CHAPTER IV.
FIVE LESS AND ONE MORE.
After the man, whoever he aright be, who decreed the "protest ofcorpses," had spokes, sad given the formula of the common soul, astrangely satisfied and terrible cry issued from every mouth, funerealin its meaning and triumphal in its accent.
"Long live death! Let us all remain here."
"Why all?" Enjolras asked.
"All, all!"
Enjolras continued,--
"The position is good and the barricade fine. Thirty men aresufficient, then why sacrifice forty?"
They replied,--
"Because not one of us will go away."
"Citizens," Enjolras cried, and there was in his voice an almostirritated vibration, "the republic is not rich enough in men to makean unnecessary outlay. If it be the duty of some to go away, that dutymust be performed like any other."
Enjolras, the man-principle, had over his co-religionists that kind ofomnipotence which is evolved from the absolute. Still, however greatthat omnipotence might be, they murmured. A chief to the tips of hisfingers, Enjolras, on seeing that they murmured, insisted. He continuedhaughtily,--
"Let those who are afraid to be only thirty say so."
The murmurs were redoubled.
"Besides," a voice in the throng remarked, "it is easy to say, 'Goaway,' but the barricade is surrounded."
"Not on the side of the markets," said Enjolras. "The Rue Mondétouris free, and the Marché des Innocents can be reached by the Rue desPrêcheurs."
"And then," another voice in the group remarked, "we should be caughtby falling in with some grand rounds of the line or the National Guard.They will see a man passing in blouse and cap: 'Where do you come from?Don't you belong to the barricade?' and they will look at your hands;you smell of powder, and will be shot."
Enjolras, without answering, touched Combeferre's shoulder, and bothentered the ground-floor room. They came out again a moment after,Enjolras holding in his outstretched hands the four uniforms whichhe had laid on one side, and Combeferre followed him carrying thecross-belts and shakos.
"In this uniform," Enjolras said, "it is easy to enter the ranks andescape. Here are four at any rate."
And he threw the four uniforms on the unpaved ground; but as no onemoved in the stoical audience, Combeferre resolved to make an appeal.
"Come," he said, "you must show a little pity. Do you know what thequestion is here? It is about women. Look you, are there wives,--yesor no? Are there children,--yes or no? Are these nothing, who rock acradle with their foot, and have a heap of children around them? Lethim among you who has never seen a nurse's breast hold up his hand.Ah! you wish to be killed. I wish it too, I who am addressing you; butI do not wish to feel the ghosts of women twining their arms aroundme. Die,--very good; but do not cause people to die. Suicides likethe one which is about to take place here are sublime; but suicide isrestricted, and does not allow of extension, and so soon as it affectsyour relations, suicide is called murder. Think of the little fairheads, and think too of the white hair. Listen to me! Enjolras tellsme that just now he saw at the corner of the Rue du Cygne a candle ata poor window on the fifth floor, and on the panes the shaking shadowof an old woman who appeared to have spent the night in watching atthe window; she is perhaps the mother of one of you. Well, let thatman go, and hasten to say to his mother, 'Mother, here I am!' Let himbe easy in his mind, for the work will be done here all the same. Whena man supports his relatives by his toil, he has no longer any rightto sacrifice himself, for that is deserting his family. And then,too, those who have daughters, and those who have sisters! Only thinkof them. You let yourselves be killed, you are dead, very good; andto-morrow? It is terrible when girls have no bread, for man begs, butwoman sells. Oh, those charming, graceful, and gentle creatures withflowers in their caps, who fill the house with chastity, who sing,who prattle, who are like a living perfume, who prove the existence ofangels in heaven by the purity of virgins on earth; that Jeanne, thatLise, that Mimi, those adorable and honest creatures, who are yourblessing and your pride,--ah, my God! they will starve. What would youhave me say to you? There is a human flesh-market, and you will notprevent them entering it with your shadowy hands trembling around them.Think of the street; think of the pavement covered with strollers;think of the shops before which women in low-necked dresses come andgo in the mud. Those women, too, were pure. Think of your sisters,you who have any; misery, prostitution, the police. St Lazare, thatis what these delicate maidens, these fragile marvels of chastity,modesty, and beauty, fresher than the lilies in May, will fall to. Ah,you have let yourselves be killed! Ah, you are no longer there! Thatis,--very good,--you have wished to withdraw the people from royalty,and you give your daughters to the police. My friends, take care andhave compassion; we are not wont to think much about women, haplesswomen; we trust to the fact that women have not received the educationof men. They are prevented reading, thinking, or occupying themselveswith politics; but will you prevent them going to-night to the Morgueand recognizing your corpses? Come, those who have families must begood fellows, and shake our hand and go away, leaving us to do the jobhere all alone. I am well aware that courage is needed to go away, andthat it is difficult; but the more difficult the more meritorious itis. Ton say, 'I have a gun and am at the barricade; all the worse, Iremain.' 'All the worse' is easily said. My friends, there is a morrow,and that morrow you will not see; but your families will see it. Andwhat sufferings! Stay; do you know what becomes of a healthy childwith cheeks like an apple, who chatters, prattles, laughs, and smilesas fresh as a kiss, when he is abandoned? I saw one, quite little,about so high; his father was dead, and poor people had taken him inthrough charity; but they had not bread for themselves. The child wasalways hungry; it was winter-time, but though he was always hungryhe did not cry. He was seen to go close to the stove, whose pipe wascovered with yellow earth. The boy detached with his fingers a piece ofthis earth and ate it; his breathing was hoarse, his face livid, hislegs soft, and his stomach swollen. He said nothing, and when spokento made no answer. He is dead, and was brought to die at the NeckerHospital, where I saw him, for I was a student there. Now, if there beany fathers among you, fathers who delight in taking a walk on Sunday,holding in their powerful hand a child's small fingers, let each ofthese fathers fancy this lad his own. The poor brat I can rememberperfectly; I fancy I see him now, and when he lay on the dissectingtable, his bones stood out under his skin like the tombs under thegrass of a cemetery. We found a sort of mud in his stomach, and he hadashes between his teeth. Come, let us examine our conscience and takethe advice of our heart; statistics prove that the mortality amongdeserted children is fifty-five per cent. I repeat, it is a questionof wives, of mothers, of daughters, and babes. Am I saying anythingabout you? I know very well what you are. I know that you are allbrave. I know that you have all in your hearts the joy and glory oflaying down your lives for the great cause. I know very well that youfeel yourselves chosen to die usefully and magnificently, and that eachof you clings to his share of the triumph. Very good. But you are notalone in this world, and there are other beings of whom you must think;you should not be selfish."
All hung their heads with a gloomy air. Strange contradictions of thehuman heart in the sublimest moments! Combeferre, who spoke thus,was not an orphan; he remembered the mothers of others and forgothis own; he was going to let himself be killed, and was "selfish."Marius, fasting and feverish, who had successively given up all hope,cast ashore on grief, the most mournful of shipwrecks, saturated withviolent emotions, and feeling the end coming, had buried himself deeperand deeper in that visionary stupor which ever precedes the fatal andvoluntarily accepted hour. A physiologist might have studied in himthe growing symptoms of that febrile absorption which is known andclassified by science, and which is to suffering what voluptuousnessis to pleasure, for despair also has its ecstasy. Marius had attainedthat stage; as we have said, things which occurred before him appearedto him remote, he distinguished the ensem
ble, but did not perceive thedetails. He saw people coming and going before him in a flash, and heheard voices speaking as if from the bottom of an abyss. Still thisaffected him, for there was in this scene a point which pierced to himand aroused him. He had but one idea, to die, and he did not wish toavert his attention from it; but he thought in his gloomy somnambulismthat in destroying himself he was not prohibited from saving somebody.He raked his voice,--
"Enjolras and Combeferre are right," he said: "let us have no uselesssacrifice. I join them, and we must make haste. Combeferre has told youdecisive things: there are men among you who have families, mothers,sisters, wives, and children. Such must leave the ranks."
Not a soul stirred.
"Married men and supporters of families will leave the ranks," Mariusrepeated.
His authority was great, for though Enjolras was really the chief ofthe barricade, Marius was its savior.
"I order it," Enjolras cried.
"I implore it," Marius said.
Then these heme men, stirred up by Combeferre's speech, shaken byEnjolras's order, and moved by Marius's entreaty, began denouncing oneanother. "It is true," a young man said to a grown-up man, "you are afather of a family: begone!" "No! you ought to do so rather," the manreplied, "for you have two sisters to support;" and an extraordinarycontest broke out, in which each struggled not to be thrust out of thetomb.
"Make haste," said Combeferre; "in a quarter of an hour there will nolonger be time."
"Citizens," Enjolras added, "we have a republic here, and universalsuffrage reigns. Point out yourselves the men who are to leave us."
They obeyed, and at the end of a few minutes five were unanimouslypointed out and left the ranks.
"There are five of them!" Marius exclaimed.
There were only four uniforms.
"Well," the five replied, "one will have to remain behind."
And then came who should remain, and who should find reasons for othersnot to remain. The generous quarrel began again.
"You have a wife who loves you.--You have your old mother.--You haveneither father nor mother; what will become of your three littlebrothers?--You are the father of five children.--You have a right tolive, for you are only seventeen, and it is too early to die."
These great revolutionary barricades were meeting-places of heroisms.The improbable was simple there, and these men did not astonish oneanother.
"Make haste," Courfeyrac repeated.
Cries to Marius came from the groups.
"You must point out the one who is to remain."
"Yes," the five said; "do you choose, and we will obey you."
Marius did not believe himself capable of any emotion; still, at thisidea of choosing a man for death all the blood flowed back to hisheart, and he would have tamed pale could he have grown paler. Hewalked up to the five, who smiled upon him, and each, with his eye fullof that great flame which gleams through history on Thermopylæ, criedto him,--
"I! I! I!"
And Marius stupidly counted them. There were still five! Then his eyessettled on the four uniforms. All at once a fifth uniform fell, as iffrom heaven, on the other four; the fifth man was saved. Marius raisedhis eyes, and recognized M. Fauchelevent.
Jean Valjean had just entered the barricade; either through informationhe had obtained, through instinct, or through accident, he arrived bythe Mondétour Lane, and, thanks to his National Guard uniform, passedwithout difficulty. The vedette stationed by the insurgents in the RueMondétour had no cause to give the alarm-signal for a single NationalGuard, and had let him enter the street, saying to himself, "He isprobably a reinforcement, or at the worst a prisoner." The moment wastoo serious for a sentry to turn away from his duty or his post ofobservation. At the moment when Jean Valjean entered the redoubt, noone noticed him, for all eyes were fixed on the five chosen men and thefour uniforms. Jean Valjean, however, had seen and heard, and silentlytook off his coat and threw it on the pile formed by the other coats.The emotion was indescribable.
"Who is this man?" Bossuet asked.
"He is a man," Combeferre replied, "who saves his fellow-man."
Marius added in a grave voice,--
"I know him."
This bail was sufficient for all, and Enjolras turned to Jean Valjean.
"Citizen, you are welcome."
And he added,--
"You are aware that you will die."
Jean Valjean, without answering, helped the man he was saving to put onhis uniform.