by Victor Hugo
"Is all ready?" asked Jondrette.
"Yes," the thin man replied.
"Where is Montparnasse?"
"That jeune premier has stopped to talk to your eldest daughter."
"Is there a coach down there?"
"Yes."
"With two good horses?"
"Excellent."
"Is it waiting where I ordered?"
"Yes."
"All right," said Jondrette.
M. Leblanc was very pale. He looked all round the room like a man whounderstands into what a snare he has fallen, and his head, turnedtoward all the heads that surrounded him, moved on his neck withan attentive and surprised slowness, but there was nothing in hisappearance that resembled fear. He had formed an improvised bulwarkof the table, and this man, who a moment before merely looked like anold man, had suddenly become an athlete, and laid his robust fist onthe back of his chair with a formidable and surprising gesture. Thisold man, so firm and brave in the presence of such a danger, seemed topossess one of those natures which are courageous in the same way asthey are good,--easily and simply. The father of a woman we love isnever a stranger to us, and Marius felt proud of this unknown man.
Three of the men whom Jondrette called chimney-menders had taken fromthe mass of iron, one a large pair of shears, another a crowbar formoving weights, and the third a hammer, and posted themselves in frontof the door without saying a word. The old man remained on the bed,merely opening his eyes, and Mother Jondrette was sitting by his side.Marius thought that the moment for interference was at hand, and raisedhis right hand to the ceiling in the direction of the passage, ready tofire his pistol. Jondrette, after finishing his colloquy with the threemen, turned again to M. Leblanc, and repeated the question with thatlow, restrained, and terrible laugh of his,--
"Do you not recognize me?"
M. Leblanc looked him in the face and answered, "No!"
Jondrette then went up to the table; he bent over the candle withfolded arms, and placed his angular and ferocious face as close as hecould to M. Leblanc's placid face, and in this posture of a wild beastwhich is going to bite he exclaimed,--
"My name is not Fabantou or Jondrette, but my name is Thénardier, thelandlord of the inn at Montfermeil! Do you hear me,--Thénardier? Now doyou recognize me?"
An almost imperceptible flush shot athwart M. Leblanc's forehead, andhe answered, with his ordinary placidity, and without the slightesttremor in his voice,--
"No more than before."
Marius did not hear this answer, and any one who had seen him at thismoment in the darkness would have found him haggard, stunned, andcrushed. At the moment when Jondrette said, "My name is Thénardier,"Marius trembled in all his limbs, and he leaned against the wall, asif he felt a cold sword-blade thrust through his heart. Then his righthand, raised in readiness to fire, slowly dropped, and at the momentwhen Jondrette repeated, "Do you hear me,--Thénardier?" Marius'srelaxing fingers almost let the pistol fall. Jondrette, by revealingwho he was, did not affect M. Leblanc, but he stunned Marius, forhe knew this name of Thénardier, which was apparently unknown to M.Leblanc. Only remember what that name was for him! He had carried itin his heart, recorded in his father's will! He bore it in the deepestshrine of his memory in the sacred recommendation,--"A man of the nameof Thénardier saved my life; if my son meet this man he will do all hecan for him." This name, it will be remembered, was one of the pietiesof his soul, and he blended it with his father's name in his worship.What! this man was Thénardier, the landlord of Montfermeil, whom he hadso long and so vainly sought! He found him now, and in what a state!His father's savior was a bandit! This man, to whom Marius burned todevote himself, was a monster! The liberator of Colonel Pontmercy wason the point of committing a crime whose outline Marius could not yetsee very distinctly, but which resembled an assassination! And onwhom? Great Heaven, what a fatality; what a bitter mockery of fate!His father commanded him from his tomb to do all in his power forThénardier. During four years Marius had had no other idea but to paythis debt of his father's; and at the very moment when he was about todeliver over to justice a brigand in the act of crime, destiny criedto him, "It is Thénardier!" and he was at length about to requite thisman for saving his father's life amid a hailstorm of grape-shot on theheroic field of Waterloo, by sending him to the scaffold! He had vowedthat if ever he found this Thénardier he would throw himself at hisfeet; and he had found him, but for the purpose of handing him over tothe executioner! His father said to him, "Help Thénardier," and he wasabout to answer that adored and sacred voice by crushing Thénardier;to show his father in his grave the spectacle of the man who haddragged him from death at the peril of his own life being executed onthe Place St. Jacques by the agency of