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

by Victor Hugo

  She took a step towards the bandits, she was terrible, she began to laugh. “The devil! I am not afraid. This summer, I shall be hungry; this winter, I shall be cold. Are they fools, these geese of men, to think that they can make a girl afraid! Of what! afraid? Ah, pshaw, indeed! Because you have hussies of mistresses who hide under the bed when you raise your voice, it won’t do here! I, I am not afraid of anything!”

  She kept her eye fixed upon Thénardier, and said:

  “Not even you, father!”

  Then she went on, casting her ghastly bloodshot eyes over the bandits:

  “What is it to me whether somebody picks me up to-morrow on the pavement of the Rue Plumet, beaten to death with a club by my father, or whether they find me in a year in the ditches of Saint Cloud, or at the Ile de Cygnes, among the old rotten rubbish and the dead dogs?”

  She was obliged to stop; a dry cough seized her, her breath came like a rattle from her narrow and feeble chest.

  She resumed:

  “I have but to cry out, they come, bang! You are six; but I am everybody.”

  Thénardier made a movement towards her.

  “‘Proach not!” cried she.

  He stopped, and said to her mildly:

  “Well, no; I will not approach, but don’t speak so loud. Daughter, you want then to hinder us in our work? Still we must earn our living. Have you no love for your father now?”

  “You bother me,” said Eponine.

  “Still we must live, we must eat——”

  “Die.”

  Saying which, she sat down on the sill of the grating, humming:

  Mon bras si dodu,

  Ma jambe bien faite,

  Et le temps perdu. ga

  She had her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, and she was swinging her foot with an air of indifference. Her dress was full of holes, and showed her sharp shoulder-blades. The neighbouring lamp lit up her profile and her attitude. Nothing could be more resolute or more surprising.

  The six assassins, sullen and abashed at being held in check by a girl, went under the protecting shade of the lantern and held counsel, with humiliated and furious shrugs of their shoulders.

  She watched them the while with a quiet yet indomitable air.

  “Something is the matter with her,” said Babet. “Some reason. Is she in love with the cab? But it is a pity to lose it. Two women, an old fellow who lodges in a back-yard, there are pretty good curtains at the windows. The old fellow must be a guinal.gb I think it is a good thing.”

  “Well, go in the rest of you,” exclaimed Montparnasse. “Do the thing. I will stay here with the girl, and if she budges——”

  He made the open knife which he had in his hand gleam in the light of the lantern.

  Thénardier said not a word and seemed ready for anything.gc

  Brujon, who was something of an oracle, and who had, as we know, “got up the thing,” had not yet spoken. He appeared thoughtful. He had a reputation for recoiling from nothing, and they knew that he had plundered, from sheer bravado, a police station. Moreover he made verses and songs, which gave him a great authority.

  Babet questioned him.

  “You don’t say anything, Brujon?”

  Brujon remained silent a minute longer, then he shook his head in several different ways, and at last decided to speak.

  “Here: I met two sparrows fighting this morning; to-night, I run against a woman quarrelling. All this is bad. Let us go away.”

  They went away.

  As they went, Montparnasse murmured:

  “No matter, if they had said so, I would have finished her off.”

  Babet answered:

  “Not I. I don’t strike a lady.”

  At the corner of the street, they stopped and exchanged this enigmatic dialogue in a smothered voice:

  “Where are we going to sleep to-night?”

  “Under Patin.”gd

  “Have you the key of the grating with you, Thénardier?”

  “Humph.”

  Eponine, who had not taken her eyes off from them, saw them turn back the way they had come. She rose and began to creep along the walls and houses behind them. She followed them as far as the boulevard. There, they separated, and she saw these men sink away in the darkness into which they seemed to melt.

  5 (6)

  MARIUS BECOMES SO REAL AS TO GIVE COSETTE HIS ADDRESS

  WHILE THIS SPECIES of dog in human form was mounting guard over the grating, and the six bandits were slinking away before a girl, Marius was with Cosette.

  Never had the sky been more studded with stars, or more charming, the trees more tremulous, the odour of the shrubs more penetrating; never had the birds gone to sleep in the leaves with a softer sound; never had all the harmonies of the universal serenity better responded to the interior music of love; never had Marius been more enamoured, more happy, more in ecstasy. But he had found Cosette sad. Cosette had been weeping. Her eyes were red.

