Les Misérables
Adrets_. Marius was enormously amused.
At the same time, he had a redoubled attack of shyness. On emerging
from the theatre, he refused to look at the garter of a modiste who was
stepping across a gutter, and Courfeyrac, who said: “I should like to
put that woman in my collection,” almost horrified him.
Courfeyrac invited him to breakfast at the Café Voltaire on the
following morning. Marius went thither, and ate even more than on the
preceding evening. He was very thoughtful and very merry. One would
have said that he was taking advantage of every occasion to laugh
uproariously. He tenderly embraced some man or other from the
provinces, who was presented to him. A circle of students formed round
the table, and they spoke of the nonsense paid for by the State which
was uttered from the rostrum in the Sorbonne, then the conversation
fell upon the faults and omissions in Guicherat’s dictionaries and
grammars. Marius interrupted the discussion to exclaim: “But it is very
agreeable, all the same to have the cross!”
“That’s queer!” whispered Courfeyrac to Jean Prouvaire.
“No,” responded Prouvaire, “that’s serious.”
It was serious; in fact, Marius had reached that first violent and
charming hour with which grand passions begin.
A glance had wrought all this.
When the mine is charged, when the conflagration is ready, nothing is
more simple. A glance is a spark.
It was all over with him. Marius loved a woman. His fate was entering
the unknown.
The glance of women resembles certain combinations of wheels, which are
tranquil in appearance yet formidable. You pass close to them every
day, peaceably and with impunity, and without a suspicion of anything.
A moment arrives when you forget that the thing is there. You go and
come, dream, speak, laugh. All at once you feel yourself clutched; all
is over. The wheels hold you fast, the glance has ensnared you. It has
caught you, no matter where or how, by some portion of your thought
which was fluttering loose, by some distraction which had attacked you.
You are lost. The whole of you passes into it. A chain of mysterious
forces takes possession of you. You struggle in vain; no more human
succor is possible. You go on falling from gearing to gearing, from
agony to agony, from torture to torture, you, your mind, your fortune,
your future, your soul; and, according to whether you are in the power
of a wicked creature, or of a noble heart, you will not escape from
this terrifying machine otherwise than disfigured with shame, or
transfigured by passion.
CHAPTER VII—ADVENTURES OF THE LETTER U DELIVERED OVER TO CONJECTURES
Isolation, detachment, from everything, pride, independence, the taste
of nature, the absence of daily and material activity, the life within
himself, the secret conflicts of chastity, a benevolent ecstasy towards
all creation, had prepared Marius for this possession which is called
passion. His worship of his father had gradually become a religion,
and, like all religions, it had retreated to the depths of his soul.
Something was required in the foreground. Love came.
A full month elapsed, during which Marius went every day to the
Luxembourg. When the hour arrived, nothing could hold him back.—“He is
on duty,” said Courfeyrac. Marius lived in a state of delight. It is
certain that the young girl did look at him.
He had finally grown bold, and approached the bench. Still, he did not
pass in front of it any more, in obedience to the instinct of timidity
and to the instinct of prudence common to lovers. He considered it
better not to attract “the attention of the father.” He combined his
stations behind the trees and the pedestals of the statues with a
profound diplomacy, so that he might be seen as much as possible by the
young girl and as little as possible by the old gentleman. Sometimes,
he remained motionless by the half-hour together in the shade of a
Leonidas or a Spartacus, holding in his hand a book, above which his
eyes, gently raised, sought the beautiful girl, and she, on her side,
turned her charming profile towards him with a vague smile. While
conversing in the most natural and tranquil manner in the world with
the white-haired man, she bent upon Marius all the reveries of a
virginal and passionate eye. Ancient and time-honored manœuvre which
Eve understood from the very first day of the world, and which every
woman understands from the very first day of her life! her mouth
replied to one, and her glance replied to another.
It must be supposed, that M. Leblanc finally noticed something, for
often, when Marius arrived, he rose and began to walk about. He had
abandoned their accustomed place and had adopted the bench by the
Gladiator, near the other end of the walk, as though with the object of
seeing whether Marius would pursue them thither. Marius did not
understand, and committed this error. “The father” began to grow
inexact, and no longer brought “his daughter” every day. Sometimes, he
came alone. Then Marius did not stay. Another blunder.
Marius paid no heed to these symptoms. From the phase of timidity, he
had passed, by a natural and fatal progress, to the phase of blindness.
His love increased. He dreamed of it every night. And then, an
unexpected bliss had happened to him, oil on the fire, a redoubling of
the shadows over his eyes. One evening, at dusk, he had found, on the
bench which “M. Leblanc and his daughter” had just quitted, a
handkerchief, a very simple handkerchief, without embroidery, but
white, and fine, and which seemed to him to exhale ineffable perfume.
He seized it with rapture. This handkerchief was marked with the
letters U. F. Marius knew nothing about this beautiful child,—neither
her family name, her Christian name nor her abode; these two letters
were the first thing of her that he had gained possession of, adorable
initials, upon which he immediately began to construct his scaffolding.
U was evidently the Christian name. “Ursule!” he thought, “what a
delicious name!” He kissed the handkerchief, drank it in, placed it on
his heart, on his flesh, during the day, and at night, laid it beneath
his lips that he might fall asleep on it.
“I feel that her whole soul lies within it!” he exclaimed.
This handkerchief belonged to the old gentleman, who had simply let it
fall from his pocket.
In the days which followed the finding of this treasure, he only
displayed himself at the Luxembourg in the act of kissing the
handkerchief and laying it on his heart. The beautiful child understood
nothing of all this, and signified it to him by imperceptible signs.
“O modesty!” said Marius.
CHAPTER VIII—THE VETERANS THEMSELVES CAN BE HAPPY
Since we have pronounced the word modesty, and since we conceal
nothing, we ought to say that once, nevertheless, in spite of his
ecstasies, “his Ursule” caused him very serious grief. It was on one of
the days when she persuaded M. Leblanc to leave the bench and stroll
along the walk. A brisk May breeze was blowing, which swayed the crests
of the plaintain-trees. The father and daughter, arm in arm, had just
passed Marius’ bench. Marius had risen to his feet behind them, and was
following them with his eyes, as was fitting in the desperate situation
of his soul.
All at once, a gust of wind, more merry than the rest, and probably
charged with performing the affairs of Springtime, swept down from the
nursery, flung itself on the alley, enveloped the young girl in a
delicious shiver, worthy of Virgil’s nymphs, and the fawns of
Theocritus, and lifted her dress, the robe more sacred than that of
Isis, almost to the height of her garter. A leg of exquisite shape
appeared. Marius saw it. He was exasperated and furious.
The young girl had hastily thrust down her dress, with a divinely
troubled motion, but he was nonetheless angry for all that. He was
alone in the alley, it is true. But there might have been some one
there. And what if there had been some one there! Can any one
comprehend such a thing? What she had just done is horrible!—Alas, the
poor child had done nothing; there had been but one culprit, the wind;
but Marius, in whom quivered the Bartholo who exists in Cherubin, was
determined to be vexed, and was jealous of his own shadow. It is thus,
in fact, that the harsh and capricious jealousy of the flesh awakens in
the human heart, and takes possession of it, even without any right.
Moreover, setting aside even that jealousy, the sight of that charming
leg had contained nothing agreeable for him; the white stocking of the
first woman he chanced to meet would have afforded him more pleasure.
When “his Ursule,” after having reached the end of the walk, retraced
her steps with M. Leblanc, and passed in front of the bench on which
Marius had seated himself once more, Marius darted a sullen and
ferocious glance at her. The young girl gave way to that slight
straightening up with a backward movement, accompanied by a raising of
the eyelids, which signifies: “Well, what is the matter?”
This was “their first quarrel.”
Marius had hardly made this scene at her with his eyes, when some one
crossed the walk. It was a veteran, very much bent, extremely wrinkled,
and pale, in a uniform of the Louis XV. pattern, bearing on his breast
the little oval plaque of red cloth, with the crossed swords, the
soldier’s cross of Saint-Louis, and adorned, in addition, with a
coat-sleeve, which had no arm within it, with a silver chin and a
wooden leg. Marius thought he perceived that this man had an extremely
well satisfied air. It even struck him that the aged cynic, as he
hobbled along past him, addressed to him a very fraternal and very
merry wink, as though some chance had created an understanding between
them, and as though they had shared some piece of good luck together.
What did that relic of Mars mean by being so contented? What had passed
between that wooden leg and the other? Marius reached a paroxysm of
jealousy.—“Perhaps he was there!” he said to himself; “perhaps he
saw!”—And he felt a desire to exterminate the veteran.
With the aid of time, all points grow dull. Marius’ wrath against
“Ursule,” just and legitimate as it was, passed off. He finally
pardoned her; but this cost him a great effort; he sulked for three
days.
Nevertheless, in spite of all this, and because of all this, his
passion augmented and grew to madness.
CHAPTER IX—ECLIPSE
The reader has just seen how Marius discovered, or thought that he
discovered, that _She_ was named Ursule.
Appetite grows with loving. To know that her name was Ursule was a
great deal; it was very little. In three or four weeks, Marius had
devoured this bliss. He wanted another. He wanted to know where she
lived.
He had committed his first blunder, by falling into the ambush of the
bench by the Gladiator. He had committed a second, by not remaining at
the Luxembourg when M. Leblanc came thither alone. He now committed a
third, and an immense one. He followed “Ursule.”
She lived in the Rue de l’Ouest, in the most unfrequented spot, in a
new, three-story house, of modest appearance.
From that moment forth, Marius added to his happiness of seeing her at
the Luxembourg the happiness of following her home.
His hunger was increasing. He knew her first name, at least, a charming
name, a genuine woman’s name; he knew where she lived; he wanted to
know who she was.
One evening, after he had followed them to their dwelling, and had seen
them disappear through the carriage gate, he entered in their train and
said boldly to the porter:—
“Is that the gentleman who lives on the first floor, who has just come
in?”
“No,” replied the porter. “He is the gentleman on the third floor.”
Another step gained. This success emboldened Marius.