Les Misérables
kneeling, and one lying at full length, on the floor in his shirt. The
one on the floor was the colonel.
The other two were the doctor, and the priest, who was engaged in
prayer.
The colonel had been attacked by brain fever three days previously. As
he had a foreboding of evil at the very beginning of his illness, he
had written to M. Gillenormand to demand his son. The malady had grown
worse. On the very evening of Marius’ arrival at Vernon, the colonel
had had an attack of delirium; he had risen from his bed, in spite of
the servant’s efforts to prevent him, crying: “My son is not coming! I
shall go to meet him!” Then he ran out of his room and fell prostrate
on the floor of the antechamber. He had just expired.
The doctor had been summoned, and the curé. The doctor had arrived too
late. The son had also arrived too late.
By the dim light of the candle, a large tear could be distinguished on
the pale and prostrate colonel’s cheek, where it had trickled from his
dead eye. The eye was extinguished, but the tear was not yet dry. That
tear was his son’s delay.
Marius gazed upon that man whom he beheld for the first time, on that
venerable and manly face, on those open eyes which saw not, on those
white locks, those robust limbs, on which, here and there, brown lines,
marking sword-thrusts, and a sort of red stars, which indicated
bullet-holes, were visible. He contemplated that gigantic sear which
stamped heroism on that countenance upon which God had imprinted
goodness. He reflected that this man was his father, and that this man
was dead, and a chill ran over him.
The sorrow which he felt was the sorrow which he would have felt in the
presence of any other man whom he had chanced to behold stretched out
in death.
Anguish, poignant anguish, was in that chamber. The servant-woman was
lamenting in a corner, the curé was praying, and his sobs were audible,
the doctor was wiping his eyes; the corpse itself was weeping.
The doctor, the priest, and the woman gazed at Marius in the midst of
their affliction without uttering a word; he was the stranger there.
Marius, who was far too little affected, felt ashamed and embarrassed
at his own attitude; he held his hat in his hand; and he dropped it on
the floor, in order to produce the impression that grief had deprived
him of the strength to hold it.
At the same time, he experienced remorse, and he despised himself for
behaving in this manner. But was it his fault? He did not love his
father? Why should he!
The colonel had left nothing. The sale of big furniture barely paid the
expenses of his burial.
The servant found a scrap of paper, which she handed to Marius. It
contained the following, in the colonel’s handwriting:—
“_For my son_.—The Emperor made me a Baron on the battle-field of
Waterloo. Since the Restoration disputes my right to this title which I
purchased with my blood, my son shall take it and bear it. That he will
be worthy of it is a matter of course.” Below, the colonel had added:
“At that same battle of Waterloo, a sergeant saved my life. The man’s
name was Thénardier. I think that he has recently been keeping a little
inn, in a village in the neighborhood of Paris, at Chelles or
Montfermeil. If my son meets him, he will do all the good he can to
Thénardier.”
Marius took this paper and preserved it, not out of duty to his father,
but because of that vague respect for death which is always imperious
in the heart of man.
Nothing remained of the colonel. M. Gillenormand had his sword and
uniform sold to an old-clothes dealer. The neighbors devastated the
garden and pillaged the rare flowers. The other plants turned to
nettles and weeds, and died.
Marius remained only forty-eight hours at Vernon. After the interment
he returned to Paris, and applied himself again to his law studies,
with no more thought of his father than if the latter had never lived.
In two days the colonel was buried, and in three forgotten.
Marius wore crape on his hat. That was all.
CHAPTER V—THE UTILITY OF GOING TO MASS, IN ORDER TO BECOME A
REVOLUTIONIST
Marius had preserved the religious habits of his childhood. One Sunday,
when he went to hear mass at Saint-Sulpice, at that same chapel of the
Virgin whither his aunt had led him when a small lad, he placed himself
behind a pillar, being more absent-minded and thoughtful than usual on
that occasion, and knelt down, without paying any special heed, upon a
chair of Utrecht velvet, on the back of which was inscribed this name:
_Monsieur Mabeuf, warden_. Mass had hardly begun when an old man
presented himself and said to Marius:—
“This is my place, sir.”
Marius stepped aside promptly, and the old man took possession of his
chair.
The mass concluded, Marius still stood thoughtfully a few paces
distant; the old man approached him again and said:—
“I beg your pardon, sir, for having disturbed you a while ago, and for
again disturbing you at this moment; you must have thought me
intrusive, and I will explain myself.”
“There is no need of that, Sir,” said Marius.
“Yes!” went on the old man, “I do not wish you to have a bad opinion of
me. You see, I am attached to this place. It seems to me that the mass
is better from here. Why? I will tell you. It is from this place, that
I have watched a poor, brave father come regularly, every two or three
months, for the last ten years, since he had no other opportunity and
no other way of seeing his child, because he was prevented by family
arrangements. He came at the hour when he knew that his son would be
brought to mass. The little one never suspected that his father was
there. Perhaps he did not even know that he had a father, poor
innocent! The father kept behind a pillar, so that he might not be
seen. He gazed at his child and he wept. He adored that little fellow,
poor man! I could see that. This spot has become sanctified in my
sight, and I have contracted a habit of coming hither to listen to the
mass. I prefer it to the stall to which I have a right, in my capacity
of warden. I knew that unhappy gentleman a little, too. He had a
father-in-law, a wealthy aunt, relatives, I don’t know exactly what
all, who threatened to disinherit the child if he, the father, saw him.
