Виктор Мари Гюго
Les Misérables, v. 3
CHAPTER IX
JONDRETTE ALMOST CRIES
The garret was so dark that persons who came into it felt much as if they were going into a cellar. The two new-comers, therefore, advanced with some degree of hesitation, scarce distinguishing the vague forms around them, while they were perfectly seen and examined by the eyes of the denizens in the attic, who were accustomed to this gloom. M. Leblanc walked up to Father Jondrette, with his sad and gentle smile, and said, —
"You will find in this parcel, sir, new apparel, woollen stockings, and blankets."
"Our angelic benefactor overwhelms us," Jondrette said, bowing to the ground; then, bending down to the ear of his elder daughter, he added in a hurried whisper, while the two visitors were examining this lamentable interior, —
"Did I not say so, – clothes, but no money? They are all alike. By the way, how was the letter to the old ass signed?"
"Fabantou."
"The actor, – all right."
It was lucky that Jondrette asked this, for at the same moment M. Leblanc turned to him, and said with the air of a person who is trying to remember the name, —
"I see that you are much to be pitied, Monsieur – "
"Fabantou," Jondrette quickly added.
"Monsieur Fabantou; yes, that is it, I remember."
"An actor, sir, who has been successful in his time."
Here Jondrette evidently believed the moment arrived to trap his philanthropist, and he shouted in a voice which had some of the bombast of the country showman, and the humility of the professional beggar, – "A pupil of Talma, sir! I am a pupil of Talma! Fortune smiled upon me formerly, but now, alas! the turn of misfortune has arrived. You see, my benefactor, we have no bread, no fire. My poor children have no fire. My sole chair without a seat! a pane of glass broken, in such weather as this! my wife in bed, ill!"
"Poor woman!" said M. Leblanc.
"My child hurt," Jondrette added.
The child, distracted by the arrival of the strangers, was staring at the "young lady," and ceased sobbing.
"Cry, I tell you; roar!" Jondrette whispered to her. At the same time he squeezed her bad hand. All this was done with the talent of a conjurer. The little one uttered piercing cries, and the adorable girl whom Marius called in his heart "his Ursule," eagerly went up to her.
"Poor dear child!" she said.
"You see, respected young lady," Jondrette continued, "her hand is bleeding. It is the result of an accident which happened to her while working at a factory to earn six sous a day. It is possible that her arm will have to be cut off."
"Really?" the old gentleman said in alarm.
The little girl, taking this remark seriously, began sobbing again her loudest.
"Alas, yes, my benefactor!" the father answered.
For some minutes past Jondrette had been looking at the "philanthropist" in a peculiar way, and while speaking seemed to be scrutinizing him attentively, as if trying to collect his remembrances. All at once, profiting by a moment during which the new-comers were questioning the little girl about her injured hand, he passed close to his wife, who was tying in her bed with a surprised and stupid air, and said to her in a hurried whisper, —
"Look at that man!"
Then he turned to M. Leblanc, and continued his lamentations.
"Look, sir! my sole clothing consists of a chemise of my wife's, all torn, in the heart of winter. I cannot go out for want of a coat, and if I had the smallest bit of a coat I would go and call on Mademoiselle Mars, who knows me, and is much attached to me. Does she still live in the Rue de la Tour des Dames? Do you know, sir, that we played together in the provinces, and that I shared her laurels? Célimène would come to my help, sir, and Elmire give alms to Belisarius. But no, nothing, and not a halfpenny piece in the house! my wife ill, – not a son! my daughter dangerously injured, – not a son! My wife suffers from shortness of breath; it comes from her age, and then the nervous system is mixed up in it. She requires assistance, and so does my daughter. But the physician and the apothecary, how are they to be paid if I have not a farthing? I would kneel down before a penny, sir. You see to what the arts are reduced! And do you know, my charming young lady, and you my generous protector, who exhale virtue and goodness, and who perfume the church where my poor child sees you daily when she goes to say her prayers, – for I am bringing up my daughters religiously, sir, and did not wish them to turn to the stage. Ah, the jades, let me see them trip! I do not jest, sir; I give them lectures on honor, morality, and virtue. Just ask them, – they must go straight, – for they have a father. They are not wretched girls who begin by having no family, and finish by marrying the public. Such a girl is Miss Nobody, and becomes Madame i All-the-World. There must be nothing of that sort in the Fabantou family! I intend to educate them virtuously, and they must be respectable, and honest, and believe in God, – confound it! Well, sir, worthy sir, do you know what will happen to-morrow? To-morrow is the fatal 4th of February, the last respite my landlord has granted me, and if I do not pay my rent by to-night, my eldest daughter, myself, my wife with her fever, my child with her wound, will be all four of us turned out of here into the street, shelterless in the rain and snow. That is the state of the case, sir! I owe four quarters, – a year's rent, – that is to say, sixty francs."
