Les Misérables, v. 1

Prefects of police do not believe it possible that a cat can be changed into a lion; it is so, however, and that is the miracle of the people of Paris. The cat, so despised by Count Anglès, possessed the esteem of the old Republics; it was the incarnation of liberty in their eyes, and as if to serve as a pendant to the Minerva Apteros of the Piræus, there was on the public square of Corinth a colossal bronze statue of a cat. The simple police of the restoration had too favorable an opinion of the people of Paris, and they were not such good-tempered canaille as they were supposed to be. The Parisian is to the French-man what the Athenian is to the Greek; no one sleeps sounder than he; no one is more frankly frivolous and idle than he; no one can pretend to forget so well as he, – but he must not be trusted; he is suited for every species of nonchalance, but when there is a glory as the result, he is admirable for every sort of fury. Give him a pike and he will make August 10; give him a musket, and you will have Austerlitz. He is the support of Napoleon, and the resource of Danton. If the country is in danger, he enlists; if liberty is imperilled, he tears up the pavement. His hair, full of wrath, is epical, his blouse assumes the folds of a chlamys. Take care; for of the first Rue Grenétat he comes to be will make Caudine forks. If the hour strikes, this suburban grows, the little man looks in a terrible manner, his breath becomes a tempest, and from his weak chest issues a blast strong enough to uproot the Alps. It was through the Parisian suburban that the Revolution, joined with armies, conquered Europe. He sings, and that forms his delight; proportion his song to his nature, and you shall see! So long as he has no burden but the Carmagnole, he will merely overthrow Louis XVI.; but make him sing the Marseillaise, and he will deliver the world.

After writing this note on the margin of Count Anglès' report, we will return to our four couples. The dinner, as we said, was drawing to a close.

CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH PEOPLE ADORE EACH OTHER

Love talk and table talk are equally indescribable, for the first is a cloud, the second smoke. Fantine and Dahlia were humming a tune, Tholomyès was drinking, Zéphine laughing, Fantine smiling, Listolier was blowing a penny trumpet bought at St. Cloud, Favourite was looking tenderly at Blachevelle and saying, —

"Blachevelle, I adore you."

This led to Blachevelle asking, —

"What would you do, Favourite, if I ceased to love you?"

"I?" Favourite exclaimed, "oh, do not say that, even in fun! If you ceased to love me I would run after you, claw you, throw water over you, and have you arrested."

Blachevelle smiled with the voluptuous fatuity of a man whose self-esteem is tickled. Dahlia, while still eating, whispered to Favourite through the noise, —

"You seem to be very fond of your Blachevelle?"

"I detest him," Favourite answered in the same key, as she seized her fork again. "He is miserly, and I prefer the little fellow who lives opposite to me. He is a very good-looking young man; do you know him? It is easy to see that he wants to be an actor, and I am fond of actors. So soon as he comes in, his mother says, – 'Oh, good heavens! my tranquillity is destroyed: he is going to begin to shout; my dear boy, you give me a headache;' because he goes about the house, into the garrets as high as he can get, and sings and declaims, so that he can be heard from the streets! He already earns 20 sous a day in a lawyer's office. He is the son of an ex-chorister at St. Jacques du Haut Pas. Ah! he adores me to such a pitch that one day when he saw me making batter for pancakes, he said to me, 'Mamselle, make fritters of your gloves, and I will eat them.' Only artists are able to say things like that. Ah! he is very good-looking, and I feel as if I am about to fall madly in love with the little fellow. No matter, I tell Blachevelle that I adore him: what a falsehood, eh, what a falsehood!"

After a pause, Favourite continued, —

"Dahlia, look you, I am sad. It has done nothing but rain all the summer: the wind annoys me, Blachevelle is excessively mean, there are hardly any green peas in the market, one does not know what to eat; I have the spleen, as the English say, for butter is so dear; and then it is horrifying that we are dining in a room with a bed in it, and that disgusts me with life."

CHAPTER VII

THE WISDOM OF THOLOMYÈS

At length, when all were singing noisily, or talking all together, Tholomyès interfered.

"Let us not talk hap-hazard or too quickly," he exclaimed; "we must meditate if we desire to be striking; too much improvisation stupidly empties the mind. Gentlemen, no haste; let us mingle majesty with our gayety, eat contemplatively, and let festina lente be our rule. We must not hurry. Look at the Spring; if it goes ahead too fast it is floored, that is to say, nipped by frost. Excessive zeal ruins the peach and apricot trees; excessive zeal kills the grace and joy of good dinners. No zeal, gentlemen; Grimaud de la Reynière is of the same opinion as Talleyrand."

