Виктор Мари Гюго
Les Misérables, v. 2
"Is he going to pass the night like that?" the landlady pouted. When it struck two, she declared herself conquered, and said to her husband, "I am off to bed; you can do as you like." The husband sat down at a table in a corner, lit a candle, and began reading the Courrier Français. A good hour passed, during which the worthy host read the paper through thrice from the date of the number to the imprint, but the stranger did not stir. Thénardier moved, coughed, spat, and made his chair creak, but the man made no movement. "Can he be asleep?" Thénardier thought. The man was not asleep, but no movement aroused him. At length the landlord doffed his cap, walked up gently, and ventured to say, —
"Do you not wish to repose, sir?"
"To sleep" would have appeared to him excessive and familiar, while "repose" hinted at luxury, and was respectful. Such words have the mysterious and admirable quality of swelling the bill on the next morning: a room in which you sleep costs twenty sous; one in which you repose costs twenty francs.
"Why, you are right," said the stranger; "where is your stable?"
"I will show you the way, sir," Thénardier replied with a smile.
He took the candle; the man fetched his stick and bundle, and Thénardier led him to a room on the first floor, which was most luxurious, with its mahogany furniture, and the bed with its red cotton curtains.
"What is this?" the traveller asked.
"Our own wedding bed-room," the landlord replied; "my wife and I occupy another, and this room is only entered three or four times a year."
"I should have preferred the stable," the man said roughly. Thénardier pretended not to hear this disagreeable reflection, but lit two new wax candles standing on the mantel-piece. A rather large fire was flashing in the grate. Upon the mantel-piece was also a woman's head-dress, made of silver tissue and orange-flowers, under a glass shade.
"And what is this?" the stranger continued.
"That, sir," Thénardier said, "is my wife's wedding bonnet."
The traveller looked at the object in a way that seemed to say, – "Then there was a moment when this monster was a virgin."
This was a falsehood of Thénardier's. When he hired the house to convert it into a public, he found this room thus furnished, and bought the lot, thinking that it would cast a graceful shadow over his "spouse," and that his house would derive from it what the English call respectability. When the traveller turned round, Thénardier had disappeared, without saying good-evening, as he did not wish to treat with disrespectful cordiality a man whom he intended to flay royally the next morning. The landlord went to his room, where his wife was in bed, but not asleep. So soon as she heard her husband's footstep, she said to him, —
"You know that I mean to turn Cosette out to-morrow?" Thénardier coldly answered, —
"How you go on!"
They exchanged no more words, and a few minutes after the candle was extinguished. For his part, the stranger had placed his stick and bundle in a corner. When the landlord had withdrawn, he sat down in an easy-chair and remained thoughtful for a time; then he took off his shoes, seized one of the candlesticks, and left the room, looking about him as if in search of something. He went along a passage and reached the staircase; here he heard a very gentle sound, like the breathing of a child. He followed this sound, and reached a triangular closet under the stairs, or, to speak more correctly, formed by the stairs themselves. Here, among old hampers and potsherds, in dust and cobwebs, there was a bed, if we may apply the term to a paillasse so rotten as to show the straw, and a blanket so torn as to show the mattress. There were no sheets, and all this lay on the ground; in this bed Cosette was sleeping. The man walked up and gazed at her. Cosette was fast asleep and had all her clothes on; in winter she did not undress, that she might be less cold. She was holding to her bosom the doll, whose large open eyes glistened in the darkness; from time to time she gave a heavy sigh, as if about to awake, and pressed the doll almost convulsively in her arms. There was nothing by her bed-side but one of her wooden shoes. Through an open door close by a large dark room could be seen, through which the stranger entered. At the end, two little white beds, belonging to Éponine and Azelma, were visible through a glass door. Behind this a wicker curtainless cradle was half hidden, in which slept the little boy who had been crying all the evening.