Jondrette lied, for four quarters would only have been forty francs, and he could not owe four, as it was not six months since Marius had paid two for him. M. Leblanc took a five-franc piece from his pocket and threw it on the table. Jondrette had time to growl in his grown-up daughter's ear, —
"The scamp! what does he expect me to do with his five francs? They will not pay for the chair and pane of glass! There's the result of making an outlay!"
In the mean while M. Leblanc had taken off a heavy brown coat, which he wore over his blue one, and thrown it on the back of a chair.
"Monsieur Fabantou," he said, "I have only these five francs about me, but I will take my daughter home and return to-night. Is it not to-night that you have to pay?"
Jondrette's face was lit up with a strange expression, and he hurriedly answered, —
"Yes, respected sir, I must be with my landlord by eight o'clock."
"I will be here by six, and bring you the sixty francs."
"My benefactor!" Jondrette exclaimed wildly; and he added in a whisper, —
"Look at him carefully, wife."
M. Leblanc had given his arm to the lovely young lady, and was turning to the door.
"Till this evening, my friends," he said.
"At six o'clock?" Jondrette asked.
"At six o'clock precisely."
At this moment the overcoat left on the back of the chair caught the eye of the elder girl.
"Sir," she said, "you are forgetting your greatcoat."
Jondrette gave his daughter a crushing glance, accompanied by a formidable shrug of the shoulders, but M. Leblanc turned and replied smilingly, —
"I do not forget it, I leave it."
"Oh, my protector," said Jondrette, "my august benefactor, I am melting into tears! Permit me to conduct you to your coach."
"If you go out," M. Leblanc remarked, "put on that overcoat, for it is really very cold."
Jondrette did not let this be said twice, but eagerly put on the brown coat. Then they all three went out, Jondrette preceding the two strangers.
CHAPTER X
THE TARIFF OF CAB-FARES
Marius had lost nothing of all this scene, and yet in reality he had seen nothing. His eyes remained fixed on the maiden, his heart had, so to speak, seized and entirely enfolded her from her first step into the garret. During the whole time she had been there he had lived that life of ecstasy which suspends material perceptions and concentrates the whole mind upon one point. He contemplated not the girl, but the radiance which was dressed in a satin pelisse and a velvet bonnet. Had the planet Sirius entered the room he would not have been more dazzled. While she was opening the parcel, and unfolding the clothes and blankets, questioning the sick mother kindly, and the little wounded girl tenderly, he watched her every movement, and tried to hear her words. Though he knew her eyes, her forehead, her beauty, her waist, and her walk, he did not know the sound of her voice. He fancied that he had caught a few words once at the Luxembourg, but he was not absolutely sure. He would have given ten years of his life to hear her, and to carry off in his soul a little of this music; but all was lost in the lamentable braying of Jondrette's trumpet. This mingled a real anger with Marius's ravishment, and he devoured her with his eyes, for he could not imagine that it was really this divine creature whom he perceived among these unclean beings in this monstrous den; he fancied that he saw a humming-bird among frogs.
When she left the room he had but one thought, – to follow her, to attach himself to her trail, not to leave her till he knew where she lived, or at least not to lose her again after having so miraculously found her. He leaped off the drawers, and seized his hat, but just as he laid his hand on the latch and was going out a reflection arrested him; the passage was long, the staircase steep, Jondrette chattering, and M. Leblanc had doubtless not yet got into his coach again. If, turning in the passage or on the stairs, he were to perceive him, Marius, in this house, he would assuredly be alarmed, and find means to escape him again, and so all would be over for the second time. What was to be done, – wait awhile? But during this delay the vehicle might start off. Marius was perplexed, but at length risked it, and left the room. There was no one in the passage, and he ran to the stairs, and as there was no one upon them he hurried down and reached the boulevard just in time to see a hackney coach turning the corner of the Rue du Petit Banquier, on its road to Paris.
Marius rushed in that direction, and on reaching the corner of the boulevard saw the hackney coach again rapidly rolling along the Rue Mouffetard; it was already some distance off, and he had no means of overtaking it. Running after it was an impossibility; and besides, a man running at full speed after the vehicle would be seen from it, and the father would recognize him. At this moment, by an extraordinary and marvellous accident, Marius perceived a cab passing along the boulevard, empty. There was only one thing to be done, – get into this cab and follow the hackney coach; that was sure, efficacious, and without danger. Marius made the driver a sign to stop, and shouted to him, "By the hour!" Marius had no cravat on, he wore his old working coat, from which buttons were missing, and one of the plaits of his shirt was torn. The driver stopped, winked, and held out to Marius his left hand as he gently rubbed his forefinger with his thumb.
"What do you mean?" Marius asked.
"Payment in advance," said the coachman.
Marius remembered that he had only sixteen sous in his pocket.
"How much is it?"
"Forty sous."
"I will pay on returning."
The driver, in reply, whistled the air of La Palisse, and lashed his horse. Marius watched the cab go off with a haggard look; for the want of twenty-four sous he lost his joy, his happiness, his love! He fell back into night! He had seen, and was becoming blind again. He thought bitterly, and, we must add, with deep regret, of the five francs which he had given that very morning to the wretched girl. If he still had them, he would be saved, would emerge from limbo and darkness, and be drawn from isolation, spleen, and widowhood; he would have reattached the black thread of his destiny to the beauteous golden thread which had just floated before his eyes only to be broken again! He returned to his garret in despair. He might have said to himself that M. Leblanc had promised to return that evening, and that then he must contrive to follow him better; but in his contemplation he had scarce heard him.
Just as he was going up the stairs he noticed on the other side of the wall, and against the deserted wall of the Rue de la Barrière des Gobelins, Jondrette, wrapped up in the "philanthropist's" overcoat, and conversing with one of those ill-looking men who are usually called prowlers at the barrière; men with equivocal faces and suspicious soliloquies, who look as if they entertain evil thoughts, and most usually sleep by day, which leads to the supposition that they work at night. These two men, standing to talk in the snow, which was falling heavily, formed a group which a policeman would certainly have observed, but which Marius scarce noticed. Still, though his preoccupation was so painful, he could not help saying to himself that the man to whom Jondrette was talking was like a certain Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, whom Courfeyrac had once pointed out to him, and who was regarded in the quarter as a very dangerous night-bird. This Panchaud afterwards figured in several criminal trials, and eventually became a celebrated villain, though at this time he was only a famous villain. At the present day he is in a traditionary state among the bandits and burglars. He was the model toward the end of the last reign, and people used to talk about him in the Lion's den at La Force, at nightfall, at the hour when groups assemble and converse in whispers. In this prison, and at the exact spot where the sewer, which served as the way of escape for the thirty prisoners in 1843, opened, this name, PANCHAUD, might be seen daringly cut in the wall over the sewer, in one of his attempted escapes. In 1832 the police already had their eye on him, but he had not yet fairly made a start.
CHAPTER XI
WRETCHEDNESS OFFERS HELP TO SORROW
Marius ascended the stairs slowly, and at the moment when he was going to enter his cell he perceived behind him, in the passage, the elder of Jondrette's girls following him. This girl was odious in his sight, for it was she who had his five francs; but it was too late to ask them back from her, for both the hackney coach and the cab were now far away. Besides, she would not return them to him. As for questioning her about the abode of the persons who had been here just now, that was useless, and it was plain that she did not know, for the letter signed Fabantou was addressed "To the benevolent gentleman of the church of St. Jacques du Haut-pas." Marius went into his room and threw the door to after him, but it did not close; he turned and saw a hand in the aperture.
"Who's that?" he asked.
It was the girl.
"Oh it's you!" Marius continued almost harshly, – "always you! What do you want of me?"
She seemed thoughtful, and made no answer, and she no longer had her boldness of the morning; she did not come in, but stood in the dark passage, where Marius perceived her through the half-open door.
"Well, answer!" said Marius; "what do you want of me?"
She raised her dull eye, in which a sort of lustre seemed to be vaguely illumined, and said, —
"Monsieur Marius, you look sad; what is the matter with you?"
"Nothing."
"Yes, there is!"
"Leave me alone!"
Marius pushed the door again, but she still held it.
"Stay," she said; "you are wrong. Though you are not rich, you were kind this morning, and be so again now. You gave me food, and now tell me what is the matter with you. It is easy to see that you are in sorrow, and I do not wish you to be so. What can I do to prevent it, and can I be of any service to you? Employ me; I do not ask for your secrets, and you need not tell them to me, but I may be of use to you. Surely I can help you, as I help my father. When there are any letters to deliver, or any address to be found by following people, or asking from door to door, I am employed. Well, you can tell me what is the matter with you, and I will go and speak to persons. Now and then it is sufficient for some one to speak to persons in order to find out things, and all is arranged. Employ me."
