Les Misérables
He had the reputation of not sticking at anything, and it was known
that he had plundered a police post simply out of bravado. Besides this
he made verses and songs, which gave him great authority.
Babet interrogated him:—
“You say nothing, Brujon?”
Brujon remained silent an instant longer, then he shook his head in
various ways, and finally concluded to speak:—
“See here; this morning I came across two sparrows fighting, this
evening I jostled a woman who was quarrelling. All that’s bad. Let’s
quit.”
They went away.
As they went, Montparnasse muttered:—
“Never mind! if they had wanted, I’d have cut her throat.”
Babet responded
“I wouldn’t. I don’t hit a lady.”
At the corner of the street they halted and exchanged the following
enigmatical dialogue in a low tone:—
“Where shall we go to sleep to-night?”
“Under Pantin [Paris].”
“Have you the key to the gate, Thénardier?”
“Pardi.”
Éponine, who never took her eyes off of them, saw them retreat by the
road by which they had come. She rose and began to creep after them
along the walls and the houses. She followed them thus as far as the
boulevard.
There they parted, and she saw these six men plunge into the gloom,
where they appeared to melt away.
CHAPTER V—THINGS OF THE NIGHT
After the departure of the ruffians, the Rue Plumet resumed its
tranquil, nocturnal aspect. That which had just taken place in this
street would not have astonished a forest. The lofty trees, the copses,
the heaths, the branches rudely interlaced, the tall grass, exist in a
sombre manner; the savage swarming there catches glimpses of sudden
apparitions of the invisible; that which is below man distinguishes,
through the mists, that which is beyond man; and the things of which we
living beings are ignorant there meet face to face in the night.
Nature, bristling and wild, takes alarm at certain approaches in which
she fancies that she feels the supernatural. The forces of the gloom
know each other, and are strangely balanced by each other. Teeth and
claws fear what they cannot grasp. Blood-drinking bestiality, voracious
appetites, hunger in search of prey, the armed instincts of nails and
jaws which have for source and aim the belly, glare and smell out
uneasily the impassive spectral forms straying beneath a shroud, erect
in its vague and shuddering robe, and which seem to them to live with a
dead and terrible life. These brutalities, which are only matter,
entertain a confused fear of having to deal with the immense obscurity
condensed into an unknown being. A black figure barring the way stops
the wild beast short. That which emerges from the cemetery intimidates
and disconcerts that which emerges from the cave; the ferocious fear
the sinister; wolves recoil when they encounter a ghoul.
CHAPTER VI—MARIUS BECOMES PRACTICAL ONCE MORE TO THE EXTENT OF GIVING
COSETTE HIS ADDRESS
While this sort of a dog with a human face was mounting guard over the
gate, and while the six ruffians were yielding to a girl, Marius was by
Cosette’s side.
Never had the sky been more studded with stars and more charming, the
trees more trembling, the odor of the grass more penetrating; never had
the birds fallen asleep among the leaves with a sweeter noise; never
had all the harmonies of universal serenity responded more thoroughly
to the inward music of love; never had Marius been more captivated,
more happy, more ecstatic.
But he had found Cosette sad; Cosette had been weeping. Her eyes were
red.
This was the first cloud in that wonderful dream.
Marius’ first word had been: “What is the matter?”
And she had replied: “This.”
Then she had seated herself on the bench near the steps, and while he
tremblingly took his place beside her, she had continued:—
“My father told me this morning to hold myself in readiness, because he
has business, and we may go away from here.”
Marius shivered from head to foot.
When one is at the end of one’s life, to die means to go away; when one
is at the beginning of it, to go away means to die.
For the last six weeks, Marius had little by little, slowly, by
degrees, taken possession of Cosette each day. As we have already
explained, in the case of first love, the soul is taken long before the
body; later on, one takes the body long before the soul; sometimes one
does not take the soul at all; the Faublas and the Prudhommes add:
“Because there is none”; but the sarcasm is, fortunately, a blasphemy.
So Marius possessed Cosette, as spirits possess, but he enveloped her
with all his soul, and seized her jealously with incredible conviction.
He possessed her smile, her breath, her perfume, the profound radiance
of her blue eyes, the sweetness of her skin when he touched her hand,
the charming mark which she had on her neck, all her thoughts.
Therefore, he possessed all Cosette’s dreams.
He incessantly gazed at, and he sometimes touched lightly with his
breath, the short locks on the nape of her neck, and he declared to
himself that there was not one of those short hairs which did not
belong to him, Marius. He gazed upon and adored the things that she
wore, her knot of ribbon, her gloves, her sleeves, her shoes, her
cuffs, as sacred objects of which he was the master. He dreamed that he
was the lord of those pretty shell combs which she wore in her hair,
and he even said to himself, in confused and suppressed stammerings of
voluptuousness which did not make their way to the light, that there
was not a ribbon of her gown, not a mesh in her stockings, not a fold
in her bodice, which was not his. Beside Cosette he felt himself beside
his own property, his own thing, his own despot and his slave. It
seemed as though they had so intermingled their souls, that it would
have been impossible to tell them apart had they wished to take them
back again.—“This is mine.” “No, it is mine.” “I assure you that you
are mistaken. This is my property.” “What you are taking as your own is
myself.”—Marius was something that made a part of Cosette, and Cosette
was something which made a part of Marius. Marius felt Cosette within
him. To have Cosette, to possess Cosette, this, to him, was not to be
distinguished from breathing. It was in the midst of this faith, of
this intoxication, of this virgin possession, unprecedented and
absolute, of this sovereignty, that these words: “We are going away,”
fell suddenly, at a blow, and that the harsh voice of reality cried to
him: “Cosette is not yours!”