The stranger conjectured that this room communicated with that of the Thénardiers. He was about to return, when his eye fell on the chimney, – one of those vast inn chimneys, in which there is always so little fire when there is a frost, and which are so cold to look at. In this chimney there was no fire, not even ashes; but what there was in it attracted the travellers attention. He saw two little child's shoes of coquettish shape and unequal size; and the traveller recollected the graceful and immemorial custom of children who place their shoe in the chimney on Christmas night, in order to obtain some glittering present from their good fairy in the darkness. Éponine and Azelma had not failed in this observance. The traveller bent down; the fairy, that is, the mother, had already paid her visit, and in each shoe a handsome ten-sou piece could be seen shining. The man rose and was going away, when he observed another object in the darkest corner of the hearth; he looked at it, and recognized a hideous wooden shoe, half broken and covered with ashes and dried mud. It was Cosette's; with the touching confidence of children who may be disappointed, but are never discouraged, she had also placed her shoe in the chimney. Hope in a child that has never known aught but despair is a sublime and affecting thing. There was nothing in this shoe; but the stranger felt in his pocket and laid a louis d'or in it; then he crept noiselessly back to his bed-room.
CHAPTER IX
THÉNARDIER AT WORK
The next morning, almost two hours before daybreak, Thénardier was seated, pen in hand, at a table in the tap-room, and making out the bill of the yellow-coated traveller. His wife, standing behind him, was watching him; they did not exchange a syllable; on one side there was a profound meditation, on the other that profound admiration with which people watch a marvel of the human mind expanding. A noise could be heard in the house; it was the Lark sweeping the stairs. At the end of a quarter of an hour and some erasures, Thénardier produced this masterpiece, —
"THE GENT IN NO. 1.
Supper… 3 francs.
Bed..... 10 "
Candles… 5 "
Fire...... 4 "
Service… 1 "
__
Total 23 francs."
Service was written serviss.
"Twenty-three francs!" the wife exclaimed, with an admiration mingled with some hesitation.
Like all great artists, Thénardier was not satisfied, and said, "Pooh!" It was the accent of Castlereagh drawing up the little bill for France to pay at the Congress of Vienna.
"Monsieur Thénardier, you are right; he certainly owes it," the wife muttered, thinking of the doll given to Cosette in the presence of her children: "it is fair, but it is too much; he will not pay it."
Thénardier gave his cold laugh, and said, "He will pay it!"
This laugh was the supreme signification of certainty and authority; what was said in this way must be. The wife made no objection, but began arranging the tables, while her husband walked up and down the room; a moment after he added, —
"Why, I owe fifteen hundred francs."
He sat down in the ingle-nook, meditating with his feet in the warm ashes.
"By the bye," the wife continued, "you don't forget that I mean to bundle out Cosette to-day? The monster! she eats my heart with her doll; I would sooner marry Louis XVIII. than keep her a day longer in the house."
Thénardier lit his pipe, and said between two puffs, – "You will hand the man the bill."
Then he went out, and had scarce left the room ere the traveller entered; Thénardier at once appeared behind and stood in the half-open door, only visible to his wife. The yellow man carried his stick and bundle in his hand.
"Up so soon?" the landlady said. "Are you going to leave us already, sir?"
While speaking this, she turned the bill in her hands with an embarrassed air and made folds in it with her nails; her harsh face had an unusual look of timidity and scruple. It seemed to her difficult to present such a bill to a man who looked so thoroughly poor. The traveller seemed absent and preoccupied, as he replied, —
"Yes, Madame, I am going."
"Then you had no business to transact at Montfermeil, sir?" she continued.
"No; I am merely passing through, that is all. What do I owe you, Madame?"
The landlady, without replying, handed him the folded paper; he opened and looked at it, but his attention was visibly elsewhere.
"Do you do a good business here?" he asked.
"Tolerably well, sir," the landlady answered, stupefied at not seeing any other explosion; then she went on with an elegiac and lamentable accent, —
"Oh, sir, times are very bad! And then there are So few respectable people in these parts. It is lucky we have now and then generous and rich travellers like yourself, sir, for the expenses are so high. Why, that little girl costs us our eyes out of our head."
"What little girl?"
"Why, you know, Cosette, the Lark, as they call her hereabout."
"Oh!" said the man.
She continued, —
"What asses these peasants are with these nick-names! She looks more like a bat than a lark. You see, sir, we don't ask for charity, but we can't give it; our earnings are small and our expenses great, – the license, the door and window tax, and so on! You know, sir, that the Government claims a terrible deal of money. And then I have my own daughters, and do not care to support another person's child."
The man replied, in a voice which he strove to render careless, and in which there was a tremor, —
"And suppose you were freed of her?"
"Of whom, – of Cosette?"
The landlady's red and violent face was illumined by a hideous grin.
"Ah, sir, my good sir; take her, keep her, carry her off, sugar her, stuff her with truffles, eat her, drink her, and may all the Saints in Paradise bless you!"
"It is settled."
"You really will take her away at once?"
"At once. Call her."
"Cosette!" the landlady shouted.
"In the mean while," the man continued, "I will pay my score. How much is it?"
He took a glance at the bill, and could not restrain a start of surprise. Twenty-three francs! He looked at the landlady and repeated, "Twenty-three francs?" There was in his pronunciation of the two words the accent which separates the point of exclamation from the point of interrogation. Madame Thénardier had had time to prepare for the collision, and hence answered with assurance, —
"Yes, sir, twenty-three francs."
The stranger laid five five-franc pieces on the table.
"Go and fetch the girl," he said.
At this moment Thénardier walked into the middle of the room and said, —
"The gentleman owes twenty-six sous."
"Twenty-six sous!" the wife exclaimed.
"Twenty sous for the bed-room," Thénardier continued coldly, "and six for the supper. As for the girl, I must talk a little with the gentleman first. Leave us, wife."
The landlady had one of those bedazzlements which unforeseen flashes of talent produced; she felt that the great actor had come on the stage, made no answer, and went out. So soon as they were alone Thénardier offered the traveller a chair. He sat down; Thénardier remained standing, and his face assumed a singular expression of kindliness and simplicity.
"I must tell you," he said, "sir, that I adore the child."
The stranger looked at him fixedly.
"What child?"
Thénardier continued, —
"How strange it is, but you grow attached to them. What is the meaning of all that money? Put it back in your pocket; I adore the child."
"What child?" the stranger asked.
"Why, our little Cosette! Don't you wish to take her from us? Well, I speak frankly, and as true as you are an honest man, I cannot consent. I should miss the child, for I have known her since she was a baby: it is true that she costs us money, that she has her faults, that we are not rich, and that I paid more than upwards of four hundred francs for medicines alone in one of her illnesses. She has neither father nor mother, and I brought her up; and I have bread both for her and for me. Look you, I am fond of the child; affection grows on you; I am a good foolish fellow, and don't reason; I love the girl, and though my wife is quick, she loves her too. She is like our own child, and I want to hear her prattle in the house."
The stranger still looked at him fixedly, as he continued, —
"Excuse me, sir, but a child can't be given like that to the first passer-by. You will allow that I am right? I don't say that you are not rich and look like a very worthy man, and that it may be for her welfare; but I am bound to know. You understand that supposing I let her go and sacrificed myself, I should like to know where she is going, and not lose her out of sight; I should wish to know where she is, and go and see her now and then, to convince the child that her foster-father is watching over her. In short, there are some things which are not possible; I don't even know your name. I ought at least to see some scrap of paper, a passport, and so on."
The stranger, without ceasing to fix on him that look which pierces to the bottom of the conscience, said in a grave, firm voice, —
"Monsieur Thénardier, a man does not require a passport to go four leagues from Paris; and if I take Cosette away, I take her away, that is all. You will not know my name, my residence, or where she is; and it is my intention that she shall never see you again. I break the string which she has round her foot, and away she flies. Does that suit you? Yes or no!"
In the same way as demons and genii recognize, by certain signs, the presence of a superior deity, Thénardier understood that he had to do with a very strong man. It was a sort of intuition, and he comprehended with his distinct and sagacious promptitude. On the previous evening, while drinking, smoking, and singing, he had constantly looked at the stranger, watching him like a cat and studying him like a mathematician. He had both watched him on his own account, through pleasure and instinct, and played the spy on him as if paid to do so. Not a gesture or movement of the yellow-coated man escaped him, and even before the stranger so clearly manifested his interest in Cosette, Thénardier divined it. He surprised the profound glances of this old man which constantly reverted to the child. Why this interest? Who was this man? Why was his attire so wretched when his purse was so full? These questions he asked himself and could not answer, and they irritated him; he reflected on them the whole night. He could not be Cosette's father. Was he her grandfather? Then, why did he not make himself known at once? When a man has a claim, he proves it, and this man evidently had no claim on Cosette. In that case, what was it? Thénardier lost himself in suppositions; he caught a gleam of everything and saw nothing. However this might be, on beginning the conversation, feeling sure that there was a secret in all this, and that the man was interested in remaining in the shadow, he felt himself strong; but on hearing the stranger's firm and distinct answer, when he saw that this mysterious person was simply mysterious, he felt himself weak. He had not expected anything of this sort, and it routed his conjectures. He rallied his ideas, and weighed all this in a second. Thénardier was one of those men who judge of a situation at a glance, and considered that it was the moment to advance straight and rapidly. He behaved like great captains at that decisive instant which they alone can recognize, and suddenly unmasked his battery.
"Sir," he said, "I want one thousand five hundred francs."
The stranger drew from his side-pocket an old black leathern portfolio, and took from it three bank-notes which he laid on the table; then he placed his large thumb on the notes, and said to the landlord, —
"Bring Cosette here."
While this was taking place, what was Cosette about? On waking, she ran to her sabot and found the gold coin in it; it was not a napoleon, but one of those new twenty-franc pieces of the Restoration, on which the Prussian queue was substituted for the crown of laurels. Cosette was dazzled, and her destiny was beginning to intoxicate her; she knew not what a gold piece was, she had never seen one, and she hurriedly hid it in her pocket, as if she had stolen it. She felt it was really hers; she guessed whence the gift came, but she experienced a feeling of joy full of fear. She was happy, but she was more stupefied; these magnificent things did not seem to her real, – the doll frightened her, the gold coin frightened her, and she trembled vaguely at this magnificence. The stranger alone did not frighten her; on the contrary, he reassured her since the previous evening. Through her amazement and her sleep, she thought in her little childish mind of this man, who looked so old and poor and sad, and who was so rich and good. Ever since she met him in the wood all had changed for her, as it were. Cosette, less happy than the meanest swallow, had never yet known what it is to take refuge in the shadow and beneath the wing of her mother; for five years, that is to say, so far back as her thoughts went, the poor child had trembled and shuddered. She had always been exposed in her nudity to the bleak blast of misfortune, and she felt as if she were clothed; formerly her soul was cold, now it was warm. Cosette no longer felt afraid of her mistress, for she was no longer alone; she had some one by her side. She had set about her daily work very quickly, and the louis, which she had in the same pocket from which the fifteen-sous piece fell on the previous night, caused her thoughts to stray. She did not dare touch it, but she looked at it for five minutes at a time. While sweeping the stairs, she stood motionless, forgetting her broom and the whole world, engaged in watching this star sparkle in her pocket. It was during one of these contemplations that her mistress came to her; by her husband's order she had come to fetch the child, and, extraordinary to say, did not strike her, or even abuse her.
"Cosette," she said almost gently, "come directly."
