Les Misérables, v. 5/5: Jean Valjean

  CHAPTER II.

  MARIUS LEAVING CIVIL WAR PREPARES FOR A DOMESTIC WAR.

  Marius was for a long time neither dead nor alive. He had for severalweeks a fever accompanied by delirium, and very serious brain symptomscaused by the shocks of the wounds in the head rather than the woundsthemselves. He repeated Cosette's name for whole nights with thelugubrious loquacity of fever and the gloomy obstinacy of agony. Thewidth of certain wounds was a serious danger, for the suppuration ofwide wounds may always be absorbed into the system, and consequentlykill the patient under certain atmospheric influences; and at eachchange in the weather, at the slightest storm, the physician becameanxious. "Mind that the patient suffers from no emotion," he repeated.The dressings were complicated and difficult, for the fixing ofbandages and lint by the sparadrap had not been imagined at thatperiod. Nicolette expended in lint a sheet "as large as a ceiling," shesaid; and it was not without difficulty that the chloruretted lotionsand nitrate of silver reached the end of the gangrene. So long as therewas danger, M. Gillenormand, broken-hearted by the bedside of hisgrandson, was like Marius, neither dead nor alive.

  Every day, and sometimes twice a day, a white-haired and well-dressedgentleman,--such was the description given by the porter,--came toinquire after the wounded man, and left a large parcel of lint forthe dressings. At length, on September 7th, four months, day by day,from the painful night on which he had been brought home dying to hisgrandfather, the physician declared that he could answer for him, andthat convalescence was setting in. Marius, however, would be obligedto lie for two months longer on a couch, owing to the accidentsproduced by the fracture of the collar-bone. There is always a lastwound like that which will not close, and eternizes the dressings, tothe great annoyance of the patient. This long illness and lengthenedconvalescence, however, saved him from prosecution: in France thereis no anger, even public, which six months do not extinguish. Riots,in the present state of society, are so much everybody's fault, thatthey are followed by a certain necessity of closing the eyes. Letus add that Gisquet's unjustifiable decree which ordered physiciansto denounce their patients having out-raged opinion, and not merelyopinion, but the king first of all, the wounded were covered andprotected by this indignation, and, with the exception of those takenprisoners in the act of fighting, the courts-martial did not dare tomolest any one. Hence Marius was left undisturbed.

  M. Gillenormand first passed through every form of agony, and thenthrough every form of ecstasy. Much difficulty was found in keepinghim from passing the whole night by Marius's side; he had his largeeasy-chair brought to the bed, and he insisted on his daughter takingthe finest linen in the house to make compresses and bandages.Mademoiselle Gillenormand, as a sensible and elderly lady, managedto save the fine linen, while making her father believe that he wasobeyed. M. Gillenormand would not listen to any explanation, that forthe purpose of making lint fine linen is not so good as coarse, ornew so good as worn. He was present at all the dressings, from whichMademoiselle Gillenormand modestly absented herself. When the deadflesh was cut away with scissors he said, "Aïe, aïe!" Nothing was sotouching as to see him hand the wounded man a cup of broth with hisgentle senile trembling. He overwhelmed the surgeon with questions,and did not perceive that he constantly repeated the same. On the daywhen the physician informed him that Marius was out of danger he wasbeside himself. He gave his porter three louis d'or, and at night, whenhe went to his bed-room, danced a gavotte, making castagnettes of histhumb and forefinger, and sang a song something like this:--

  "Jeanne est née à Fougère, Vrai nid d'une bergère; J'adore son jupon Fripon.

  "Amour, tu vis en elle; Car c'est dans sa prunelle Que tu mets ton carquois, Narquois!

  "Moi, je la chante, et j'aime, Plus que Diane même, Jeanne et ses dure tetons Bretons."

  Then he knelt on a chair, and Basque, who was watching him through thecrack of the door, felt certain that he was praying. Up to that day hehad never believed in God. At each new phase in the improvement of thepatient, which went on steadily, the grandfather was extravagant. Heperformed a multitude of mechanical actions full of delight: he went upand down stairs without knowing why. A neighbor's wife, who was verypretty, by the way, was stupefied at receiving one morning a largebouquet: it was M. Gillenormand who sent it to her, and her husbandgot up a jealous scene. M. Gillenormand tried to draw Nicolette on hisknees: he called Marius Monsieur le Baron, and shouted, "Long live theRepublic!" Every moment he asked the medical man, "There is no dangernow, is there?" He looked at Marius with a grandmother's eyes, andgloated over him when he slept. He no longer knew himself, no longertook himself into account. Marius was the master of the house; therewas abdication in his joy, and he was the grandson of his grandson. Inhis present state of merriment he was the most venerable of children:through fear of wearying or annoying the convalescent he would placehimself behind him in order to smile upon him. He was satisfied,joyous, ravished, charming and young, and his white hair added a gentlemajesty to the gay light which he had on his face. When grace ismingled with wrinkles it is adorable; and there is a peculiar dawn inexpansive old age.

  As for Marius, while letting himself be nursed and petted, he hadone fixed idea,--Cosette. Since the fever and delirium had left himhe no longer pronounced this name, and it might be supposed that hehad forgotten it; but he was silent precisely because his soul wasthere. He knew not what had become of Cosette: the whole affair of theRue de la Chanvrerie was like a cloud in his memory; shadows almostindistinct floated through his spirit. Éponine, Gavroche, Mabœuf,the Thénardiers, and all his friends mournfully mingled with the smokeof the barricade; the strange passage of M. Fauchelevent through thatblood-stained adventure produced upon him the effect of an enigma ina tempest: he understood nothing of his own life, he knew not how orby whom he had been saved, and no one about knew it either: all theywere able to tell him was that he had been brought there at night ina hackney coach. Past, present, future,--all this was to him like themist of a vague idea; but there was in this mist one immovable point, aclear and precise lineament, something made of granite, a resolution, awill,--to find Cosette again. For him the idea of life was not distinctfrom the idea of Cosette: he had decreed in his heart that he wouldnot receive one without the other, and he unalterably determined todemand of his grandfather, of destiny, of fate, of Hades itself, therestitution of his lost Eden.

  He did not conceal the obstacles from himself. Here let us underlineone fact: he was not won or greatly affected by all the anxiety andall the tenderness of his grandfather. In the first place he was notin the secret of them all, and next, in his sick man's reveries,which were perhaps still feverish, he distrusted this gentleness as astrange and new thing intended to subdue him. He remained cold to it,and the poor grandfather lavished his smiles in pure loss. Marius saidto himself that it was all very well so long as he did not speak andlet matters rest; but when he came to Cosette, he should find anotherface, and his grandfathers real attitude would be unmasked. Then hewould be rough; a warming up of family questions, a comparison ofpositions, every possible sarcasm and objection at once. Fauchelevent,Coupelevent, fortune, poverty, wretchedness, the stone on the neck,the future a violent resistance, and the conclusion--a refusal. Mariusstiffened himself against it beforehand. And then, in proportion ashe regained life, his old wrongs reappeared, the old ulcers of hismemory reopened, he thought again of the past. Colonel Pontmercy placedhimself once more between M. Gillenormand and him, Marius, and he saidto himself that he had no real kindness to hope for from a man whohad been so unjust and harsh to his father. And with health came backa sort of bitterness against his grandfather, from which the old mangently suffered. M. Gillenormand, without letting it be seen, noticedthat Marius, since he had been brought home and regained consciousness,had never once called him father. He did not say Sir, it is true,but he managed to say neither one nor the other, by a certain way ofturning his sentences.

  A crisi
s was evidently approaching, and, as nearly always happens insuch cases, Marius, in order to try himself, skirmished before offeringbattle; this is called feeling the ground. One morning it happenedthat M. Gillenormand, alluding to a newspaper which he had comeacross, spoke lightly of the Convention, and darted a Royalist epigramat Danton, St. Just, and Robespierre. "The men of '93 were giants,"Marius said sternly; the old man was silent, and did not utter anothersyllable all the day. Marius, who had the inflexible grandfather of hisearly years ever present to his mind, saw in this silence a profoundconcentration of anger, augured from it an obstinate struggle, andaugmented his preparations for the contest in the most hidden cornersof his mind. He determined that in case of refusal he would tear offhis bandages, dislocate his collar-bone, expose all the wounds stillunhealed, and refuse all food. His wounds were his ammunition; he musthave Cosette or die. He awaited the favorable moment with the craftypatience of sick persons, and the moment arrived.