Les Misérables
went to the Temple to bargain for a curtain tassel; he saw everything;
he knew everything; which did not prevent him from laughing
good-naturedly beside the cradle of his little child; and all at once,
frightened Europe lent an ear, armies put themselves in motion, parks
of artillery rumbled, pontoons stretched over the rivers, clouds of
cavalry galloped in the storm, cries, trumpets, a trembling of thrones
in every direction, the frontiers of kingdoms oscillated on the map,
the sound of a superhuman sword was heard, as it was drawn from its
sheath; they beheld him, him, rise erect on the horizon with a blazing
brand in his hand, and a glow in his eyes, unfolding amid the thunder,
his two wings, the grand army and the old guard, and he was the
archangel of war!”
All held their peace, and Enjolras bowed his head. Silence always
produces somewhat the effect of acquiescence, of the enemy being driven
to the wall. Marius continued with increased enthusiasm, and almost
without pausing for breath:—
“Let us be just, my friends! What a splendid destiny for a nation to be
the Empire of such an Emperor, when that nation is France and when it
adds its own genius to the genius of that man! To appear and to reign,
to march and to triumph, to have for halting-places all capitals, to
take his grenadiers and to make kings of them, to decree the falls of
dynasties, and to transfigure Europe at the pace of a charge; to make
you feel that when you threaten you lay your hand on the hilt of the
sword of God; to follow in a single man, Hannibal, Cæsar, Charlemagne;
to be the people of some one who mingles with your dawns the startling
announcement of a battle won, to have the cannon of the Invalides to
rouse you in the morning, to hurl into abysses of light prodigious
words which flame forever, Marengo, Arcola, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram!
To cause constellations of victories to flash forth at each instant
from the zenith of the centuries, to make the French Empire a pendant
to the Roman Empire, to be the great nation and to give birth to the
grand army, to make its legions fly forth over all the earth, as a
mountain sends out its eagles on all sides to conquer, to dominate, to
strike with lightning, to be in Europe a sort of nation gilded through
glory, to sound athwart the centuries a trumpet-blast of Titans, to
conquer the world twice, by conquest and by dazzling, that is sublime;
and what greater thing is there?”
“To be free,” said Combeferre.
Marius lowered his head in his turn; that cold and simple word had
traversed his epic effusion like a blade of steel, and he felt it
vanishing within him. When he raised his eyes, Combeferre was no longer
there. Probably satisfied with his reply to the apotheosis, he had just
taken his departure, and all, with the exception of Enjolras, had
followed him. The room had been emptied. Enjolras, left alone with
Marius, was gazing gravely at him. Marius, however, having rallied his
ideas to some extent, did not consider himself beaten; there lingered
in him a trace of inward fermentation which was on the point, no doubt,
of translating itself into syllogisms arrayed against Enjolras, when
all of a sudden, they heard some one singing on the stairs as he went.
It was Combeferre, and this is what he was singing:—
“Si César m’avait donné
La gloire et la guerre,
Et qu’il me fallait quitter
L’amour de ma mère,
Je dirais au grand César:
Reprends ton sceptre et ton char,
J’aime mieux ma mère, ô gué!
J’aime mieux ma mère!”25
The wild and tender accents with which Combeferre sang communicated to
this couplet a sort of strange grandeur. Marius, thoughtfully, and with
his eyes diked on the ceiling, repeated almost mechanically: “My
mother?—”
At that moment, he felt Enjolras’ hand on his shoulder.
“Citizen,” said Enjolras to him, “my mother is the Republic.”
CHAPTER VI—RES ANGUSTA
That evening left Marius profoundly shaken, and with a melancholy
shadow in his soul. He felt what the earth may possibly feel, at the
moment when it is torn open with the iron, in order that grain may be
deposited within it; it feels only the wound; the quiver of the germ
and the joy of the fruit only arrive later.
Marius was gloomy. He had but just acquired a faith; must he then
reject it already? He affirmed to himself that he would not. He
declared to himself that he would not doubt, and he began to doubt in
spite of himself. To stand between two religions, from one of which you
have not as yet emerged, and another into which you have not yet
entered, is intolerable; and twilight is pleasing only to bat-like
souls. Marius was clear-eyed, and he required the true light. The
half-lights of doubt pained him. Whatever may have been his desire to
remain where he was, he could not halt there, he was irresistibly
constrained to continue, to advance, to examine, to think, to march
further. Whither would this lead him? He feared, after having taken so
many steps which had brought him nearer to his father, to now take a
step which should estrange him from that father. His discomfort was
augmented by all the reflections which occurred to him. An escarpment
rose around him. He was in accord neither with his grandfather nor with
his friends; daring in the eyes of the one, he was behind the times in
the eyes of the others, and he recognized the fact that he was doubly
isolated, on the side of age and on the side of youth. He ceased to go
to the Café Musain.
In the troubled state of his conscience, he no longer thought of
certain serious sides of existence. The realities of life do not allow
themselves to be forgotten. They soon elbowed him abruptly.
One morning, the proprietor of the hotel entered Marius’ room and said
to him:—
“Monsieur Courfeyrac answered for you.”
“Yes.”
“But I must have my money.”
“Request Courfeyrac to come and talk with me,” said Marius.
Courfeyrac having made his appearance, the host left them. Marius then
told him what it had not before occurred to him to relate, that he was
the same as alone in the world, and had no relatives.
“What is to become of you?” said Courfeyrac.
“I do not know in the least,” replied Marius.
“What are you going to do?”
“I do not know.”
“Have you any money?”
“Fifteen francs.”
“Do you want me to lend you some?”
“Never.”
“Have you clothes?”
“Here is what I have.”
“Have you trinkets?”
“A watch.”
“Silver?”
“Gold; here it is.”
“I know a clothes-dealer who will take your frock-coat and a pair of
trousers.”
“That is good.”
“You will then have only a pair of trousers, a waistcoat, a hat and a
coat.”
“And my boots.”
“What! you will not go barefoot? What opulence!”
“That will be enough.”
“I know a watchmaker who will buy your watch.”
“That is good.”
“No; it is not good. What will you do after that?”
“Whatever is necessary. Anything honest, that is to say.”
“Do you know English?”
“No.”
“Do you know German?”
“No.”
“So much the worse.”
“Why?”
“Because one of my friends, a publisher, is getting up a sort of an
encyclopædia, for which you might have translated English or German
articles. It is badly paid work, but one can live by it.”
“I will learn English and German.”
“And in the meanwhile?”
“In the meanwhile I will live on my clothes and my watch.”
The clothes-dealer was sent for. He paid twenty francs for the cast-off
garments. They went to the watchmaker’s. He bought the watch for
forty-five francs.
“That is not bad,” said Marius to Courfeyrac, on their return to the
hotel, “with my fifteen francs, that makes eighty.”
“And the hotel bill?” observed Courfeyrac.
“Hello, I had forgotten that,” said Marius.
The landlord presented his bill, which had to be paid on the spot. It
amounted to seventy francs.
“I have ten francs left,” said Marius.
“The deuce,” exclaimed Courfeyrac, “you will eat up five francs while
you are learning English, and five while learning German. That will be
swallowing a tongue very fast, or a hundred sous very slowly.”
In the meantime Aunt Gillenormand, a rather good-hearted person at
bottom in difficulties, had finally hunted up Marius’ abode.
One morning, on his return from the law-school, Marius found a letter
from his aunt, and the _sixty pistoles_, that is to say, six hundred
francs in gold, in a sealed box.
Marius sent back the thirty louis to his aunt, with a respectful
letter, in which he stated that he had sufficient means of subsistence
and that he should be able thenceforth to supply all his needs. At that
moment, he had three francs left.
His aunt did not inform his grandfather of this refusal for fear of
exasperating him. Besides, had he not said: “Let me never hear the name
of that blood-drinker again!”
Marius left the hotel de la Porte Saint-Jacques, as he did not wish to
run in debt there.
BOOK FIFTH—THE EXCELLENCE OF MISFORTUNE
CHAPTER I—MARIUS INDIGENT
Life became hard for Marius. It was nothing to eat his clothes and his
watch. He ate of that terrible, inexpressible thing that is called _de
la vache enragé_; that is to say, he endured great hardships and
privations. A terrible thing it is, containing days without bread,
nights without sleep, evenings without a candle, a hearth without a
fire, weeks without work, a future without hope, a coat out at the
elbows, an old hat which evokes the laughter of young girls, a door
which one finds locked on one at night because one’s rent is not paid,
the insolence of the porter and the cook-shop man, the sneers of
neighbors, humiliations, dignity trampled on, work of whatever nature
accepted, disgusts, bitterness, despondency. Marius learned how all
this is eaten, and how such are often the only things which one has to
devour. At that moment of his existence when a man needs his pride,
because he needs love, he felt that he was jeered at because he was
badly dressed, and ridiculous because he was poor. At the age when
youth swells the heart with imperial pride, he dropped his eyes more
than once on his dilapidated boots, and he knew the unjust shame and
the poignant blushes of wretchedness. Admirable and terrible trial from
which the feeble emerge base, from which the strong emerge sublime. A
crucible into which destiny casts a man, whenever it desires a
scoundrel or a demi-god.
For many great deeds are performed in petty combats. There are
instances of bravery ignored and obstinate, which defend themselves
step by step in that fatal onslaught of necessities and turpitudes.
Noble and mysterious triumphs which no eye beholds, which are requited
with no renown, which are saluted with no trumpet blast. Life,
misfortune, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are the fields of battle
which have their heroes; obscure heroes, who are, sometimes, grander
than the heroes who win renown.
Firm and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a
step-mother, is sometimes a mother; destitution gives birth to might of
soul and spirit; distress is the nurse of pride; unhappiness is a good
milk for the magnanimous.
There came a moment in Marius’ life, when he swept his own landing,
when he bought his sou’s worth of Brie cheese at the fruiterer’s, when
he waited until twilight had fallen to slip into the baker’s and
purchase a loaf, which he carried off furtively to his attic as though
he had stolen it. Sometimes there could be seen gliding into the
butcher’s shop on the corner, in the midst of the bantering cooks who
elbowed him, an awkward young man, carrying big books under his arm,
who had a timid yet angry air, who, on entering, removed his hat from a