Les Misérables
at once, great and petty. Horace was one of them; so was Goethe. La
Fontaine perhaps; magnificent egoists of the infinite, tranquil
spectators of sorrow, who do not behold Nero if the weather be fair,
for whom the sun conceals the funeral pile, who would look on at an
execution by the guillotine in the search for an effect of light, who
hear neither the cry nor the sob, nor the death rattle, nor the alarm
peal, for whom everything is well, since there is a month of May, who,
so long as there are clouds of purple and gold above their heads,
declare themselves content, and who are determined to be happy until
the radiance of the stars and the songs of the birds are exhausted.
These are dark radiances. They have no suspicion that they are to be
pitied. Certainly they are so. He who does not weep does not see. They
are to be admired and pitied, as one would both pity and admire a being
at once night and day, without eyes beneath his lashes but with a star
on his brow.
The indifference of these thinkers, is, according to some, a superior
philosophy. That may be; but in this superiority there is some
infirmity. One may be immortal and yet limp: witness Vulcan. One may be
more than man and less than man. There is incomplete immensity in
nature. Who knows whether the sun is not a blind man?
But then, what? In whom can we trust? _Solem quis dicere falsum
audeat?_ Who shall dare to say that the sun is false? Thus certain
geniuses, themselves, certain Very-Lofty mortals, man-stars, may be
mistaken? That which is on high at the summit, at the crest, at the
zenith, that which sends down so much light on the earth, sees but
little, sees badly, sees not at all? Is not this a desperate state of
things? No. But what is there, then, above the sun? The god.
On the 6th of June, 1832, about eleven o’clock in the morning, the
Luxembourg, solitary and depopulated, was charming. The quincunxes and
flower-beds shed forth balm and dazzling beauty into the sunlight. The
branches, wild with the brilliant glow of midday, seemed endeavoring to
embrace. In the sycamores there was an uproar of linnets, sparrows
triumphed, woodpeckers climbed along the chestnut trees, administering
little pecks on the bark. The flower-beds accepted the legitimate
royalty of the lilies; the most august of perfumes is that which
emanates from whiteness. The peppery odor of the carnations was
perceptible. The old crows of Marie de Medici were amorous in the tall
trees. The sun gilded, empurpled, set fire to and lighted up the
tulips, which are nothing but all the varieties of flame made into
flowers. All around the banks of tulips the bees, the sparks of these
flame-flowers, hummed. All was grace and gayety, even the impending
rain; this relapse, by which the lilies of the valley and the
honeysuckles were destined to profit, had nothing disturbing about it;
the swallows indulged in the charming threat of flying low. He who was
there aspired to happiness; life smelled good; all nature exhaled
candor, help, assistance, paternity, caress, dawn. The thoughts which
fell from heaven were as sweet as the tiny hand of a baby when one
kisses it.
The statues under the trees, white and nude, had robes of shadow
pierced with light; these goddesses were all tattered with sunlight;
rays hung from them on all sides. Around the great fountain, the earth
was already dried up to the point of being burnt. There was sufficient
breeze to raise little insurrections of dust here and there. A few
yellow leaves, left over from the autumn, chased each other merrily,
and seemed to be playing tricks on each other.
This abundance of light had something indescribably reassuring about
it. Life, sap, heat, odors overflowed; one was conscious, beneath
creation, of the enormous size of the source; in all these breaths
permeated with love, in this interchange of reverberations and
reflections, in this marvellous expenditure of rays, in this infinite
outpouring of liquid gold, one felt the prodigality of the
inexhaustible; and, behind this splendor as behind a curtain of flame,
one caught a glimpse of God, that millionaire of stars.
Thanks to the sand, there was not a speck of mud; thanks to the rain,
there was not a grain of ashes. The clumps of blossoms had just been
bathed; every sort of velvet, satin, gold and varnish, which springs
from the earth in the form of flowers, was irreproachable. This
magnificence was cleanly. The grand silence of happy nature filled the
garden. A celestial silence that is compatible with a thousand sorts of
music, the cooing of nests, the buzzing of swarms, the flutterings of
the breeze. All the harmony of the season was complete in one gracious
whole; the entrances and exits of spring took place in proper order;
the lilacs ended; the jasmines began; some flowers were tardy, some
insects in advance of their time; the van-guard of the red June
butterflies fraternized with the rear-guard of the white butterflies of
May. The plantain trees were getting their new skins. The breeze
hollowed out undulations in the magnificent enormity of the
chestnut-trees. It was splendid. A veteran from the neighboring
barracks, who was gazing through the fence, said: “Here is the Spring
presenting arms and in full uniform.”
All nature was breakfasting; creation was at table; this was its hour;
the great blue cloth was spread in the sky, and the great green cloth
on earth; the sun lighted it all up brilliantly. God was serving the
universal repast. Each creature had his pasture or his mess. The
ring-dove found his hemp-seed, the chaffinch found his millet, the
goldfinch found chickweed, the red-breast found worms, the green finch
found flies, the fly found infusoriæ, the bee found flowers. They ate
each other somewhat, it is true, which is the misery of evil mixed with
good; but not a beast of them all had an empty stomach.
