Виктор Мари Гюго
Les Misérables, v. 3
"Pardon me, sir," M. Leblanc replied, with a polite accent, which had something strange and grand about it at such a moment, "I see that you are a bandit."
We may remind those who have not noticed the fact, that odious beings possess a susceptibility, and that monsters are ticklish. At the word "bandit," Mother Thénardier leaped from the bed, and her husband clutched a chair as if about to break it in his hand. "Don't stir, you!" he shouted to his wife, and then turning to M. Leblanc, said, —
"Bandit! yes, I know that you rich swells call us so. It is true that I have been bankrupt. I am in hiding, I have no bread, I have not a farthing, and I am a bandit! For three days I have eaten nothing, and I am a bandit! Ah, you fellows warm your toes, your wear pumps made by Sakoski, you have wadded coats like archbishops, you live on the first floors of houses where a porter is kept, you eat truffles, asparagus at forty francs the bundle in January, and green peas. You stuff yourselves, and when you want to know whether it is cold you look in the newspaper to see what Chevalier's thermometer marks; but we are the thermometers. We have no call to go and look at the corner of the Jour d'Horloge how many degrees of cold there are, for we feel the blood stopped in our veins, and the ice reach our hearts, and we say, 'There is no God!' and you come into our caverns, – yes, our caverns, – to call us bandits! But we will eat you, we will devour you, poor little chap! Monsieur le Millionnaire, learn this: I was an established man, I held a license, I was an elector, and am still a citizen, while you, perhaps, are not one!"
Here Thénardier advanced a step toward the men near the door, and added with a quiver, —
"When I think that he dares to come and address me like a cobbler!"
Then he turned upon M. Leblanc with a fresh outburst of frenzy, —
"And know this, too, my worthy philanthropist, I am not a doubtful man, or one whose name is unknown, and carries off children from houses! I am an ex-French soldier, and ought to have the cross! I was at Waterloo, and in the battle I saved the life of a General called the Comte de – I don't know what. He told me his name, but his dog of a voice was so feeble that I did not understand it. I only understood Merci. I should have liked his name better than his thanks. It would have helped me find him, by all that's great and glorious! The picture you see here, and which was painted by David at Bruqueselles, do you know whom it represents? It represents me, for David wished to immortalize the exploit. I have the General on my back, and I am carrying him through the grape-shot. That is the story! The General never did anything for me, and he is no better than the rest; but, for all that, I saved his life at the peril of my own, and I have my pockets filled with certificates of the fact. I am a soldier of Waterloo! And now that I have had the goodness to tell you all this, let us come to a finish; I want money, I want a deal of money, an enormous amount of money, or I shall exterminate you, by the thunder of heaven!"
Marius had gained a little mastery over his agony, and was listening. The last possibility of doubt had vanished, and it was really the Thénardier of the will. Marius shuddered at the charge of ingratitude cast at his father, and which he was on the point of justifying so fatally, and his perplexities were redoubled. Besides, there was in Thénardier's every word, in his accent and gestures, in his glance, which caused flames to issue from every word, in this explosion of an evil nature displaying everything, in this admixture of boasting and abjectness, pride and meanness, rage and folly, in this chaos of real griefs and false sentiments, in this impudence of a wicked man enjoying the pleasure of violence, in this daring nudity of an ugly soul, and in this conflagration of every suffering combined with every hatred, something which was hideous as evil and poignant as truth.
The masterpiece, the picture by David, which he offered M. Leblanc, was, as the reader will have perceived, nought else than his public-house sign, painted by himself, and the sole relic he had preserved from his shipwreck at Montfermeil. As he had stepped aside Marius was now enabled to look at this thing, and in the daub he really recognized a battle, a background of smoke, and one man carrying another. It was the group of Thénardier and Pontmercy, – the savior sergeant and the saved colonel. Marius felt as if intoxicated, for this picture represented to some extent his loving father; it was no longer an inn sign-board but a resurrection; a tomb opened, a phantom rose. Marius heard his heart ringing at his temples; he had the guns of Waterloo in his ears; his bleeding father vaguely painted on this ill-omened board startled him, and he fancied that the shapeless figure was gazing fixedly at him. When Thénardier regained breath he fastened his bloodshot eyes on M. Leblanc, and said to him in a low, sharp voice, —
"What have you to say before we put the screw on you?"
M. Leblanc was silent. In the midst of this silence a hoarse voice uttered this grim sarcasm in the passage, —
"If there's any wood to be chopped, I'm your man."
It was the fellow with the pole-axe amusing himself. At the same time an immense, hairy, earth-colored face appeared in the door with a frightful grin, which displayed not teeth but tusks. It was the face of the man with the pole-axe.
"Why have you taken off your mask?" Thénardier asked him furiously.
"To laugh," the man answered.
For some minutes past M. Leblanc seemed to be watching and following every movement of Thénardier, who, blinded and dazzled by his own rage, was walking up and down the room, in the confidence of knowing the door guarded, of holding an unarmed man, and of being nine against one, even supposing that his wife only counted for one man. In his speech to the man with the pole-axe he turned his back to M. Leblanc; the latter seizing the moment, upset the chair with his foot, the table with his fist, and with one bound, ere Thénardier was able to turn, he was at the window. To open it and bestride the sill took only a second, and he was half out, when six powerful hands seized him and energetically dragged him back into the room. The three "chimney-sweeps" had rushed upon him, and at the same time Mother Thénardier seized him by the hair. At the noise which ensued the other bandits ran in from the passage, and the old man on the bed, who seemed the worse for liquor, came up tottering with a road-mender's hammer in his hand. One of the sweeps, whose blackened face the candle lit up, and in whom Marius recognized, in spite of the blackening, Panchaud alias Printanier alias Bigrenaille, raised above M. Leblanc's head a species of life-preserver, made of two lumps of lead at the ends of an iron bar. Marius could not resist this sight. "My father," he thought, "forgive me!" and his finger sought the trigger. He was on the point of firing, when Thénardier cried, —
"Do not hurt him!"
This desperate attempt of the victim, far from exasperating Thénardier, had calmed him. There were two men in him, – the ferocious man and the skilful man. Up to this moment, in the exuberance of triumph, and while standing before his motionless victim, the ferocious man had prevailed; but when the victim made an effort and appeared inclined to struggle, the skilful man reappeared and took the mastery.
"Do him no harm!" he repeated; and his first service was, though he little suspected it, that he stopped the discharge of the pistol and paralyzed Marius, to whom the affair did not appear so urgent, and who in the presence of this new phase saw no harm in waiting a little longer. Who knew whether some accident might not occur which would deliver him from the frightful alternative of letting Ursule's father perish, or destroying the Colonels savior? A herculean struggle had commenced. With one blow of his fist in the chest M. Leblanc sent the old man rolling in the middle of the room, and then with two back-handers knocked down two other assailants, and held one under each of his knees. The villains groaned under this pressure as under a granite mill-stone; but the four others had seized the formidable old man by the arms and neck, and were holding him down upon the two "chimney-menders." Thus, master of two, and mastered by the others, crushing those beneath him, and crushed by those above him, M. Leblanc disappeared beneath this horrible group of bandits, like a boar attacked by a howling pack of dogs. They succeeded in throwing him on to the bed nearest the window, and held him down. Mother Thénardier did not once let go his hair.
"Don't you interfere," Thénardier said to her; "you will tear your shawl."
The woman obeyed, as the she-wolf obeys the wolf, with a snarl.
"You fellows," Thénardier continued, "can search him."
M. Leblanc appeared to have given up all thought of resistance, and they searched him. He had nothing about him but a leathern purse containing six francs and his handkerchief. Thénardier put the latter in his own pocket.
"What! no pocket-book?" he asked.
"No, and no watch," one of the "chimney-menders" replied.
"No matter," the masked man who held the large key muttered in the voice of a ventriloquist, "he is a tough old bird."
Thénardier went to the corner near the door, and took up some ropes, which he threw to them.
"Fasten him to the foot of the bed," he said; and noticing the old man whom M. Leblanc had knocked down still motionless on the floor, he asked, —
"Is Boulatruelle dead?"
"No," Bigrenaille answered, "he's drunk."
"Sweep him into a corner," Thénardier said.
Two of the "chimney-menders" thrust the drunkard with their feet to the side of the old iron.
"Babet, why did you bring so many?" Thénardier said in a whisper to the man with the cudgel; "it was unnecessary."
"They all wanted to be in it," the man answered, "for the season is bad, and there's nothing doing."
The bed upon which M. Leblanc had been thrown was a sort of hospital bed, on four clumsy wooden legs. M. Leblanc made no resistance. The bandits tied him firmly in an upright posture to the end of the bed, farthest from the window and nearest the chimney-piece. When the last knot was tied, Thénardier took a chair and sat down almost facing the prisoner. He was no longer the same man; in a few minutes his countenance had passed from frenzied violence to tranquil and cunning gentleness. Marius had a difficulty in recognizing in this polite smile of an official the almost bestial mouth which had been foaming a moment previously; he regarded this fantastic and alarming metamorphosis with stupor, and he felt as a man would feel who saw a tiger changed into an attorney.
"Sir," said Thénardier, and made a sign to the bandits who still held M. Leblanc to fall back; – "leave me to talk with the gentleman," he said. All withdrew to the door, and he resumed, —
"You did wrong to try and jump out of the window, for you might have broken a leg. Now, with your permission, we will talk quietly; and, in the first place, I will communicate to you a thing I have noticed, – that you have not yet uttered the slightest cry."
Thénardier was right; the fact was so, although it had escaped Marius in his trouble. M. Leblanc had merely said a few words without raising his voice, and even in his struggle near the window with the six bandits he had preserved the profoundest and most singular silence. Thénardier went on, —
"Good heavens! you might have cried 'Thieves!' a little while, and I should not have thought it improper. Such a thing as 'Murder!' is shouted on such occasions; I should not have taken it in ill part. It is very simple that a man should make a bit of a row when he finds himself with persons who do not inspire him with sufficient confidence. If you had done so we should not have interfered with you or thought of gagging you, and I will tell you the reason why. This room is very deaf; it has only that in its favor, but it has that. It is a cellar; you might explode a bombshell here and it would not produce the effect of a drunkard's snore at the nearest post Here cannon would go Boum! and thunder Pouf! It is a convenient lodging. But still, you did not cry out; all the better, and I compliment you on it, and will tell you what conclusion I draw from the fact. My dear sir, when a man cries for help, who come? The police; and after the police? Justice. Well, you did not cry out, and so you are no more desirous than we are for the arrival of the police. The fact is – and I have suspected it for some time – that you have some interest in hiding something; for our part, we have the same interest, and so we may be able to come to an understanding."
While saying this, Thénardier was trying to drive the sharp points that issued from his eyes into his prisoner's conscience. Besides, his language, marked with a sort of moderate and cunning insolence, was reserved and almost chosen, and in this villain who was just before only a bandit could now be seen "the man who had studied for the priesthood." The silence which the prisoner had maintained, this precaution which went so far as the very forgetfulness of care for his life, this resistance so opposed to the first movement of nature, which is to utter a cry, troubled and painfully amazed Marius, so soon as his attention was drawn to it. Thénardier's well-founded remark but rendered denser the mysterious gloom behind which was concealed the grave and peculiar face to which Courfeyrac had thrown the sobriquet of M. Leblanc. But whoever this man might be, though bound with cords, surrounded by bandits, and half buried, so to speak, in a grave where the earth fell upon him at every step, – whether in the presence of Thénardier furious or of Thénardier gentle, – he remained impassive, and Marius could not refrain from admiring this face so superbly melancholy at such a moment. His was evidently a soul inaccessible to terror, and ignorant of what it is to be alarmed. He was one of those men who master the amazement produced by desperate situations. However extreme the crisis might be, however inevitable the catastrophe, he had none of the agony of the drowning man, who opens horrible eyes under water. Thénardier rose without any affectation, removed the screen from before the fire-place, and thus unmasked the heating-pan full of burning charcoal, in which the prisoner could perfectly see the chisel at a white heat, and studded here and there with small red stars. Then he came back and sat down near M. Leblanc.
"I will continue," he said; "we can come to an understanding, so let us settle this amicably. I did wrong to let my temper carry me away just now; I do not know where my senses were; I went much too far and uttered absurdities. For instance, because you are a millionnaire, I told you that I insisted on money, a great deal of money, an immense sum of money, and that was not reasonable. Good heavens! you may be rich, but you have burdens, for who is there that has not? I do not wish to ruin you, for, after all, I am not an insatiable fellow. I am not one of those men who, because they have advantage of position, employ it to be ridiculous. Come, I will make a sacrifice on my side, and be satisfied with two hundred thousand francs."
M. Leblanc did not utter a syllable, and so Thénardier continued, —
"You see that I put plenty of water in my wine. I do not know the amount of your fortune, but I am aware that you do not care for money, and a benevolent man like you can easily give two hundred thousand francs to an unfortunate parent. Of course, you are reasonable too; you cannot have supposed that I would take all that trouble this morning, and organize this affair to-night, – which is a well-done job, in the opinion of these gentlemen, – merely to ask you for enough money to go and drink fifteen sous wine and eat veal at Desnoyer's. But two hundred thousand francs, that's worth the trouble; once that trifle has come out of your pocket I will guarantee that you have nothing more to apprehend. You will say, 'But I have not two hundred thousand francs about me.' Oh, I am not unreasonable, and I do not insist on that. I only ask one thing of you: be good enough to write what I shall dictate."
Here Thénardier stopped, but added, laying a stress on the words and casting a smile at the heating-dish, —
"I warn you that I shall not accept the excuse that you cannot write."
A Grand Inquisitor might have envied that smile. Thénardier pushed the table close up to M. Leblanc, and took pen, ink, and paper out of the drawer, which he left half open, and in which the long knife-blade flashed. He laid the sheet of paper before M. Leblanc.
"Write!" he said.
The prisoner at last spoke.
"How can you expect me to write? My arms are tied."
"That is true; I beg your pardon," said Thénardier, "you are quite right;" and turning to Bigrenaille, he added, "Unfasten the gentleman's right arm."
Panchaud alias Printanier alias Bigrenaille obeyed Thénardier's orders, and when the prisoner's hand was free, Thénardier dipped the pen in the ink and handed it to him.
"Make up your mind, sir, that you are in our absolute power; no human interference can liberate you, and we should really be sorry to be forced to proceed to disagreeable extremities. I know neither your name nor your address, but I warn you that you will remain tied up here until the person commissioned to deliver the letter you are going to write has returned. Now be good enough to write."
"What?" the prisoner asked.
Thénardier began dictating: "My daughter."
The prisoner started, and raised his eyes to Thénardier, —
"Make it, 'My dear daughter,'" said Thénardier.
M. Leblanc obeyed.
Thénardier continued, —
"Come to me at once, for I want you particularly. The person who delivers this letter to you has instructions to bring you to me. I am waiting. Come in perfect confidence."
M. Leblanc wrote this down.
Thénardier resumed, – "By the way, efface that 'Come in perfect confidence,' for it might lead to a supposition that the affair is not perfectly simple, and create distrust."
M. Leblanc erased the words.
"Now," Thénardier added, "sign it. What is your name?"
The prisoner laid down the pen, and asked, —
"For whom is this letter?"
"You know very well," Thénardier answered; "for the little one; I just told you so."
It was evident that Thénardier avoided mentioning the name of the girl in question: he called her "the Lark," he called her "the little one," but he did not pronounce her name. It was the precaution of a clever man who keeps his secret from his accomplices, and mentioning the name would have told them the whole affair, and taught them more than there was any occasion for them to know. So he repeated, —
"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 drew out the handkerchief found on M. Leblanc. He sought for the mark, and held it to the candle.
"'U. F.,' all right, Urbain Fabre. Well, sign it 'U. F.'"
The prisoner did so.
"As two hands are needed to fold a letter, give it to me and I will do it."
This done, Thénardier added, —
"Write the address, 'Mademoiselle Fabre,' at your house. I know that you live somewhere near here in the neighborhood of St. Jacques du Haut-pas, as you attend Mass there every day, but I do not know in what street. I see that you understand your situation, and as you have not told a falsehood about your name, you will not do so about your address. Write it yourself."
The prisoner remained pensive for a moment, and then took up the pen and wrote, —
"Mademoiselle Fabre, at M. Urbain Fabre's, No. 17, Rue St. Dominique d'Enfer."
Thénardier seized the letter with a sort of feverish convulsion.
"Wife!" he shouted, and the woman came up. "Here is the letter, and you know what you have to do. There is a hackney coach down below, so be off at once, and return ditto." Then he turned to the man with the pole-axe, and said, "As you have taken off your muffler, you can accompany her. Get up behind the coach. You know where you left it?"
"Yes," said the man; and depositing the axe in a corner, he followed the woman. As they were going away Thénardier thrust his head out of the door and shouted down the passage, —
"Mind and do not lose the letter! Remember you have two hundred thousand francs about you."
The woman's hoarse voice replied, —
"Don't be frightened, I have put it in my stomach."
A minute had not elapsed when the crack of a whip could be heard rapidly retiring.
"All right," Thénardier growled, "they are going at a good pace; with a gallop like that she will be back in three quarters of an hour."
He drew up a chair to the fire-side, and sat down with folded arms, and holding his muddy boots to the heating-pan.
"My feet are cold," he said.
Only five bandits remained in the den with Thénardier and the prisoner. These men, through the masks or soot that covered their faces and rendered them, with a choice of horror, charcoal-burners, negroes, or demons, had a heavy, dull look, and it was plain that they performed a crime like a job, tranquilly, without passion or pity, and with a sort of ennui. They were heaped up in a corner like brutes, and were silent. Thénardier was warming his feet. The prisoner had fallen back into his taciturnity; a sinister calmness had succeeded the formidable noise which had filled the garret a few moments previously. The candle, on which a large mushroom had formed, scarce lit up the immense room; the heating-dish had grown black, and all these monstrous heads cast misshapen shadows upon the walls and the ceiling. No other sound was audible save the regular breathing of the old drunkard, who was asleep. Marius was waiting in a state of anxiety which everything tended to augment. The enigma was more impenetrable than ever; who was this "little one," whom Thénardier had also called "the Lark," – was she "his Ursule"? The prisoner had not seemed affected by this name of the Lark, and had answered with the most natural air in the world, "I do not know what you mean." On the other hand, the two letters "U. F." were explained; they were Urbain Fabre, and Ursule's name was no longer Ursule. This is what Marius saw most clearly. A sort of frightful fascination kept him nailed to the spot, whence he surveyed and commanded the whole scene. He stood there almost incapable of reflection and movement, as if annihilated by the frightful things which he saw close to him; and he waited, hoping for some incident, no matter its nature, unable to collect his thoughts, and not knowing what to do.
"In any case," he said, "if she is the Lark, I shall see her, for Mother Thénardier will bring her here. In that case I will give my life and blood, should it be necessary, to save her, and nothing shall stop me."
Nearly half an hour passed in this way; Thénardier seemed absorbed in dark thoughts, and the prisoner did not stir. Still Marius fancied that he could hear at intervals a low, dull sound in the direction of the prisoner. All at once Thénardier addressed his victim.
"By the way, M. Fabre," he said, "I may as well tell you something at once."
As these few words seemed the commencement of an explanation, Marius listened carefully. Thénardier continued, —
"My wife will be back soon, so do not be impatient. I believe that the Lark is really your daughter, and think it very simple that you should keep her; but listen to me for a moment. My wife will go to her with your letter, and I told Madame Thénardier to dress herself in the way you saw, that your young lady might make no difficulty about following her. They will both get into the hackney coach with my comrade behind; near a certain barrier there is a trap drawn by two excellent horses; your young lady will be driven up to it in the hackney coach, and get into the trap with my pal, while my wife returns here to report progress. As for your young lady, no harm will be done her; she will be taken to a place where she will be all safe, and so soon as you have handed me the trifle of two hundred thousand francs she will be restored to you. If you have me arrested, my pal will settle the Lark, that's all."
The prisoner did not utter a word, and after a pause Thénardier continued, —
"It is simple enough, as you see, and there will be no harm, unless you like to make harm. I have told you all about it, and warned you, that you might know."
He stopped, but the prisoner did not interrupt the silence, and Thénardier added, —
"So soon as my wife has returned and said to me, 'The Lark is under way,' we will release you, and you can sleep at home if you like. You see that we have no ill intentions."
Frightful images passed across the mind of Marius. What! they were not going to bring the girl here! One of the monsters was going to carry her off in the darkness! – where? Oh, if it were she! and it was plain that it was she. Marius felt the beating of his heart stop; what should he do? Fire the pistol and deliver all these villains into the hands of justice? But the hideous man with the pole-axe could not be the less out of reach with the girl, and Marius thought of Thénardier's words, whose sanguinary meaning he could read, – "If you have me arrested, my pal will settle the Lark;" now he felt himself checked, not only by the Colonel's will, but by his love and the peril of her whom he loved. The frightful situation, which had already lasted above an hour, changed its aspect at every moment, and Marius had the strength to review in turn all the most frightful conjectures, while seeking a hope and finding none. The tumult of his thoughts contrasted with the lugubrious silence of the den. In the midst of this silence the sound of the staircase door being opened and shut became audible. The prisoner gave a start in his bonds.
"Here's my wife," said Thénardier.
He had scarce finished speaking when Mother Thénardier rushed into the room, red, out of breath, and with flashing eyes, and shouted as she struck her thighs with her two big hands, —
"A false address!"
The brigand who had accompanied her appeared behind, and took up his pole-axe again.
"A false address?" Thénardier repeated, and she went on, —
"No Monsieur Urbain Fabre known at No. 17, Rue St. Dominique. They never heard of him."
She stopped to snort, and then continued, —
"Monsieur Thénardier, that old cove has made a fool of you; for you are too good-hearted, I keep on telling you. I would have cut his throat to begin with! and if he had sulked I would have boiled him alive! that would have made him speak and tell us where his daughter is, and where he keeps his money. That is how I should have managed the affair. People are right when they say that men are more stupid than women. Nobody at No. 17, it is a large gateway. No Monsieur Fabre at No. 17, and we went at a gallop, with a fee for the driver and all! I spoke to the porter and his wife, who is a fine, tall woman, and they did not know anybody of the name."
Marius breathed again, for She, Ursule, or the Lark – he no longer knew her name – was saved. While the exasperated woman was vociferating, Thénardier sat down at the table; he remained for some minutes without saying a word, balancing his right leg and looking at the heating-dish with 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 seven men had time to look about them and rush forward, he had stretched out his 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 that a large sou, cut and worked in a peculiar manner, was found in the garret when the police made their descent upon it. It was one of those marvels of industry which the patience of the bagne engenders in the darkness and for the darkness, – marvels which are nought but instruments of escape. These hideous and yet delicate products of a prodigious art are in the jewelry trade what slang metaphors are in poetry; for there are Benvenuto Cellinis at the bagne, in the same way as there are Villons in language. The wretch who aspires to deliverance, finds means, without tools, or, at the most, with an old knife, to saw a son in two, hollow out the two parts without injuring the dies, and form a thread in the edge of the son, so that the son may be reproduced. It screws and unscrews at pleasure, and is a box; and in this box a watch-spring saw is concealed, which, if well managed, will cut through fetters and iron bars. It is believed that the unhappy convict 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 the bed near the window, and a small saw of blue steel, which could be easily concealed in the sou, was also discovered. It is probable that at the moment when the bandits searched the prisoner he had the double sou about him, and hid it in his palm; and his right hand being at liberty afterwards, he unscrewed it, and employed the saw to cut the ropes. This would explain the slight noise and the almost imperceptible movements which Marius had noticed. As, however, he was unable to stoop down for fear of betraying himself, he had not cut the cord on his left leg. The bandits gradually recovered from their surprise.
"Be easy," said Bigrenaille to Thénardier, "he is still held by one leg, and will not fly away. I put the pack-thread round that paw."
Here the prisoner raised his voice, —
