Les Misérables
me?’”
Marius’ brow grew more and more severe:
“I have never had the honor of being received by M. de Chateaubriand.
Let us cut it short. What do you want?”
The man bowed lower at that harsh voice.
“Monsieur le Baron, deign to listen to me. There is in America, in a
district near Panama, a village called la Joya. That village is
composed of a single house, a large, square house of three stories,
built of bricks dried in the sun, each side of the square five hundred
feet in length, each story retreating twelve feet back of the story
below, in such a manner as to leave in front a terrace which makes the
circuit of the edifice, in the centre an inner court where the
provisions and munitions are kept; no windows, loopholes, no doors,
ladders, ladders to mount from the ground to the first terrace, and
from the first to the second, and from the second to the third, ladders
to descend into the inner court, no doors to the chambers, trap-doors,
no staircases to the chambers, ladders; in the evening the traps are
closed, the ladders are withdrawn, carbines and blunderbusses trained
from the loopholes; no means of entering, a house by day, a citadel by
night, eight hundred inhabitants,—that is the village. Why so many
precautions? because the country is dangerous; it is full of cannibals.
Then why do people go there? because the country is marvellous; gold is
found there.”
“What are you driving at?” interrupted Marius, who had passed from
disappointment to impatience.
“At this, Monsieur le Baron. I am an old and weary diplomat. Ancient
civilization has thrown me on my own devices. I want to try savages.”
“Well?”
“Monsieur le Baron, egotism is the law of the world. The proletarian
peasant woman, who toils by the day, turns round when the diligence
passes by, the peasant proprietress, who toils in her field, does not
turn round. The dog of the poor man barks at the rich man, the dog of
the rich man barks at the poor man. Each one for himself.
Self-interest—that’s the object of men. Gold, that’s the loadstone.”
“What then? Finish.”
“I should like to go and establish myself at la Joya. There are three
of us. I have my spouse and my young lady; a very beautiful girl. The
journey is long and costly. I need a little money.”
“What concern is that of mine?” demanded Marius.
The stranger stretched his neck out of his cravat, a gesture
characteristic of the vulture, and replied with an augmented smile.
“Has not Monsieur le Baron perused my letter?”
There was some truth in this. The fact is, that the contents of the
epistle had slipped Marius’ mind. He had seen the writing rather than
read the letter. He could hardly recall it. But a moment ago a fresh
start had been given him. He had noted that detail: “my spouse and my
young lady.”
He fixed a penetrating glance on the stranger. An examining judge could
not have done the look better. He almost lay in wait for him.
He confined himself to replying:
“State the case precisely.”
The stranger inserted his two hands in both his fobs, drew himself up
without straightening his dorsal column, but scrutinizing Marius in his
turn, with the green gaze of his spectacles.
“So be it, Monsieur le Baron. I will be precise. I have a secret to
sell to you.”
“A secret?”
“A secret.”
“Which concerns me?”
“Somewhat.”
“What is the secret?”
Marius scrutinized the man more and more as he listened to him.
“I commence gratis,” said the stranger. “You will see that I am
interesting.”
“Speak.”
“Monsieur le Baron, you have in your house a thief and an assassin.”
Marius shuddered.
“In my house? no,” said he.
The imperturbable stranger brushed his hat with his elbow and went on:
“An assassin and a thief. Remark, Monsieur le Baron, that I do not here
speak of ancient deeds, deeds of the past which have lapsed, which can
be effaced by limitation before the law and by repentance before God. I
speak of recent deeds, of actual facts as still unknown to justice at
this hour. I continue. This man has insinuated himself into your
confidence, and almost into your family under a false name. I am about
to tell you his real name. And to tell it to you for nothing.”
“I am listening.”
“His name is Jean Valjean.”
“I know it.”
“I am going to tell you, equally for nothing, who he is.”
“Say on.”
“He is an ex-convict.”
“I know it.”
“You know it since I have had the honor of telling you.”
“No. I knew it before.”
Marius’ cold tone, that double reply of “I know it,” his laconicism,
which was not favorable to dialogue, stirred up some smouldering wrath
in the stranger. He launched a furious glance on the sly at Marius,
which was instantly extinguished. Rapid as it was, this glance was of
the kind which a man recognizes when he has once beheld it; it did not
escape Marius. Certain flashes can only proceed from certain souls; the
eye, that vent-hole of the thought, glows with it; spectacles hide
nothing; try putting a pane of glass over hell!
The stranger resumed with a smile:
“I will not permit myself to contradict Monsieur le Baron. In any case,
you ought to perceive that I am well informed. Now what I have to tell
you is known to myself alone. This concerns the fortune of Madame la
Baronne. It is an extraordinary secret. It is for sale—I make you the
first offer of it. Cheap. Twenty thousand francs.”
“I know that secret as well as the others,” said Marius.
The personage felt the necessity of lowering his price a trifle.
“Monsieur le Baron, say ten thousand francs and I will speak.”
“I repeat to you that there is nothing which you can tell me. I know
what you wish to say to me.”
A fresh flash gleamed in the man’s eye. He exclaimed:
“But I must dine to-day, nevertheless. It is an extraordinary secret, I
tell you. Monsieur le Baron, I will speak. I speak. Give me twenty
francs.”
