Les Misérables, v. 3

"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.