A moment after, Cosette entered the tap-room. The stranger took his bundle and untied it; it contained a complete mourning dress for a child of seven years of age.
"My dear," the man said, "take these and go and dress yourself quickly."
Day was breaking, when those inhabitants of Montfermeil who were beginning to open their doors saw a poorly-clad man and a girl, holding a large doll, going along the Paris road toward Livry. It was our man and Cosette. No one knew the man, and few recognized Cosette in her new dress. Cosette was going away. With whom, she was ignorant. Where to, she did not know. All she understood was that she was leaving Thénardier's pot-house behind her; no one thought of saying good-by to her, or she to any one. She left the house, hated and hating. Poor gentle being, whose heart up to this hour had only been compressed!
Cosette walked gravely, opening her large eyes and looking at the sky; she had placed her louis in the pocket of her new apron, and from time to time stooped down and looked at it, and then at her companion.
CHAPTER X
THÉNARDIER HAS ONE REGRET
Madame Thénardier, according to her habit, had left her husband to act, and anticipated grand results. When the man and Cosette had left, Thénardier let a good quarter of an hour elapse, then took her on one side and showed her the fifteen hundred francs.
"Is that all?" she said.
It was the first time since her marriage that she ventured to criticise an act of her master. The blow went home.
"You are right," he said; "I am an imbecile! Give me my hat." He thrust the three notes into his pocket and went out; but he made a mistake and first turned to the right. Some neighbors of whom he inquired put him on the right track, and he walked along at a great rate, and soliloquizing.
"The man is evidently a millionnaire dressed in yellow, and I am a blockhead. He gave first twenty sous, then five francs, then fifty francs, then fifteen hundred francs, and all with the same facility. He would have given fifteen thousand francs! But I shall overtake him." And then, the bundle of clothes prepared beforehand was singular, and there was a mystery behind it. Now mysteries must not be let go when you hold them, for the secrets of the rich are sponges full of gold, if you know how to squeeze them. All these thoughts whirled about his brain. "I am an ass!" he said. On leaving Montfermeil and reaching the angle formed by the Livry road, you can see it running for a long distance before you upon the plateau. On getting to this point he calculated that he should see the man and child, and looked as far as he could, but saw nothing. He inquired again, and passers-by told him that the man and the child he was looking for had gone in the direction of Gagny wood. He followed them; for, though they had the start of him, a child walks slowly. He went fast, and then, again, the country was familiar to him. All at once he stopped and smote his forehead, like a man who has forgotten the essential thing and is ready to retrace his steps.
"I ought to have brought my gun," he said to himself. Thénardier was one of those double natures, that pass at times among us without our knowledge, and disappear unknown, because destiny has only shown us one side of them: it is the fate of many men to live thus half submerged. In an ordinary situation Thénardier had everything necessary to make him – we do not say to be – what is conventionally termed an honest tradesman or a worthy citizen. At the same time, certain circumstances being given, certain shocks stirring up his nature from the bottom, he had everything required to make him a villain. He was a shop-keeper in whom there was a monster. Satan must at times crouch in a corner of the lair in which Thénardier lived, and dream before this hideous masterpiece. After a moment's hesitation he thought, —
"Nonsense! they would have time to escape."
And he continued his walk, going rapidly ahead and almost with an air of certainty, displaying the sagacity of a fox scenting a flock of partridges. In fact, when he had passed the ponds and cut across the wide turfed glade which covers the old water-way of the Abbey de Chelles, he noticed under a shrub a hat, on which he built many conjectures. The shrub was low, and Thénardier saw that the man and Cosette were sitting under it. The child could not be seen, but the doll's head was visible. Thénardier was not mistaken; the man had sat down there to let the child rest a little, and the tavern-keeper dodged round the shrub and suddenly appeared before those whom he was seeking.
"Excuse me, sir," he said, panting, "but here are your fifteen hundred francs."
The man raised his eyes.
"What is the meaning of this?"
