Виктор Мари Гюго
Les Misérables, v. 5
CHAPTER IV
ATTRACTION AND EXTINCTION
During the last months of spring and the early months of summer, 1833, the scanty passers-by in the Marais, the shop-keepers, and the idlers in the door-ways, noticed an old gentleman, decently dressed in black, who every day, at nearly the same hour in the evening, left the Rue de l'Homme Armé, in the direction of the Rue Sainte Croix de la Bretonnerie, passed in front of the Blancs Manteaux, reached the Rue Culture Sainte Catharine, and on coming to the Rue de l'Écharpe, turned to his left and entered the Rue St. Louis. There he walked slowly, with head stretched forward, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, with his eye incessantly fixed on a spot which always seemed his magnet, and which was nought else than the corner of the Rue des Filles du Calvaire. The nearer he came to this corner the more brightly his eye flashed; a sort of joy illumined his eyeballs, like an internal dawn; he had a fascinated and affectionate air, his lips made obscure movements as if speaking to some one whom he could not see, he smiled vaguely, and he advanced as slowly as he could. It seemed as if, while wishing to arrive, he was afraid of the moment when he came quite close. When he had only a few houses between himself and the street which appeared to attract him, his step became so slow that at moments he seemed not to be moving at all. The vacillation of his head and the fixedness of his eye suggested the needle seeking the pole. However he might delay his arrival, he must arrive in the end; when he reached the corner of the Rue des Filles du Calvaire, he trembled, thrust his head with a species of gloomy timidity beyond the corner of the last house, and looked into this street, and there was in this glance something that resembled the bedazzlement of the impossible and the reflection of a closed paradise. Then a tear, which had been gradually collecting in the corner of his eyelashes, having grown large enough to fall, glided down his cheeks, and sometimes stopped at his mouth. The old man tasted its bitter flavor. He stood thus for some minutes as if he were of stone; then returned by the same road, at the same pace, and the farther he got away the more lustreless his eye became.
By degrees this old man ceased going as far as the corner of the Rue des Filles du Calvaire; he stopped half-way in the Rue St. Louis: at times a little farther off, at times a little nearer. One day he stopped at the corner of the Rue Culture Sainte Catharine and gazed at the Rue des Filles du Calvaire from a distance; then he silently shook his head from right to left, as if refusing himself something, and turned back. Ere long he did not reach even the Rue St Louis; he arrived at the Rue Pavie, shook his head, and turned back; then he did not go beyond the Rue des Trois Pavilions; and then he did not pass the Blancs Manteaux. He seemed like a clock which was not wound up, and whose oscillations grow shorter and shorter till they stop. Every day he left his house at the same hour, undertook the same walk but did not finish it, and incessantly shortened it, though probably unconscious of the fact. His whole countenance expressed this sole idea, Of what good is it? His eyes were lustreless, and there was no radiance in them. The tears were also dried up; they no longer collected in the corner of his eyelashes, and this pensive eye was dry. The old man's head was still thrust forward; the chin moved at times, and the creases in his thin neck were painful to look on. At times, when the weather was bad, he had an umbrella under his arm, which he never opened. The good women of the district said, "He is an innocent," and the children followed him with shouts of laughter.
BOOK IX
SUPREME DARKNESS, SUPREME DAWN
CHAPTER I
PITY THE UNHAPPY, BUT BE INDULGENT TO THE HAPPY
It is a terrible thing to be happy! How satisfied people are! How sufficient they find it! How, when possessed of the false object of life, happiness, they forget the true one, duty! We are bound to say, however, that it would be unjust to accuse Marius. Marius, as we have explained, before his marriage asked no questions of M. Fauchelevent, and since had been afraid to ask any of Jean Valjean. He had regretted the promise which he had allowed to be drawn from him, and had repeatedly said to himself that he had done wrong in making this concession to despair. He had restricted himself to gradually turning Jean Valjean out of his house, and effacing him as far as possible in Cosette's mind. He had to some extent constantly stationed himself between Cosette and Jean Valjean, feeling certain that in this way she would not perceive it or think of it. It was more than an effacement, – it was an eclipse. Marius did what he considered necessary and just; he believed that he had serious reasons, some of which we have seen, and some we have yet to see, for getting rid of Jean Valjean, without harshness, but without weakness. Chance having made him acquainted, in a trial in which he was retained, with an ex-clerk of Laffitte's bank, he had obtained, without seeking it, mysterious information, which, in truth, he had not been able to examine, through respect for the secret he had promised to keep, and through regard for Jean Valjean's perilous situation. He believed, at this very moment, that he had a serious duty to perform, – the restitution of the six hundred thousand francs to some one whom he was seeking as discreetly as he could. In the mean while he abstained from touching that money.
As for Cosette, she was not acquainted with any of these secrets, but it would be harsh to condemn her either. Between Marius and her was an omnipotent magnetism, which made her do instinctively and almost mechanically whatever Marius wished. She felt a wish of Marius in the matter of Monsieur Jean, and she conformed to it. Her husband had said nothing to her, but she suffered the vague but clear pressure of his tacit intentions, and blindly obeyed. Her obedience in this case consisted in not remembering what Marius forgot; and she had no effort to make in doing so. Without knowing why herself, and without there being anything to blame her for, her mind had so thoroughly become that of her husband, that whatever covered itself with a shadow in Marius's thoughts was obscured in hers. Let us not go too far, however; as regards Jean Valjean, this effacement and this forgetfulness were only superficial, and she was thoughtless rather than forgetful. In her heart she truly loved the man whom she had so long called father; but she loved her husband more, and this had slightly falsified the balance of this heart, which weighed down on one side only. It happened at times that Cosette would speak of Jean Valjean and express her surprise, and then Marius would calm her. "He is away, I believe; did he not say that he was going on a journey?" "That is true," Cosette thought, "he used to disappear like that, but not for so long a time." Twice or thrice she sent Nicolette to inquire in the Rue de l'Homme Armé whether Monsieur Jean had returned from his tour, and Jean Valjean sent answer in the negative. Cosette asked no more, as she had on earth but one want, – Marius. Let us also say that Marius and Cosette had been absent too. They went to Vernon, and Marius took Cosette to his father's tomb. Marius had gradually abstracted Cosette from Jean Valjean, and Cosette had allowed it. However, what is called much too harshly in certain cases the ingratitude of children is not always so reprehensible a thing as may be believed. It is the ingratitude of nature; for nature, as we have said elsewhere, "looks before her," and divides living beings into arrivals and departures. The departures are turned to the darkness, and the arrivals toward light. Hence a divergence, which on the part of the old is fatal, on the part of the young is involuntary; and this divergence, at first insensible, increases slowly, like every separation of branches, and the twigs separate without detaching themselves from the parent stem. It is not their fault, for youth goes where there is joy, to festivals, to bright light, and to love, while old age proceeds toward the end. They do not lose each other out of sight, but there is no longer a connecting link: the young people feel the chill of life, and the old that of the tomb. Let us not accuse these poor children.
CHAPTER II
THE LAST FLUTTERINGS OF THE LAMP WITHOUT OIL
One day Jean Valjean went down his staircase, took three steps in the street, sat down upon a post, the same one on which Gavroche had found him sitting in thought on the night of June 5; he stayed there a few minutes, and then went up again. This was the last oscillation of the pendulum; the next day he did not leave his room; the next to that he did not leave his bed. The porter's wife, who prepared his poor meals for him, some cabbage or a few potatoes and a little bacon, looked at the brown earthenware plate and exclaimed, —
"Why, poor dear man, you ate nothing yesterday!"
"Yes, I did," Jean Valjean answered.
"The plate is quite full."
"Look at the water-jug: it is empty."
"That proves you have drunk, but does not prove that you have eaten."
"Well," said Jean Valjean, "suppose that I only felt hungry for water?"
"That is called thirst, and if a man does not eat at the same time it is called fever."
"I will eat to-morrow."
"Or on Trinity Sunday. Why not to-day? Who-ever ever thought of saying, I will eat to-morrow? To leave my plate without touching it; my rashers were so good."
Jean Valjean took the old woman's hand.
"I promise you to eat them," he said, in his gentle voice.
"I am not pleased with you," the woman replied.
Jean Valjean never saw any other human creature but this good woman: there are in Paris streets through which people never pass, and houses which people never enter, and he lived in one of those streets and one of those houses. During the time when he still went out he had bought at a brazier's for a few sous a small copper crucifix, which he suspended from a nail opposite his bed; that gibbet is ever good to look on. A week passed thus, and Jean Valjean still remained in bed. The porter's wife said to her husband, "The old gentleman upstairs does not get up; he does not eat, and he will not last long. He has a sorrow, and no one will get it out of my head but that his daughter has made a bad match."
The porter replied, with the accent of marital sovereignty, —
"If he is rich, he can have a doctor; if he is not rich, he can't. If he has no doctor, he will die."
"And if he has one?"
"He will die," said the porter.
The porter's wife began digging up with an old knife the grass between what she called her pavement, and while doing so grumbled, —
"It's a pity – an old man who is so tidy. He is as white as a pullet."
She saw a doctor belonging to the quarter passing along the bottom of the street, and took upon herself to ask him to go up.
"It's on the second floor," she said; "you will only have to go in, for, as the old gentleman no longer leaves his bed, the key is always in the door."
The physician saw Jean Valjean and spoke to him: when he came down again the porter's wife was waiting for him.
"Well, doctor?"
"He is very ill."
"What is the matter with him?"
"Everything and nothing. He is a man who, from all appearances, has lost a beloved person. People die of that."
"What did he say to you?"
"He told me that he was quite well."
"Will you call again, doctor?"
"Yes," the physician replied, "but some one beside me ought to come too."
CHAPTER III
A PEN IS TOO HEAVY FOR THE MAN WHO LIFTED FAUCHELEVENT'S CART
One evening Jean Valjean had a difficulty in rising on his elbow; he took hold of his wrist and could not find his pulse; his breathing was short, and stopped every now and then, and he perceived that he was weaker than he had ever yet been. Then, doubtless, under the pressure of some supreme preoccupation, he made an effort, sat up, and dressed himself. He put on his old workman's clothes; for, as he no longer went out, he had returned to them and preferred them. He was compelled to pause several times while dressing himself; and the perspiration poured off his forehead, merely through the effort of putting on his jacket. Ever since he had been alone he had placed his bed in the anteroom, so as to occupy as little as possible of the deserted apartments. He opened the valise and took out Cosette's clothing, which he spread on his bed. The Bishop's candlesticks were at their place on the mantel-piece; he took two wax candles out of a drawer and put them up, and then, though it was broad summer daylight, he lit them. We sometimes see candles lighted thus in open day in rooms where dead men are lying. Each step he took in going from one article of furniture to another exhausted him, and he was obliged to sit down. It was not ordinary fatigue, which expends the strength in order to renew it; it was the remnant of possible motion; it was exhausted life falling drop by drop in crushing efforts which will not be made again.
One of the chairs on which he sank was placed near the mirror, so fatal for him, so providential for Marius, in which he had read Cosette's reversed writing on the blotting-book. He saw himself in this mirror, and could not recognize himself. He was eighty years of age; before Marius's marriage he had looked scarce fifty, but the last year had reckoned as thirty. What he had on his forehead was no longer the wrinkle of age, but the mysterious mark of death, and the laceration of the pitiless nail could be traced on it. His cheeks were flaccid; the skin of his face had that color which makes one think that the earth is already over it; the two corners of his mouth drooped as in that mask which the ancients sculptured on the tomb. He looked at space reproachfully, and he resembled one of those tragic beings who have cause to complain of some one. He had reached that stage, the last phase of dejection, in which grief no longer flows; it is, so to speak, coagulated, and there is on the soul something like a clot of despair. Night had set in, and he with difficulty dragged a table and the old easy-chair to the chimney, and laid on the table, pen, ink, and paper. This done he feinted away, and when he regained his senses he was thirsty. As he could not lift the water-jar, he bent down with an effort and drank a mouthful. Then he turned to the bed, and, still seated, for he was unable to stand, he gazed at the little black dress and all those dear objects. Such contemplations last hours which appear minutes. All at once he shuddered, and felt that the cold had struck him. He leaned his elbows on the table which the Bishop's candlesticks illumined, and took up the pen. As neither the pen nor the ink had been used for a long time, the nibs of the pen were bent, the ink was dried up, and he was therefore obliged to put a few drops of water in the ink, which he could not do without stopping and sitting down twice or thrice, and was forced to write with the back of the pen. He wiped his forehead from time to time, and his hand trembled as he wrote the few following lines: —
"COSETTE, – I bless you. I am about to explain to you. Your husband did right in making me understand that I ought to go away; still, he was slightly in error as to what he believed, but he acted rightly. He is a worthy man, and love him dearly when I am gone from you. Monsieur Pontmercy, always love my beloved child. Cosette, this paper will be found: this is what I wish to say to you; you shall see the figures if I have the strength to remember them; but listen to me, the money is really yours. This is the whole affair. White jet comes from Norway, black jet comes from England, and black beads come from Germany. Jet is lighter, more valuable, and dearer; but imitations can be made in France as well as in Germany. You must have a small anvil two inches square, and a spirit lamp to soften the wax. The wax used to be made with resin and smoke-black, and costs four francs the pound; but I hit on the idea of making it of gum-lac and turpentine. It only costs thirty sous, and is much better. The rings are made of violet glass, fastened by means of the wax on a small black iron wire. The glass must be violet for iron ornaments, and black for gilt ornaments. Spain buys large quantities; it is the country of jet – "
Here he stopped, the pen slipped from his fingers, he burst into one of those despairing sobs which rose at times from the depths of his being. The poor man took his head between his hands and thought.
"Oh!" he exclaimed internally (lamentable cries heard by God alone), "it is all over. I shall never see her again; it is a smile which flashed across me, and I am going to enter night without even seeing her. Oh! for one moment, for one instant to hear her voice, to touch her, to look at her, – her, the angel, and then die! Death is nothing, but the frightful thing is to die without seeing her! She would smile on me, say a word to me, and would that do any one harm? No, it is all over forever. I am now all alone. My God! my God! I shall see her no more."
At this moment there was a knock at his door.
CHAPTER IV
A BOTTLE OF INK WHICH ONLY WHITENS
That same day, or, to speak more correctly, that same evening, as Marius was leaving the dinner-table to withdraw to his study, as he had a brief to get up, Basque handed him a letter, saying, "The person who wrote the letter is in the anteroom." Cosette had seized her grandfather's arm, and was taking a turn round the garden. A letter may have an ugly appearance, like a man, and the mere sight of coarse paper and clumsy folding is displeasing. The letter which Basque brought was of that description. Marius took it, and it smelt of tobacco. Nothing arouses a recollection so much as a smell, and Marius recognized the tobacco. He looked at the address, "To Monsieur le Baron Pommerci, At his house." The recognized tobacco made him recognize the handwriting. It might be said that astonishment has its flashes of lightning, and Marius was, as it were, illumined by one of these flashes. The odor, that mysterious aid to memory, had recalled to him a world: it was really the paper, the mode of folding, the pale ink; it was really the well-known handwriting; and, above all, it was the tobacco. The Jondrette garret rose again before him. Hence – strange blow of accident! – one of the two trails which he had so long sought, the one for which he had latterly made so many efforts and believed lost forever, came to offer itself voluntarily to him. He eagerly opened the letter and read: —
"MONSIEUR LE BARON, – If the Supreme Being had endowed me with talents, I might have been Baron Thénard, member of the Institute (academy of ciences), but I am not so. I merely bear the same name with him, and shall be happy if this reminisence recommends me to the excellense of your kindness. The benefits with which you may honor me will be reciprocal, for I am in possession of a secret conserning an individual. This individual conserns you. I hold the secret at your disposal, as I desire to have the honor of being uceful to you. I will give you the simple means for expeling from your honorable family this individual who has no right in it, Madam la Barronne being of high birth. The sanctuary of virtue could no longer coabit with crime without abdicating.
"I await in the anteroom the order of Monsieur le Baron.
"Respectfully."
The letter was signed "THÉNARD." This signature was not false, but only slightly abridged. However, the bombast and the orthography completed the revelation, the certificate of origin was perfect, and no doubt was possible. Marius's emotion was profound; and after the movement of surprise he had a movement of happiness. Let him now find the other man he sought, the man who had saved him, Marius, and he would have nothing more to desire. He opened a drawer in his bureau, took out several bank-notes, which he put in his pocket, closed the drawer again, and rang. Basque opened the door partly.
"Show the man in," said Marius.
Basque announced, —
"M. Thénard."
A man came in, and it was a fresh surprise for Marius, as the man he now saw was a perfect stranger to him. This man, who was old, by the way, had a large nose, his chin in his cravat, green spectacles, with a double shade of green silk over his eyes, and his hair smoothed down and flattened on his forehead over his eyebrows, like the wig of English coachmen of high life. His hair was gray. He was dressed in black from head to foot, – a very seedy but clean black, – and a bunch of seals, emerging from his fob, led to the supposition that he had a watch. He held an old hat in his hand, and walked bent, and the curve in his back augmented the depth of his bow. The thing which struck most at the first glance was that this person's coat, too large, though carefully buttoned, had not been made for him. A short digression is necessary here.
There was at that period in Paris, in an old house situated in the Rue Beautreillis near the arsenal, an old Jew whose trade it was to convert a rogue into an honest man, though not for too long a period, as it might have been troublesome to the rogue. The change was effected at sight, for one day or two, at the rate of thirty sous a day, by means of a costume resembling as closely as possible every-day honesty. This letter-out of suits was called the "exchange-broker." Parisian thieves had given him that name, and knew him by no other. He had a very complete wardrobe, and the clothes in which he invested people suited almost every condition. He had specialties and categories: from each nail of his store hung a social station, worn and threadbare; here the magistrate's coat, there the curé's coat, and the banker's coat; in one corner the coat of an officer on half pay, elsewhere the coat of a man of letters, and further on the statesman's coat. This creature was the costumer of the immense drama which roguery plays in Paris, and his den was the side-scene from which robbery went out or swindling re-entered. A ragged rogue arrived at this wardrobe, deposited thirty sous, and selected, according to the part which he wished to play on that day, the clothes which suited him; and, on going down the stairs again, the rogue was somebody. The next day the clothes were faithfully brought back, and the "exchange-broker," who entirely trusted to the thieves, was never robbed. These garments had one inconvenience, – they did not fit; not being made for the man who wore them, they were tight on one, loose on another, and fitted nobody. Any swindler who exceeded the average mean in height or shortness was uncomfortable in the "exchange-broker's" suits. A man must be neither too stout nor too thin, for the broker had only provided for ordinary mortals, and had taken the measure of the species in the person of the first thief who turned up, and is neither stout nor thin, nor tall nor short. Hence arose at times difficult adaptations, which the broker's customers got over as best they could. All the worse for the exceptions! The statesman's garments, for instance, black from head to foot, would have been too loose for Pitt and too tight for Castelcicala. The statesman's suit was thus described in the broker's catalogue, from which we copied it: "A black cloth coat, black moleskin trousers, a silk waistcoat, boots, and white shirt." There was on the margin "Ex-Ambassador," and a note which we also transcribe: "In a separate box a carefully-dressed peruke, green spectacles, bunch of seals, and two little quills an inch in length, wrapped in cotton." All this belonged to the statesman or ex-ambassador. The whole of this costume was, if we may say so, extenuated. The seams were white, and a small button-hole gaped at one of the elbows; moreover, a button was missing off the front, but that is only a detail, for as the hand of the statesman must always be thrust into the coat, and upon the heart, it had the duty of hiding the absence of the button.
Had Marius been familiar with the occult institutions of Paris, he would at once have recognized in the back of the visitor whom Basque had just shown in, the coat of the statesman borrowed from the Unhook-me-that of the "exchange-broker." Marius's disappointment on seeing a different man from the one whom he expected to enter, turned into disgust with the new-comer. He examined him from head to foot, while the personage was giving him an exaggerated bow, and asked him curtly, "What do you want?"
The man replied with an amiable rictus, of which the caressing smile of a crocodile would supply some idea: —
"It appears to me impossible that I have not already had the honor of seeing Monsieur le Baron in society. I have a peculiar impression of having met him a few years back at the Princess Bagration's, and in the salons of his Excellency Vicomte Dambray, Peer of France."
It is always good tactics in swindling to pretend to recognize a person whom the swindler does not know. Marius paid attention to the man's words, he watched the action and movement, but his disappointment increased; it was a nasal pronunciation, absolutely different from the sharp dry voice he expected. He was utterly routed.
"I do not know," he said, "either Madame Bagration or Monsieur Dambray. I never set foot in the house of either of them."
