."
"Why not?"
"I am hired."
"Oh, the devil!"
"I owe the Préfecture my day's work."
"That's true."
"If I leave the carriage, the first inspector who sees me will arrest me. You know that."
"Yes, I know it."
"To-day I am bought by Pharos" (the government).
"No matter, that old fellow bothers me."
"All old men bother you, and yet you ain't a chicken yourself."
"He is in the first carriage."
"Well, what then?"
"In the bride's carriage."
"What next?"
"So he is the father."
"How does that concern me?"
"I tell you he is the father."
"You do nothing but talk about that father."
"Listen."
"Well, what?"
"I can only go away masked, for I am hidden here, and no one knows I am here. But to-morrow there will be no masks, for it is Ash Wednesday, and I run a risk of being nailed. I shall be obliged to go back to my hole, but you are free."
"Not quite."
"Well, more so than I am."
"Well, what then?"
"You must try to find out where that wedding party is going to."
"Going to?"
"Yes."
"Oh, I know."
"Where to, then?"
"To the Cadran Bleu."
"But that is not the direction."
"Well, then! to La Rapée."
"Or elsewhere."
"They can do as they like, for weddings are free."
"That is not the thing. I tell you that you must try to find out for me what that wedding is, and where it comes from."
"Of course! that would be funny. It's so jolly easy to find out a week after where a wedding party has gone to that passed during the Mardi Gras. A pin in a bundle of hay. Is it possible?"
"No matter, you must try. Do you hear, Azelma?"
The two files recommenced their opposite movement on the boulevard, and the carriage of masks lost out of sight that which contained the bride.
[CHAPTER II.]
JEAN VALJEAN STILL HAS HIS ARM IN A SLING.
To realize one's dream—to whom is this granted? There must be elections for this in heaven; we are the unconscious candidates, and the angels vote. Cosette and Marius had been elected. Cosette, both at the mayoralty and at church, was brilliant and touching. Toussaint, helped by Nicolette, had dressed her. Cosette wore over a skirt of white taffetas her dress of Binche lace, a veil of English point, a necklace of fine pearls, and a crown of orange-flowers; all this was white, and in this whiteness she was radiant. It was an exquisite candor expanding and becoming transfigured in light; she looked like a virgin on the point of becoming a goddess. Marius's fine hair was shining and perfumed, and here and there a glimpse could be caught, under the thick curls, of pale lines, which were the scars of the barricade. The grandfather, superb, with head erect, amalgamating in his toilette and manners all the elegances of the time of Barras, gave his arm to Cosette. He took the place of Jean Valjean, who, owing to his wound, could not give his hand to the bride. Jean Valjean, dressed all in black, followed and smiled.
"Monsieur Fauchelevent," the grandfather said to him, "this is a glorious day, and I vote the end of afflictions and cares. Henceforth there must be no sorrow anywhere. By Heaven! I decree joy! misfortune has no right to exist, and it is a disgrace for the azure of heaven that there are unfortunate men. Evil does not come from man, who, at the bottom, is good; but all human miseries have their capital and central government in hell, otherwise called the Tuileries of the devil. There, I am making demagogic remarks at present! For my part I have no political opinions left; and all I stick to is that men should be rich, that is to say, joyous."
When, at the end of all the ceremonies,—after pronouncing before the mayor and before the priest every yes that is possible, after signing the register at the municipality and in the sacristy, after exchanging rings, after kneeling side by side under the canopy of white moire in the smoke of the censer,—they arrived holding each other by the hand, admired and envied by all. Marius in black, she in white, preceded by the beadle in the colonel's epaulettes, striking the flag-stones with his halbert, between two rows of dazzled spectators, at the church doors which were thrown wide open, ready to get into their carriage, —and then all was over. Cosette could not yet believe it. She looked at Marius, she looked at the crowd, she looked at heaven; it seemed as if she were afraid of awaking. Her astonished and anxious air imparted something strangely enchanting to her. In returning they both rode in the same carriage, Marius seated by Cosette's side, and M. Gillenormand and Jean Valjean forming their vis-à-vis. Aunt Gillenormand had fallen back a step and was in the second carriage. "My children," the grandfather said, "you are now M. le Baron and Madame la Baronne with thirty thousand francs a year." And Cosette, nuzzling against Marius, caressed his ear with the angelic whisper, "It is true, then, my name is Marius and I am Madame Thou." These two beings were resplendent; they had reached the irrevocable and irrecoverable moment, the dazzling point of intersection of all youth and all joy. They realized Jean Prouvaire's line; together they did not number forty years. It was marriage sublimated, and these two children were two lilies. They did not see each other, but contemplated each other. Cosette perceived Marius in a glory, and Marius perceived Cosette upon an altar. And upon this altar, and in this glory, the two apotheoses blending behind a cloud for Cosette and a flashing for Marius, there was the ideal thing, the real thing, the meeting-place of kisses and of sleep, the nuptial pillow.
