CHAPTER VIII.
TWO MEN IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND.
The enchantment, great though it was, did not efface other thoughtsfrom Marius's mind. While the marriage arrangements were being made,and the fixed period was waited for, he made some troublesome andscrupulous retrospective researches. He owed gratitude in severalquarters; he owed it for his father, and he owed it for himself. Therewas Thénardier, and there was the stranger who had brought him back toM. Gillenormand's. Marius was anxious to find these two men again, ashe did not wish to marry, be happy, and forget them, and feared lestthese unpaid debts of honor might cast a shadow over his life, whichwould henceforth be so luminous. It was impossible for him to leaveall these arrears suffering behind him, and he wished, ere he enteredjoyously into the future, to obtain a receipt from the past. ThatThénardier was a villain took nothing from the fact that he had savedColonel Pontmercy. Thénardier was a bandit for all the world exceptingfor Marius. And Marius, ignorant of the real scene on the battle-fieldof Waterloo, did not know this peculiarity, that his father stood toThénardier in the strange situation of owing him life without owinghim gratitude. Not one of the agents whom Marius employed could findThénardier's trail, and the disappearance seemed complete on that side.Mother Thénardier had died in prison before trial, and Thénardier andhis daughter Azelma, the only two left of this lamentable group, hadplunged again into the shadow. The gulf of the social unknown hadsilently closed again upon these beings. No longer could be seen onthe surface that quivering, that tremor, and those obscure concentriccircles which announce that something has fallen there, and that agrappling-iron may be thrown in.
Mother Thénardier being dead, Boulatruelle being out of the question,Claquesous having disappeared, and the principal accused havingescaped from prison, the trial for the trap in the Gorbeau attic hadpretty nearly failed. The affair had remained rather dark, and theassize court had been compelled to satisfy itself with two subalterns,Panchaud, _alias_ Printanier, _alias_ Bigrenaille, and Demi-Liard,_alias_ Deux Milliards, who had been condemned, after hearing bothparties, to ten years at the galleys. Penal servitude for life waspassed against their accomplices who had escaped; Thénardier, aschief and promoter, was condemned to death, also in default. Thiscondemnation was the only thing that remained of Thénardier, castingon this buried name its sinister gleam, like a candle by the side of acoffin. However, this condemnation, by thrusting Thénardier back intothe lowest depths through the fear of being recaptured, added to thedense gloom which covered this man.
As for the other, the unknown man who had saved Marius, the researcheshad at first some result, and then stopped short. They succeeded infinding again the hackney coach which had brought Marius to the Rue desFilles du Calvaire on the night of June 6. The driver declared that onthe 6th of June, by the order of a police agent, he had stopped fromthree P. M. till nightfall on the quay of the Champs Élysées, abovethe opening of the Great Sewer; that at about nine in the evening thegate of the sewer which looks upon the river-bank opened; that a mancame out, bearing on his shoulders another man, who appeared to bedead; that the agent, who was watching at this point, had arrested theliving man and seized the dead man; that he, the coachman, had taken"all these people" into his hackney coach; that they drove first tothe Rue des Filles du Calvaire and deposited the dead man there; thatthe dead man was M. Marius, and that he, the coachman, recognized himthoroughly, though he was alive this time; that afterwards they gotinto his coach again, and a few yards from the gate of the Archives hewas ordered to stop; that he was paid in the street and discharged,and the agent took away the other man; that he knew nothing more, andthat the night was very dark. Marius, as we said, remembered nothing.He merely remembered that he had been seized from behind by a powerfulhand at the moment when he fell backwards from the barricade, and thenall was effaced for him. He had only regained his senses when he was atM. Gillenormand's.
He lost himself in conjectures; he could not doubt as to his ownidentity, but how was it that he, who had fallen in the Rue de laChanvrerie, had been picked up by the police agent on the bank of theSeine, near the bridge of the Invalides? Some one had brought him fromthe market district to the Champs Élysées, and how,--by the sewer?Extraordinary devotion! Some one? Who? It was the man whom Marius wasseeking. Of this man, who was his saviour, he could find nothing, nota trace, not the slightest sign. Marius, though compelled on this sideto exercise a great reserve, pushed on his inquiries as far as thePréfecture of Police, but there the information which he obtained ledto no better result than elsewhere. The Préfecture knew less about thematter than the driver of the hackney coach; they had no knowledge ofany arrest having taken place at the outlet of the great drain on June6; they had received no report from the agent about this fact which, atthe Préfecture, was regarded as a fable. The invention of this fablewas attributed to the driver; for a driver anxious for drink-moneyis capable of anything, even imagination. The fact, however, wascertain, and Marius could not doubt it, unless he doubted his ownidentity, as we have just said. Everything in this strange enigma wasinexplicable; this man, this mysterious man, whom the driver had seencome out of the grating of the great drain, bearing the fainting Mariuson his back, and whom the police agent caught in the act of savingan insurgent,--what had become of him? What had become of the agenthimself? Why had this agent kept silence? Had the man succeeded inescaping? Had be corrupted the agent? Why did this man give no sign oflife to Marius, who owed everything to him? The disinterestedness wasno less prodigious than the devotion. Why did this man not reappear?Perhaps he was above reward, but no man is above gratitude. Was hedead? Who was the man? What was he like? No one was able to say: thedriver replied, "The night was very dark." Basque and Nicolette intheir start had only looked at their young master, who was all bloody.The porter, whose candle had lit up Marius's tragic arrival, had aloneremarked the man in question, and this was the description he gave ofhim: "The man was frightful."
In the hope of deriving some advantage from them for his researches,Marius kept his blood-stained clothes which he wore when he was broughtto his grandfather's. On examining the coat it was noticed that theskirt was strangely torn, and a piece was missing. One evening Mariuswas speaking in the presence of Cosette and Jean Valjean about allthis singular adventure, the countless inquiries he had made, and theinutility of his efforts; Monsieur Fauchelevent's cold face offendedhim, and he exclaimed with a vivacity which had almost the vibration ofanger,--
"Yes, that man, whoever he may be, was sublime. Do you know what hedid, sir? He intervened like an archangel. He was obliged to throwhimself into the midst of the contest, carry me away, open the sewer,drag me off, and carry me. He must have gone more than a league anda half through frightful subterranean galleries, bent and bowed inthe darkness, in the sewer, for more than half a league, sir, with acorpse on his back! And for what object? For the sole object of savingthat corpse; and that corpse was myself. He said to himself, 'Thereis, perhaps, a gleam of life left here, and I will risk my existencefor this wretched spark!' and he did not risk his existence once, buttwenty times! And each step was a danger, and the proof is, that onleaving the sewer he was arrested. Do you know, sir, that this man didall that? And he had no reward to expect. What was I? An insurgent.What was I? A conquered man. Oh! if Cosette's six thousand francs weremine--"
"They are yours," Jean Valjean interrupted.
"Well, then," Marius continued, "I would give them to find that managain."
Jean Valjean was silent.
BOOK VI.
THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT.