Les Miserables (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (78 page)

“Till this evening, my friends,” said he.

“Six o‘clock,” said Jondrette.

“Six o‘clock precisely.”

Just then the overcoat on the chair caught the eye of the elder daughter.

“Monsieur,” said she, “you forget your coat.”

Jondrette threw a crushing glance at his daughter, accompanied by a terrible shrug of the shoulders.

M. Leblanc turned and answered with a smile:

“I do not forget it, I leave it.”

“O my patron,” said Jondrette, “my noble benefactor, I am melting into tears! Allow me to conduct you to your carriage.”

“If you go out,” replied M. Leblanc, “put on this overcoat. It is really very cold.”

Jondrette did not make him say it twice. He put on the brown overcoat very quickly.

And they went out all three, Jondrette preceding the two strangers.

MARIUS had lost nothing of all this scene, and yet in reality he had seen nothing of it. His eyes had remained fixed upon the young girl, his heart had, so to speak, seized upon her and enveloped her entirely, from her first step into the garret. During the whole time she had been there, he had lived that life of ecstasy which suspends material perceptions and precipitates the whole soul upon a single point. He contemplated, not that girl, but that light in a satin pelisse and a velvet hat. Had the star Sirius entered the room he would not have been more dazzled.

While the young girl was opening the bundle, unfolding the clothes and the blankets, questioning the sick mother kindly and the little injured girl tenderly, he watched all her motions, he endeavoured to hear her words. He knew her eyes, her forehead, her beauty, her stature, her gait, he did not know the sound of her voice. He thought he had caught a few words of it once at the Luxembourg Gardens, but he was not absolutely sure. He would have given ten years of his life to hear it, to be able to carry a little of that music in his soul. But all was lost in the wretched displays and trumpet blasts of Jondrette. This added a real anger to the transport of Marius. He brooded her with his eyes. He could not imagine that it really was that divine creature which he saw in the midst of the misshapen beings of this monstrous den. He seemed to see a humming-bird among toads.

When he went out, he had but one thought, to follow her, not to give up her track, not to leave her without knowing where she lived, not to lose her again, at least, after having so miraculously found her! He leaped down from the bureau and took his hat. As he was putting his hand on the bolt, and was just going out, he reflected and stopped. The hall was long, the stairs steep, Jondrette a great talker, M. Leblanc doubtless had not yet got into his carriage; if he should turn round in the passage, or on the stairs, or on the doorstep, and perceive him, Marius, in that house, he would certainly be alarmed and would find means to escape him anew, and it would be all over at once. What was to be done? wait a little? but during the delay the carriage might go. Marius was perplexed. At last he took the risk and went out of his room.

There was nobody in the hall. He ran to the stairs. There was nobody on the stairs. He hurried down, and reached the boulevard in time to see a fiacre turn the corner of the Rue du Petit Banquier and return into the city.

Marius rushed in that direction. When he reached the corner of the boulevard, he saw the fiacre again going rapidly down the Rue Mouffetard; it was already far off, there was no means of reaching it, what should he do? run after it? impossible; and then from the carriage they would certainly notice a man running at full speed in pursuit of them, and the father would recognise him. Just at this moment, marvellous and unheard-of good fortune, Marius saw a public cab passing along the boulevard, empty. There was but one course to take, to get into this cab, and follow the fiacre. That was sure, effectual, and without danger.

Marius made a sign to the driver to stop, and cried to him:

“Right away!”

Marius had no cravat, he had on his old working coat, some of the buttons of which were missing, and one of the front pleats of his shirt was torn.

The driver stopped, winked, and reached his left hand towards Marius, rubbing his forefinger gently with his thumb.

“What?” said Marius.

“Pay in advance,” said the driver.

Marius remembered that he had only sixteen sous with him.

“How much?” he asked.

“Forty sous.”

“I will pay when I get back.”

The driver made no reply, but to whistle an air from La Palisse and whip up his horse.

Marius saw the cab move away with a bewildered air. For the want of twenty-four sous he was losing his joy, his happiness, his love! he was falling back into night! he had seen, and he was again becoming blind. He thought bitterly, and it must indeed be said, with deep regret, of the five francs he had given that very morning to that miserable girl. Had he had those five francs he would have been saved, he would have been born again, he would have come out of limbo and darkness, he would have come out of his isolation, his spleen, his bereavement; he would have again knotted the black thread of his destiny with that beautiful golden thread which had just floated before his eyes and broken off once more. He returned to the old tenement in despair.

He might have thought that M. Leblanc had promised to return in the evening, and that he had only to take better care to follow him then; but in his wrapt contemplation he had hardly understood it.

Just as he went up the stairs, he noticed on the other side of the boulevard, beside the deserted wall of the Rue de la Barrière des Gobelins, Jondrette in the “philanthropist‘s” overcoat, talking to one of those men of dangerous appearance, who, by common consent, are called
prowlers of the barrières;
men of equivocal faces, suspicious speech, who have an appearance of evil intentions, and who usually sleep by day, which leads us to suppose that they work by night.

These two men quietly talking while the snow was whirling about them in its fall made a picture which a policeman certainly would have observed, but which Marius hardly noticed.

Nevertheless, however mournful was the subject of his reflections, he could not help saying to himself that this prowler of the barrières with whom Jondrette was talking, resembled a certain Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, whom Courfeyrac had once pointed out to him, and who passed in the neighbourhood for a very dangerous night-wanderer. We have seen this man’s name in the preceding book. This Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, figured afterwards in several criminal trials, and has since become a celebrated scoundrel.

MARIUS mounted the stairs of the old tenement with slow steps; just as he was going into his cell, he perceived in the hall behind him the elder Jondrette girl, who was following him. This girl was odious to his sight; it was she who had his five francs, it was too late to ask her for them, the cab was there no longer, the fiacre was far away. Moreover she would not give them back to him. As to questioning her about the address of the people who had just come, that was useless; it was plain that she did not know, since the letter signed Fabantou was addressed
to the beneficent gentleman of the Church Saint Jacques du Haut Pas.

Marius went into his room and pushed to his door behind him.

It did not close; he turned and saw a hand holding the door partly open.

“What is it?” he asked, “who is there?”

It was the Jondrette girl.

“Is it you?” said Marius almost harshly, “you again? What do you want of me?”

She seemed thoughtful and did not look at him. She had lost the assurance which she had had in the morning. She did not come in but stopped in the dusky hall, where Marius perceived her through the half-open door.

“Come now, will you answer?” said Marius. “What is it you want of me?”

She raised her mournful eyes, in which a sort of faint light seemed to shine dimly, and said to him:

“Monsieur Marius, you look sad. What is the matter with you?”

“With me?”

“Yes, you.”

“There is nothing the matter with me.”

“Yes!”

“No.”

“I tell you there is!”

“Leave me alone!”

Marius pushed the door anew, she still held it back.

“Stop,” said she, “you are wrong. Though you may not be rich, you were good this morning. Be so again now. You gave me something to eat, tell me now what ails you. You are troubled at something, that is plain. I do not want you to be troubled. What must be done for that? Can I serve you in anything? Let me. I do not ask your secrets, you need not tell them to me, but yet I may be useful. I can certainly help you, since I help my father. When it is necessary to carry letters, go into houses, inquire from door to door, find out an address, follow somebody, I do it. Now, you can certainly tell me what is the matter with you. I will go and speak to the persons; sometimes for somebody to speak to the persons is enough to help them understand things, and everything works out. Make use of me.”

An idea came into Marius’ mind. What branch won’t we clutch when we feel ourselves falling?

He approached the girl.

“Listen,” said he to her, kindly.

She interrupted him with a flash of joy in her eyes.

“Oh! yes, say
tu
with me! I like that better.”

“Well,” resumed he, “you brought this old gentleman here with his daughter.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know their address?”

“No.”

“Find it for me.”

The girl’s eyes, which had been gloomy, had become joyful; they now became dark.

“Is that what you want?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you know them?”

“No.”

“That is to say,” said she hastily, “you do not know her, but you want to know her.”

This
them
which had become
her
had an indescribable significance and bitterness.

“Well, can you do it?” said Marius.

“You shall have the beautiful young lady’s address.”

There was again, in these words “the beautiful young lady,” an expression which made Marius uneasy. He continued:

“Well, no matter! the address of the father and daughter. Their address, yes!”

She looked steadily at him.

“What will you give me?”

“Anything you wish!”

“Anything I wish?”

“Yes.”

“You shall have the address.”

She looked down, and then with a hasty movement closed the door.

Marius was alone.

He dropped into a chair, with his head and both elbows on the bed swallowed up in thoughts which he could not grasp, and as if he were in a fit of vertigo. All that had taken place since morning, the appearance of the angel, her disappearance, what this poor creature had just said to him, a gleam of hope floating in an ocean of despair,—all this was confusedly crowding his brain.

Suddenly he was violently awakened from his reverie.

He heard the loud, harsh voice of Jondrette pronounce these words for him, full of the strangest interest:

“I tell you that I am sure of it, and that I recognised him!”

Of whom was Jondrette talking? he had recognised whom? M. Leblanc? the father of “his Ursula”? What! did Jondrette know him? was Marius just about to get in this sudden and unexpected way all the information the lack of which made his life obscure to himself? was he at last to know whom he loved, who that young girl was? who her father was? was the thick shadow which enveloped them to be rolled away? was the veil to be rent? Oh! heavens!

He sprang, rather than mounted, upon the bureau, and resumed his place near the little aperture in the partition.

He again saw the interior of the Jondrette den.

NOTHING HAD CHANGED in the appearance of the family, except that the wife and daughters had opened the package, and put on the woollen stockings and underclothes. Two new blankets were thrown over the two beds.

Jondrette had evidently just come in. He was still out of breath from the cold outdoors. His daughters were sitting on the floor near the fire place, the elder binding up the hand of the younger. His wife lay as if exhausted upon the pallet near the fireplace with an astonished countenance. Jondrette was walking up and down the garret with rapid strides. His eyes had an extraordinary look.

The woman, who seemed timid and stricken with stupor before her husband, ventured to say to him:

“What, really? you are sure?”

“Sure! It was eight years ago! but I recognise him! Ah! I recognise him! I recognised him immediately. What! it did not strike you?”

“No.”

“And yet I told you to pay attention. But it is the same height, the same face, hardly any older; there are some men who do not grow old; I don’t know how they do it; it is the same tone of voice. He is better dressed, that is all! Ah! mysterious old devil, I have got you, all right!”

He checked himself, and said to his daughters:

“You go out! It is queer that it did not strike your eye.”

They got up to obey.

The mother stammered out:

“With her sore hand?”

“The air will do her good,” said Jondrette. “Go along.”

It was clear that this man was one of those to whom there is no reply. The two girls went out.

Just as they were passing the door, the father caught the elder by the arm, and said with a peculiar tone:

“You will be here at five o‘clock precisely. Both of you. I shall need you.”

Marius redoubled his attention.