All the torments they had gone through returned to them in intoxication; it appeared to them as if the griefs, the sleeplessness, the tears, the anguish, the terrors, and the despair, by being converted into caresses and sunbeams, rendered more charming still the charming hour which was approaching; and that their sorrows were so many handmaidens who performed the toilette of joy. How good it is to have suffered! Their misfortunes made a halo for their happiness, and the long agony of their love ended in an ascension. There was in these two souls the same enchantment, tinged with voluptuousness in Marius and with modesty in Cosette. They said to each other in a whisper, "We will go and see again our little garden in the Rue Plumet." The folds of Cosette's dress were upon Marius. Such a day is an ineffable blending of dream and certainty: you possess and you suppose, and you still have time before you to divine. It is an indescribable emotion on that day to be at midday and think of midnight. The delight of these two hearts overflowed upon the crowd, and imparted merriment to the passers-by. People stopped in the Rue St. Antoine, in front of St. Paul's, to look through the carriage-window,—the orange flowers trembling on Cosette's head. Then they returned to the Rue des Filles du Calvaire,—home. Marius, side by side with Cosette, ascended, triumphantly and radiantly, that staircase up which he had been dragged in a dying state. The beggars, collected before the gate and dividing the contents of their purses, blessed them. There were flowers everywhere, and the house was no less fragrant than the church: after the incense the rose. They fancied they could hear voices singing in infinitude; they had God in their hearts; destiny appeared to them like a ceiling of stars; they saw above their heads the flashing of the rising sun. Marius gazed at Cosette's charming bare arm and the pink things which could be vaguely seen through the lace of the stomacher, and Cosette, catching Marius's glance, blushed to the white of her eyes. A good many old friends of the Gillenormand family had been invited, and they thronged round Cosette, outvying one another in calling her Madame la Baronne. The officer, Théodule Gillenormand, now captain, had come from Chartres, where he was stationed, to be present at his cousin's marriage: Cosette did not recognize him. He, on his side, accustomed to be thought a pretty fellow by the women, remembered Cosette no more than any other.
"How right I was in not believing that story of the lancer!" Father Gillenormand said to himself aside.
Cosette had never been more affectionate to Jean Valjean, and she was in unison with Father Gillenormand; while he built up joy in aphorisms and maxims, she exhaled love and beauty like a perfume. Happiness wishes everybody to be happy. She found again in speaking to Jean Valjean inflections of her voice of the time when she was a little girl, and caressed him with a smile. A banquet had been prepared in the dining-room; an illumination à giorno is the necessary seasoning of a great joy, and mist and darkness are not accepted by the happy. They do not consent to be black: night, yes; darkness, no; and if there be no sun, one must be made. The dining-room was a furnace of gay things; in the centre, above the white glistening tables, hung a Venetian chandelier, with all sorts of colored birds, blue, violet, red, and green, perched among the candles; round the chandelier were girandoles, and on the walls were mirrors with three and four branches; glasses, crystal, plate, china, crockery, gold, and silver, all flashed and rejoiced. The spaces between the candelabra were filled up with bouquets, so that where there was not a light there was a flower. In the anteroom three violins and a flute played some of Haydn's quartettes. Jean Valjean had seated himself on a chair in the drawing-room, behind the door, which, being thrown back, almost concealed him. A few minutes before they sat down to table Cosette gave him a deep courtesy, while spreading out her wedding-dress with both hands, and with a tenderly mocking look asked him,—
"Father, are you satisfied?"
"Yes," said Jean Valjean, "I am satisfied."
"Well, then, laugh."
Jean Valjean began laughing. A few minutes later Basque came in to announce that dinner was on the table. The guests, preceded by M. Gillenormand, who gave his arm to Cosette, entered the dining-room, and collected round the table in the prescribed order. There was a large easy-chair on either side of the bride, one for M. Gillenormand, the other for Jean Valjean. M. Gillenormand seated himself, but the other chair remained empty. All looked round for Monsieur Fauchelevent, but he was no longer there, and M. Gillenormand hailed Basque:
"Do you know where M. Fauchelevent is?"
"Yes, sir, I do," Basque replied. "Monsieur Fauchelevent requested me to tell you, sir, that his hand pained him, and that he could not dine with M. le Baron and Madame la Baronne. He therefore begged to be excused, but would call to-morrow. He has just left."
This empty chair momentarily chilled the effusion of the wedding feast; but though M. Fauchelevent was absent M. Gillenormand was there, and the grandfather shone for two. He declared that M. Fauchelevent acted rightly in going to bed early if he were in pain, but that it was only a small hurt. This declaration was sufficient; besides, what is a dark corner in such a submersion of joy? Cosette and Marius were in one of those egotistic and blessed moments when people possess no other faculty than that of perceiving joy; and then M. Gillenormand had an idea, "By Jupiter! this chair is empty; come hither, Marius; your aunt, though she has a right to it, will permit you; this chair is for you; it is legal, and it is pretty,—Fortunatus by the side of Fortunata." The whole of the guests applauded. Marius took Jean Valjean's place by Cosette's side, and things were so arranged that Cosette, who had at first been saddened by the absence of Jean Valjean, ended by being pleased at it. From the moment when Marius was the substitute, Cosette would not have regretted God. She placed her little white-satin-slippered foot upon Marius's foot. When the easy-chair was occuppied, M. Fauchelevent was effaced, and nothing was wanting. Five minutes later all the guests were laughing from one end of the table to the other, with all the forgetfulness of humor. At dessert M. Gillenormand rose, with a glass of champagne in his hand, only half full, so that the trembling of ninety-two years might not upset it, and proposed the health of the new-married couple.
"You will not escape from two sermons," he exclaimed: "this morning you had the curé's, and this evening you will have grandpapa's. Listen to me, for I am going to give you some advice: Adore each other. I do not beat round the bush, but go straight to the point; be happy. There are no other sages in creation but the turtle-doves. Philosophers say, Moderate your joys; but I say, Throw the bridle on the neck of your joys. Love like fiends, be furious. The philosophers babble, and I should like to thrust their philosophy down their throats for them. Can we have too many perfumes, too many open rose-buds, too many singing nightingales, too many green leaves, and too much dawn in life? Can we love too much? Can we please one another too much? Take care, Estelle, you are too pretty! Take care, Némorin, you are too handsome! What jolly nonsense! Can people enchant each other, tease each other, and charm each other too much? Can they be too loving? Can they be too happy? Moderate your joys,—oh, stuff! Down with the philosophers, for wisdom is jubilation. Do you jubilate? Let us jubilate; are we happy because we are good, or are we good because we are happy? Is the Sancy diamond called the Sancy because it belonged to Harlay de Sancy, or because it weighs one hundred and six carats? I do not know; and life is full of such problems: the important thing is to have the Sancy and happiness. Let us be happy without quibbling. Let us blindly obey the sun. What is the sun? It is love; and when I say love, I mean woman. Ah, ah! woman is an omnipotence. Ask that demagogue, Marius, if he is not the slave of that little she-tyrant, Cosette, and willingly so, the coward? Woman! There is not a Robespierre who can stand; but woman reigns. I am now only a royalist of that royalty. What is Adam? The royalty of Eve. There is no '89 for Eve. There was the royal sceptre surmounted by the fleur-de-lys, there was the imperial sceptre surmounted by a globe, there was Charlemagne's sceptre of iron, and the sceptre of Louis the Great, which was of gold. The Revolution twisted them between its thumb and forefinger like straws. It is finished, it is broken, it lies on the ground,—there is no sceptre left. But just make a revolution against that little embroidered handkerchief which smells of patchouli! I should like to see you at it. Try it. Why is it solid? Because it is a rag. Ah! you are the nineteenth century. Well, what then? We were the eighteenth, and were as foolish as you. Do not suppose that you have made any tremendous change in the world because your gallant-trusser is called cholera-morbus, and your bourrée the cachucha. After all, woman must always be loved, and I defy you to get out of that. These she-devils are our angels. Yes, love, woman, and a kiss form a circle from which I defy you to issue, and for my own part I should be very glad to enter it again. Who among you has seen the star Venus, the great coquette of the abyss, the Celimène of ocean, rise in infinite space, appeasing everything below her, and looking at the waves like a woman? The ocean is a rude Alcestis; and yet, however much he may growl, when Venus appears he is forced to smile. That brute-beast submits, and we are all thus. Anger, tempest, thunder-bolts, foam up to the ceiling. A woman comes upon the stage, a star rises, and you crawl in the dust. Marius was fighting six months ago, and is marrying to-day, and that is well done. Yes, Marius, yes, Cosette, you are right. Exist bravely one for the other, make us burst with rage because we cannot do the same, and idolize each other. Take in both your beaks the little straws of felicity which lie on the ground, and make of them a nest for life. By Jove! to love, to be loved,—what a great miracle when a man is young! Do not suppose that you invented it. I too have dreamed, and thought, and sighed. I too have had a moonlit soul. Love is a child six thousand years of age, and has a right to a long white beard. Methuselah is a baby by the side of Cupid. Sixty centuries back man and woman got out of the scrape by loving. The devil, who is cunning, took to hating man; but man, who is more cunning still, took to loving woman. In this way he did himself more good than the devil did him harm. That trick was discovered simultaneously with the terrestrial paradise. My friends, the invention is old, but it is brand new. Take advantage of it; be Daphnis and Chloe while waiting till you are Baucis and Philemon. Manage so that when you are together you may want for nothing, and that Cosette may be the sun for Marius, and Marius the universe for Cosette. Cosette, let your fine weather be your husband's smiles. Marius, let your wife's tears be the rain, and mind that it never does rain in your household. You have drawn the good number in the lottery, love in the sacrament. You have the prize number, so keep it carefully under lock and key. Do not squander it. Adore each other, and a fig for the rest. Believe what I tell you, then, for it is good sense, and good sense cannot deceive. Be to one another a religion, for each man has his own way of adoring God. Saperlotte! the best way of adoring God is to love one's wife. I love you! that is my catechism; and whoever loves is orthodox. The oath of Henri IV. places sanctity between guttling and intoxication. Ventre Saint Gris! I do not belong to the religion of that oath, for woman is forgotten in it, and that surprises me on the part of Henri IV.'s oath. My friends, long live woman! I am old, so people say; but it is amazing how disposed I feel to be young. I should like to go and listen to the bagpipes in the woods. These children, who succeed in being beautiful and satisfied, intoxicate me. I am quite willing to marry if anybody will have me. It is impossible to imagine that God has made us for anything else than this,—to idolize, to purr, to strut, to be a pigeon, to be a cock, to caress our lovers from morning till night, to admire ourselves in our little wife, to be proud, to be triumphant, and to swell. Such is the object of life. That, without offence, is what we thought in our time, when we were young men. Ah! vertu-bamboche! what charming women there were in those days! what ducks! I made my ravages among them. Then love each other. If men and women did not love, I really do not see what use there would be in having a spring. And for my part, I would pray the good God to lock up all the fine things he shows us and take them back from us, and to return to his box the flowers, the birds, and the pretty girls. My children, receive an old man's blessing."
The evening was lively, gay, and pleasant; the sovereign good-humor of the grandfather gave the tone to the whole festivity, and each was regulated by this almost centenary heartiness. There was a little dancing and a good deal of laughter; it was a merry wedding, to which that worthy old fellow "Once on a time" might have been invited; however, he was present in the person of Father Gillenormand. There was a tumult and then a silence; the married couple disappeared. A little after midnight the Gillenormand mansion became a temple. Here we stop, for an angel stands on the threshold of wedding-nights, smiling, and with finger on lip; the mind becomes contemplative before this sanctuary in which the celebration of love is held. There must be rays of light above such houses, and the joy which they contain must pass through the walls in brilliancy, and vaguely irradiate the darkness. It is impossible for this sacred and fatal festival not to send a celestial radiance to infinitude. Love is the sublime crucible in which the fusion of man and woman takes place; the one being, the triple being, the final being, the human trinity issue from it. This birth of two souls in one must have emotion for the shadows. The lover is the priest, and the transported virgin feels an awe. A portion of this joy ascends to God. When there is really marriage, that is to say, when there is love, the ideal is mingled with it, and a nuptial couch forms in the darkness a corner of the dawn. If it was given to the mental eye to perceive the formidable and charming visions of higher life, it is probable that it would see the forms of night, the unknown winged beings, the blue wayfarers of the invisible, bending down round the luminous house, satisfied and blessing, pointing out to each other the virgin bride, who is gently startled, and having the reflection of human felicity on their divine countenances. If, at this supreme hour, the pair, dazzled with pleasure, and who believe themselves alone, were to listen, they would hear in their chamber a confused rustling of wings, for perfect happiness implies the guarantee of angels. This little obscure alcove has an entire heaven for its ceiling. When two mouths, which have become sacred by love, approach each other in order to create, it is impossible but that there is a tremor in the immense mystery of the stars above this ineffable kiss. These felicities are the real ones, there is no joy beyond their joys; love is the sole ecstasy, and all the rest weeps. To love or to have loved is sufficient; ask nothing more after that. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life, for love is a consummation.
[CHAPTER III.]
THE INSEPARABLE.
What had become of Jean Valjean? Directly after he had laughed in accordance with Cosette's request, as no one was paying any attention to him, Jean Valjean rose, and unnoticed reached the anteroom. It was the same room which he had entered eight months previously, black with mud and blood and gunpowder, bringing back the grandson to the grandfather. The old panelling was garlanded with flowers and leaves, the musicians were seated on the sofa upon which Marius had been deposited. Basque, in black coat, knee-breeches, white cravat, and white gloves, was placing wreaths of roses round each of the dishes which was going to be served up. Jean Valjean showed him his arm in the sling, requested him to explain his absence, and quitted the house. The windows of the dining-room looked out on the street, and Valjean stood for some minutes motionless in the obscurity of those radiant windows. He listened, and the confused sound of the banquet reached his ears; he heard the grandfather's loud and dictatorial voice, the violins, the rattling of plates and glasses, the bursts of laughter, and amid all these gay sounds he distinguished Cosette's soft, happy voice. He left the Rue des Filles du Calvaire and returned to the Rue de l'Homme Armé. In going home he went along the Rue St. Louis, the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and the Blancs Manteaux; it was a little longer, but it was the road by which he had been accustomed to come with Cosette during the last three months, in order to avoid the crowd and mud of the Rue Vieille du Temple. This road, which Cosette had passed along, excluded the idea of any other itinerary for him. Jean Valjean returned home, lit his candle, and went upstairs. The apartments were empty; not even Toussaint was in there now. Jean Valjean's footsteps made more noise in the rooms than usual. All the wardrobes were open; he entered Cosette's room, and there were no sheets on the bed. The pillow, without a case or lace, was laid on the blankets folded at the foot of the bed, in which no one was going to sleep again. All the small feminine articles to which Cosette clung had been removed; only the heavy furniture and the four walls remained. Toussaint's bed was also unmade, and the only one made which seemed to be expecting somebody was Jean Valjean's. Jean Valjean looked at the walls, closed some of the wardrobe drawers, and walked in and out of the rooms. Then he returned to his own room and placed his candle on the table; he had taken his arm out of the sling, and used it as if he were suffering no pain in it. He went up to his bed and his eyes fell—was it by accident or was it purposely?—on the inseparable of which Cosette had been jealous, the little valise which never left him. On June 4, when he arrived at the Rue de l'Homme Armé, he laid it on a table; he now walked up to this table with some eagerness, took the key out of his pocket, and opened the portmanteau. He slowly drew out the clothes in which, ten years previously, Cosette had left Montfermeil; first, the little black dress, then the black handkerchief, then the stout shoes, which Cosette could almost have worn still, so small was her foot; next the petticoat, then the apron, and lastly, the woollen stockings. These stockings, in which the shape of a little leg was gracefully marked, were no longer than Jean Valjean's hand. All these articles were black, and it was he who took them for her to Montfermeil. He laid each article on the bed as he took it out, and he thought and remembered. It was in winter, a very cold December; she was shivering under her rags, and her poor feet were quite red in her wooden shoes. He, Jean Valjean, had made her take off these rags and put on this mourning garb; the mother must have been pleased in her tomb to see her daughter wearing mourning for her, and above all, to see that she was well clothed and was warm. He thought of that forest of Montfermeil, he thought what the weather was, of the trees without leaves, of the wood without birds and the sky without sun; but no matter, it was charming. He arranged the little clothes on the bed, the handkerchief near the petticoat, the stockings along with the shoes, the apron by the side of the dress, and he looked at them one after the other. She was not much taller than that, she had her large doll in her arms, she had put her louis d'or in the pocket of this apron, she laughed, they walked along holding each other's hand, and she had no one but him in the world.
Then his venerable white head fell on the bed, his old stoical heart broke, his face was buried in Cosette's clothes, and had any one passed upstairs at that moment he would have heard frightful sobs.
[CHAPTER IV.]
IMMORTALE JECUR.
The old formidable struggle, of which we have already seen several phases, began again. Jacob only wrestled with the angel for one night. Alas! how many times have we seen Jean Valjean caught round the waist in the darkness by his conscience, and struggling frantically against it. An extraordinary struggle! At certain moments the foot slips, at others the ground gives way. How many times had that conscience, clinging to the right, strangled and crushed him! How many times had inexorable truth set its foot on his chest! How many times had he, felled by the light, cried for mercy! How many times had that implacable light, illumined within and over him by the Bishop, dazzled him when he wished to be blinded! How many times had he risen again in the contest, clung to the rock, supported himself by sophistry, and been dragged through the dust, at one moment throwing his conscience under him, at another thrown by it! How many times, after an equivocation, after the treacherous and specious reasoning of egotism, had he heard his irritated conscience cry in his ears, "Trickster! wretch!" How many times had his refractory thoughts groaned convulsively under the evidence of duty! What secret wounds he had, which he alone felt bleeding! What excoriations there were in his lamentable existence! How many times had he risen, bleeding, mutilated, crushed, enlightened, with despair in his heart and serenity in his soul! And though vanquished, he felt himself the victor, and after having dislocated, tortured, and broken him, his conscience, erect before him, luminous and tranquil, would say to him,—"Now go in peace!" What a mournful peace, alas! after issuing from such a contest.
This night, however, Jean Valjean felt that he was fighting his last battle. A crushing question presented itself; predestinations are not all straight; they do not develop themselves in a rectilinear avenue before the predestined man; they have blind alleys, zigzags, awkward corners, and perplexing cross-roads. Jean Valjean was halting at this moment at the most dangerous of these cross-roads. He had reached the supreme crossing of good and evil, and had that gloomy intersection before his eyes. This time again, as had already happened in other painful interludes, two roads presented themselves before him, one tempting, the other terrifying; which should he take? The one which frightened him was counselled by the mysterious pointing hand which we all perceive every time that we fix our eyes upon the darkness. Jean Valjean had once again a choice between the terrible haven and the smiling snare. Is it true, then? The soul may be cured, but not destiny. What a frightful thing,—an incurable destiny! The question which presented itself was this: In what way was Jean Valjean going to behave to the happiness of Cosette and Marius? That happiness he had willed, he had made; and at this hour, in gazing upon it, he could have the species of satisfaction which a cutler would have who recognized his trade-mark upon a knife when he drew it all smoking from his chest. Cosette had Marius, Marius possessed Cosette; they possessed everything, even wealth, and it was his doing. But now that this happiness existed and was there, how was he, Jean Valjean, to treat it? Should he force himself upon it and treat it as if belonging to himself? Doubtless Cosette was another man's; but should he, Jean Valjean, retain of Cosette all that he could retain? Should he remain the sort of father, scarce seen but respected, which he had hitherto been? Should he introduce himself quietly into Cosette's house? Should he carry his past to this future without saying a word? Should he present himself there as one having a right, and should he sit down, veiled, at this luminous hearth? Should he smilingly take the hands of these two innocent creatures in his tragic hands? Should he place on the andirons of the Gillenormand drawing-room his feet, which dragged after them the degrading shadow of the law? Should he render the obscurity on his brow and the cloud on theirs denser? Should he join his catastrophe to their two felicities? Should he continue to be silent? In a word, should he be the sinister dumb man of destiny by the side of these two happy beings? We must be accustomed to fatality and to meeting it, to raise our eyes when certain questions appear to us in their terrible nudity. Good and evil are behind this stern note of interrogation. What