Marius awoke. For six weeks Marius had been living, as we have said,
outside of life; those words, _going away!_ caused him to re-enter it
harshly.
He found not a word to say. Cosette merely felt that his hand was very
cold. She said to him in her turn: “What is the matter?”
He replied in so low a tone that Cosette hardly heard him:—
“I did not understand what you said.”
She began again:—
“This morning my father told me to settle all my little affairs and to
hold myself in readiness, that he would give me his linen to put in a
trunk, that he was obliged to go on a journey, that we were to go away,
that it is necessary to have a large trunk for me and a small one for
him, and that all is to be ready in a week from now, and that we might
go to England.”
“But this is outrageous!” exclaimed Marius.
It is certain, that, at that moment, no abuse of power, no violence,
not one of the abominations of the worst tyrants, no action of Busiris,
of Tiberius, or of Henry VIII., could have equalled this in atrocity,
in the opinion of Marius; M. Fauchelevent taking his daughter off to
England because he had business there.
He demanded in a weak voice:—
“And when do you start?”
“He did not say when.”
“And when shall you return?”
“He did not say when.”
Marius rose and said coldly:—
“Cosette, shall you go?”
Cosette turned toward him her beautiful eyes, all filled with anguish,
and replied in a sort of bewilderment:—
“Where?”
“To England. Shall you go?”
“Why do you say _you_ to me?”
“I ask you whether you will go?”
“What do you expect me to do?” she said, clasping her hands.
“So, you will go?”
“If my father goes.”
“So, you will go?”
Cosette took Marius’ hand, and pressed it without replying.
“Very well,” said Marius, “then I will go elsewhere.”
Cosette felt rather than understood the meaning of these words. She
turned so pale that her face shone white through the gloom. She
stammered:—
“What do you mean?”
Marius looked at her, then raised his eyes to heaven, and answered:
“Nothing.”
When his eyes fell again, he saw Cosette smiling at him. The smile of a
woman whom one loves possesses a visible radiance, even at night.
“How silly we are! Marius, I have an idea.”
“What is it?”
“If we go away, do you go too! I will tell you where! Come and join me
wherever I am.”
Marius was now a thoroughly roused man. He had fallen back into
reality. He cried to Cosette:—
“Go away with you! Are you mad? Why, I should have to have money, and I
have none! Go to England? But I am in debt now, I owe, I don’t know how
much, more than ten louis to Courfeyrac, one of my friends with whom
you are not acquainted! I have an old hat which is not worth three
francs, I have a coat which lacks buttons in front, my shirt is all
ragged, my elbows are torn, my boots let in the water; for the last six
weeks I have not thought about it, and I have not told you about it.
You only see me at night, and you give me your love; if you were to see
me in the daytime, you would give me a sou! Go to England! Eh! I
haven’t enough to pay for a passport!”
He threw himself against a tree which was close at hand, erect, his
brow pressed close to the bark, feeling neither the wood which flayed
his skin, nor the fever which was throbbing in his temples, and there
he stood motionless, on the point of falling, like the statue of
despair.
He remained a long time thus. One could remain for eternity in such
abysses. At last he turned round. He heard behind him a faint stifled
noise, which was sweet yet sad.
It was Cosette sobbing.
She had been weeping for more than two hours beside Marius as he
meditated.
He came to her, fell at her knees, and slowly prostrating himself, he
took the tip of her foot which peeped out from beneath her robe, and
kissed it.
She let him have his way in silence. There are moments when a woman
accepts, like a sombre and resigned goddess, the religion of love.
“Do not weep,” he said.
She murmured:—
“Not when I may be going away, and you cannot come!”
He went on:—
“Do you love me?”
She replied, sobbing, by that word from paradise which is never more
charming than amid tears:—
“I adore you!”
He continued in a tone which was an indescribable caress:—
“Do not weep. Tell me, will you do this for me, and cease to weep?”
“Do you love me?” said she.
He took her hand.
“Cosette, I have never given my word of honor to any one, because my
word of honor terrifies me. I feel that my father is by my side. Well,
I give you my most sacred word of honor, that if you go away I shall
die.”
In the tone with which he uttered these words there lay a melancholy so
solemn and so tranquil, that Cosette trembled. She felt that chill
which is produced by a true and gloomy thing as it passes by. The shock
made her cease weeping.
“Now, listen,” said he, “do not expect me to-morrow.”
“Why?”
“Do not expect me until the day after to-morrow.”
“Oh! Why?”
“You will see.”
“A day without seeing you! But that is impossible!”
“Let us sacrifice one day in order to gain our whole lives, perhaps.”
And Marius added in a low tone and in an aside:—