Les Misérables, v. 3/5: Marius

by Victor Hugo

  This is what went on in Marius, and, truth to tell, he inclined almosttoo much to the side of contemplation. From the day when he felttolerably certain of a livelihood, he stopped there, thinking it goodto be poor, and taking from labor hours which he gave to thought. Thatis to say, he spent entire days now and then in dreaming, plunged likea visionary into the silent delights of ecstasy. He had thus arrangedthe problem of his life; to toil as little as possible at the materialtask in order to work as much as possible on the impalpable task,--inother words, to devote a few hours to real life, and throw the restinto infinity. He did not perceive, as he fancied that he wanted fornothing, that contemplation, thus understood, ended by becoming one ofthe forms of indolence; that he had contented himself with subduing theabsolute necessities of life, and that he was resting too soon.

  It was evident that for such a generous and energetic nature ashis, this could only be a transitional state, and that at the firstcollision with the inevitable complications of destiny Marius wouldwake up. In the mean while, though, he was called a barrister, andwhatever Father Gillenormand might think, he did not practise. Reveriehad turned him away from pleading. It was a bore to flatter attorneys,attend regularly at the palace and seek for briefs. And why should hedo so? He saw no reason to change his means of existence; his obscuretask was certain, he had but little labor over it, and, as we haveexplained, he considered his income satisfactory. One of the publishersfor whom he worked, M. Magimel, I think, offered to take him into hishouse, lodge him comfortably, find him regular work, and pay him onethousand five hundred francs a year. To be comfortably lodged andhave one thousand five hundred francs a year! doubtless agreeablethings, but then, to resign his liberty, to be a hired servant, asort of literary clerk! In the opinion of Marius, if he accepted, hisposition would become better and worse; he would gain comfort and losedignity; he would exchange a complete and fine misfortune for an uglyand ridiculous constraint; it would be something like a blind man whobecame one-eyed. So he declined the offer.

  Marius lived in solitude; through the inclination he had to remainoutside everything, and also through the commotion he had undergone, heheld aloof from the society presided over by Enjolras. They remainedexcellent friends, and ready to help each other when the opportunityoffered, but nothing more. Marius had two friends, one, youngCourfeyrac, the other, old M. Mabœuf, and he inclined to the latter.In the first place, he owed to him the revolution which had takenplace in him, and his knowledge and love of his father. "He operatedon me for the cataract," he would say. Certainly, this churchwardenhad been decisive: but for all that, M. Mabœuf had only been in thisaffair the calm and impassive agent of Providence. He had enlightenedMarius accidentally and unconsciously, just as a candle does which someone brings into a room; but he had been the candle, and not the someone. As for the internal political revolution which had taken place inMarius, M. Mabœuf was entirely incapable of understanding, wishing, ordirecting it. As we shall meet M. Mabœuf again hereafter, a few remarksabout him will not be thrown away.

  CHAPTER IV.

  M. MAB?'UF.

  On the day when M. Mabœuf said to Marius, "I certainly approve ofpolitical opinions," he expressed the real state of his mind. Allpolitical opinions were a matter of indifference to him, and heapproved of them all without distinction, that they might leave him atpeace, just as the Greeks called the Furies--"the lovely, the kind, theexquisite"--the Eumenides. M. Mabœuf's political opinion was to loveplants passionately and books even more. He possessed, like everybodyelse, his termination in _ist,_ without which no one could have livedat that day; but he was neither Royalist, Bonapartist, Chartist,Orleanist, nor Anarchist,--he was a botanist.

  He did not understand how men could come to hate each other for trifleslike the charter, democracy, legitimacy, monarchy, the republic, etc.,when there were in the world all sorts of mosses, grasses, and plantswhich they could look at, and piles of folios, and even 32mos, whosepages they could turn over. He was very careful not to be useless: hishaving books did not prevent him reading them, and being a botanistdid not prevent him being a gardener. When he knew Colonel Pontmercy,there was this sympathy between them, that the Colonel did for flowerswhat he did for fruits, M. Mabœuf had succeeded in producing pears assweet as those of St. Germain; it is one of those combinations fromwhich sprang, as it seems, the autumn Mirabelle plum, which is stillcelebrated, and no less perfumed than the summer one. He attended Massmore through gentleness than devotion, and because, while he lovedmen's faces but hated their noise, he found them at church congregatedand silent; and feeling that he must hold some position in the State,he selected that of churchwarden. He had never succeeded in loving anywoman so much as a tulip bulb, or any man so much as an Elzevir. He hadlong passed his sixtieth year, when some one asked him one day, "How isit that you never married?" "I forgot it," he said. When he happenedto say,--and to whom does it not happen?--"Oh, if I were rich!" itwas not when ogling a pretty girl, like Father Gillenormand, but whencontemplating a quarto. He lived alone with an old housekeeper; he wasrather gouty, and when he slept, his old chalk-stoned fingers formedan arch in the folds of the sheets. He had written and published a"Flora of the Environs of Cauteretz," with colored plates,--a work ofsome merit, of which he possessed the plates, and sold it himself.People rang at his door in the Rue Mézières two or three times a dayto buy a copy; he made a profit of about two thousand francs a yearby the book, and that was nearly his whole fortune. Although poor, hehad contrived by patience and privations, and with time, to form avaluable collection of all sorts of rare examples. He never went outwithout a book under his arm, and frequently returned with two. Thesole ornaments of his four rooms on the ground-floor, which, with asmall garden, formed his lodging, were herbals and engravings by oldmasters. The sight of a musket or a sabre froze him, and in his lifehe had never walked up to a cannon, not even at the Invalides. He hada tolerable stomach, a brother a curé very white hair, no teeth leftin his mouth or in his mind, a tremor all over him, a Picard accent, achildish laugh, and the air of an old sheep. With all he had no otherfriend among the living than an old bookseller at the Porte St. Jacquesof the name of Royol; and the dream of his life was to naturalizeindigo in France.

  His maid-servant was also a variety of innocence. The good woman was anold maid, and Sultan, her tom-cat, who might have meowed the AllegriMiserere in the Sistine Chapel, filled her heart, and sufficed forthe amount of passion within her. Not one of her dreams had ever goneso far as a man, and had not got beyond her cat; like him, she hadmoustaches. Her glory was perfectly white caps, and she spent her timeon Sunday, after Mass, in counting the linen in her box, and spreadingon her bed the gowns which she bought in the piece, and never had madeup. She knew how to read, and M. Mabœuf had christened her MotherPlutarch.

  M. Mabœuf had taken a fancy to Marius, because the young man, beingyoung and gentle, warmed his old age without startling his timidity.Youth, combined with gentleness, produces on aged people the effectof sun without wind. When Marius was saturated with military glory,gunpowder, marches and counter-marches, and all the prodigious battlesin which his father gave and received such mighty sabre-cuts, he wentto see M. Mabœuf, who talked to him about the hero in his connectionwith flowers.

  About the year 1830 his brother the curé died, and almost immediatelyafter, as when night arrives, the entire horizon became dark for M.Mabœuf. The bankruptcy of a notary despoiled him of ten thousandfrancs, all he possessed of his brother's capital and his own, whilethe revolution of July produced a crisis in the book trade. In timesof pressure the first thing which does not sell is a _Flora_, and thatof the Environs of Cauteretz stopped dead. Weeks passed without apurchaser. At times M. Mabœuf started at the sound of the house bell,but Mother Plutarch would say to him sadly, "It is the water-carrier,sir." In a word, M. Mabœuf left the Rue Mézières one day, abdicatedhis office as churchwarden, gave up St. Sulpice, sold a portion, notof his books, but of his engravings, for which he cared least, andinstalled himself in
a small house on the Boulevard Montparnasse,where, however, he only remained three months, for two reasons,--in thefirst place, the ground-floor and garden cost three hundred francs,and he did not dare set aside more than two hundred francs for rent;and secondly, as he was close to the Fatou shooting-gallery, he heardpistol-shots, which he could not endure. He carried off his _Flora_,his copper-plates, his herbals, port-folios, and books and settled downnear the Salpêtrière, in a sort of hut, in the village of Austerlitz,where he rented for fifty crowns a year three rooms, a garden enclosedby a hedge, and a well. He took advantage of this removal to sellnearly all his furniture. On the day when he entered his new house hewas in very good spirits, and drove in with his own hands the nails onwhich to hang the engravings; he dug in his garden for the rest of theday, and at night, seeing that Mother Plutarch had an anxious look andwas thoughtful, he tapped her on the shoulder and said with a smile,"We have the indigo!" Only two visitors, the publisher and Marius, wereallowed admission to his hut of Austerlitz,--a rackety name, by theway, which was most disagreeable to him.

  As we have remarked, things of this world permeate very slowly brainsabsorbed in wisdom, or mania, or, as often happens, in both atonce, and their own destiny is remote from them. The result of suchconcentrations is a passiveness which, were it of a reasoning nature,would resemble philosophy. Men decline, sink, glide out, and evencollapse, without exactly noticing, though this always ends with are-awaking, but one of a tardy character. In the mean while it appearsas if they are neutral in the game which is being played between theirhappiness and misery; they are the stakes, and look on at the game withindifference. It was thus that M. Mabœuf remained rather childishlybut most profoundly serene, in the obscurity that was enveloping himgradually, and while his hopes were being extinguished in turn. Thehabits of his mind had the regular movement of a clock, and when hewas once wound up by an illusion he went for a very long time, evenwhen the illusion had disappeared. A clock does not stop at the precisemoment when the key is lost.

  M. Mabœuf had innocent pleasures, which cost but little and wereunexpected, and the slightest accident supplied him with them. One dayMother Plutarch was reading a novel in the corner of the room; she wasreading aloud, for she fancied that she understood better in that way.There are some persons who read very loud, and look as if they werepledging themselves their word of honor about what they are reading.Mother Plutarch read her novel with an energy of this nature, and M.Mabœuf listened to her without hearing. While reading, Mother Plutarchcame to the following passage, relating to a bold dragoon and a gushingyoung lady:--

  "La belle bouda, et Le Dragon--"

  Here she broke off to wipe her spectacles.

  "Bouddha and the dragon," M. Mabœuf repeated in a low voice; "yes, thatis true; there was a dragon, which lived in a cavern, belched flames,and set fire to the sky. Several stars had already been burned up bythis monster, which had tiger-claws, by the bye, when Bouddha went intoits den and succeeded in converting the dragon. That is an excellentbook you are reading, Mother Plutarch, and there cannot be a finerlegend."

  And M. Mabœuf fell into a delicious reverie.

  CHAPTER V.

  POVERTY A GOOD NEIGHBOR TO MISERY.

  Marius felt a liking for this candid old man, who saw himself slowlyassailed by poverty and yet was not depressed by it. Marius metCourfeyrac and sought M. Mabœuf--very rarely, however--once or twicea month at the most. Marius's delight was to take long walks alone,either on the external boulevards at the Champ de Mars, or in theleast frequented walks of the Luxembourg. He often spent half a day inlooking at a kitchen-garden, the patches of lettuce, the fowls on thedungheap, and the horse turning the wheel of the chain-pump. Passers-bylooked at him with surprise, and some thought his dress suspicious andhis face dangerous, while it was only a poor young man thinking withoutan object It was in one of these walks that he discovered the MaisonGorbeau, and the isolation and the cheapness tempting him, he took aroom there. He was only known by the name of M. Marius.

  Some of his father's old generals and old comrades invited him tocome and see them, when they knew him, and Marius did not refuse, forthere were opportunities to speak about his father. He called thusfrom time to time upon Count Pajol, General Bellavesne, and GeneralFririon at the Invalides. There was generally music and dancing, and onsuch evenings Marius put on his best suit; but he never went to suchparties except on days when it was freezing tremendously hard, forhe could not pay for a vehicle, and he would not go unless his bootswere like looking-glasses. He would say at times, though not at allbitterly, "Men are so constituted that in a drawing-room you may havemud everywhere except on your boots. In order to give you a properreception only one irreproachable thing is expected from you--is ityour conscience? No, your boots."

  All passions, saving those of the heart, are dissipated in reverie.The political fever of Marius had vanished, and the revolution of 1830had aided in this, by satisfying and calming him. He had remained thesame, except in his passion; he still held the same opinions, but theywere softened down. Properly speaking, he no longer had opinions, butsympathies. To what party did he belong? To that of humanity. Forhumanity he selected France; in the nation he chose the people; and inthe people, woman, and his pity was mainly given to her. At the presenttime he preferred an idea to a fact, a poet to a hero, and he admireda book like Job even more than an event like Marengo; and when after aday of meditation he returned along the boulevard and saw through thetrees the illimitable space, the nameless gleams, the abyss, shadow,and mystery, all that was only human seemed to him infinitely little.He believed that he had--and probably he had--reached the truth of lifeand of human philosophy; and ended by gazing at nothing but the sky,the only thing which truth can see from the bottom of her well.

  This did not prevent him from multiplying plans, combinations,scaffolding, and projects for the future. In this state of reverie,any eye which had seen into Marius's interior would have been dazzledby the purity of his mind. In fact, if our eyes of the flesh wereallowed to peer into the consciences of our neighbor, a man could bejudged far more surely from what he dreams than from what he thinks.There is a volition in thought, but there is none in a dream, andthe latter, which is entirely spontaneous, assumes and retains, evenin the gigantic and the ideal, the image of our mind. Nothing issuesmore directly and more sincerely from the bottom of our soul thanour unreflecting and disproportioned aspirations for the splendorsof destiny. The true character of every man could be found in theseaspirations far more certainly than in arranged, reasoned, andco-ordinated ideas. Our chimeras are the things which most resembleourselves, and each man dreams of the unknown and the impossibleaccording to his nature.

  About the middle of the year 1831 the old woman who waited on Mariustold him that his neighbors, the wretched Jondrette family, were goingto be turned out. Marius, who spent nearly his whole time out of doors,scarce knew that he had neighbors.