Les Miserables (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (84 page)

“No,” answered Bigrenaille, “he is drunk.”

“Sweep him into a corner,” said Thénardier.

Two of the “chimney doctors” pushed the drunkard up to the heap of old iron with their feet.

“Babet, what did you bring so many for?” said Thénardier in a low tone to the man with the cudgel, “it was needless.”

“What would you have?” replied the man with the cudgel, “they all wanted to be in. The season is bad. There is nothing doing.”

The pallet upon which M. Leblanc had been thrown was a sort of hospital bed supported by four big roughly squared wooden posts. M. Leblanc made no resistance. The brigands bound him firmly, standing, with his feet to the floor, by the bed-post furthest from the window and nearest to the chimney.

When the last knot was tied, Thénardier took a chair and came and sat down nearly in front of M. Leblanc. Thénardier looked no longer like himself, in a few seconds the expression of his face had passed from unbridled violence to tranquil and crafty mildness. Marius hardly recognised in that polite, clerkly smile, the almost beastly mouth which was foaming a moment before; he looked with astonishment upon this fantastic and alarming metamorphosis, and he experienced what a man would feel who should see a tiger change itself into an attorney.

“Monsieur,” said Thénardier.

And with a gesture dismissing the brigands who still had their hands upon M. Leblanc:

“Move off a little, and let me talk with monsieur.”

They all retired towards the door. He resumed:

“Monsieur, you were wrong in trying to jump out the window. You might have broken your leg. Now, if you please, we will talk quietly. In the first place I must inform you of a circumstance I have noticed, which is that you have not yet made the least outcry.”

Thénardier was right; this detail was true, although it had escaped Marius in his anxiety. M. Leblanc had only uttered a few words without raising his voice, and, even in his struggle by the window with the six bandits, he had preserved the most profound and the most remarkable silence. Thénardier continued:

“Indeed! you might have cried thief a little, for I should not have found it inconvenient. Murder! that is said upon occasion, and, as far as I am concerned, I should not have taken it in bad part. It is very natural that one should make a little noise when he finds himself with persons who do not inspire him with as much confidence as they might; you might have done it, and we should not have disturbed you. We would not even have gagged you. And I will tell you why. It is because this room is very deaf. That is all I can say for it, but I can say that. It is like a cellar. We could set off a bomb here, and at the nearest guardhouse it would sound like a drunkard’s snore. Here a cannon would go boom, and thunder would go puff. It is a convenient apartment. But, in short, you did not cry out, that was better, I make you my compliments for it, and I will tell you what I conclude from it: my dear monsieur, when a man cries out, who is it that comes? The police. And after the police? Justice. Well! you did not cry out; because you were no more anxious than we to see justice and the police come. It is because,—I suspected as much long ago,—you have some interest in concealing something. For our part we have the same interest. Now we can come to an understanding.”

While speaking thus, it seemed as though Thénardier, with his gaze fixed upon Monsieur Leblanc, was endeavouring to thrust the daggers which he looked, into the very conscience of his prisoner. His language, moreover, marked by a sort of subdued and sullen insolence, was reserved and almost select, and in this wretch who was just before nothing but a brigand, one could now perceive “the man who studied to be a priest.”

The silence which the prisoner had preserved, this precaution which he had carried even to the extent of endangering his life, this resistance to the first impulse of nature, which is to utter a cry, all this, it must be said, since it had been remarked, was awkward for Marius, and painfully astonished him.
⁹

Thénardier’s remark, well founded as it was, added in Marius’ eyes still more to the obscurity of the mysterious cloud that enveloped this strange and serious face to which Courfeyrac had given the nickname of Monsieur Leblanc. But whatever he might be, bound with ropes, surrounded by assassins, half buried so to speak, in a grave which was deepening beneath him every moment, before the fury as well as before the mildness of Thénardier, this man remained impassive; and Marius could not repress at such a moment his admiration for that superbly melancholy face.