The answer was rough, but the personage continued with undiminished affability, —
"Then it must have been at Chateaubriand's that I saw Monsieur! I know Chateaubriand intimately, and he is a most affable man. He says to me sometimes, Thénard, my good friend, will you not drink a glass with me?"
Marius's brow became sterner and sterner. "I never had the honor of being received at M. de Chateaubriand's house. Come to the point; what do you want with me?"
The man bowed lower still before this harsh voice.
"Monsieur le Baron, deign to listen to me. There is in America, in a country near Panama, a village called La Joya, and this village is composed of a single house. A large square house three stories high, built of bricks dried in the sun, each side of the square being five hundred feet long, and each story retiring from the one under it for a distance of twelve feet, so as to leave in front of it a terrace which runs all round the house. In the centre is an inner court, in which provisions and ammunition are stored; there are no windows, only loop-holes, no door, only ladders, – ladders to mount from the ground to the first terrace, and from the first to the second, and from the second to the third; ladders to descend into the inner court; no doors to the rooms, only traps; no staircases to the apartments, only ladders. At night the trap-doors are closed, the ladders are drawn up, and blunderbusses and carbines are placed in the loop-holes; there is no way of entering; it is a house by day, a citadel by night. Eight hundred inhabitants, – such is this village. Why such precautions? Because the country is dangerous, and full of man-eaters. Then, why do people go there? Because it is a marvellous country, and gold is found there."
"What are you driving at?" Marius, who had passed from disappointment to impatience, interrupted.
"To this, M. le Baron. I am a worn-out ex-diplomatist. I am sick of our old civilization, and wish to try the savages."
"What next?"
"Monsieur le Baron, egotism is the law of the world. The proletarian peasant-wench who works by the day turns round when the diligence passes, but the peasant-woman who is laboring on her own field does not turn. The poor man's dog barks after the rich, the rich man's dog barks after the poor; each for himself, and self-interest is the object of mankind. Gold is the magnet."
"What next? Conclude."
"I should like to go and settle at La Joya. There are three of us. I have my wife and my daughter, a very lovely girl. The voyage is long and expensive, and I am short of funds."
"How does that concern me?" Marius asked.
The stranger thrust his neck out of his cravat, with a gesture peculiar to the vulture, and said, with a more affable smile than before, —
"Monsieur le Baron cannot have read my letter?"
That was almost true, and the fact is that the contents of the epistle had escaped Marius; he had seen the writing rather than read the letter, and he scarce remembered it. A new hint had just been given him, and he noticed the detail, "My wife and daughter." He fixed a penetrating glance on the stranger, – a magistrate could not have done it better, – but he confined himself to saying, —
"Be more precise."
The stranger thrust his hands in his trousers' pockets, raised his head without straightening his backbone, but on his side scrutinizing Marius through his green spectacles.
"Very good, M. le Baron, I will be precise. I have a secret to sell you."
"Does it concern me?"
"Slightly."
"What is it?"
Marius more and more examined the man while listening.
"I will begin gratis," the stranger said; "you will soon see that it is interesting."
"Speak."
"Monsieur le Baron, you have in your house a robber and an assassin."
Marius gave a start.
"In my house? No," he said.
The stranger imperturbably brushed his hat with his arm, and went on.
"An assassin and a robber. Remark, M. le Baron, that I am not speaking here of old-forgotten facts, which might be effaced by prescription before the law – by repentance before God. I am speaking of recent facts, present facts, of facts still unknown to justice. I continue. This man has crept into your confidence, and almost into your family, under a false name. I am going to tell you his real name, and tell it you for nothing."
"I am listening."
"His name is Jean Valjean."
"I know it."
"I will tell, equally for nothing, who he is." "Speak."
"He is an ex-convict."
"I know it."
"You have known it since I had the honor of telling you."
"No, I was aware of it before."
Marius's cold tone, this double reply, "I know it," and his stubborn shortness in the conversation aroused some latent anger in the stranger, and he gave Marius a furious side-glance, which was immediately extinguished. Rapid though it was, the glance was one of those which are recognized if they have once been seen, and it did not escape Marius. Certain flashes can only come from certain souls; the eyeball, that cellar-door of the soul, is lit up by them, and green spectacles conceal nothing; you might as well put up a glass window to hell. The stranger continued, smiling, —
