Les Misérables, v. 3/5: Marius

  Marius breathed again, for She, Ursule, or the Lark--he no longer knewher name--was saved. While the exasperated woman was vociferating,Thénardier sat down at the table; he remained for some minutes withoutsaying a word, balancing his right leg and looking at the heating-dishwith an air of savage reverie. At last he said to the prisoner slowly,and with a peculiarly ferocious accent,--

  "A false address? Why, what did you expect?"

  "To gain time!" the prisoner thundered.

  And at the same moment he shook off his bonds, which were cut through:the prisoner was only fastened to the bed by one leg. Ere the sevenmen had time to look about them and rush forward, he had stretched outhis hand toward the fire-place, and the Thénardiers and the brigands,driven back by surprise to the end of the room, saw him almost free,and in a formidable attitude, waving round his head the red-hot chisel,from which a sinister glare shot.

  In the judicial inquiry that followed this affair it was stated thata large sou, cut and worked in a peculiar manner, was found in thegarret when the police made their descent upon it. It was one ofthose marvels of industry which the patience of the bagne engendersin the darkness and for the darkness,--marvels which are nought butinstruments of escape. These hideous and yet delicate products ofa prodigious art are in the jewelry trade what slang metaphors arein poetry; for there are Benvenuto Cellinis at the bagne, in thesame way as there are Villons in language. The wretch who aspires todeliverance, finds means, without tools, or, at the most, with an oldknife, to saw a son in two, hollow out the two parts without injuringthe dies, and form a thread in the edge of the son, so that the son maybe reproduced. It screws and unscrews at pleasure, and is a box; andin this box a watch-spring saw is concealed, which, if well managed,will cut through fetters and iron bars. It is believed that the unhappyconvict possesses only a son; but, not at all,--he possesses liberty.It was a son of this nature which was found by the police under thebed near the window, and a small saw of blue steel, which could beeasily concealed in the sou, was also discovered. It is probable thatat the moment when the bandits searched the prisoner he had the doublesou about him, and hid it in his palm; and his right hand being atliberty afterwards, he unscrewed it, and employed the saw to cut theropes. This would explain the slight noise and the almost imperceptiblemovements which Marius had noticed. As, however, he was unable to stoopdown for fear of betraying himself, he had not cut the cord on his leftleg. The bandits gradually recovered from their surprise.

  "Be easy," said Bigrenaille to Thénardier, "he is still held by oneleg, and will not fly away. I put the pack-thread round that paw."

  Here the prisoner raised his voice,--

  "You are villains, but my life is not worth so much trouble to defend.As for imagining that you could make me speak, make me write what I donot wish to write, or make me say what I do not intend to say--"

  He pulled up the sleeve of his left arm and added,--

  "Look here!"

  At the same time he stretched out his arm and placed on the naked fleshthe red-hot chisel, which he held in his right hand by the woodenhandle. Then could be heard the frizzling of the burnt flesh, and thesmell peculiar to torture-rooms spread through the garret. Mariustottered in horror, and the brigands themselves shuddered; but the faceof the strange old man was scarce contracted, and while the red-hotsteel was burying itself in the smoking wound, he--impassive and almostaugust--fixed on Thénardier his beautiful glance, in which there was nohatred, and in which suffering disappeared in a serene majesty. For ingreat and lofty natures the revolt of the flesh and of the senses whensuffering from physical pain makes the soul appear on the brow, in thesame way as the mutiny of troops compels the captain to show himself.

  "Villains," he said, "be no more frightened of me than I am of you."

  And tearing the chisel out of the wound, he hurled it through thewindow, winch had been left open. The horrible red-hot tool whirledthrough the night, and fell some distance off in the snow, which hissedat the contact. The prisoner continued,--

  "Do to me what you like."

  He was defenceless.

  "Seize him," said Thénardier.

  Two of the brigands laid their hands on his shoulders, and the maskedman with the ventriloquist voice stood in front of him, ready to dashout his brains with a blow of the key at the slightest movement on hispart. At the same time Marius heard below him, but so close that hecould not see the speakers, the following remarks exchanged in a lowvoice,--

  "There is only one thing to be done."

  "Cut his throat!"

  "Exactly."

  It was the husband and wife holding council, and then Thénardierwalked slowly to the table, opened the drawer, and took out the knife.Marius clutched the handle of the pistol in a state of extraordinaryperplexity. For above an hour he had heard two voices in hisconscience, one telling him to respect his father's will, while theother cried to him to succor the prisoner. These two voices continuedtheir struggle uninterruptedly, and caused him an agony. He had vaguelyhoped up to this moment to find some mode of reconciling these twoduties, but nothing possible had occurred to him. Still the perilpressed; the last moment of delay was passed, for Thénardier, knifein hand, was reflecting a few paces from the prisoner. Marius lookedwildly around him, which is the last mechanical resource of despair.All at once he started; at his feet on his table a bright moonbeam litup and seemed to point out to him a sheet of paper. On this sheet heread this line, written in large letters that very morning by the elderof Thénardier's daughters,--"_Here are the Slops._" An idea, a flash,crossed Marius's mind; this was the solution of the frightful problemthat tortured him, sparing the assassin and saving the victim. He kneltdown on the chest-of-drawers, stretched forth his arm, seized thepaper, softly detached a lump of plaster from the partition, wrapped itup in the paper, and threw it through the hole into the middle of theden. It was high time, for Thénardier had overcome his last fears, orhis last scruples, and was going toward the prisoner.

  "There's something falling," his wife cried.

  "What is it?" her husband asked.

  The woman had bounded forward, and picked up the lump of plasterwrapped in paper, which she handed to her husband.

  "How did it get here?" Thénardier asked.

  "Why, hang it!" his wife asked, "how do you expect that it did? Throughthe window, of course."

  "I saw it pass," said Bigrenaille.

  Thénardier rapidly unfolded the paper, and held it close to the candle.

  "Éponine's handwriting--The devil!"

  He made a signal to his wife, who hurried up to him, and showed herthe line written on the paper, then added in a hollow voice,--

  "Quick, the ladder! we must leave the bacon in the trap, and bolt."

  "Without cutting the man's throat?" the Megæra asked.

  "We haven't the time."

  "Which way?" Bigrenaille remarked.

  "By the window," Thénardier replied; "as Ponine threw the stone throughthe window, that's a proof that the house is not beset on that side."

  The mask with the ventriloquist voice laid his key on the ground,raised his arms in the air, and opened and shut his hands thricerapidly, without saying a word. This was like the signal for clearingfor action aboard ship; the brigands who held the prisoner let himgo, and in a twinkling the rope-ladder was dropped out of window andsecurely fastened to the sill by the two iron hooks. The prisoner paidno attention to what was going on around him; he seemed to be thinkingor praying. So soon as the ladder was fixed, Thénardier cried,--

  "The lady first."

  And he dashed at the window; but as he was stepping out, Bigrenailleroughly seized him by the collar.

  "No, no, my old joker, after us!" he said.

  "After us!" the bandits yelled.

  "You are children," said Thénardier; "we are losing time, and thepolice are at our heels."

  "Very well, then," said one of the bandits, "let us draw lots as to whoshall go first."

  Thénardier exclaimed,
--

  "Are you mad? are you drunk? Why, what a set of humbugs; lose time, Isuppose, draw lots, eh,--with a wet finger, a short straw, write ournames and put them in a cap--"

  "Would you like my hat?" a voice said at the door.

  All turned; it was Javert, who held his hat in his hand and offered itsmilingly.

  CHAPTER XXI.

  ALWAYS BEGIN BY ARRESTING THE VICTIMS.

  Javert posted his men at nightfall, and ambushed himself behind thetrees of the Rue de la Barrière des Gobelins, which joins No. 50-52on the other side of the boulevard. He had begun by opening his"pocket," in order to thrust into it the two girls ordered to watchthe approaches to the den, but he had only "nailed" Azelma. As forÉponine, she was not at her post; she had disappeared, and he had notbeen able to seize her. Then Javert took up his post, and listened forthe appointed signal. The departure and return of the hackney coachgreatly perplexed him; at length he grew impatient, and feeling surethat there "was a nest there," and of being in "luck's way," and havingrecognized several of the bandits who went in, he resolved to enterwithout waiting for the pistol-shot. It will be remembered that he hadMarius's latch-key.

  He arrived just in time.

  The startled bandits dashed at the weapons, which they had thrown intocorners at the moment of their attempted escape; and in less thana second these seven men, formidable to look at, were grouped in aposture of defence,--one with his pole-axe, another with his key, athird with his life-preserver, the others with crowbar, shears, andhammer, and Thénardier with his knife in his fist. The woman picked upan enormous paving-stone which lay in the angle of the room and servedher daughter as a footstool. Javert restored his hat to his head, andwalked into the room with folded arms, his cane hanging from his wrist,and his sword in his scabbard.

  "Halt!" he shouted; "you will not leave by the window but by the door,which is not so unhealthy. You are seven and we are fifteen, so do notlet us quarrel like water-carriers, but behave like gentlemen."

  Bigrenaille drew a pistol from under his blouse, and placed it inThénardier's hand, as he whispered,--

  "It is Javert, and I dare not fire at that man. Dare you?"

  "I should think so," Thénardier answered.

  "Well, fire!"

  Thénardier took the pistol and aimed at Javert; the Inspector, who wasonly three paces from him, looked at him fixedly, and contented himselfwith saying,--

  "Don't fire, for the pistol won't go off."

  Thénardier pulled the trigger; there was a flash in the pan.

  "Did I not tell you so?" Javert remarked.

  Bigrenaille threw his life-preserver at Javert's feet. "You are theEmperor of the devils, and I surrender."

  "And you?" Javert asked the other bandits.

  They answered, "We too."

  Javert remarked calmly,--

  "That is all right; I begged you to behave like gentlemen."

  "I only ask one thing," Bigrenaille remarked,--"that my tobacco mayn't be stopped while I'm in solitary confinement."

  "Granted," said Javert.

  Then he turned and shouted, "You can come in now!"

  A squad of police, sword in hand, and agents armed with bludgeons andsticks, rushed in at Javert's summons, and bound the robbers. Thiscrowd of men, scarce illumined by the candle, filled the den withshadows.

  "Handcuff them all!" Javert cried.

  "Just come this way!" a voice shouted, which was not that of a man,but of which no one could have said, "It is a woman's voice." MotherThénardier had intrenched herself in one of the angles of the window,and it was she from whom this roar had come. The police and theagents fell back; she had thrown off her shawl and kept her bonneton: her husband, crouching behind her, almost disappeared under thefallen shawl, and she covered him with her body, while raising thepaving-stone above her head with both hands, like a giantess about toheave a rock.

  "Heads below!" she screeched.

  All fell back upon the passage, and there was a large open space inthe centre of the garret. The hag took a glance at the bandits, whohad suffered themselves to be bound, and muttered, in a hoarse andguttural voice,--"The cowards!"

  Javert smiled, and walked into the open space which the woman guardedwith her eyes.

  "Don't come nearer," she shrieked, "or I'll smash you. Be off!"

  "What a grenadier!" said Javert; "the mother! You have a beard like aman, but I have claws like a woman."

  And he continued to advance. Mother Thénardier, with flying hair andterrible looks, straddled her legs, bent back, and wildly hurledthe paving-stone at Javert. He stooped, the stone passed over him,struck the wall, from which it dislodged a mass of plaster, and thenricochetted from angle to angle till it fell exhausted at Javert'sfeet. At the same moment Javert reached the Thénardiers; one of hislarge hands settled on the wife's shoulder, the other on the husband'shead.

  "Handcuffs here!" he shouted.

  The policemen flocked in, and in a few seconds Javert's orders werecarried out. The woman, quite crushed, looked at her own and herhusband's manacled hands, fell on the ground, and bursting into tears,cried,--

  "My daughters!"

  "Oh, they are all right!" said Javert.

  By this time the police had noticed the drunken man sleeping behind thedoor, and shook him; he woke up and stammered,--

  "Is it all over, Jondrette?"

  "Yes," Javert answered.

  The six bound bandits were standing together, with their spectralfaces, three daubed with black, and three masked.

  "Keep on your masks," said Javert

  And, passing them in review, like a Frederick II. at a Potsdam parade,he said to the three "sweeps,"--

  "Good-day, Bigrenaille." "Good-day, Brujon." "Good-day, Deux Milliards."

  Then turning to the three masks he said to the man with the pole-axe,"Good-day, Gueulemer," and to the man with the cudgel, "Good-day,Babet," and to the ventriloquist, "Here's luck, Claquesous!"

  At this moment he noticed the prisoner, who had not said a word sincethe arrival of the police, and held his head down.

  "Untie the gentleman," said Javert, "and let no one leave the room."

  After saying this he sat down in a lordly way at the table, on whichthe candle and the inkstand were still standing, took a stamped paperfrom his pocket, and began writing his report. When he had written afew lines, which are always the same formula, he raised his eyes.

  "Bring the gentleman here whom these gentlemen had tied up."

  The agents look around.

  "Well," Javert asked, "where is he?"

  The prisoner of the bandits, M. Leblanc, M. Urbain Fabre, the fatherof Ursule or the Lark, had disappeared. The door was guarded, but thewindow was not. So soon as he found himself released, and while Javertwas writing, he took advantage of the trouble, the tumult, the crowd,the darkness, and the moment when attention was not fixed upon him,to rush to the window. An agent ran up and looked out; he could seenobody, but the rope-ladder was still trembling.

  "The devil!" said Javert between his teeth; "he must have been the bestof the lot."

  CHAPTER XXII.

  THE LITTLE CHILD WHO CRIED IN VOLUME SECOND.

  On the day after that in which these events occurred in the house onthe Boulevard de l'Hôpital, a lad, who apparently came from the bridgeof Austerlitz, was trudging along the right-hand walk in the directionof the Barrière de Fontainebleau, at about nightfall. This boy waspale, thin, dressed in rags, wearing canvas trousers in the month ofFebruary, and singing at the top of his lungs. At the corner of the Ruedu Petit Banquier an old woman was stooping down and fumbling in a pileof rubbish by the lamplight; the lad ran against her as he passed, andfell back, with the exclamation,--

  "My eye! why, I took that for an enormous, an enormous dog!"

  He uttered the word _enormous_ the second time with a sonorous twangwhich might be expressed by capitals,--"an enormous, an ENORMOUS dog."The old woman drew herself up furiously.

  "You young devil!" she gro
wled, "if I had not been stooping, I knowwhere my foot would have been now."

  The lad was already some distance off.

  "Kisss! kisss!" he said; "after all, I may not have been mistaken."

  The old woman, choked with indignation, drew herself up to her fullheight, and the street lantern fully lit up her livid face, which washollowed by angles and wrinkles, and crow's-feet connecting the cornersof the mouth. The body was lost in the darkness, and her head alonecould be seen; she looked like a mask of Decrepitude lit up by a flashdarting through the night. The lad looked at her.

  "Madame," he said, "yours is not the style of beauty which would suitme."

  He went his way, and began singing again,--

  "Le Roi Coup de sabot S'en allait à la chasse, À la chasse aux corbeaux."

  At the end of these three lines he broke off. He had reached No. 50-52,and finding the gate closed, he began giving it re-echoing and heroickicks, which indicated rather the shoes of the man which he wore thanthe feet of the boy which he had. By this time the same old woman whomhe had met at the corner of the Rue du Petit Banquier ran up after him,uttering shouts, and making the most extraordinary gestures.