Les Misérables
might even, in that prison, precisely at the spot where the sewer which
served the unprecedented escape, in broad daylight, of thirty
prisoners, in 1843, passes under the culvert, read his name, PANCHAUD,
audaciously carved by his own hand on the wall of the sewer, during one
of his attempts at flight. In 1832, the police already had their eye on
him, but he had not as yet made a serious beginning.
CHAPTER XI—OFFERS OF SERVICE FROM MISERY TO WRETCHEDNESS
Marius ascended the stairs of the hovel with slow steps; at the moment
when he was about to re-enter his cell, he caught sight of the elder
Jondrette girl following him through the corridor. The very sight of
this girl was odious to him; it was she who had his five francs, it was
too late to demand them back, the cab was no longer there, the fiacre
was far away. Moreover, she would not have given them back. As for
questioning her about the residence of the persons who had just been
there, that was useless; it was evident that she did not know, since
the letter signed Fabantou had been addressed “to the benevolent
gentleman of the church of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas.”
Marius entered his room and pushed the door to after him.
It did not close; he turned round and beheld a hand which held the door
half open.
“What is it?” he asked, “who is there?”
It was the Jondrette girl.
“Is it you?” resumed Marius almost harshly, “still you! What do you
want with me?”
She appeared to be thoughtful and did not look at him. She no longer
had the air of assurance which had characterized her that morning. She
did not enter, but held back in the darkness of the corridor, where
Marius could see her through the half-open door.
“Come now, will you answer?” cried Marius. “What do you want with me?”
She raised her dull eyes, in which a sort of gleam seemed to flicker
vaguely, and said:—
“Monsieur Marius, you look sad. What is the matter with you?”
“With me!” said Marius.
“Yes, you.”
“There is nothing the matter with me.”
“Yes, there is!”
“No.”
“I tell you there is!”
“Let me alone!”
Marius gave the door another push, but she retained her hold on it.
“Stop,” said she, “you are in the wrong. Although you are not rich, you
were kind this morning. Be so again now. You gave me something to eat,
now tell me what ails you. You are grieved, that is plain. I do not
want you to be grieved. What can be done for it? Can I be of any
service? Employ me. I do not ask for your secrets, you need not tell
them to me, but I may be of use, nevertheless. I may be able to help
you, since I help my father. When it is necessary to carry letters, to
go to houses, to inquire from door to door, to find out an address, to
follow any one, I am of service. Well, you may assuredly tell me what
is the matter with you, and I will go and speak to the persons;
sometimes it is enough if some one speaks to the persons, that suffices
to let them understand matters, and everything comes right. Make use of
me.”
An idea flashed across Marius’ mind. What branch does one disdain when
one feels that one is falling?
He drew near to the Jondrette girl.
“Listen—” he said to her.
She interrupted him with a gleam of joy in her eyes.
“Oh yes, do call me _thou!_ I like that better.”
“Well,” he resumed, “thou hast brought hither that old gentleman and
his daughter!”
“Yes.”
“Dost thou know their address?”
“No.”
“Find it for me.”
The Jondrette’s dull eyes had grown joyous, and they now became gloomy.
“Is that what you want?” she demanded.
“Yes.”
“Do you know them?”
“No.”
“That is to say,” she resumed quickly, “you do not know her, but you
wish to know her.”
This _them_ which had turned into _her_ had something indescribably
significant and bitter about it.
“Well, can you do it?” said Marius.
“You shall have the beautiful lady’s address.”
There was still a shade in the words “the beautiful lady” which
troubled Marius. He resumed:—
“Never mind, after all, the address of the father and daughter. Their
address, indeed!”
She gazed fixedly at him.
“What will you give me?”
“Anything you like.”
“Anything I like?”
“Yes.”
“You shall have the address.”
She dropped her head; then, with a brusque movement, she pulled to the
door, which closed behind her.
Marius found himself alone.
He dropped into a chair, with his head and both elbows on his bed,
absorbed in thoughts which he could not grasp, and as though a prey to
vertigo. All that had taken place since the morning, the appearance of
the angel, her disappearance, what that creature had just said to him,
a gleam of hope floating in an immense despair,—this was what filled
his brain confusedly.
All at once he was violently aroused from his reverie.
He heard the shrill, hard voice of Jondrette utter these words, which
were fraught with a strange interest for him:—
“I tell you that I am sure of it, and that I recognized him.”
Of whom was Jondrette speaking? Whom had he recognized? M. Leblanc? The
father of “his Ursule”? What! Did Jondrette know him? Was Marius about
to obtain in this abrupt and unexpected fashion all the information
without which his life was so dark to him? Was he about to learn at
last who it was that he loved, who that young girl was? Who her father
was? Was the dense shadow which enwrapped them on the point of being
dispelled? Was the veil about to be rent? Ah! Heavens!
He bounded rather than climbed upon his commode, and resumed his post
near the little peep-hole in the partition wall.
Again he beheld the interior of Jondrette’s hovel.
CHAPTER XII—THE USE MADE OF M. LEBLANC’S FIVE-FRANC PIECE
Nothing in the aspect of the family was altered, except that the wife
and daughters had levied on the package and put on woollen stockings
and jackets. Two new blankets were thrown across the two beds.
Jondrette had evidently just returned. He still had the breathlessness
of out of doors. His daughters were seated on the floor near the
fireplace, the elder engaged in dressing the younger’s wounded hand.
His wife had sunk back on the bed near the fireplace, with a face
indicative of astonishment. Jondrette was pacing up and down the garret
with long strides. His eyes were extraordinary.
The woman, who seemed timid and overwhelmed with stupor in the presence
of her husband, turned to say:—
“What, really? You are sure?”
“Sure! Eight years have passed! But I recognize him! Ah! I recognize
him. I knew him at once! What! Didn’t it force itself on you?”
“No.”
“But I told you: ‘Pay attention!’ Why, it is his figure, it is his
face, only older,—there are people who do not grow old, I don’t know
how they manage it,—it is the very sound of his voice. He is better
dressed, that is all! Ah! you mysterious old devil, I’ve got you, that
I have!”
He paused, and said to his daughters:—
“Get out of here, you!—It’s queer that it didn’t strike you!”
They arose to obey.
The mother stammered:—
“With her injured hand.”
“The air will do it good,” said Jondrette. “Be off.”
It was plain that this man was of the sort to whom no one offers to
reply. The two girls departed.
At the moment when they were about to pass through the door, the father
detained the elder by the arm, and said to her with a peculiar accent:—
“You will be here at five o’clock precisely. Both of you. I shall need
you.”
Marius redoubled his attention.
On being left alone with his wife, Jondrette began to pace the room
again, and made the tour of it two or three times in silence. Then he
spent several minutes in tucking the lower part of the woman’s chemise
which he wore into his trousers.
All at once, he turned to the female Jondrette, folded his arms and
exclaimed:—
“And would you like to have me tell you something? The young lady—”
“Well, what?” retorted his wife, “the young lady?”
Marius could not doubt that it was really she of whom they were
speaking. He listened with ardent anxiety. His whole life was in his
ears.
But Jondrette had bent over and spoke to his wife in a whisper. Then he
straightened himself up and concluded aloud:—
“It is she!”
“That one?” said his wife.
“That very one,” said the husband.
No expression can reproduce the significance of the mother’s words.
Surprise, rage, hate, wrath, were mingled and combined in one monstrous
intonation. The pronunciation of a few words, the name, no doubt, which
her husband had whispered in her ear, had sufficed to rouse this huge,
somnolent woman, and from being repulsive she became terrible.
“It is not possible!” she cried. “When I think that my daughters are
going barefoot, and have not a gown to their backs! What! A satin
pelisse, a velvet bonnet, boots, and everything; more than two hundred
francs’ worth of clothes! so that one would think she was a lady! No,
you are mistaken! Why, in the first place, the other was hideous, and
this one is not so bad-looking! She really is not bad-looking! It can’t
be she!”
“I tell you that it is she. You will see.”
At this absolute assertion, the Jondrette woman raised her large, red,
blonde face and stared at the ceiling with a horrible expression. At
that moment, she seemed to Marius even more to be feared than her
husband. She was a sow with the look of a tigress.
“What!” she resumed, “that horrible, beautiful young lady, who gazed at
my daughters with an air of pity,—she is that beggar brat! Oh! I should
like to kick her stomach in for her!”
She sprang off of the bed, and remained standing for a moment, her hair
in disorder, her nostrils dilating, her mouth half open, her fists
clenched and drawn back. Then she fell back on the bed once more. The
man paced to and fro and paid no attention to his female.
After a silence lasting several minutes, he approached the female
Jondrette, and halted in front of her, with folded arms, as he had done
a moment before:—
“And shall I tell you another thing?”
“What is it?” she asked.
He answered in a low, curt voice:—
“My fortune is made.”
The woman stared at him with the look that signifies: “Is the person
who is addressing me on the point of going mad?”
He went on:—
“Thunder! It was not so very long ago that I was a parishioner of the
parish of
die-of-hunger-if-you-have-a-fire,-die-of-cold-if-you-have-bread! I have
had enough of misery! my share and other people’s share! I am not
joking any longer, I don’t find it comic any more, I’ve had enough of
puns, good God! no more farces, Eternal Father! I want to eat till I am
full, I want to drink my fill! to gormandize! to sleep! to do nothing!
I want to have my turn, so I do, come now! before I die! I want to be a
bit of a millionnaire!”
He took a turn round the hovel, and added:—
“Like other people.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked the woman.
He shook his head, winked, screwed up one eye, and raised his voice
like a medical professor who is about to make a demonstration:—
“What do I mean by that? Listen!”
“Hush!” muttered the woman, “not so loud! These are matters which must
not be overheard.”
“Bah! Who’s here? Our neighbor? I saw him go out a little while ago.
Besides, he doesn’t listen, the big booby. And I tell you that I saw
him go out.”
Nevertheless, by a sort of instinct, Jondrette lowered his voice,
although not sufficiently to prevent Marius hearing his words. One
favorable circumstance, which enabled Marius not to lose a word of this
conversation was the falling snow which deadened the sound of vehicles
on the boulevard.
This is what Marius heard:—
“Listen carefully. The Crœsus is caught, or as good as caught! That’s