Les Miserables (Movie Tie-in) (9781101612774)

by Hugo, Victor; Donougher, Christine (TRN)

  Without knowing what was happening to her Cosette felt herself engulfed in the enormity of the natural world, not only terrified but seized with something worse than terror. She shuddered, and there are no words to describe the chill that pierced her to the heart. Her gaze had become distraught and she had a feeling that perhaps she would not be able to restrain herself from returning to that place tomorrow at the same hour.

  As it were by instinct, to dispel this strange state of mind that she did not understand but which so demoralized her, she began to count aloud – one, two, three … and when she had got to ten she began again. This restored her sense of reality. She found that her hands, which had got wet when she drew the water, were very cold. She stood up. She was still afraid, but now with a natural, panic fear which implanted only one thought in her mind, to get away, to run as fast as her legs would carry her out of the wood, past the fields, back to the world of houses and lighted windows. She looked down at the bucket. Such was her dread of her mistress that she dared not go without it. She seized the handle with both hands and found that it was all she could do to lift it.

  She struggled with it for a dozen paces, but it was too full and too heavy and she was forced to put it down again. After resting for another moment she resumed the struggle and this time got a little further before she again had to stop. Then she went on. She walked bent forward like an old woman, with the weight of the bucket dragging on her thin arms and the metal handle biting into her small chilled hands, pausing frequently to rest; and each time she put the bucket down a little of the water slopped on to her bare legs. And this was happening to a child of eight in the woods at night, in winter, far from any human gaze. Only God was there to see, and perhaps her mother, alas, for there are things that rouse the dead in their graves.

  She was breathing in painful gasps, sobbing under her breath, for such was her awe of Mme Thénardier that she dared not cry aloud even at that distance from her. To her the figure of her mistress was always present.

  Her progress was very slow. Although she shortened her periods of rest and forced herself to go as far as possible after every pause she reckoned that it would take her over an hour to get back in this fashion to Montfermeil, and that Mme Thénardier would beat her when she arrived; and this was a further distress to be added to her terror of solitude and the night. She was nearly at the end of her strength, and still she had not got out of the wood. Coming to an old chestnut tree with which she was well acquainted, she made a last pause, longer than the previous ones, so that she might be properly rested, then bravely started again; but such was her despair that now she could not prevent herself from crying aloud – ‘Oh, God help me! Please, dear God!’

  And suddenly she found that the bucket no longer weighed anything. A hand that seemed enormous had reached down and grasped the handle. Looking up, she saw a burly, erect form beside her in the darkness. The man had come up behind her without her hearing him, and he had taken the bucket from her without speaking a word.

  There are instincts which respond to all the chance meetings in life. The little girl was not afraid.

  VI

  The man in the yellow coat

  During the afternoon of that same Christmas day in 1823 a man had spent some time walking up and down the most deserted stretch of the Boulevard de l’Hôpital, in Paris. He looked like someone in search of a lodging, and his preference seemed to be for the most humble houses in that down-at-heel outskirt of the Faubourg Saint-Marceau. As we shall presently see, he had in fact rented a room in that quarter.

  In his clothes as in his whole bearing the man epitomized what may be termed the ‘respectable beggar’ – a combination of utmost poverty and extreme cleanliness. It is a rare mixture which inspires all sensitive persons with a twofold respect, for great need and great dignity. He was wearing a very old, carefully brushed tall hat, a threadbare tail-coat of a coarse ochre-yellow material – not an uncommon colour in those days – a long waistcoat with square pockets, black breeches turned grey at the knees, black woollen stockings and clumsy shoes with brass buckles. He might have been a former schoolteacher of good antecedents returned from emigration. His white hair, lined forehead, pallid lips and drawn, life-wearied countenance, all suggested that he must be well over sixty; but his firm, if slow, stride and the singular vigour of his movements put him at not more than fifty. The lines on his forehead were regular and would have predisposed any close observer in his favour. His upper lip had a curious fold which looked stern but was in fact humble. There was a hint of serene melancholy in his gaze. In his left hand he carried a small bundle wrapped in a cloth, and in his right a stout stick cut from a hedge. The stick had been carefully trimmed but did not look over-threatening; the knots had been smoothed and it had a knob that looked like coral but was fashioned of red wax. It was a cudgel that might pass for a walking-stick.

  Few people go along that street, particularly in winter. The man seemed to avoid such as there were, although he made no particular show of doing so.

  At that time King Louis XVIII was in the habit of driving nearly every day to Choisy-le-Roi, this being one of his favourite outings. The royal coach with its escort was to be seen almost invariably at two o’clock galloping along the Boulevard de l’Hôpital. Such was its regularity that the poor people of the district had no need of watches. ‘It’s two o’clock,’ they said. ‘He’s on his way back to the Tuileries.’

  Some of them ran to watch him pass and others lined the roadway, for the passing of a king is an occasion. In any case, the comings and goings of Louis XVIII in the streets of Paris were always a matter of interest. They were speedy but impressive. The infirm monarch had a fondness for driving at a gallop; being unable to walk he liked to run – a cripple who would gladly have harnessed the lightning. Not wanting, but prepared to resist trouble, he drove with an escort of drawn sabres, the wheels of his great coach, with its lily-painted panels, thundering over the cobbles. There was only time to catch a glimpse of him. One saw in the righthand corner of the coach, against a background of white satin upholstery, a broad, firm, ruddy face, the forehead freshly powdered, a proud, hard, penetrating gaze, a cultivated smile, two large, plumed epaulettes on a bourgeois frockcoat, the Golden Fleece, the crosses of Saint Louis and the Légion d’honneur, the silver medallion of the Holy Spirit, and a wide blue sash over a large belly – that was the King. Outside Paris he carried his white-plumed hat on knees that were high-gaitered in the English fashion; but on entering the town he put the hat on his head, rarely bowing. He looked coldly at the people, and they returned the look in kind. The impression he had made upon his first visit to the Saint-Marceau quarter was summed up in the remark passed by an inhabitant of the quarter to his neighbour – ‘So that fat man’s the Government!’

  This royal passage, then, was a daily incident in the life of the Boulevard de l’Hôpital; but the stroller in the yellow coat was evidently not an inhabitant of the quarter, and probably not even a Parisian, for he was unaware of what was happening. When at two o’clock the royal coach with its escort of silver-braided guards turned into the boulevard after rounding the Salpêtrière, he looked startled and even slightly apprehensive. There was no one but himself on the pavement. He hurriedly took refuge in a doorway, but this did not prevent the Duc d’Havre from noticing him. As commanding officer of the escort on that particular day, the Duc d’Havre was seated in the carriage facing the king. He leaned forward and said, ‘That’s an ugly-looking customer.’ The police on duty also noticed the man, and one of them was ordered to follow him. But the man plunged into the small back streets and the policeman lost him in the gathering dusk, as was reported that same evening to the Comte d’Anglès, the Prefect of Police.

  When he had shaken off his pursuer, the man in the yellow coat turned back, but not without looking round constantly to make sure that he was not followed. At a quarter past four, by which time it was dark, he passed the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, where a play entitled Les deux F
orçats [The Two Convicts] was being performed. Although he was walking fast, the announcement, lit by the flares outside the theatre, attracted his notice and he stopped to read it. Then he hurried on to the blind-alley of La Planchette and went into the Pewter Platter, the staging-inn for the Lagny coach, which was due to leave at half-past four. The horses were already harnessed and passengers were climbing the iron steps to the roof.

  ‘Is there a vacant place?’ the man asked.

  ‘There’s one, on the driver’s seat next to me,’ the coachman answered.

  ‘I’ll take it.’

  ‘Then up you get’

  But having noted the passenger’s shabby attire and scanty baggage the coachman demanded payment in advance.

  ‘All the way to Lagny?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said the traveller and paid the full fare.

  They started off, and when they had passed the customs barrier the coachman tried to engage him in conversation, but he replied only with monosyllables. The coachman was reduced to whistling and swearing at his horses.

  Presently the coachman turned up the collar of his greatcoat. It was cold, but the passenger did not seem to notice it. They passed through Gournay and Neuilly-sur-Marne, and at six o’clock they reached Chelles. Here the coachman stopped to give his horses a breather, pulling up outside the coaching inn established in the former buildings of the royal abbey.

  ‘I’ll get off here,’ the man said, and seizing his stick and his bundle he jumped down from the coach. A minute later he had vanished; but he had not gone into the inn, and when, a few minutes later, the coach drove on he was not to be seen on the main street of Chelles.

  ‘A man who doesn’t come from these parts,’ the coachman remarked to the inside passengers. ‘I don’t know him. He looked as though he hadn’t got a sou, but he wasn’t worrying about money. He paid the fare for Lagny, and then he gets off at Chelles. It’s dark and all the houses are shuttered, he didn’t go into the inn and still there’s no sign of him. It’s as though he’d been swallowed up in the earth.’

  However, the man had not gone underground. After hurrying along the darkened main street he had turned left before reaching the church and taken the road to Montfermeil, seeming to be quite familiar with the locality. He was walking very fast, but hearing someone approach as he reached the crossing of the old tree-bordered lane that runs from Gagny to Lagny he dived into a ditch and waited until they were out of earshot. The precaution was scarcely necessary because, as we have said, it was a particularly dark December night, with scarcely a star in the sky.

  This is the point where the slope of the hill begins. The man did not return to the Montfermeil road but, bearing to the right, strode rapidly across the fields until he reached the wood.

  Once in the wood he slowed down and began to take careful note of the trees, advancing step by step as though he were rediscovering and following a path known only to himself. There was a moment when he paused uncertainly, seeming to have lost his way. Finally, by trial and error, he came to a clearing in which there was a large pile of whitish stones. Going rapidly up to these he peered at them closely in the misty darkness as though making some calculation. A few yards away there was a large tree covered with those gnarled excrescences that are the warts of vegetation; bending down, he ran his hand over them, seeming to identify or count them.

  The tree was an ash, and near to it was a chestnut with a gash in its side which someone had repaired by nailing a band of zinc round the trunk. Standing on tip-toe, the man reached up and touched this band. Then he spent some time examining the ground between the chestnut and the pile of stones as though to discover whether the earth had been recently turned. Having done this he paused to get his bearings and continued on his way through the wood.

  This was the man who had just met Cosette.

  Making his way through the undergrowth in the direction of Montfermeil he had seen a small, shadowy figure gasping and wrestling with a burden which it was obliged constantly to put down. He saw as he drew nearer that it was a child with a very large bucket of water, so he came closer still and silently took hold of the bucket.

  VII

  Cosette and the stranger

  Cosette was not afraid. The man spoke to her in a low, deep voice.

  ‘Child, this is a very heavy thing for you to be carrying.’

  She looked up and answered: ‘Yes, monsieur. ’

  ‘Let me have it.’

  She surrendered the bucket and they walked on together.

  ‘It’s certainly heavy,’ he said with pursed lips. Then he asked: ‘How old are you?’

  ‘I’m eight, monsieur.’

  ‘How far have you carried this?’

  ‘From the spring back there.’

  ‘And how far have you to go?’

  ‘About a quarter of an hour from here.’

  The man was silent for a moment, then he said sharply:

  ‘But haven’t you a mother?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the child replied; but before he could say anything further she went on: ‘I don’t think so. The others have, but I haven’t.’ And after a pause she added: ‘I don’t think I’ve ever had one.’

  The man stopped walking. He put down the bucket and bending forward with his hands on the little girl’s shoulders tried to make out her features. The thin, wan face was dimly visible in the faint light.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Cosette.’

  At this the man started violently. For a moment he continued to stare at her; then, taking his hands off her shoulders he picked up the bucket and they walked on. Presently he asked:

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘At Montfermeil, if you know where that is.’

  ‘Is that where we’re going?’

  ‘Yes, monsieur.’

  There was another pause.

  ‘But who sent you out to fetch water at this time of night?’

  ‘Madame Thénardier.’

  The man’s next words were spoken in a voice that he tried to make casual, but in which there was an odd tremor.

  ‘What does she do, this Madame Thénardier?’

  ‘She’s my mistress. She keeps the inn.’

  ‘An inn? Well, that’s where I’ll stop the night. You must show me the way.’

  ‘It’s where we’re going,’ Cosette said.

  The man was now walking fast but she had no difficulty in keeping pace with him. She no longer felt tired. Now and then she glanced up at him with an expression of wonderful trust and assurance. No one had ever taught her to pray, but she had a sense of hope and happiness that seemed to be reaching up to Heaven.

  Several minutes passed, and then the man said:

  ‘Has Madame Thénardier no servants?’

  ‘No, monsieur.’

  ‘And you’re all alone?’

  ‘Yes.’ After another pause she added: ‘Well, there are the two children.’

  ‘What children?’

  ‘Ponine and Zelma.’ She used her own version of their high-sounding names. ‘They’re Madame Thénardier’s young ladies, her daughters, that is to say.’

  ‘And what do they do?’

  ‘Oh, they have lovely dolls and money-boxes. They can buy things. And they play games.’

  ‘All day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what do you do?’

  ‘I work.’

  ‘All day?’

  She looked up at him with eyes now filled with tears that were hidden from him by the darkness.

  ‘Yes, monsieur … Well, sometimes I play a little too, when I’ve finished my work and if they let me.’

  ‘What do you play at?’

  ‘Anything I can. They leave me to myself. But I haven’t got many toys. Ponine and Zelma don’t let me play with their dolls. All I’ve got is a tiny lead sword about that long–’ she put out her little finger.

  ‘Which doesn’t cut anything?’

  ‘Oh, yes it does. It can cut let
tuce-leaves and the heads off flies.

  They had reached the village and Cosette led the way through the streets. They passed the bakery, but she had forgotten about the loaf she was supposed to buy. The man had ceased to question her and was gloomily silent, but seeing the row of lighted stalls beyond the church he asked:

  ‘Is there a fair on?’

  ‘No, monsieur, but it’s Christmas.’

  As they approached the tavern she touched him timidly on the arm.

  ‘Please, monsieur.’

  ‘What is it, child?’

  ‘We’re nearly there.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘May I have the bucket?’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘If madame sees someone carrying it for me she’ll beat me.’

  He gave her the bucket. A moment later they were at the tavern door.

  VIII

  Awkwardness of accommodating a poor man who may turn out to be rich

  Cosette could not refrain from glancing at the splendid doll, which was still on display in the bric-à-brac stall. Then she knocked and the door was opened. Mme Thénardier appeared carrying a candle.

  ‘So there you are, good-for-nothing. You’ve been long enough–fooling about, I suppose.’

  ‘Madame,’ said Cosette trembling, ‘here is a gentleman who wants a room for the night.’

  Madame Thénardier’s glare was promptly replaced by the grimace of hospitality that is proper to innkeepers. She looked calculatingly at the stranger.

  ‘This gentleman?’

  ‘Yes, madame,’ the man said, and raised a hand to his hat.

  Well-to-do travellers are not ordinarily so polite. The gesture and her rapid inspection of the stranger’s clothes and his bundle, wiped the smile from Mme Thenardier’s face. She said coolly: