As he drew out his leg, he asked his daughter:
“Is it cold?”
“Very cold. It’s snowing.”
The father turned towards the younger girl, who was on the pallet near the window, and cried in a thundering voice:
“Quick! off the bed, good-for-nothing! will you never do anything? break a pane of glass!”
The little girl sprang off the bed trembling.
“Break a pane of glass!” said he again.
The child was speechless.
“Do you hear me?” repeated the father, “I tell you to break a pane!”
The child, with a sort of terrified obedience, rose upon tiptoe and struck her fist into a pane. The glass broke and fell with a crash.
“Good,” said the father.
He was serious, yet rapid. His eye ran hastily over all the nooks and corners of the garret.
You would have said he was a general, making his final preparations at the moment when the battle was about to begin.
The mother, who had not yet said a word, got up and asked in a slow, muffled tone, her words seeming to come out as if curdled:
“Dear, what is it you want to do?”
“Get into bed,” answered the man.
His tone admitted of no deliberation. The mother obeyed, and threw herself heavily upon one of the pallets.
Meanwhile a sob was heard in a corner.
“What is that?” cried the father.
The younger daughter, without coming out of the darkness into which she had shrunk, showed her bleeding fist. In breaking the glass she had cut herself; she had gone to her mother’s bed, and she was weeping in silence.
It was the mother’s turn to rise and cry out.
“You see now! what stupid things you are doing? breaking your glass, she has cut herself!”
“So much the better!” said the man. “I knew she would.”
“How! so much the better?” resumed the woman.
“Silence!” replied the father. “I suppress the liberty of the press.”
Then tearing the chemise which he had on, he made a bandage with which he hastily wrapped up the little girl’s bleeding wrist.
That done, his eye fell upon the torn chemise with satisfaction.
“And the chemise too,” said he, “all this looks convincing.”
An icy wind whistled at the window and came into the room. The mist from without entered and spread about like a whitish wadding picked apart by invisible fingers. Through the broken pane the falling snow was seen. The cold promised the day before by the Candlemas sun had come indeed.
The father cast a glance about him as if to assure himself that he had forgotten nothing. He took an old shovel and spread ashes over the moistened embers in such a way as to hide them completely.
Then rising and standing with his back to the chimney:
“Now,” said he, “we can receive the philanthropist.”
7 (8)
THE SUNBEAM IN THE HOLE
THE LARGE GIRL went to her father and laid her hand on his.
“Feel how cold I am,” said she.
“Pshaw!” answered the father. “I am a good deal colder than that.”
The mother cried impetuously:
“You always have everything better than the rest, even pain.”
“Down!” said the man.
The mother, after a peculiar look from the man, held her peace.
There was a moment of silence in the den. The eldest daughter was scraping the mud off the bottom of her dress with a careless air, the young sister continued to sob; the mother had taken her head in both hands and was covering her with kisses, saying to her in a low tone:
“My treasure, I beg of you, it will be nothing, do not cry, you will make your father angry.”
“No!” cried the father, “on the contrary! sob! sob! that creates a good effect.”
Then turning to the eldest:
“Ah! but where is he! if he is not coming, I shall have put out my fire, knocked the bottom out of my chair, torn my chemise, and broken my window for nothing.”
“And cut the little girl!” murmured the mother.
“Do you know,” resumed the father, “that it’s damn cold in this devilish garret? If this man should not come! Oh! that is it! he makes us wait for him! he says: Well! they will wait for me! that is what they are for!—Oh! how I hate them, and how I would strangle them with joy and rejoicing, enthusiasm and satisfaction, these rich men! all the rich! these so-called charitable men, who act so pious, who go to mass, who act like priests, preachy, preachy, and who think themselves above us, and who come to humiliate us, and to bring us clothes! as they call them! rags which are not worth four sous, and bread! that is not what I want of the rabble! I want money! But money, never! because they say that we would go and drink it, and that we are drunkards and do-nothings! And what then are they, and what have they been in their time? Thieves! they would not have got rich without that! Oh! somebody ought to take society by the four corners of the sheet and toss it all into the air! Everything would smash, it is likely, but at least nobody would have anything, there would be so much gained! But what now is he doing, your mug of a benevolent gentleman? is he coming? The brute may have forgotten the address! I will bet that the old fool—”
Just then there was a light rap at the door, the man rushed forward and opened it, exclaiming with many low bows and smiles of adoration:
“Come in, monsieur! deign to come in, my noble benefactor, as well as your charming young lady.”
A man of mature age and a young girl appeared at the door of the garret.
Marius had not left his place. What he felt at that moment escapes human language.
It was She.
Whoever has loved, knows all the radiant meaning contained in the three letters of this word: She.
It was indeed she. Marius could hardly discern her through the luminous vapour which suddenly spread over his eyes. It was that sweet absent being, that star which had been his light, for six months, it was that eye, that brow, that mouth, that beautiful vanished face which had produced night when it went away. The vision had been in an eclipse, it was reappearing.
She appeared again in this gloom, in this garret, in this shapeless den, in this horror!
Marius shuddered desperately. What! it was she! the beating of his heart disturbed his sight. He felt ready to melt into tears. What! at last he saw her again after having sought for her so long! it seemed to him that he had just lost his soul and that he had just found it again.
She was still the same, a little paler only; her delicate face was set in a violet velvet hat, her form was hidden under a black satin pelisse, below her long dress he caught a glimpse of her little foot squeezed into a silk buskin.
She was still accompanied by Monsieur Leblanc.
She stepped into the room and laid a large package on the table.
The elder Jondrette girl had retreated behind the door and was looking upon that velvet hat, that silk dress, and that charming happy face, with an evil eye.
8 (9)
JONDRETTE WEEPS ALMOST
THE DEN was so dark that people who came from outdoors felt as if they were entering a cellar on coming in. The two new-comers stepped forward, therefore, with some hesitation, hardly discerning the dim forms about them, while they were seen and examined with perfect ease by the tenants of the garret, whose eyes were accustomed to this twilight.
Monsieur Leblanc approached with his kind and compassionate look, and said to the father:
“Monsieur, you will find in this package some new clothes, some stockings, and some new blankets.”
“Our angelic benefactor overwhelms us,” said Jondrette, bowing down to the floor. Then, stooping to his eldest daughter’s ear, while the two visitors were examining this lamentable abode, he added rapidly in a whisper:
“Well! what did I tell you? rags? no money. They are all alike! Tell me, how was the letter to this old blubber-lip signed?”
“Fabantou,” answered the daughter.
“The dramatic artist, good!”
This was lucky for Jondrette, for at that very moment Monsieur Leblanc turned towards him and said to him, with the appearance of one who is trying to recollect a name:
“I see that you are indeed to be pitied, Monsieur—”
“Fabantou,” said Jondrette quickly.
“Monsieur Fabantou, yes, that is it. I remember.”
“Dramatic artist, monsieur, and who has had his successes.”
Here Jondrette evidently thought the moment come to make an impression upon the “philanthropist.” He exclaimed in a tone of voice which belongs to the braggadocio of the juggler at a fair, and, at the same time, to the humility of a beggar on the highway: “Pupil of Talma! Monsieur! I am a pupil of Talma! Fortune once smiled on me. Alas! now it is the turn of misfortune. Look, my benefactor, no bread, no fire. My poor darlings have no fire! My only chair unseated! A broken window! in such weather as is this! My spouse in bed! sick!”
“Poor woman!” said Monsieur Leblanc.
“My child injured!” added Jondrette.
The child, whose attention had been diverted by the arrival of the strangers, was staring at “the young lady,” and had ceased her sobbing.
“Why don’t you cry? why don’t you scream?” said Jondrette to her in a whisper.
At the same time he pinched her injured hand. All this with the skill of a juggler.
The little one uttered loud cries.
The adorable young girl whom Marius in his heart called “his Ursula” went quickly to her:
“Poor, dear child!” said she.
“Look, my beautiful young lady,” pursued Jondrette, “her bleeding wrist! It is an accident which happened in working at a machine by which she earned six sous a day. It may be necessary to cut off her arm.”
“Indeed!” said the old gentleman alarmed.
The little girl, taking this seriously, began to sob again beautifully.
“Alas, yes, my benefactor!” answered the father.
For some moments, Jondrette had been looking at “the philanthropist” in a strange manner. Even while speaking, he seemed to scrutinise him closely as if he were trying to recall some reminiscence. Suddenly, taking advantage of a moment when the new-comers were anxiously questioning the smaller girl about her mutilated hand, he passed over to his wife who was lying in her bed, appearing to be overwhelmed and stupid, and said to her quickly and in a very low tone:
“Get a good look at that man!”
Then turning towards M. Leblanc, and continuing his lamentation:
“You see, monsieur! my only clothes are nothing but a chemise of my wife‘s! and that all torn! in the heart of winter. I cannot go out, for lack of a coat. If I had any kind of a coat, I should go to see Mademoiselle Mars, who knows me, and of whom I am a great favourite. She is still living in the Rue de la Tour des Dames, is not she? You know, monsieur, we have acted together in the provinces. I shared her laurels. Celimène would come to my relief, monsieur! Elmira would give alms to Belisarius! But no, nothing ! And not a sou in the house! My wife sick, not a sou! My daughter dangerously injured, not a sou! My spouse has choking fits. It is her time of life, and then the nervous system has something to do with it. She needs aid, and my daughter also! But the doctor! but the druggist! how can I pay them! not a penny! I would fall on my knees before a penny, monsieur! You see how the arts are fallen! And do you know, my charming young lady, and you, my generous patron, do you know, you who breathe virtue and goodness, and who perfume that church where my daughter, in going to say her prayers, sees you every day? For I bring up my daughters religiously, monsieur. I have not allowed them to take to the theatre. Ah! the rogues! if I should see them slip! I do not jest! I fortify them with sermons about honour, about morals, about virtue! Ask them! They must walk straight. They have a father. They are none of those unfortunates, who begin by having no family, and who end by marrying the public. They are Mamselle Nobody, and become Madame Everybody. Thank heaven! none of that in the Fabantou family! I mean to educate them virtuously, and that they may be honest, and that they may be genteel, and that they may believe in God’s sacred name! Well, monsieur, my worthy monsieur, do you know what is going to happen to-morrow? To-morrow is the 4th of February, the fatal day, the last delay that my landlord will give me; if I do not pay him this evening, tomorrow my eldest daughter, myself, my spouse with her fever, my child with her wound, we shall all four be turned out of doors, and driven off into the street, upon the boulevard, without shelter, into the rain, upon the snow. You see, monsieur, I owe four quarters, a year! that is sixty francs.”
Jondrette lied. Four quarters would have made but forty francs, and he could not have owed for four, since it was not six months since Marius had paid for two.
M. Leblanc took five francs from his pocket and threw them on the table.
Jondrette had time to mutter into the ear of his elder daughter:
“The whelp! what does he think I am going to do with his five francs? That will not pay for my chair and my window! I must make my expenses!”
Meantime, M. Leblanc had taken off a large brown overcoat, which he wore over his blue overcoat, and hung it over the back of the chair.
“Monsieur Fabantou,” said he, “I have only these five francs with me; but I am going to take my daughter home, and I will return this evening; is it not this evening that you have to pay?”
Jondrette’s face lighted up with a strange expression. He answered quickly:
“Yes, my noble monsieur. At eight o‘clock, I must be at my landlord’s.”
“I will be here at six o‘clock, and I will bring you the sixty francs.”
“My benefactor!” cried Jondrette, distractedly.
And he added in an undertone:
“Take a good look at him, wife!”
M. Leblanc took the arm of the beautiful young girl, and turned towards the door: