Les Miserables (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (72 page)

It was all over with him. Marius loved a woman. His destiny was entering upon the unknown.

ISOLATION, separation from all things, pride, independence, a taste for nature, lack of everyday material activity, life in one’s self, the secret struggles of chastity, and an ecstasy of goodwill towards the whole creation, had prepared Marius for this possession which is called love. His worship for his father had become almost a religion, and, like all religion, had retired into the depths of his heart. He needed something above that. Love came.

A whole month passed during which Marius went every day to the Luxembourg Gardens. When the hour came, nothing could keep him away. “He is on duty,” said Courfeyrac. Marius lived in transports. It is certain that the girl was looking at him.

He finally grew bolder, and approached nearer to the bench. However he passed before it no more, obeying at once the instinct of timidity and the instinct of prudence, peculiar to lovers. He thought it better not to attract the “attention of the father.” He formed his combinations of sentry duty behind trees and the pedestals of statues with consummate art, so as to be seen as much as possible by the young girl and as little as possible by the old gentleman. Sometimes he would stand for half an hour motionless behind some Leonidas or Spartacus with a book in his hand, over which his eyes, timidly raised, were looking for the young girl, while she, for her part, was turning her charming profile towards him, suffused with a smile. While yet talking in the most natural and quiet way in the world with the white-haired man, she rested upon Marius all the dreams of a maidenly and passionate eye. Ancient and immemorial art which Eve knew from the first day of the world, and which every woman knows from the first day of her life! Her tongue replied to one and her eyes to the other.

We must, however, suppose that M. Leblanc perceived something of this at last, for often when Marius came, he would rise and begin to stroll. He had left their accustomed place, and had taken the bench at the other end of the walk, near the Gladiator, as if to see whether Marius would follow them. Marius did not understand, and committed that blunder. “The father” began to be less punctual and did not bring “his daughter” every day. Sometimes he came alone. Then Marius did not stay. Another blunder.

Marius took no note of these symptoms. From the phase of timidity he had passed, a natural and inevitable progress, to the phase of blindness. His love grew. He dreamed of her every night. And then there came to him a good fortune for which he had not even hoped, oil upon the fire, double darkness upon his eyes. One night, at dusk, he found on the bench, which “M. Leblanc and his daughter” had just left, a handkerchief, a plain handkerchief without embroidery, but white, fine, and which appeared to him to exhale ineffable odours. He seized it in transport. This handkerchief was marked with the letters U. E: Marius knew nothing of this beautiful girl, neither her family, nor her name, nor her dwelling; these two letters were the first thing he had caught of her, adorable initials upon which he began straightway to build his castle. It was evidently her first name. Ursula, thought he, what a sweet name! He kissed the handkerchief, inhaled its perfume, put it over his heart, on his flesh in the day-time, and at night went to sleep with it on his lips.

“I feel her whole soul in it!” he exclaimed.

This handkerchief belonged to the old gentleman, who had simply let it fall from his pocket.

For days and days after this piece of good fortune, he always appeared at the Luxembourg Gardens kissing this handkerchief and placing it on his heart. The beautiful child did not understand this at all, and indicated it to him by signs, which he did not perceive.

“Oh, modesty!” said Marius.
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SINCE WE HAVE PRONOUNCED the word
modesty,
and since we are concealing nothing, we must say that once, however, through all his ecstasy “his Ursula” gave him a very serious pang. It was upon one of the days when she prevailed upon M. Leblanc to leave the bench and to stroll along the walk. A brisk north wind was blowing, which swayed the tops of the plane trees. Father and daughter, arm in arm, had just passed before Marius’ bench. Marius had risen behind them and was following them with his eyes, as it was natural that he should in this desperate situation of his heart.

Suddenly a gust of wind, rather more lively than the rest, and probably entrusted with the little affairs of Spring, flew down from La Pépinière, rushed upon the walk, enveloped the young girl in a transporting tremor worthy of the nymphs of Virgil and the fauns of Theocritus, and raised her skirt, this skirt more sacred than that of Isis, almost to the height of the garter. A limb of exquisite mould was seen. Marius saw it. He was exasperated and furious.

The young girl had put down her dress with a divinely startled movement, but he was outraged none the less. True, he was alone in the walk. But there might have been somebody there. And if anybody had been there! could one conceive of such a thing? what she had done was horrible! Alas, the poor child had done nothing; there was but one culprit, the wind; and yet Marius in whom all the Bartholo which there is in Cherubin was confusedly trembling, was determined to be dissatisfied, and was jealous of his shadow. For it is thus that is awakened in the human heart, and imposed upon man, even unjustly, the bitter and strange jealousy of the flesh. Besides, and throwing this jealousy out of consideration, there was nothing that was agreeable to him in the sight of that beautiful limb; the white stocking of the first woman that came along would have given him more pleasure.

When “his Ursula,” reaching the end of the walk, returned with M. Leblanc, and passed before the bench on which Marius had again sat down, Marius threw at her a cross and cruel look. The young girl slightly straightened back, with that elevation of the eyelids, which says: “Well, what is the matter with him?”

That was “their first quarrel.”

Marius had hardly finished this scene with her when somebody came down the walk. It was a disabled veteran, very much bent, wrinkled and pale with age, in the uniform of Louis XV, with the little oval patch of red cloth with crossed swords on his back, the soldier’s Cross of Saint Louis, and decorated also by a coat sleeve in which there was no arm, a silver chin, and a wooden leg. Marius thought he could discern that this man appeared to be very much pleased. It seemed to him even that the old cynic, as he hobbled along by him, had addressed to him a very fraternal and very merry wink, as if by some chance they had been put into communication and had enjoyed some dainty bit of good fortune together. What had he seen to be so pleased, this relic of Mars? What had happened between this leg of wood and the other? Marius had a paroxysm of jealousy. “Perhaps he was by!” said he; “perhaps he saw!” And he would have been glad to exterminate the crippled veteran.

Time lending his aid, every point is blunted. This anger of Marius against “Ursula,” however just and proper it might be, passed away. He forgave her at last; but it was a great effort; he pouted at her three days.

Meanwhile, in spite of all that, and because of all that, his passion was growing, and was growing insane.

WE HAVE SEEN how Marius discovered, or thought he discovered, that her name was Ursula.

Hunger comes with love.
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To know that her name was Ursula had been much; it was little. In three or four weeks Marius had devoured this piece of good fortune. He desired another. He wished to know where she lived.

He had committed one blunder in falling into the snare of the bench by the Gladiator. He had committed a second by not remaining at the Luxembourg Gardens when Monsieur Leblanc came there alone. He committed a third, a monstrous one. He followed “Ursula.”

She lived in the Rue de l‘Ouest, in the least frequented part of it, in a new four-story house, of modest appearance.

From that moment Marius added to his happiness in seeing her at the Luxembourg Gardens, the happiness of following her home.

His hunger increased. He knew her name, her first name, at least, the charming name, the real name of a woman; he knew where she lived; he desired to know who she was.

One night after he had followed them home, and seen them disappear at the porte-cochère, he entered after them, and said boldly to the porter:—

“Is it the gentleman on the second floor who has just come in?”
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“No,” answered the porter. “It is the gentleman on the fourth.”

Another fact. This success made Marius still bolder.

“In front?” he asked.

“Faith!” said the porter, “the house is only built on the street.”

“And what is this gentleman?”

“He lives on his income, monsieur. A very kind man, who does a great deal of good among the poor, though not rich.”

“What is his name?” continued Marius.

The porter raised his head, and said:—

“Is monsieur a detective?”

Marius retired, much abashed, but still in great transports. He was making progress.

“Good,” thought he. “I know that her name is Ursula, that she is the daughter of a retired gentleman, and that she lives there, in the third story, in the Rue de l‘Ouest.”

Next day Monsieur Leblanc and his daughter made but a short visit to the Luxembourg Gardens; they went away while it was yet broad daylight. Marius followed them into the Rue de l‘Ouest, as was his custom. On reaching the porte-cochère, Monsieur Leblanc passed his daughter in, and then stopped, and before entering himself, turned and looked steadily at Marius. The day after that they did not come to the gardens. Marius waited in vain all day.

At nightfall he went to the Rue de l‘Ouest, and saw a light in the windows of the fourth story. He walked beneath these windows until the light was put out.

The next day nobody at the Luxembourg Gardens. Marius waited all day, and then went to perform his night duty under the windows. That took him till ten o‘clock in the evening. His dinner took care of itself. Fever supports the sick man, and love the lover.

He passed a week in this way. Monsieur Leblanc and his daughter appeared at the Luxembourg Gardens no more. Marius made melancholy conjectures; he dared not watch the porte-cochère during the day. He limited himself to going at night to gaze upon the reddish light of the windows. At times he saw shadows moving, and his heart beat high.

On the eighth day when he reached the house, there was no light in the windows. “What!” said he, “the lamp is not yet lighted. But yet it is dark. Or they have gone out?” He waited till ten o‘clock. Till midnight. Till one o’clock in the morning. No light appeared in the fourth story windows, and nobody entered the house. He went away very gloomy.

On the morrow—for he lived only from morrow to morrow; there was no longer any to-day, so to speak, to him—on the morrow he found nobody at the Luxembourg Gardens, he waited; at dusk he went to the house. No light in the windows; the blinds were closed; the fourth story was entirely dark.

Marius knocked at the porte-cochère; went in and said to the porter:

“The gentleman on the fourth floor?”

“Moved,” answered the porter.

Marius tottered, and said feebly:

“Since when?”

“Yesterday.”

“Where does he live now?”

“I don’t know anything about it.”

“He has not left his new address, then?”

“No.”

And the porter, looking up, recognised Marius.

“What! it is you!” said he, “so then you’re really on the look-out.”

PATRON-MINETTE

EVERY HUMAN SOCIETY has what is called in the theatres a
third substage.
The social soil is mined everywhere, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil. These works are in strata; there are upper mines and lower mines. There is a top and a bottom in this dark sub-soil which sometimes sinks beneath civilisation, and which our indifference and our carelessness trample underfoot. The Encyclopædia, in the last century, was a mine almost on the surface. The dark caverns, these gloomy protectors of primitive Christianity, were awaiting only an opportunity to explode beneath the Cæsars, and to flood the human race with light. For in these sacred shades there is latent light. Volcanoes are full of a blackness, capable of flashing flames. All lava begins at midnight. The catacombs, where the first mass was said, were not merely the cave of Rome; they were the cavern of the world.

The deeper we sink, the more mysterious are the workers. To a degree which social philosophy can recognise, the work is good; beyond this degree it is doubtful and mixed; below, it becomes terrible. At a certain depth, the excavations become impenetrable to the soul of civilisation, the respirable limit of man is passed; the existence of monsters becomes possible.

The descending ladder is a strange one;
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each of its rounds corresponds to a step whereupon philosophy can set foot, and where we discover some one of her workers, sometimes divine, sometimes monstrous. Below John Huss is Luther; below Luther is Descartes; below Descartes is Voltaire; below Voltaire is Condorcet; below Condorcet is Robespierre; below Robespierre is Marat; below Marat is Babeuf. And that continues. Lower still, in dusky confusion, at the limit which separates the indistinct from the invisible, glimpses are caught of other men in the gloom, who perhaps no longer exist. Those of yesterday are spectres; those of to-morrow are goblins. The embryonary work of the future is one of the visions of the philosopher.

A foetus world in limbo, an unheard-of silhouette!