Les Misérables
“affair” into their hands, and to tell them more about it than there
was any need of their knowing.
He went on:—
“Sign. What is your name?”
“Urbain Fabre,” said the prisoner.
Thénardier, with the movement of a cat, dashed his hand into his pocket
and drew out the handkerchief which had been seized on M. Leblanc. He
looked for the mark on it, and held it close to the candle.
“U. F. That’s it. Urbain Fabre. Well, sign it U. F.”
The prisoner signed.
“As two hands are required to fold the letter, give it to me, I will
fold it.”
That done, Thénardier resumed:—
“Address it, ‘Mademoiselle Fabre,’ at your house. I know that you live
a long distance from here, near Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, because you
go to mass there every day, but I don’t know in what street. I see that
you understand your situation. As you have not lied about your name,
you will not lie about your address. Write it yourself.”
The prisoner paused thoughtfully for a moment, then he took the pen and
wrote:—
“Mademoiselle Fabre, at M. Urbain Fabre’s, Rue Saint-Dominique-D’Enfer,
No. 17.”
Thénardier seized the letter with a sort of feverish convulsion.
“Wife!” he cried.
The Thénardier woman hastened to him.
“Here’s the letter. You know what you have to do. There is a carriage
at the door. Set out at once, and return ditto.”
And addressing the man with the meat-axe:—
“Since you have taken off your nose-screen, accompany the mistress. You
will get up behind the fiacre. You know where you left the team?”
“Yes,” said the man.
And depositing his axe in a corner, he followed Madame Thénardier.
As they set off, Thénardier thrust his head through the half-open door,
and shouted into the corridor:—
“Above all things, don’t lose the letter! remember that you carry two
hundred thousand francs with you!”
The Thénardier’s hoarse voice replied:—
“Be easy. I have it in my bosom.”
A minute had not elapsed, when the sound of the cracking of a whip was
heard, which rapidly retreated and died away.
“Good!” growled Thénardier. “They’re going at a fine pace. At such a
gallop, the bourgeoise will be back inside three-quarters of an hour.”
He drew a chair close to the fireplace, folding his arms, and
presenting his muddy boots to the brazier.
“My feet are cold!” said he.
Only five ruffians now remained in the den with Thénardier and the
prisoner.
These men, through the black masks or paste which covered their faces,
and made of them, at fear’s pleasure, charcoal-burners, negroes, or
demons, had a stupid and gloomy air, and it could be felt that they
perpetrated a crime like a bit of work, tranquilly, without either
wrath or mercy, with a sort of ennui. They were crowded together in one
corner like brutes, and remained silent.
Thénardier warmed his feet.
The prisoner had relapsed into his taciturnity. A sombre calm had
succeeded to the wild uproar which had filled the garret but a few
moments before.
The candle, on which a large “stranger” had formed, cast but a dim
light in the immense hovel, the brazier had grown dull, and all those
monstrous heads cast misshapen shadows on the walls and ceiling.
No sound was audible except the quiet breathing of the old drunken man,
who was fast asleep.
Marius waited in a state of anxiety that was augmented by every trifle.
The enigma was more impenetrable than ever.
Who was this “little one” whom Thénardier had called the Lark? Was she
his “Ursule”? The prisoner had not seemed to be affected by that word,
“the Lark,” and had replied in the most natural manner in the world: “I
do not know what you mean.” On the other hand, the two letters U. F.
were explained; they meant Urbain Fabre; and Ursule was no longer named
Ursule. This was what Marius perceived most clearly of all.
A sort of horrible fascination held him nailed to his post, from which
he was observing and commanding this whole scene. There he stood,
almost incapable of movement or reflection, as though annihilated by
the abominable things viewed at such close quarters. He waited, in the
hope of some incident, no matter of what nature, since he could not
collect his thoughts and did not know upon what course to decide.
“In any case,” he said, “if she is the Lark, I shall see her, for the
Thénardier woman is to bring her hither. That will be the end, and then
I will give my life and my blood if necessary, but I will deliver her!
Nothing shall stop me.”
Nearly half an hour passed in this manner. Thénardier seemed to be
absorbed in gloomy reflections, the prisoner did not stir. Still,
Marius fancied that at intervals, and for the last few moments, he had
heard a faint, dull noise in the direction of the prisoner.
All at once, Thénardier addressed the prisoner:
“By the way, Monsieur Fabre, I might as well say it to you at once.”
These few words appeared to be the beginning of an explanation. Marius
strained his ears.
“My wife will be back shortly, don’t get impatient. I think that the
Lark really is your daughter, and it seems to me quite natural that you
should keep her. Only, listen to me a bit. My wife will go and hunt her
up with your letter. I told my wife to dress herself in the way she
did, so that your young lady might make no difficulty about following
her. They will both enter the carriage with my comrade behind.
Somewhere, outside the barrier, there is a trap harnessed to two very
good horses. Your young lady will be taken to it. She will alight from
the fiacre. My comrade will enter the other vehicle with her, and my
wife will come back here to tell us: ‘It’s done.’ As for the young
lady, no harm will be done to her; the trap will conduct her to a place
where she will be quiet, and just as soon as you have handed over to me
those little two hundred thousand francs, she will be returned to you.
If you have me arrested, my comrade will give a turn of his thumb to
the Lark, that’s all.”
The prisoner uttered not a syllable. After a pause, Thénardier
continued:—
“It’s very simple, as you see. There’ll be no harm done unless you wish
that there should be harm done. I’m telling you how things stand. I
warn you so that you may be prepared.”
He paused: the prisoner did not break the silence, and Thénardier
resumed:—
“As soon as my wife returns and says to me: ‘The Lark is on the way,’
we will release you, and you will be free to go and sleep at home. You
see that our intentions are not evil.”
Terrible images passed through Marius’ mind. What! That young girl whom
they were abducting was not to be brought back? One of those monsters
was to bear her off into the darkness? Whither? And what if it were
she!
It was clear that it was she. Marius felt his heart stop beating.
What was he to do? Discharge the pistol? Place all those scoundrels in
the hands of justice? But the horrible man with the meat-axe would,
nonetheless, be out of reach with the young girl, and Marius reflected
on Thénardier’s words, of which he perceived the bloody significance:
“If you have me arrested, my comrade will give a turn of his thumb to
the Lark.”
Now, it was not alone by the colonel’s testament, it was by his own
love, it was by the peril of the one he loved, that he felt himself
restrained.
This frightful situation, which had already lasted above half an hour,
was changing its aspect every moment.
Marius had sufficient strength of mind to review in succession all the
most heart-breaking conjectures, seeking hope and finding none.
The tumult of his thoughts contrasted with the funereal silence of the
den.
In the midst of this silence, the door at the bottom of the staircase
was heard to open and shut again.
The prisoner made a movement in his bonds.
“Here’s the bourgeoise,” said Thénardier.
He had hardly uttered the words, when the Thénardier woman did in fact
rush hastily into the room, red, panting, breathless, with flaming
eyes, and cried, as she smote her huge hands on her thighs
simultaneously:—
“False address!”
The ruffian who had gone with her made his appearance behind her and
picked up his axe again.
She resumed:—
“Nobody there! Rue Saint-Dominique, No. 17, no Monsieur Urbain Fabre!
They know not what it means!”
She paused, choking, then went on:—
“Monsieur Thénardier! That old fellow has duped you! You are too good,
you see! If it had been me, I’d have chopped the beast in four quarters
to begin with! And if he had acted ugly, I’d have boiled him alive! He
would have been obliged to speak, and say where the girl is, and where
he keeps his shiners! That’s the way I should have managed matters!
People are perfectly right when they say that men are a deal stupider
than women! Nobody at No. 17. It’s nothing but a big carriage gate! No
Monsieur Fabre in the Rue Saint-Dominique! And after all that racing
and fee to the coachman and all! I spoke to both the porter and the
portress, a fine, stout woman, and they know nothing about him!”
Marius breathed freely once more.
She, Ursule or the Lark, he no longer knew what to call her, was safe.
While his exasperated wife vociferated, Thénardier had seated himself
on the table.
For several minutes he uttered not a word, but swung his right foot,
which hung down, and stared at the brazier with an air of savage
reverie.
Finally, he said to the prisoner, with a slow and singularly ferocious
tone:
“A false address? What did you expect to gain by that?”
“To gain time!” cried the prisoner in a thundering voice, and at the
same instant he shook off his bonds; they were cut. The prisoner was
only attached to the bed now by one leg.
Before the seven men had time to collect their senses and dash forward,
he had bent down into the fireplace, had stretched out his hand to the
brazier, and had then straightened himself up again, and now
Thénardier, the female Thénardier, and the ruffians, huddled in
amazement at the extremity of the hovel, stared at him in stupefaction,
as almost free and in a formidable attitude, he brandished above his
head the red-hot chisel, which emitted a threatening glow.
The judicial examination to which the ambush in the Gorbeau house
eventually gave rise, established the fact that a large sou piece, cut
and worked in a peculiar fashion, was found in the garret, when the
police made their descent on it. This sou piece was one of those
marvels of industry, which are engendered by the patience of the
galleys in the shadows and for the shadows, marvels which are nothing
else than instruments of escape. These hideous and delicate products of
wonderful art are to jewellers’ work what the metaphors of slang are to
poetry. There are Benvenuto Cellinis in the galleys, just as there are
Villons in language. The unhappy wretch who aspires to deliverance
finds means sometimes without tools, sometimes with a common
wooden-handled knife, to saw a sou into two thin plates, to hollow out
these plates without affecting the coinage stamp, and to make a furrow
on the edge of the sou in such a manner that the plates will adhere
again. This can be screwed together and unscrewed at will; it is a box.
In this box he hides a watch-spring, and this watch-spring, properly
handled, cuts good-sized chains and bars of iron. The unfortunate
convict is supposed to possess merely a sou; not at all, he possesses
liberty. It was a large sou of this sort which, during the subsequent
search of the police, was found under the bed near the window. They
also found a tiny saw of blue steel which would fit the sou.
It is probable that the prisoner had this sou piece on his person at
the moment when the ruffians searched him, that he contrived to conceal
it in his hand, and that afterward, having his right hand free, he