his son, that Marius to whom hebequeathed this name! And then what a derision it was to have so longcarried in his heart the last wishes of his father in order to performexactly the contrary! But, on the other hand, how could he witnessa murder and not prevent it? What! should he condemn the victim andspare the assassin? Could he be bound by any ties of gratitude to sucha villain? All the ideas which Marius had entertained for four yearswere, as it were, run through the body by this unexpected stroke. Hetrembled; all depended on him; and he held in his hands the unconsciousbeings who were moving before his eyes. If he fired the pistol, M.Leblanc was saved and Thénardier lost; if he did not fire, M. Leblancwas sacrificed and Thénardier might, perhaps, escape. Must he huntdown the one, or let the other fall? There was remorse on either side.What should he do? Which should he choose,--be a defaulter to the mostimperious recollections, to so many profound pledges taken to himself,to the most sacred duty, to the most venerated commands, disobey hisfather's will, or let a crime be accomplished? On one side he fanciedhe could hear "his Ursule" imploring him for her father, on the otherthe Colonel recommending Thénardier to him. He felt as if he weregoing mad. His knees gave way under him, and he had not even time todeliberate, as the scene he had before him was being performed withsuch furious precipitation. It was a tornado of which he had fanciedhimself the master, but which was carrying him away: he was on theverge of fainting.
In the mean while Thénardier (we will not call him otherwise infuture) was walking up and down before the table with a sort of wildand frenzied triumph. He seized the candlestick and placed it on thechimney-piece with such a violent blow that the candle nearly went out,and the tallow spattered the wall. Then he turned round furiously to M.Leblanc and spat forth these words:--
"Done brown! grilled, fricasseed! spatch-cocked!"
And he began walking again with a tremendous explosion.
"Ah! I have found you again, my excellent philanthropist, mymillionnaire with the threadbare coat, the giver of dolls, the oldniggard! Ah, you do not recognize me! I suppose it was n't you who cameto my inn at Montfermeil just eight years ago, on the Christmas nightof 1823! It was n't you who carried off Fantine's child, the Lark! Itwas n't you who wore a yellow watchman's coat, and had a parcel ofclothes in your hand, just as you had this morning! Tell me, wife!It is his mania, it appears, to carry to houses bundles of woollenstockings,--the old charitable humbug! Are you a cap-maker, my LordMillionnaire? You give your profits to the poor--what a holy man!what a mountebank! Ah, you do not recognize me! Well, I recognize you,and did so directly you thrust your muzzle in here. Ah, you will betaught that it is not a rosy game to go like that to people's houses,under the excuse that they are inns, with such a wretched coat andpoverty-stricken look that they feel inclined to give you a son, andthen, to play the generous, rob them of their bread-winner and threatenthem in the woods! I'll teach you that you won't get off by bringingpeople when they are ruined a coat that is too large, and two paltryhospital blankets, you old scamp, you child-stealer!"
He stopped, and for a moment seemed to be speaking to himself. Itappeared as if his fury fell into some hole, like the Rhone: then, asif finishing aloud the things he had just been saying to himself, hestruck the table with his fist, and cried,--
"With h
is simple look!"
Then he apostrophized M. Leblanc.
"By heaven! you made a fool of me formerly, and are the cause of all mymisfortunes. You got for fifteen hundred francs a girl who certainlybelonged to rich parents, who had already brought me in a deal ofmoney, and from whom I should have got an annuity! That girl would havemade up to me all I lost in that wretched pot-house, where I threw awaylike an ass all my blessed savings! Oh, I wish that what was drunk atmy house were poison to those who drank it! However, no matter! Tellme, I suppose you thought me a precious fool when you went off with theLark! You had your cudgel in the forest, and were the stronger. To-dayI shall have my revenge, for I hold all the trumps; you are done, mygood fellow! Oh, how I laugh when I think that he fell into the trap!I told him that I was an actor, that my name was Fabantou, that Ihad played comedy with Mamselle Mars, with Mamselle Muche, and thatmy landlord insisted on being paid the next day; and he did not evenremember that January 8 and not February 4 is quarter-day,--the absurdidiot! And he has brought me these four paltry philippes, the ass!He had not the pluck to go as far as five hundred francs. And how heswallowed my platitudes! It amused me, and I said to myself, 'There'san ass for you! Well, I have got you; this morning I licked your paws,and to-night I shall gnaw your heart!'"
Thénardier stopped, out of breath. His little narrow chest panted likea forge-bellows; his eye was full of the ignoble happiness of a weak,cruel, and cowardly creature who is at length able to trample on theman he feared, and insult him whom he flattered; it is the joy of adwarf putting his heel on the head of Goliath, the joy of a jackalbeginning to rend a sick bull so near death as to be unable to defenditself, but with enough vitality to still suffer. M. Leblanc did notinterrupt him, but said, when he ceased speaking,--
"I do not know what you mean, and you are mistaken. I am a very poorman, and anything but a millionnaire. I do not know you, and you takeme for somebody else."
"Ah!" Thénardier said hoarsely, "a fine dodge! So you adhere to thatjoke, eh, old fellow? Ah, you do not remember, you do not see who I am!"
"Pardon me, sir," M. Leblanc replied, with a polite accent, which hadsomething strange and grand about it at such a moment, "I see that youare a bandit."
We may remind those who have not noticed the fact, that odious beingspossess a susceptibility, and that monsters are ticklish. At the word"bandit," Mother Thénardier leaped from the bed, and her husbandclutched a chair as if about to break it in his hand. "Don't stir,you!" he shouted to his wife, and then turning to M. Leblanc, said,--
"Bandit! yes, I know that you rich swells call us so. It is true thatI have been bankrupt. I am in hiding, I have no bread, I have not afarthing, and I am a bandit! For three days I have eaten nothing, andI am a bandit! Ah, you fellows warm your toes, your wear pumps made bySakoski, you have wadded coats like archbishops, you live on the firstfloors of houses where a porter is kept, you eat truffles, asparagusat forty francs the bundle in January, and green peas. You stuffyourselves, and when you want to know whether it is cold you look inthe newspaper to see what Chevalier's thermometer marks; but we are thethermometers. We have no call to go and look at the corner of the Jourd'Horloge how many degrees of cold there are, for we feel the bloodstopped in our veins, and the ice reach our hearts, and we say, 'Thereis no God!' and you come into our caverns,--yes, our caverns,--tocall us bandits! But we will eat you, we will devour you, poor littlechap! Monsieur le Millionnaire, learn this: I was an established man,I held a license, I was an elector, and am still a citizen, while you,perhaps, are not one!"
Here Thénardier advanced a step toward the men near the door, and addedwith a quiver,--
"When I think that he dares to come and address me like a cobbler!"
Then he turned upon M. Leblanc with a fresh outburst of frenzy,--
"And know this, too, my worthy philanthropist, I am not a doubtfulman, or one whose name is unknown, and carries off children fromhouses! I am an ex-French soldier, and ought to have the cross! I wasat Waterloo, and in the battle I saved the life of a General calledthe Comte de--I don't know what. He told me his name, but his dog ofa voice was so feeble that I did not understand it. I only understood_Merci_. I should have liked his name better than his thanks. Itwould have helped me find him, by all that's great and glorious! Thepicture you see here, and which was painted by David at Bruqueselles,do you know whom it represents? It represents me, for David wishedto immortalize the exploit. I have the General on my back, and I amcarrying him through the grape-shot. That is the story! The Generalnever did anything for me, and he is no better than the rest; but,for all that, I saved his life at the peril of my own, and I havemy pockets filled with certificates of the fact. I am a soldier ofWaterloo! And now that I have had the goodness to tell you all this,let us come to a finish; I want money, I want a deal of money, anenormous amount of money, or I shall exterminate you, by the thunder ofheaven!"
Marius had gained a little mastery over his agony, and was listening.The last possibility of doubt had vanished, and it was really theThénardier of the will. Marius shuddered at the charge of ingratitudecast at his father, and which he was on the point of justifying sofatally, and his perplexities were redoubled. Besides, there was inThénardier's every word, in his accent and gestures, in his glance,which caused flames to issue from every word, in this explosion of anevil nature displaying everything, in this admixture of boasting andabjectness, pride and meanness, rage and folly, in this chaos of realgriefs and false sentiments, in this impudence of a wicked man enjoyingthe pleasure of violence, in this daring nudity of an ugly soul, andin this conflagration of every suffering combined with every hatred,something which was hideous as evil and poignant as truth.
The masterpiece, the picture by David, which he offered M. Leblanc,was, as the reader will have perceived, nought else than hispublic-house sign, painted by himself, and the sole relic he hadpreserved from his shipwreck at Montfermeil. As he had stepped asideMarius was now enabled to look at this thing, and in the daub he reallyrecognized a battle, a background of smoke, and one man carryinganother. It was the group of Thénardier and Pontmercy,--the saviorsergeant and the saved colonel. Marius felt as if intoxicated, forthis picture represented to some extent his loving father; it was nolonger an inn sign-board but a resurrection; a tomb opened, a phantomrose. Marius heard his heart ringing at his temples; he had the gunsof Waterloo in his ears; his bleeding father vaguely painted on thisill-omened board startled him, and he fancied that the shapeless figurewas gazing fixedly at him. When Thénardier regained breath he fastenedhis bloodshot eyes on M. Leblanc, and said to him in a low, sharpvoice,--
"What have you to say before we put the screw on you?"
M. Leblanc was silent. In the midst of this silence a hoarse voiceuttered this grim sarcasm in the passage,--
"If there's any wood to be chopped, I'm your man."
It was the fellow with the pole-axe amusing himself. At the same timean immense, hairy, earth-colored face appeared in the door with afrightful grin, which displayed not teeth but tusks. It was the face ofthe man with the pole-axe.
"Why have you taken off your mask?" Thénardier asked him furiously.
"To laugh," the man answered.
For some minutes past M. Leblanc seemed to be watching and followingevery movement of Thénardier, who, blinded and dazzled by his own rage,was walking up and down the room, in the confidence of knowing the doorguarded, of holding an unarmed man, and of being nine against one, evensupposing that his wife only counted for one man. In his speech to theman with the pole-axe he turned his back to M. Leblanc; the latterseizing the moment, upset the chair with his foot, the table with hisfist, and with one bound, ere Thénardier was able to turn, he was atthe window. To open it and bestride the sill took only a second, andhe was half out, when six powerful hands seized him and energeticallydragged him back into the room. The three "chimney-sweeps" had rushedupon him, and at the same time Mother Thénardier seized him by thehair. At the noise which ensued the other bandits ran in
from thepassage, and the old man on the bed, who seemed the worse for liquor,came up tottering with a road-mender's hammer in his hand. One of thesweeps, whose blackened face the candle lit up, and in whom Mariusrecognized, in spite of the blackening, Panchaud _alias_ Printanier_alias_ Bigrenaille, raised above M. Leblanc's head a species oflife-preserver, made of two lumps of lead at the ends of an iron bar.Marius could not resist this sight. "My father," he thought, "forgiveme!" and his finger sought the trigger. He was on the point of firing,when Thénardier cried,--
"Do not hurt him!"
This desperate attempt of the victim, far from exasperating Thénardier,had calmed him. There were two men in him,--the ferocious man and theskilful man. Up to this moment, in the exuberance of triumph, and whilestanding before his motionless victim, the ferocious man had prevailed;but when the victim made an effort and appeared inclined to struggle,the skilful man reappeared and took the mastery.
"Do him no harm!" he repeated; and his first service was, though helittle suspected it, that he stopped the discharge of the pistol andparalyzed Marius, to whom the affair did not appear so urgent, andwho in the presence of this new phase saw no harm in waiting a littlelonger. Who knew whether some accident might not occur which woulddeliver him from the frightful alternative of letting Ursule's fatherperish, or destroying the Colonels savior? A herculean struggle hadcommenced. With one blow of his fist in the chest M. Leblanc sentthe old man rolling in the middle of the room, and then with twoback-handers knocked down two other assailants, and held one undereach of his knees. The villains groaned under this pressure as undera granite mill-stone; but the four others had seized the formidableold man by the arms and neck, and were holding him down upon the two"chimney-menders." Thus, master of two, and mastered by the others,crushing those beneath him, and crushed by those above him, M. Leblancdisappeared beneath this horrible group of bandits, like a boarattacked by a howling pack of dogs. They succeeded in throwing him onto the bed nearest the window, and held him down. Mother Thénardier didnot once let go his hair.