He sacrificed himself in order that his son might be rich and happy
some day. He was separated from him because of political opinions.
Certainly, I approve of political opinions, but there are people who do
not know where to stop. Mon Dieu! a man is not a monster because he was
at Waterloo; a father is not separated from his child for such a reason
as that. He was one of Bonaparte’s colonels. He is dead, I believe. He
lived at Vernon, where I have a brother who is a curé, and his name was
something like Pontmarie or Montpercy. He had a fine sword-cut, on my
honor.”
“Pontmercy,” suggested Marius, turning pale.
“Precisely, Pontmercy. Did you know him?”
“Sir,” said Marius, “he was my father.”
The old warden clasped his hands and exclaimed:—
“Ah! you are the child! Yes, that’s true, he must be a man by this
time. Well! poor child, you may say that you had a father who loved you
dearly!”
Marius offered his arm to the old man and conducted him to his
lodgings.
On the following day, he said to M. Gillenormand:—
“I have arranged a hunting-party with some friends. Will you permit me
to be absent for three days?”
“Four!” replied his grandfather. “Go and amuse yourself.”
And he said to his daughter in a low tone, and with a wink, “Some love
affair!”
CHAPTER VI—THE CONSEQUENCES OF HAVING MET A WARDEN
Where it was that Marius went will be disclosed a little further on.
Marius was absent for three days, then he returned to Paris, went
straight to the library of the law-school and asked for the files of
the _Moniteur_.
He read the _Moniteur_, he read all the histories of the Republic and
the Empire, the _Memorial de Sainte-Hélène_, all the memoirs, all the
newspapers, the bulletins, the proclamations; he devoured everything.
The first time that he came across his father’s name in the bulletins
of the grand army, he had a fever for a week. He went to see the
generals under whom Georges Pontmercy had served, among others, Comte
H. Church-warden Mabeuf, whom he went to see again, told him about the
life at Vernon, the colonel’s retreat, his flowers, his solitude.
Marius came to a full knowledge of that rare, sweet, and sublime man,
that species of lion-lamb who had been his father.
In the meanwhile, occupied as he was with this study which absorbed all
his moments as well as his thoughts, he hardly saw the Gillenormands at
all. He made his appearance at meals; then they searched for him, and
he was not to be found. Father Gillenormand smiled. “Bah! bah! He is
just of the age for the girls!” Sometimes the old man added: “The
deuce! I thought it was only an affair of gallantry. It seems that it
is an affair of passion!”
It was a passion, in fact. Marius was on the high road to adoring his
father.
At the same time, his ideas underwent an extraordinary change. The
phases of this change were numerous and successive. As this is the
history of many minds of our day, we think it will prove useful to
follow these phases step by step and to indicate them all.
That history upon which he had just cast his eyes appalled him.
The first effect was to dazzle him.
Up to that time, the Republic, the Empire, had been to him only
monstrous words. The Republic, a guillotine in the twilight; the
Empire, a sword in the night. He had just taken a look at it, and where
he had expected to find only a chaos of shadows, he had beheld, with a
sort of unprecedented surprise, mingled with fear and joy, stars
sparkling, Mirabeau, Vergniaud, Saint-Just, Robespierre, Camille,
Desmoulins, Danton, and a sun arise, Napoleon. He did not know where he
stood. He recoiled, blinded by the brilliant lights. Little by little,
when his astonishment had passed off, he grew accustomed to this
radiance, he contemplated these deeds without dizziness, he examined
these personages without terror; the Revolution and the Empire
presented themselves luminously, in perspective, before his mind’s eye;
he beheld each of these groups of events and of men summed up in two
tremendous facts: the Republic in the sovereignty of civil right
restored to the masses, the Empire in the sovereignty of the French
idea imposed on Europe; he beheld the grand figure of the people emerge
from the Revolution, and the grand figure of France spring forth from
the Empire. He asserted in his conscience, that all this had been good.
What his dazzled state neglected in this, his first far too synthetic
estimation, we do not think it necessary to point out here. It is the
state of a mind on the march that we are recording. Progress is not
accomplished in one stage. That stated, once for all, in connection
with what precedes as well as with what is to follow, we continue.
He then perceived that, up to that moment, he had comprehended his
country no more than he had comprehended his father. He had not known
either the one or the other, and a sort of voluntary night had obscured
his eyes. Now he saw, and on the one hand he admired, while on the
other he adored.
He was filled with regret and remorse, and he reflected in despair that
all he had in his soul could now be said only to the tomb. Oh! if his
father had still been in existence, if he had still had him, if God, in
his compassion and his goodness, had permitted his father to be still
among the living, how he would have run, how he would have precipitated
himself, how he would have cried to his father: “Father! Here I am! It
is I! I have the same heart as thou! I am thy son!” How he would have