The two little abandoned creatures had arrived in the vicinity of the
grand fountain, and, rather bewildered by all this light, they tried to
hide themselves, the instinct of the poor and the weak in the presence
of even impersonal magnificence; and they kept behind the swans’ hutch.
Here and there, at intervals, when the wind blew, shouts, clamor, a
sort of tumultuous death rattle, which was the firing, and dull blows,
which were discharges of cannon, struck the ear confusedly. Smoke hung
over the roofs in the direction of the Halles. A bell, which had the
air of an appeal, was ringing in the distance.
These children did not appear to notice these noises. The little one
repeated from time to time: “I am hungry.”
Almost at the same instant with the children, another couple approached
the great basin. They consisted of a goodman, about fifty years of age,
who was leading by the hand a little fellow of six. No doubt, a father
and his son. The little man of six had a big brioche.
At that epoch, certain houses abutting on the river, in the Rues Madame
and d’Enfer, had keys to the Luxembourg garden, of which the lodgers
enjoyed the use when the gates were shut, a privilege which was
suppressed later on. This father and son came from one of these houses,
no doubt.
The two poor little creatures watched “that gentleman” approaching, and
hid themselves a little more thoroughly.
He was a bourgeois. The same person, perhaps, whom Marius had one day
heard, through his love fever, near the same grand basin, counselling
his son “to avoid excesses.” He had an affable and haughty air, and a
mouth which was always smiling, since it did not shut. This mechanical
smile, produced by too much jaw and too little skin, shows the teeth
rather than the soul. The child, with his brioche, which he had bitten
into but had not finished eating, seemed satiated. The child was
dressed as a National Guardsman, owing to the insurrection, and the
father had remained clad as a bourgeois out of prudence.
Father and son halted near the fountain where two swans were sporting.
This bourgeois appeared to cherish a special admiration for the swans.
He resembled them in this sense, that he walked like them.
For the moment, the swans were swimming, which is their principal
talent, and they were superb.
If the two poor little beings had listened and if they had been of an
age to understand, they might have gathered the words of this grave
man. The father was saying to his son:
“The sage lives content with little. Look at me, my son. I do not love
pomp. I am never seen in clothes decked with gold lace and stones; I
leave that false splendor to badly organized souls.”
Here the deep shouts which proceeded from the direction of the Halles
burst out with fresh force of bell and uproar.
“What is that?” inquired the child.
The father replied:
“It is the Saturnalia.”
All at once, he caught sight of the two little ragged boys behind the
green swan-hutch.
“There is the beginning,” said he.
And, after a pause, he added:
“Anarchy is entering this garden.”
In the meanwhile, his son took a bite of his brioche, spit it out, and,
suddenly burst out crying.
“What are you crying about?” demanded his father.
“I am not hungry any more,” said the child.
The father’s smile became more accentuated.
“One does not need to be hungry in order to eat a cake.”
“My cake tires me. It is stale.”
“Don’t you want any more of it?”
“No.”
The father pointed to the swans.
“Throw it to those palmipeds.”
The child hesitated. A person may not want any more of his cake; but
that is no reason for giving it away.
The father went on:
“Be humane. You must have compassion on animals.”
And, taking the cake from his son, he flung it into the basin.
The cake fell very near the edge.
The swans were far away, in the centre of the basin, and busy with some
prey. They had seen neither the bourgeois nor the brioche.
The bourgeois, feeling that the cake was in danger of being wasted, and
moved by this useless shipwreck, entered upon a telegraphic agitation,
which finally attracted the attention of the swans.
They perceived something floating, steered for the edge like ships, as
they are, and slowly directed their course toward the brioche, with the
stupid majesty which befits white creatures.
“The swans [_cygnes_] understand signs [_signes_],” said the bourgeois,
delighted to make a jest.
At that moment, the distant tumult of the city underwent another sudden
increase. This time it was sinister. There are some gusts of wind which
speak more distinctly than others. The one which was blowing at that
moment brought clearly defined drum-beats, clamors, platoon firing, and
the dismal replies of the tocsin and the cannon. This coincided with a
black cloud which suddenly veiled the sun.
The swans had not yet reached the brioche.
“Let us return home,” said the father, “they are attacking the
Tuileries.”
He grasped his son’s hand again. Then he continued:
“From the Tuileries to the Luxembourg, there is but the distance which
separates Royalty from the peerage; that is not far. Shots will soon
rain down.”
He glanced at the cloud.
“Perhaps it is rain itself that is about to shower down; the sky is
joining in; the younger branch is condemned. Let us return home
quickly.”
“I should like to see the swans eat the brioche,” said the child.
The father replied:
“That would be imprudent.”
And he led his little bourgeois away.
The son, regretting the swans, turned his head back toward the basin
until a corner of the quincunxes concealed it from him.
In the meanwhile, the two little waifs had approached the brioche at
the same time as the swans. It was floating on the water. The smaller
of them stared at the cake, the elder gazed after the retreating
bourgeois.