Marius gazed intently at him:
“I know your extraordinary secret, just as I knew Jean Valjean’s name,
just as I know your name.”
“My name?”
“Yes.”
“That is not difficult, Monsieur le Baron. I had the honor to write to
you and to tell it to you. Thénard.”
“—Dier.”
“Hey?”
“Thénardier.”
“Who’s that?”
In danger the porcupine bristles up, the beetle feigns death, the old
guard forms in a square; this man burst into laughter.
Then he flicked a grain of dust from the sleeve of his coat with a
fillip.
Marius continued:
“You are also Jondrette the workman, Fabantou the comedian, Genflot the
poet, Don Alvarès the Spaniard, and Mistress Balizard.”
“Mistress what?”
“And you kept a pot-house at Montfermeil.”
“A pot-house! Never.”
“And I tell you that your name is Thénardier.”
“I deny it.”
“And that you are a rascal. Here.”
And Marius drew a bank-note from his pocket and flung it in his face.
“Thanks! Pardon me! five hundred francs! Monsieur le Baron!”
And the man, overcome, bowed, seized the note and examined it.
“Five hundred francs!” he began again, taken aback. And he stammered in
a low voice: “An honest rustler.”69
Then brusquely:
“Well, so be it!” he exclaimed. “Let us put ourselves at our ease.”
And with the agility of a monkey, flinging back his hair, tearing off
his spectacles, and withdrawing from his nose by sleight of hand the
two quills of which mention was recently made, and which the reader has
also met with on another page of this book, he took off his face as the
man takes off his hat.
His eye lighted up; his uneven brow, with hollows in some places and
bumps in others, hideously wrinkled at the top, was laid bare, his nose
had become as sharp as a beak; the fierce and sagacious profile of the
man of prey reappeared.
“Monsieur le Baron is infallible,” he said in a clear voice whence all
nasal twang had disappeared, “I am Thénardier.”
And he straightened up his crooked back.
Thénardier, for it was really he, was strangely surprised; he would
have been troubled, had he been capable of such a thing. He had come to
bring astonishment, and it was he who had received it. This humiliation
had been worth five hundred francs to him, and, taking it all in all,
he accepted it; but he was nonetheless bewildered.
He beheld this Baron Pontmercy for the first time, and, in spite of his
disguise, this Baron Pontmercy recognized him, and recognized him
thoroughly. And not only was this Baron perfectly informed as to
Thénardier, but he seemed well posted as to Jean Valjean. Who was this
almost beardless young man, who was so glacial and so generous, who
knew people’s names, who knew all their names, and who opened his purse
to them, who bullied rascals like a judge, and who paid them like a
dupe?
Thénardier, the reader will remember, although he had been Marius’
neighbor, had never seen him, which is not unusual in Paris; he had
formerly, in a vague way, heard his daughters talk of a very poor young
man named Marius who lived in the house. He had written to him, without
knowing him, the letter with which the reader is acquainted.
No connection between that Marius and M. le Baron Pontmercy was
possible in his mind.
As for the name Pontmercy, it will be recalled that, on the battlefield
of Waterloo, he had only heard the last two syllables, for which he
always entertained the legitimate scorn which one owes to what is
merely an expression of thanks.
However, through his daughter Azelma, who had started on the scent of
the married pair on the 16th of February, and through his own personal
researches, he had succeeded in learning many things, and, from the
depths of his own gloom, he had contrived to grasp more than one
mysterious clew. He had discovered, by dint of industry, or, at least,
by dint of induction, he had guessed who the man was whom he had
encountered on a certain day in the Grand Sewer. From the man he had
easily reached the name. He knew that Madame la Baronne Pontmercy was
Cosette. But he meant to be discreet in that quarter.
Who was Cosette? He did not know exactly himself. He did, indeed, catch
an inkling of illegitimacy, the history of Fantine had always seemed to
him equivocal; but what was the use of talking about that? in order to
cause himself to be paid for his silence? He had, or thought he had,
better wares than that for sale. And, according to all appearances, if
he were to come and make to the Baron Pontmercy this revelation—and
without proof: “Your wife is a bastard,” the only result would be to
attract the boot of the husband towards the loins of the revealer.
From Thénardier’s point of view, the conversation with Marius had not
yet begun. He ought to have drawn back, to have modified his strategy,
to have abandoned his position, to have changed his front; but nothing
essential had been compromised as yet, and he had five hundred francs
in his pocket. Moreover, he had something decisive to say, and, even
against this very well-informed and well-armed Baron Pontmercy, he felt
himself strong. For men of Thénardier’s nature, every dialogue is a
combat. In the one in which he was about to engage, what was his
situation? He did not know to whom he was speaking, but he did know of
what he was speaking, he made this rapid review of his inner forces,
and after having said: “I am Thénardier,” he waited.
Marius had become thoughtful. So he had hold of Thénardier at last.
That man whom he had so greatly desired to find was before him. He
could honor Colonel Pontmercy’s recommendation.
He felt humiliated that that hero should have owned anything to this
villain, and that the letter of change drawn from the depths of the
tomb by his father upon him, Marius, had been protested up to that day.