Thénardier answered respectfully, —
"It means, sir, that I am going to take Cosette back!"
The child started, and clung to the man. The latter answered, looking fixedly at Thénardier and leaving a space between each word, —
"You – take – Cosette – back?"
"Yes, sir, I do: and I must tell you that I have reflected. The truth is, that I have no right to give her to you. Look you, I am an honest man: the little one does not belong to me, but to her mother, who intrusted her to me, and I can only give her back to her mother. You will say to me, 'Her mother is dead.' Good. In that case, I can only surrender Cosette to a person who brings me a written authority from her mother. That is clear enough."
The man, without answering, felt in his pocket, and Thénardier saw the portfolio with the bank-notes reappear. He gave a start of joy.
"Good," he thought; "I have him, he is going to bribe me."
Before opening the portfolio the traveller looked around him; the place was utterly deserted, and there was not a soul in the wood or the valley. The man opened the pocket-book and took out, not the handful of bank-notes which Thénardier anticipated, but a simple sheet of paper, which he opened and handed to the landlord, saying, —
"You are right: read."
Thénardier took the paper and read: —
"M. sur M., March 25, 1823.
"MONSIEUR THÉNARDIER, – You will hand over Cosette to the bearer, who will pay up all little matters.
Yours respectfully,FANTINE."
"Do you know the signature?" the man continued.
It was really Fantine's, and Thénardier recognized it, and had no reply. He felt a double annoyance – first, at having to renounce the bribery which he expected; and secondly, that of being beaten. The man added, —
"You can keep that paper as your discharge."
Thénardier folded it up neatly, and growled, —
"The signature is tolerably well imitated. Well, be it so."
Then he attempted a desperate effort.
"So far, so good, sir, since you are the bearer; but the expenses must be paid, and there is a heavy sum owing me."
The man rose, and said, as he dusted his threadbare cuff, "Monsieur Thénardier, in January the mother calculated that she owed you 120 francs; in February you sent in an account of 500 francs; you received 300 at the end of that month, and 300 more early in March. Since then nine months have elapsed at the agreed-on price of fifteen francs, which makes 135 francs. You had received 100 francs too much, so this leaves 35 francs owing you, and I have just given you 1500."
Thénardier felt just like the wolf when it is caught by the leg in a steel trap.
"Who in the fiend's name is this man?" he thought.
He behaved like the wolf: he shook himself: impudence had carried him through before now.
"Monsieur, I don't know your name," he said boldly, and, putting off his respectful manner, "if you do not give me 3000 francs I shall take Cosette back."
The stranger said quietly, "Come, Cosette." He took the child by his left hand, and with the right picked up his stick. Thénardier noticed the hugeness of the stick and the solitude of the spot; the man buried himself in the wood, leaving the landlord motionless and confounded. As he walked away Thénardier regarded his broad shoulders and enormous fists, then his eye fell on his own thin arms. "I must have been a fool," he said, "not to bring my gun, as I was going to the chase."
Still the tavern-keeper did not give in. "I will know where he goes," he said, and began following them at a distance. Two things remained in his hands, – irony in the shape of the scrap of paper signed "Fantine," and a consolation in the 1500 francs. The man led Cosette in the direction of Bondy; he walked slowly, with drooping head and in a pensive attitude. Winter had rendered the wood transparent, and hence Thénardier did not lose sight of them, while keeping some distance off. From time to time the man turned round and looked to see whether he were followed, and suddenly perceived Thénardier. He drew Cosette into a clump of trees, in which they both disappeared. "Confusion!" said Thénardier, as he doubled his pace. The closeness of the trees compelled him to draw nearer to them, and when the man was at the thickest part he turned round and saw Thénardier, although the latter tried to conceal himself in the branches. The man gave him a restless glance, then tossed his head and continued his walk. Thénardier followed him; but after going some two hundred yards the man turned and looked at him so menacingly that the landlord thought it "useless" to go any farther, and turned back.