  It was the first cloud in this wonderful dream.

  Marius’ first word was:

  “What is the matter?”

  “See.”

  Then she sat down on the bench near the stairs, and as he took his place all trembling beside her, she continued:

  “My father told me this morning to hold myself in readiness, that he had business, and that perhaps we should go away.”

  Marius shuddered from head to foot.

  When we are at the end of life, to die means to go away; when we are at the beginning, to go away means to die.

  For six weeks Marius, gradually, slowly, by degrees, had been each day taking possession of Cosette. A possession entirely ideal, but thorough. Marius felt Cosette living within him. To have Cosette, to possess Cosette, this to him was not separable from breathing. Into the midst of this faith, of this intoxication, of this virginal possession, marvellous and absolute, of this sovereignty, these words: “We are going away,” fell all at once, and the sharp voice of reality cried to him: “Cosette is not yours!”

  Marius awoke. For six weeks Marius had lived, as we have said, outside of life; this word, going away, brought him roughly back to it.

  He could not find a word. She said to him in her turn:

  “What is the matter?”

  He answered so low that Cosette hardly heard him:

  “I don’t understand what you have said.”

  She resumed:

  “This morning my father told me to arrange all my little affairs and to be ready, that he would give me his clothes to pack, that he was obliged to take a journey, that we were going away, that we must have a large trunk for me and a small one for him, to get all that ready within a week from now, and that we should go perhaps to England.”

  “But it is monstrous!” exclaimed Marius.

  It is certain that at that moment, in Marius’ mind, no abuse of power, no violence, no abomination of the most cruel tyrants, no action of Busiris, Tiberius, or Henry VIII, was equal in ferocity to this: M. Fauchelevent taking his daughter to England because he has business.

  He asked in a feeble voice:

  “And when would you start?”

  “He didn’t say when.”

  “And when should you return?”

  “He didn’t say when.”

  Marius arose, and said coldly:

  “Cosette, shall you go?”

  Cosette turned upon him her beautiful eyes full of anguish and answered with a sort of bewilderment:

  “Where?”

  “To England? shall you go?”

  “Why do you speak so to me?”

  “I ask you if you shall go?”

  “What would you have me do?” said she, clasping her hands.

  “So, you will go?”

  “If my father goes.”

  “So, you will go?”

  Cosette took Marius’ hand and pressed it without answering.

  “Very well,” said Marius. “Then I shall go elsewhere.”

  Cosette felt the mea
ning of this word still more than she understood it. She turned so pale that her face became white in the darkness. She stammered:

  “What do you mean?”

  Marius looked at her, then slowly raised his eyes towards heaven and answered:

  “Nothing.”

  When his eyes were lowered, he saw Cosette smiling upon him. The smile of the woman whom we love has a brilliancy which we can see by night.

  “How stupid we are! Marius, I have an idea.”

  “What?”

  “Go if we go! I will tell you where! Come and join me where I am!”

  Marius was now a man entirely awakened. He had fallen back into reality. He cried to Cosette:

  “Go with you? are you mad? But it takes money, and I have none! Go to England? Why I owe now, I don’t know, more than ten louis to Courfeyrac, one of my friends whom you do not know! Why I have an old hat which is not worth three francs, I have a coat from which some of the buttons are gone in front, my shirt is all torn, my elbows are out, my boots let in the water; for six weeks I have not thought of it, and I have not told you about it. Cosette! I am a miserable wretch. You only see me at night, and you give me your love; if you should see me by day, you would give me a sou! Go to England? Ah! I have not the means to pay for a passport!”

  He threw himself against a tree which was near by, standing with his arms above his head, his forehead against the bark, feeling neither the tree which was chafing his skin, nor the fever which was hammering his temples, motionless, and ready to fall, like a statue of Despair.

  He was a long time thus. One might remain through eternity in such abysses. At last he turned. He heard behind him a little stifled sound, soft and sad.

  It was Cosette sobbing.

  She had been weeping more than two hours while Marius had been thinking.

  He came to her, fell on his knees, and, prostrating himself slowly, he took the tip of her foot which peeped from under her dress and kissed it.

  She allowed it in silence. There are moments when woman accepts, like a goddess sombre and resigned, the religion of love.

  “Do not weep,” said he.

  She murmured:

  “Because I am perhaps going away, and you cannot come!”

  He continued:

  “Do you love me?”

  She answered him by sobbing out that word of Paradise which is never more enrapturing than when it comes through tears:

  “I adore you.”

  He continued with a tone of voice which was an inexpressible caress:

  “Do not weep. Tell me, will you do this for me, not to weep?”

  “Do you love me, too?” said she.

  He caught her hand.

  “Cosette, I have never given my word of honour to anybody, because I stand in awe of my word of honour. I feel that my father is at my side. Now, I give you my most sacred word of honour that, if you go away, I shall die.”

  There was in the tone with which he pronounced these words a melancholy so solemn and so quiet, that Cosette trembled. She felt that chill which is given by a stern and true fact passing over us. From the shock she ceased weeping.

  “Now listen,” said he, “do not expect me to-morrow.”

  “Why not?”

  “Do not expect me till the day after to-morrow!”

  “Oh! why not?”

  “You will see.”

  “A day without seeing you! Why, that is impossible.”

  “Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life.”

  And Marius added in an under-tone, and aside:

  “He is a man who changes none of his habits, and he has never received anybody till evening.”

  “What man are you speaking of?” inquired Cosette.

  “Me? I said nothing.”

  “What is it you hope for, then?”

  “Wait till day after to-morrow.”

  “You wish it?”

  “Yes, Cosette.”

  She took his head in both her hands, rising on tiptoe to reach his height, and striving to see his hope in his eyes.

  Marius continued:

  “It occurs to me, you must know my address, something may happen, we don’t know; I live with that friend named Courfeyrac, Rue de la Verrerie, number 16.”

  He put his hand in his pocket, took out a penknife, and wrote with the blade upon the plastering of the wall:

  16, Rue de la Verrerie.

  Cosette, meanwhile, began to look into his eyes again.

  “Tell me your idea. Marius, you have an idea. Tell me. Oh! tell me, so that I may pass a good night!”

  “My idea is this: that it is impossible that God should wish to separate us. Expect me day after to-morrow.”

  “What shall I do till then?” said Cosette. “You, you are out doors, you go, you come! How happy men are. I have to stay alone. Oh! how sad I shall be! What is it you are going to do to-morrow evening, tell me?”

  “I shall try a plan.”

  “Then I will pray God, and I will think of you from now till then, that you may succeed. I will not ask any more questions, since you wish me not to. You are my master. I shall spend my evening to-morrow singing that music of Euryanthe which you love, and which you came to hear one evening behind my shutter. But day after to-morrow you will come early; I shall expect you at night, at nine o‘clock precisely. I forewarn you. Oh, dear! how sad it is that the days are long! You understand;—when the clock strikes nine, I shall be in the garden.”

  “And I too.”

  And without saying it, moved by the same thought, drawn on by those electric currents which put two lovers in continual communication, both intoxicated with pleasure even in their grief, they fell into each other’s arms, without perceiving that their lips were joined, while their uplifted eyes, overflowing with ecstasy and full of tears, were fixed upon the stars.

  When Marius went out, the street was empty. It was the moment when Eponine was following the bandits to the boulevard.

  While Marius was thinking with his head against the tree, an idea had passed through his mind; an idea, alas! which he himself deemed senseless and impossible. He had formed a desperate resolution.

  6 (7)

  THE OLD HEART AND YOUNG HEART IN PRESENCE

  GRANDFATHER GILLENORMAND had, at this period, fully completed his ninety-first year. He still lived with Mademoiselle Gillenormand, Rue des Filles du Calvaire, No.6, in that old house which belonged to him. He was, as we remember, one of those antique old men who await death still erect, whom age loads without making them stoop, and whom grief itself does not bend.

  Still, for some time, his daughter had said: “My father is failing.” He no longer beat the servants; he struck his cane with less animation on the landing of the stairs, when Basque was slow in opening the door. The revolution of July had hardly exasperated him for six months. He had seen almost tranquilly in the Moniteur this coupling of words: M. Humblot Conté, peer of France. The fact is, that the old man was filled with dejection. He did not bend, he did not yield; that was no more a part of his physical than of his moral nature; but he felt himself interiorly failing. Four years he had been waiting for Marius, with resolve, that is just the word, in the conviction that that naughty little scapegrace would ring at his door some day or other: now he had come, in certain gloomy hours, to say to himself that even if Marius should delay, but little longer—It was not death that was unbearable to him; it was the idea that perhaps he should never see Marius again. Never see Marius again,—that had not, even for an instant, entered into his thought until this day; now this idea began to appear to him, and it chilled him. Absence, as always happens when feelings are natural and true, had only increased his grandfather’s love for the ungrateful child who had gone away like that. It is on December nights, with the thermometer at zero, that we think most of the sun. M. Gillenormand was, or thought himself, in any event, incapable of taking a step, he the grandfather, towards his grandson; “I would die first,” said he. He acknowledged no fault on his
part; but he thought of Marius only with a deep tenderness and the mute despair of an old goodman who is going away into the darkness.

  He was beginning to lose his teeth, which added to his sadness.

  M. Gillenormand, without however acknowledging it to himself for he would have been furious and ashamed at it, had never loved a mistress as he loved Marius.

  He had had hung in his room, at the foot of his bed, as the first thing which he wished to see on awaking, an old portrait of his other daughter, she who was dead, Madame Pontmercy, a portrait taken when she was eighteen years old. He looked at this portrait incessantly. He happened one day to say, while looking at it:

  “I think it looks like the child.”

  “Like my sister?” replied Mademoiselle Gillenormand. “Why yes.”

  The old man added:

  “And like him also.”

  Once, as he was sitting, his knees pressed together, and his eyes almost closed, in a posture of dejection, his daughter ventured to say to him:

  “Father, are you still so angry with him?”

  She stopped, not daring to go further.

  “With whom?” asked he.

  “With that poor Marius?”

  He raised his old head, laid his thin and wrinkled fist upon the table, and cried in his most irritated and quivering tone:

  “Poor Marius, you say? That gentleman is a rascal, a worthless knave, a little ungrateful vanity, with no heart, no soul, a proud, a wicked man!”

  And he turned away that his daughter might not see the tear he had in his eyes.

  Three days later, after a silence which had lasted for four hours, he said to his daughter snappishly:

  “I have had the honour to beg Mademoiselle Gillenormand never to speak to me of him.”

  Aunt Gillenormand gave up all attempts and came to this profound diagnosis: “My father never loved my sister very much after her folly. It is clear that he detests Marius.”

  “After her folly” meant: after she married the colonel.

  Still, as may have been conjectured, Mademoiselle Gillenormand had failed in her attempt to substitute her favourite, the officer of lancers, for Marius. The supplanter Théodule had not succeeded. Monsieur Gillenormand had not accepted the quid pro quo. The void in the heart does not accommodate itself to a proxy. Théodule, for his part, even while scenting the inheritance, revolted at the drudgery of pleasing. The goodman wearied the lancer, and the lancer shocked the goodman. Lieutenant Théodule was lively doubtless, but a babbler; frivolous, but vulgar; a good liver, but of bad company; he had mistresses, it is true, and he talked about them a good deal, that is also true; but he talked about them badly. All his qualities had a defect. Monsieur Gillenormand was wearied out with hearing him tell of all the favours that he had won in the neighbourhood of his barracks, Rue de Babylone. And then Lieutenant Théodule sometimes came in his uniform with the tricolour cockade. This rendered him altogether unbearable.ge Grandfather Gillenormand, at last, said to his daughter: “I have had enough of him, your Théodule. I have little taste for warriors in time of peace. Entertain him yourself, if you like. I am not sure, but I like the sabrers even better than the trailers of the sabre. The clashing of blades in battle is not so wretched, after all, as the rattling of the sheaths on the pavement. And then, to harness himself like a bully, and to strap himself up like a flirt, to wear a corset under a cuirass, is to be ridiculous twice over. A genuine man keeps himself at an equal distance from swagger and roguery. Neither hector, nor heartless. Keep your Théodule for yourself.”