An idea crossed Marius's mind, for no branch is despised when we feel ourselves falling. He walked up to the girl.
"Listen to me," he said; "you brought an old gentleman and his daughter here."
"Yes."
"Do you know their address?"
"No."
"Find it for me."
The girl's eye, which was dull, had become joyous, but now it became gloomy.
"Is that what you want?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Do you know them?"
"No."
"That is to say," she added quickly, "you don't know her, but you would like to know her."
This "them," which became "her," had something most significant and bitter about it.
"Well, can you do it?" Marius said.
"You shall have the beautiful young lady's address."
In these words there was again a meaning which annoyed Marius, so he went on, —
"Well, no matter! the father and daughter's address, – their address, I say."
She looked at him fixedly.
"What will you give me for it?"
"Whatever you like."
"Whatever I like? You shall have the address."
She hung her head, and then closed the door with a hurried gesture; Marius was alone again. He fell into a chair, with his head and elbows on his bed, sunk in thoughts which he could not grasp, and suffering from a dizziness. All that had happened since the morning, – the apparition of the angel, her disappearance, and what this creature had just said to him, a gleam of hope floating in an immense despair, – this is what confusedly filled his brain. All at once he was violently dragged out of his reverie, for he heard Jondrette's loud, hard voice uttering words full of the strangest interest for him.
"I tell you that I am sure, and that I recognized him."
Of whom was Jondrette talking, and whom had he recognized? M. Leblanc, the father of "his Ursule." What! did Jondrette know him? Was Marius going to obtain, in this sudden and unexpected fashion, all the information without which his life was obscure for himself? Was he at last going to know who she was whom he loved, and who her father was? Was the thick cloud that covered them on the point of clearing off? Would the veil be rent asunder? Oh, heavens! He bounded rather than ascended upon the chest of drawers and resumed his place at the aperture in the partition: once more he saw the interior of Jondrette's den.
CHAPTER XII
THE USE OF M. LEBLANC'S FIVE-FRANC PIECE
There was no change in the appearance of the family, save that mother and daughters had put on stockings and flannel waistcoats taken out of the parcel, and two new blankets were thrown on the beds. The man had evidently just returned, for he was out of breath; his daughters were seated near the chimney-piece on the ground, the elder tying up the younger's hand. The mother was crouching on the bed near the fire-place, with an astonished face, while Jondrette was walking up and down the room with long strides and extraordinary eyes. The woman, who seemed frightened and struck with stupor before him, ventured to say, —
"What, really, are you sure?"
"Sure! it is eight years ago, but I can recognize him! I recognized him at once. What I did it not strike you?"
"No."
"And yet I said to you, 'Pay attention!' Why, it is his figure, his face, very little older, – for there are some people who never age, though I do not know how they manage it, – and the sound of his voice. He is better dressed, that's all! Ah! you mysterious old villain, I hold you!"
He stopped and said to his daughters, —
"Be off, you two! – It is funny that it did not strike you."
They rose to obey, and the mother stammered, —
"With her bad hand?"
"The air will do it good," said Jondrette. "Off with you!"
It was evident that this man was one of those who are not answered. The girls went out, but just as they passed the door the father clutched the elder by the arm, and said, with a peculiar accent, —
"You will be here at five o'clock precisely, both of you, for I shall want you."
Marius redoubled his attention. When left alone with his wife, Jondrette began walking up and down room again, and took two or three turns in silence. Then he spent several minutes thrusting the tail of the chemise which he wore into his trousers. All at once he turned to his wife, folded his arms, and exclaimed, —
"And shall I tell you something? The young lady – "
"Well, what?" the wife retorted.
Marius could not doubt, they were really talking about her. He listened with ardent anxiety, and all his life was in his ears. But Jondrette had stooped down, and was whispering to his wife. Then he rose, and ended aloud, —
"It is she."
"That one?" the wife asked.
"That one!" said the husband.
No expression could render all there was in the mother's that one; it was surprise, rage, hatred, and passion mingled and combined in a monstrous intonation. A few words, doubtless a name which her husband whispered in her ear, were sufficient to arouse this fat, crushed woman, and to make her more than repulsive and frightful.
"It is not possible," she exclaimed; "when I think that my daughters go about barefooted, and have not a gown to put on! What! a satin pelisse, a velvet bonnet, clothes worth more than two hundred francs, so that you might take her for a lady! No, you are mistaken; and then, the other was hideous, while this one is not ugly, indeed, rather good-looking. Oh, it cannot be!"
"And I tell you that it is; you will see."
At this absolute assertion the woman raised her large red and white face and looked at the ceiling with a hideous expression. At this moment she appeared to Marius even more formidable than her husband, for she was a sow with the glance of a tigress.
"What!" she continued, "that horrible young lady who looked at my daughters with an air of pity is that vagabond! Oh! I should like to jump on her stomach with wooden shoes."
She leaped off the bed, and stood for a moment unkempt, with swollen nostrils, parted lips, and clenched fists; then she fell back again on the bed. The husband walked up and down and paid no attention to his wife. After a short silence he went up to her and stood in front of her with folded arms, as he had done a few moments previously.
"And shall I tell you something else?"
"What?" she asked.
He replied in a low, guttural voice, "That my fortune is made."
The wife looked at him in the way which means, "Can the man who is talking to me have suddenly gone mad?" He continued, —
"Thunder! I have been a long time a parishioner of the parish of die-of-hunger-if-you-are-cold, and die-of-cold-if-you-have-bread! I have had enough of that misery! I am not jesting, for I no longer consider this comical. I have had enough jokes, good God! and want no more farces, by the Eternal Father! I wish to eat when I am hungry, and drink when I am thirsty: to gorge, sleep, and do nothing. I want to have my turn now, and mean to be a bit of a millionnaire before I rot!" He walked up and down the room and added, "like the rest!"
"What do you mean?" his wife asked.
He shook his head, winked, and raised his voice like a street quack who is going to furnish a proof.
"What I mean? Listen!"
"Not so loud," said his wife, "if it is business which ought not to be overheard."
"Nonsense! by whom, – by the neighbor? I saw him go out just now. Besides, what does that long-legged ass listen to? And then, I tell you I saw him go out." Still, by a species of instinct Jondrette lowered his voice, though not so low that his remarks escaped Marius. A favorable circumstance was that the fallen snow deadened the sound of the vehicles on the boulevard. This is what Marius heard: —
"Listen carefully. The Crœsus is trapped, or as good as trapped. It is done, arranged, and I have seen the people. He will come at six this evening to bring the sixty francs, the vagabond! Did you notice how I blabbed to him about my sixty francs, my landlord, my February 4th? Why, it is not a quarter-day, the ass. Well, he will come at six o'clock, and at that hour the neighbor has gone to dinner, and Mother Bourgon is washing up dishes in town, so there will be no one in the house. The neighbor never comes in before eleven o'clock. The little ones will be on the watch, you will help us, and he will make a sacrifice."
"And suppose he does not?" the wife asked.
Jondrette made a sinister gesture, and said, "We will do it for him."
And he burst into a laugh: it was the first time that Marius saw him laugh, and this laugh was cold and gentle, and produced a shudder. Jondrette opened a cupboard near the fire-place, and took out an old cap, which he put on his head, after brushing it with his cuff.
"Now," he said, "I am going out, for I have some more people to see, good men. I shall be away as short a time as possible, for it is a famous affair; and do you keep house."
And he stood thoughtfully with his hands in his trousers' pockets and suddenly exclaimed, —
"Do you know that it is very lucky he did not recognize me, for if he had done so he would not have returned, and would have slipped from us. It was my beard that saved us, – my romantic beard, my pretty little beard."
And he laughed again. He went to the window; the snow was still falling, and striping the gray sky.
"What filthy weather!" he said.
Then he buttoned up his great-coat.
"The skin is too big, but no matter," he added. "It was devilish lucky that the old villain left it for me, for had he not I could not have gone out, and the whole affair would have been spoiled. On what slight accidents things depend!"
And pulling his cap over his eyes, he went out, but had only gone a short distance when the door opened again, and his sharp, intelligent face reappeared in the aperture.
"I forgot," he said; "you will get a chafing-dish of charcoal ready."
And he threw into his wife's apron the five-franc piece which the "philanthropist" left him.
"How many bushels of charcoal?" the wife asked.
"Two, at least."
"That will cost thirty sous, and with the rest I will buy some grub."
"Hang it, no!"
"Why?"
"Don't spend the five balls."
"Why not?"
"Because I have something to buy too."
"What?"
"Something."
"How much do you want?"
"Where is the nearest ironmonger's?"
"In the Rue Mouffetard."
"Ah, yes, at the corner of a street. I remember the shop."
"But tell me how much you want for what you have to buy."
"From fifty sous to three francs."
"There won't be much left for dinner."
"Don't bother about eating to-day; there is something better to do."
"That's enough, my jewel."
Jondrette closed the door again, and then Marius heard his steps as he went along the passage and down the stairs. It struck one at this moment from St. Médard's.