Here was evidently a soul inaccessible to fear, and ignorant of dismay. Here was one of those men who are superior to astonishment in desperate situations. However extreme the crisis, however inevitable the catastrophe, there was nothing there of the agony of the drowning man, staring with horrified eyes as he sinks to the bottom.

Thénardier quietly got up, went to the fireplace, took away the screen which he leaned against the nearest pallet, and thus revealed the furnace full of glowing coals in which the prisoner could plainly see the chisel at a white heat, spotted here and there with little scarlet stars.

Then Thénardier came back and sat down by Monsieur Leblanc.

“I continue,” said he. “Now we can come to an understanding. Let us arrange this amicably. I was wrong to fly into a passion just now. I do not know where my wits were, I went much too far, I talked extravagantly. For instance, because you are a millionaire, I told you that I wanted money, a good deal of money, an immense deal of money. That would not be reasonable. My God, rich as you may be, you have your expenses; who does not have them? I do not want to ruin you, I am not a cannibal, after all. I am not one of those people who, because they have the advantage, use it to be ridiculous. Here, I am willing to go half way and make some sacrifice on my part. I need only two hundred thousand francs.”

Monsieur Leblanc did not breathe a word. Thénardier went on:

“You see that I water my wine pretty well.
^dy
I do not know the state of your fortune, but I know that you do not care much for money and a benevolent man like you can certainly give two hundred thousand francs to a father of a family who is unfortunate. Certainly you are reasonable also, you do not imagine that I would take the trouble I have to-day, and that I would organise the affair of this evening, which is a very fine piece of work, in the opinion of these gentlemen, to end off by asking you for enough to go and drink fifteen sou red wine and eat veal at Desnoyers’. Two hundred thousand francs, it is worth it. That trifle once out of your pocket, I assure you that all is said, and that you need not fear a snap of the finger. You will say: but I have not two hundred thousand francs with me. Oh! I am not exacting. I do not require that I only ask one thing. Have the goodness to write what I shall dictate.”

Here Thénardier paused, then he added, emphasising each word and casting a smile towards the furnace:

“I give you notice that I shall not accept that you cannot write.”

A grand inquisitor might have envied that smile.

Thénardier pushed the table close up to Monsieur Leblanc, and took the inkstand, a pen, and a sheet of paper from the drawer, which he left partly open, and in which gleamed the long blade of the knife.

He laid the sheet of paper before Monsieur Leblanc.

“Write,” said he.

The prisoner spoke at last:

“How do you expect me to write? I am tied.”

“That is true, pardon me!” said Thénardier, “you are quite right.”

And turning towards Bigrenaille:

“Untie monsieur’s right arm.”

Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, executed Thénardier’s order. When the prisoner’s right hand was free, Thénardier dipped the pen into the ink, and presented it to him.

“Remember, monsieur, that you are in our power, at our discretion, that no human power can take you away from here, and that we should be really grieved to be obliged to proceed to unpleasant extremities. I know neither your name nor your address, but I give you notice that you will remain tied until the person whose duty it will be to carry the letter which you are about to write, has returned. Have the kindness now to write.”

“What?” asked the prisoner.

“I will dictate.”

M. Leblanc took the pen.

Thénardier began to dictate:

“My daughter—”

The prisoner shuddered and lifted his eyes to Thénardier.

“Put ‘my dear daughter,”’ said Thénardier. M. Leblanc obeyed. Thénardier continued:

“Come immediately—”

He stopped.

“You call her daughter, do you not?”

“Who?” asked M. Leblanc.

“Zounds!” said Thénardier, “the little girl, the Lark.”

M. Leblanc answered without the least sign of emotion:

“I do not know what you mean.”

“Well, go on,” said Thénardier, and he began to dictate again.

“Come immediately, I have imperative need of you. The person who will give you this note is directed to bring you to me. I am waiting for you. Come with confidence.”

M. Leblanc had written the whole. Thénardier added:

“Ah! strike out
come with confidence,
that might lead her to suppose that the thing is not quite clear and that distrust is possible.”

M. Leblanc erased the three words.

“Now,” continued Thénardier, “sign it. What is your name?”

The prisoner laid down the pen and asked:

“For whom is this letter?”

“You know very well,” answered Thénardier, “for the little girl, I have just told you.”

It was evident that Thénardier avoided naming the young girl in question. He said “the Lark,” he said “the little girl,” but he did not pronounce the name. The precaution of a shrewd man preserving his own secret before his accomplices. To speak the name would have been to reveal the whole “affair” to them, and to tell them more than they needed to know.

He resumed:

“Sign it. What is your name?”

“Urbain Fabre,” said the prisoner.

Thénardier, with the movement of a cat, thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out the handkerchief taken from M. Leblanc. He looked for the mark upon it and held it up to the candle.

“U. F. That is it. Urbain Fabre. Well, sign U. F.”

The prisoner signed.

“As it takes two hands to fold the letter, give it to me, I will fold it.”

This done, Thénardier resumed:

“Put on the address,
Mademoiselle Fabre,
at your house. I know that you live not very far from here, in the neighbourhood of Saint Jacques du Haut Pas, since you go there to mass every day, but I do not know in what street. I see that you understand your situation. As you have not lied about your name, you will not lie about your address. Put it on yourself.”

The prisoner remained thoughtful for a moment, then he took the pen and wrote:

“Mademoiselle Fabre, at Monsieur Urbain Fabre‘s, Rue Saint Dominique d’Enfer, No.17.”

Thénardier seized the letter with a sort of feverish convulsive movement.

“Wife!” cried he.

The Thénardiess sprang forward.

“Here is the letter. You know what you have to do. There is a fiacre below. Go right away, and come back ditto.”

And addressing the man with the pole-axe:

“Here, since you have taken off your mask, go with the woman. You will ride behind the fiacre. You know where you left the
maringotte?”

“Yes,” said the man.

And, laying down his pole-axe in a comer, he followed the Thénardiess.

As they were going away, Thénardier put his head through the half-open door and screamed into the hall:

“Above all things do not lose the letter! remember that you have two hundred thousand francs with you.”

The harsh voice of the Thénardiess answered:

“Rest assured, I have put it in my bosom.”

A minute had not passed when the snapping of a whip was heard, which grew fainter and rapidly died away.

“Good!” muttered Thénardier. “They are going good speed. At that speed the bourgeoise will be back in three quarters of an hour.”
^dz

He drew a chair near the fireplace and sat down, folding his arms and holding his muddy boots up to the furnace.

“My feet are cold,” said he.

There were now but five bandits left in the den with Thénardier and the prisoner. These men, through the masks or the black varnish which covered their faces and made of them, as fear might suggest, charcoal men, negroes, or demons, had a heavy and dismal appearance, and one felt that they would execute a crime as they would any drudgery, quietly, without anger and without mercy, with a sort of irksomeness. They were heaped together in a corner like brutes, and were silent. Thénardier was warming his feet. The prisoner had relapsed into his taciturnity. A gloomy stillness had succeeded the savage tumult which filled the garret a few moments before.

The candle, on which a large mushroom had formed, hardly lighted up the enormous den, the fire had grown dull, and all these monstrous heads made huge shadows on the walls and on the ceiling.

No sound could be heard save the quiet breathing of the drunken old man, who was asleep.

Marius was waiting in an anxiety which everything increased. The riddle was more impenetrable than ever. Who was this “little girl,” whom Thénardier had also called the Lark? was it his “Ursula”? The prisoner had not seemed to be moved by this word, the Lark, and answered in the most natural way in the world: I do not know what you mean. On the other hand, the two letters U. F. were explained; it was Urbain Fabre, and Ursula’s name was no longer Ursula. This Marius saw most clearly. A sort of hideous fascination held him spellbound to the place from which he observed and commanded the whole scene. There he was, almost incapable of reflection and motion, as if annihilated by such horrible things in so close proximity. He was waiting, hoping for some movement, no matter what, unable to collect his ideas and not knowing what course to take.