A dull rebellion broke out in the party.

"Tholomyès, leave us at peace," said Blachevelle.

"Down with the tyrant!" said Fameuil.

"Sunday exists," Listolier added.

"We are sober," Fameuil remarked again.

"Tholomyès," said Blachevelle, "contemplate my calmness" (mon calme.)

"You are the Marquis of that ilk," Tholomyès replied. This poor pun produced the effect of a stone thrown into a pond. The Marquis de Montcalm was a celebrated Royalist at that day. All the frogs were silent.

"My friends," Tholomyès shouted with the accent of a man who is recapturing his empire, "recover yourselves: too great stupor should not greet this pun which has fallen from the clouds, for everything that falls in such a manner is not necessarily worthy of enthusiasm and respect. Far be from me to insult puns: I honor them according to their deserts, and no more. All the most august, sublime, and charming in humanity and perhaps beyond humanity have played upon words. Christ made a pun on Saint Peter, Moses on Isaac, Æschylus on Polynices, and Cleopatra on Octavius. And note the fact that Cleopatra's pun preceded the battle of Actium, and that, were it not for that pun, no one would know the town of Toryne, a Greek word signifying a potladle. This granted, I return to my exhortation. Brethren, I repeat, no zeal, no row, no excess, even in witticisms, gayeties, merriments, and playing upon words. Listen to me, for I possess the prudence of Amphiaralis and the baldness of Cæsar; there should be a limit even to the rebus. Est modus in rebus. There should be a limit even to dinners; you are fond of apple-puffs, ladies, but no abuse; even in the matter of apple-puffs, good sense and art are needed. Gluttony chastises the glutton. Gula punit gulax. Indigestion was sent into the world to read a lecture to our stomachs; and, bear this in mind, each of our passions, even love, has a stomach which must not be filled too full. In all things, we must write betimes the word finis, we must restrain ourselves when it becomes urgent, put a bolt on our appetites, lock up our fancy, and place ourselves under arrest. The wise man is he who knows how, at a given moment, to arrest himself. Place some confidence in me: it does not follow because I know a little law, as my examinations prove; because I have supported a thesis in Latin as to the mode in which torture was applied at Rome at the time when Munatius Demens was quæstor parricidæ; and because I am going to be a Doctor at Law, as it seems, – it does not necessarily follow, I say, that I am an ass. I recommend to you moderation in your desires. As truly as my name is Félix Tholomyès, I am speaking the truth. Happy the man who, when the hour has struck, forms an heroic resolve, and abdicates like Sylla or Origen."

Favourite was listening with profound attention. "Félix!" she said, "what a pretty name; I like it. It is Latin, and means happy."

Tholomyès continued, —

"Gentlemen, be suspicious of women; woe to the man who surrenders himself to a woman's fickle heart; woman is perfidious and tortuous, and detests the serpent from professional jealousy. It is the shop opposite."

"Tholomyès," Blachevelle shouted, "you are drunk."

"I hope so!"

"Then be jolly."

"I am agreeable," Tholomyès answered. And filling his glass, he rose.

"Glory to wine! nunc te, Bacche, canam! Pardon, ladies, that is Spanish, and the proof, Señoras, is this: as the country is, so is the measure. The arroba of Castille contains sixteen quarts, the cantaro of Alicante twelve, the almuda of the Canary Isles twenty-five, the cuartino of the Balearic Isles twenty-six, and Czar Peter's boot thirty. Long live the Czar who was great, and his boot which was greater still! Ladies, take a friend's advice; deceive your neighbor, if you think proper. The peculiarity of love is to wander, and it is not made to crouch like an English servant girl who has stiff knees from scrubbing. It is said that error is human; but I say, error is amorous. Ladies, I idolize you all. O Zéphine, you with your seductive face, you would be charming were you not all askew; your face looks for all the world as if it had been sat upon by mistake. As for Favourite, O ye Nymphs and Muses! one day when Blachevelle was crossing the gutter in the Rue Guérin-Boisseau, he saw a pretty girl with white, well-drawn-up stockings, who displayed her legs. The prologue was pleasing, and Blachevelle fell in love; the girl he loved was Favourite. O Favourite, you have Ionian lips; there was a Greek painter of the name of Euphorion, who was christened the painter of lips, and this Greek alone would be worthy to paint your mouth. Listen to me: before you there was not a creature deserving of the name; you are made to receive the apple like Venus, or to eat it like Eve. Beauty begins with you, and you deserve a patent for inventing a pretty woman. You alluded to my name just now; it affected me deeply, but we must be distrustful of names, for they may be deceptive. My name is Félix, and yet I am not happy. Let us not blindly accept the indications they give us; it would be a mistake to write to Liège for corks, or to Pau for gloves.1 Miss Dahlia, in your place I would call myself Rose, for a flower ought to smell agreeably, and a woman have spirit. I say nothing of Fantine, for she is a dreamer, pensive and sensitive; she is a phantom, having the form of a nymph, and the modesty of a nun, who has strayed into the life of a grisette, but takes shelter in illusions, and who sings, prays, and looks at the blue sky, without exactly knowing what she sees or what she does, and who, with her eyes fixed on heaven, wanders about a garden in which there are more birds than ever existed. O Fantine, be aware of this fact: I, Tholomyès, am an illusion – why, the fair girl of chimeræ is not even listening to me! All about her is freshness, suavity, youth, and sweet morning brightness. O Fantine, girl worthy to be called Margaret or Pearl, you are a woman of the fairest East. Ladies, here is a second piece of advice; do not marry, for marriage is a risk, and you had better shun it. But nonsense! I am wasting my words! girls are incurable about wedlock; and all that we sages may say will not prevent waistcoat-makers and shoebinders from dreaming of husbands loaded with diamonds. Well, beauties, be it so: but bear this in mind, you eat too much sugar. You have only one fault, O women, and that is nibbling sugar. O rodent sex, your pretty little white teeth adore sugar. Now, listen to this: sugar is a salt, and salts are of a drying nature, and sugar is the most drying of all salts. It pumps out the fluidity of the blood through the veins; this produces first coagulation and then solidifying of the blood; from this come tubercles in the lungs, and thence death. Hence do not nibble sugar, and you will live. I now turn to my male hearers: Gentlemen, make conquests. Rob one another of your well-beloved ones remorselessly; change partners, for, in love there are no friends. Whenever there is a pretty woman, hostilities are opened; there is no quarter, but war to the knife! a pretty woman is a casus belli and a flagrant offence. All the invasions of history were produced by petticoats; for woman is the lawful prey of man. Romulus carried off the Sabine women, William the Saxon women, and Cæsar the Roman women. A man who is not loved soars like a vulture over the mistresses of other men: and for my part, I offer all these unfortunate widowers, Bonaparte's sublime proclamation to the army of Italy: 'Soldiers, you want for everything; the enemy possesses it.'"

Here Tholomyès broke off.

"Take a breather, my boy," said Blachevelle.

At the same time the other three gentlemen struck up to a doleful air one of those studio-songs, as destitute of sense as the motion of a tree or the sound of the wind, which are composed extemporaneously, either in rhyme or prose, which spring up from the smoke of pipes, and fly away with it. The song was not adapted to calm Tholomyès' inspiration; hence he emptied his glass, filled it again, and began once more.

"Down with wisdom! forget all I have said to you. Be neither prudish, nor prudent, nor prud'hommes. I drink the health of jollity: so let us be jolly. Let us complete our legal studies by folly and good food, for indigestion should run in a curricle with digests. Let Justinian be the male and merriment the female! Live, O creation; the world is one large diamond; I am happy, and the birds are astounding. What a festival all around us; the nightingale is a gratis Elleviou. Summer, I salute thee. O Luxembourg! O ye Georgics of the Rue Madame and the Allée de l'Observatoire! O ye dreaming soldiers! O ye delicious nurses, who, while taking care of children, fancy what your own will be like! the Pampas of America would please me if I had not the arcades of the Odéon. My soul is flying away to the Virgin forests and the savannas. All is glorious: the flies are buzzing in the light; the sun has sneezed forth the humming-bird. Kiss me, Fantine!"

He made a mistake and kissed Favourite.

CHAPTER VIII

THE DEATH OF A HORSE

"It is a better dinner at Édon's than at Bombarda's," Zéphine exclaimed.

"I prefer Bombarda," Blachevelle declared; "there is more luxury: it is more Asiatic. Just look at the dining-room with its mirrors: look at the knives, they are silver-handled here and bone at Édon's; now, silver is more precious than bone."

"Excepting for those persons who have a silver chin," Tholomyès observed.

He was looking at this moment at the dome of the Invalides which was visible from Bombardas window. There was a pause.

"Tholomyès," cried Fameuil, "just now, Listolier and I had a discussion."

"A discussion is good," replied Tholomyès; "a quarrel is better."

"We discussed philosophy; which do you prefer, Descartes or Spinoza?"

"Désangiers," said Tholomyès.

This judgment rendered, he continued, —

"I consent to live: all is not finished in the world. Since men can still be unreasonable, I return thanks to the immortal gods. Men lie, but they laugh: they affirm, but they doubt: and something unexpected issues from the syllogism. This is grand: there are still in the world human beings who can joyously open and shut the puzzle-box of paradox. This wine, ladies, which you are drinking so calmly, is Madeira, you must know, grown at Coural das Freiras, which is three hundred and seventeen toises above the sea level. Attention while drinking! three hundred and seventeen toises, and M. Bombarda, the magnificent restaurateur, lets you have these three hundred and seventeen toises for four francs, fifty centimes."

Tholomyès drained his glass and then continued:

"Honor to Bombarda! he would be equal to Memphis of Elephanta if he could ladle me up an Almeh, and to Thygelion of Cheronea if he could procure me an Hetæra! for, ladies, there were Bombardas in Greece and Egypt, as Apuleius teaches us. Alas! ever the same thing and nothing new: nothing is left unpublished in the creation of the Creator. 'Nothing new under the sun,' says Solomon: amor omnibus idem, and Carabine gets into the St. Cloud fly-boat with Carabin, just as Aspasia embarked with Pericles aboard the Samos fleet. One last word: Do you know who Aspasia was, ladies? Although she lived at a time when women had no soul, she was a soul: a soul of a pink and purple hue, hotter than fire, and fresher than the dawn. Aspasia was a creature in whom the two extremes of woman met. She was a prostituted goddess: Socrates plus Manon Lescaut."

Tholomyès, when started, would hardly have been checked, had not a horse fallen in the street at this very moment. Through the shock, cart and orator stopped short. It was a Beauce mare, old and lean and worthy of the knacker, dragging a very heavy cart. On getting in front of Bombarda's, the beast, exhausted and worn out, refused to go any further, and this incident produced a crowd. The carter, swearing and indignant, had scarce time to utter with the suitable energy the sacramental word, "Rascal!" backed up by a pitiless lash, ere the poor beast fell, never to rise again. Tholomyès' gay hearers turned their heads away on noticing the confusion, while he wound up his speech by the following sad strophe, —

"Elle était de ce monde où coucous et carrosses,Ont le même destin,Et, rosse, elle a vécu ce que vivent les rosses,L'espace d'un: Mâtin!"

"Poor horse!" Fantine said with a sigh; and Dahlia shouted, —

"Why, here is Fantine beginning to feel pity for horses: how can she be such a fool!"

At this moment, Favourite crossed her arms and threw her head back; she then looked boldly at Tholomyès, and said, —

"Well, how about the surprise?"

"That is true, the hour has arrived," Tholomyès answered. "Gentlemen, it is time to surprise the ladies. Pray wait for us a moment."

"It begins with a kiss," said Blacheve.

"On the forehead," Tholomyès added.

Each solemnly kissed the forehead of his mistress: then they proceeded to the door in Indian file, with a finger on their lip. Favourite clapped her hands as they went out.

"It is amusing already," she said.

"Do not be long," Fantine murmured, "we are waiting for you."

CHAPTER IX

THE JOYOUS END OF JOY

The girls, when left alone, leaned out of the windows, two by two, talking, looking out, and wondering. They watched the young men leave the Bombarda cabaret arm in arm; they turned round, made laughing signs, and disappeared in that dusty Sunday mob which once a week invaded the Champs Élysées.

"Do not be long," Fantine cried.

"What will they bring us?" said Zéphine.

"I am certain it will be pretty," said Dahlia.

"For my part," Favourite added, "I hope it will be set in gold."

They were soon distracted by the movement on the quay, which they could notice through the branches of the lofty trees, and which greatly amused them. It was the hour for the mail-carts and stages to start, and nearly all those bound for the South and West at that time passed through the Champs Élysées. Most of them followed the quay and went out by the Passy barrier. Every moment some heavy vehicle, painted yellow and black, heavily loaded and rendered shapeless by trunks and valises, dashed through the crowd with the sparks of a forge, the dust representing the smoke. This confusion amused the girls.

"What a racket!" exclaimed Favourite; "one might say a pile of chairs was flying about."

One of these vehicles, which could hardly be distinguished through the branches, stopped for a moment, and then started again at a gallop. This surprised Fantine.

"That is strange," she said; "I fancied that the diligence never stopped."

Favourite shrugged her shoulders.

"This Fantine is really amazing, and is surprised at the simplest things. Let us suppose that I am a traveller and say to the guard of the stage-coach, "I will walk on and you can pick me up on the quay as you pass." The coach passes, sees me, stops and takes me in. That is done every day; you are ignorant of life, my dear."

Some time elapsed; all at once Favourite started as if waking from sleep.

"Well," she said, "where is the surprise?"

"Oh yes," Dahlia continued, "the famous surprise."

"They are a long time," said Fantine.

Just as Fantine had ended this sigh, the waiter who had served the dinner came in; he held in his hand something that resembled a letter.

"What is that?" Favourite asked.

The waiter answered, —

"It is a paper which the gentlemen left for you, ladies."

"Why did you not bring it to us at once?"

"Because the gentlemen," the waiter went on, "ordered that it should not be delivered to you for an hour."

Favourite snatched the paper from the waiter's hands; it was really a letter.

"Stay," she said; "there is no address, but the following words are written on it: THIS IS THE SURPRISE." She quickly opened the letter and read (she could read): —

"WELL-BELOVED, – Know that we have relatives: perhaps you are not perfectly cognizant what they are; it means fathers and mothers in the civil, puerile, and honest code. Well, these relatives are groaning; these old people claim us as their own; these worthy men and women call us prodigal sons. They desire our return home, and offer to kill the fatted calf. We obey them, as we are virtuous; at the hour when you read this, five impetuous steeds will be conveying us back to our papas and mammas. 'We decamp,' as Bossuet said; "we are going, gone." We are flying away in the arms of Laffitte and on the wings of Gaillard. The Toulouse coach is dragging us away from the abyss, and that abyss is yourselves, pretty dears. We are re-entering society, duty, and order, at a sharp trot, and at the rate of nine miles an hour. It is important for our country that we should become, like everybody else, Prefects, fathers of a family, game-keepers, and councillors of state. Revere us, for we are sacrificing ourselves. Dry up your tears for us rapidly, and get a substitute speedily. If this letter lacerates your hearts, treat it in the same fashion. Good-by. For nearly two years we rendered you happy, so do not owe us any grudge.

(Signed)BLACHEVELLE.FAMEUIL.LISTOLIER.FELIX THOLOMYÈS.

"P.S. The dinner is paid for."

The four girls looked at each other, and Favourite was the first to break the silence.

"I don't care," she said, "it is a capital joke."

"It is very funny," Zéphine remarked.

"It must have been Blachevelle who had that idea," Favourite continued; "it makes me in love with him. So soon as he has left me I am beginning to grow fond of him; the old story."

"No," said Dahlia, "that is an idea of Tholomyès. That can be easily seen."

"In that case," Favourite retorted, "down with Blachevelle and long live Tholomyès!"

And they burst into a laugh, in which Fantine joined.

An hour later though, when she returned to her bed-room, she wept: this was, as we have said, her first love; she had yielded to Tholomyès as to a husband, and the poor girl had a child.

BOOK IV

TO CONFIDE IS SOMETIMES TO ABANDON

CHAPTER I

TWO MOTHERS MEET

There was in the first quarter of this century a sort of pot-house at Montfermeil, near Paris, which no longer exists. It was kept by a couple of the name of Thénardier, and was situated in the Rue du Boulanger. Over the door a board was nailed to the wall, and on this board was painted something resembling a man carrying on his back another man, who wore large gilt general's epaulettes with silver stars; red dabs represented blood, and the rest of the painting was smoke, probably representing a battle. At the bottom could be read the inscription: THE SERGEANT OF WATERLOO.

Though nothing is more common than a cart at a pot-house door, the vehicle, or rather fragment of a vehicle, which blocked up the street in front of the Sergeant of Waterloo, one spring evening in 1818, would have certainly attracted the attention of any painter who had passed that way. It was the forepart of one of those wains used in wood countries for dragging planks and trunks of trees; it was composed of a massive iron axle-tree, in which a heavy pole was imbedded and supported by two enormous wheels. The whole thing was sturdy, crushing, and ugly, and it might have passed for the carriage of a monster gun. The ruts had given the wheels, felloes, spokes, axle-tree, and pole a coating of mud, a hideous yellow plaster, much like that with which cathedrals are so often adorned. The wood-work was hidden by mud and the iron by rust. Under the axle-tree was festooned a heavy chain suited for a convict Goliath. This chain made you think, not of the wood it was intended to secure, but of the mastodons and mammoths for which it would have served as harness; it had the air of a cyclopean and superhuman bagne, and seemed removed from some monster. Homer would have bound Polyphemus with it, and Shakespeare, Caliban.