are you going to do? the Sphinx asks. This habit of trial Jean Valjean had, and he looked at the Sphinx fixedly, and examined the pitiless problem from all sides. Cosette, that charming existence, was the raft of this shipwrecked man; what should he do, cling to it, or let it go? If he clung to it, he issued from disaster, he remounted to the sunshine, he let the bitter water drip off his clothes and hair, he was saved and lived. Suppose he let it go? Then there was an abyss. He thus dolorously held counsel with his thoughts, or, to speak more correctly, he combated; he rushed furiously within himself, at one moment against his will, at another against his convictions. It was fortunate for Jean Valjean that he had been able to weep, for that enlightened him, perhaps. Still, the beginning was stern; a tempest, more furious than that which had formerly forced him to Arras, was let loose within him. The past returned to him in the face of the present; he compared and sobbed. Once the sluice of tears was opened, the despairing man writhed. He felt himself arrested, alas! in the deadly fight between one egotism and one duty. When we thus recoil inch by inch before our ideal, wildly, obstinately, exasperated at yielding, disputing the ground, hoping for a possible flight, and seeking an issue, what a sudden and sinister resistance behind us is the foot of the wall! To feel the holy shadow standing in the way! The inexorable, invisible,—what a pressure!
Hence we have never finished with our conscience. Make up your mind, Brutus; make up your mind, Cato. It is bottomless, for it is God. You cast into this pit the labor of your whole life,—your fortune, your wealth, your success, your liberty, or your country, your comfort, your repose, your joy. More, more, more! Empty the vase, tread over the urn, you must, end by throwing in your heart. There is a barrel like this somewhere in the Hades of old. Is it not pardonable to refuse at last? Can that which is inexhaustible have any claim? Are not endless chains beyond human strength? Who then would blame Sisyphus and Jean Valjean for saying, It is enough! The obedience of matter is limited by friction: is there not a limit to the obedience of the soul? If perpetual motion be impossible, why is perpetual devotion demanded? The first step is nothing, it is the last that is difficult. What was the Champmathieu affair by the side of Cosette's marriage? What did it bring with it? What is returning to the hulks by the side of entering nothingness? Oh, first step to descend, how gloomy thou art! oh, second step, how black thou art! How could he help turning his head away this time? Martyrdom is a sublimation, a corrosive sublimation, it is a torture which consecrates. A man may consent to it for the first hour; he sits on the throne of red-hot iron, the crown of red-hot iron is placed on his head,—he accepts the red-hot globe, he takes the red-hot sceptre, but he still has to don the mantle of flame, and is there not a moment when the miserable flesh revolts and he flies from the punishment? At length Jean Valjean entered the calmness of prostration; he wished, thought over, and considered the alternations, the mysterious balance of light and shadow. Should he force his galleys on these two dazzling children, or consummate his own irremediable destruction? On one side was the sacrifice of Cosette, on the other his own.
On which solution did he decide? What determination did he form? What was in his inner self the definitive reply to the incorruptible interrogatory of fatality? What door did he resolve on opening? Which side of his life did he make up his mind to close and condemn? Amid all those unfathomable precipices that surrounded him, which was his choice? What extremity did he accept? To which of these gulfs did he nod his head? His confusing reverie lasted all night; he remained till daybreak in the same position, leaning over the bed, prostrate beneath the enormity of fate, perhaps crushed, alas! with hands convulsed, and arms extended at a right angle like an unnailed crucified man thrown with his face on the ground. He remained thus for twelve hours,—the twelve hours of a long winter's night, frozen, without raising his head or uttering a syllable. He was motionless as a corpse, while his thoughts rolled on the ground or fled away; sometimes like a hydra, sometimes like the eagle. To see him thus you would have thought him a dead man; but all at once he started convulsively, and his mouth pressed to Cosette's clothes, kissed them; then one saw that he was alive.
What One, since Jean Valjean was alone and nobody was there?
The One who is in the darkness.